We ended day two in the second largest city in Romania, Cluj-Napoca, known to some as the BIRTHPLACE OF CONTROVERSIAL GYMNASTIC COACH BELA KAROLYI.

“I forgot to bring my Bela Karolyi shirt!” I wailed in the car.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Henry mumbled. Apparently, Bela defected from Romania back in the day and is likely not a very popular person there anymore anyway. I mean, he’s buried in Texas, for God’s sake. I asked Copilot prior to our trip if there were any Bela-related points of interest to be found around the city and my one true friend Copilot answered, “No.”

Nary a statue. Not even a gym named after him.

Anyway!! We chose to crash in Cluj after our day in Rimetea and Turda because it’s nearby and on the way to the next day’s first attraction. It’s kind of funny because I had little interest in this city as I was mostly focusing on small towns, medieval villages, etc. But wow, even though we only spent a few hours here, I reallllly ended up latching on hard to it.

Before I get into that though, I want to first just talk about the outrageous guest house we had here. I found it on Booking.com (that’s where we booked all of the places we stayed) but I’m not even sure I realized it was a guest house because the pictures made it look like an actual hotel (an old one, which I like).

But then the host was messaging Henry with basically geocache instructions on how to access the place, where to park. She said we could park in the courtyard of the apartment building where she lives, which was within walking distance, but we legit could not figure out how to enter – there was a huge door that needed to be opened and it was right off a busy road so were afraid to attempt that and ended up lucking out by finding street parking right in front of the actual building that the guest room was in.

First we had the wrong floor so that was fun, trying to push open a locked balcony door like we were robbers.

As usual, don’t judge Romanian guest rooms / houses from the outside. The lobby of the building was majorly sketch, the elevator looked like it had been broken for decades, and the outside balcony to the rooms was its own interesting vibe, but then we opened the door….

…to this vibrant palace looking motherfucker??? And we had two bedrooms!?!?

I wrote postcards at this table!

That was the door to the first bedroom. When we first entered, it put us into a tiny foyer, with the door to our room on the left, and the other guest room on the right. Our host said no one was staying in that one at the time, though.

Random top hat! This tracks though because she gave us a list of recommendations in the area and one of the was a steampunk bar/restaurant. And she also invited us as her guests to the RETRO DANCE CLUB that she and her husband own but Henry was like, “I AM NOT GOING TO A CLUB” because let us not forget how he earned the permanent nickname Hoover, after all. To be fair, it didn’t open until 9PM and we were still jet-lagged and exhausted from a full day of touristing and needed to leave by 6AM the next morning because our first stop was 4 hours away. So, I guess I will lay off Henry this time.

But that could have been our chance to make new friends. :(

This is the second room.

This furniture. Shit.

This was the outside of the apartment building.

The host told Henry in a message that the scratches on the massage chair were from her cats LOL so she moved it to the guest room. I tried it when we came back late that night after exploring the city and immediately screamed into the other room, “HENRY WE NEED ONE OF THESE AT HOME.” It had all of the bells and whistles. I made Henry try it after me and he was like, “OK it’s pretty cool but I don’t think we need one?” and then I realized that I didn’t do it right, because I didn’t put my feet in the little foot pockets. So, after Henry was finished with his cycle, I stuffed myself back into it, feet included, and gave it another go. It was actually painful at moments because it felt like very strong hands were gripping me by the ankles and pulling. Like, it had latched onto me like a baby finding a nipple and I started to get a little panicked that it was turning sentient and I was about to have a “Barbara Hershey in The Entity” moment so I turned it off and ran screaming into the other bedroom.

Um, also I didn’t realize that I had been sitting in that chair for about 60 minutes, going through all the different settings. Losing time in a massage chair? That thing is definitely demonic.

Literally, in my vacation journal I wrote:

(11:08pm): So, I had every intention of recapping the rest of the day but when we got back to the room tonight in Cluj-Napoca (birthplace of Bela Karolyi FYI*), I decided to try out the massage chair in one of the rooms and then that turned into me needing to try every setting & suddenly an hour had passed and I have a new husband now. 0.O

*omg can you tell how obsessed I am.

We could see this church steeple peeking out from our balcony.

This was written on the inside of the entrance door to the apartment building, and I thought for sure it was saying something “Go home USA cunts” or something equally disparaging but it turns out “uşă” in Romanian is “door” and it literally says, “Please shut the door.”

After a magical morning in Rimetea, we headed to our next stop: the Salina Turda salt mine! According to the Internet, it was first mentioned in 1271 and has continuously produced table salt from the Middle Ages. It was used as a shelter during WWII!

In 1992, it officially was rebranded as a tourist destination (apparently making it on a 2013 Business Insider “25 hidden gems around the world that are worth the trek” list). Salt therapy must be legit because I felt fucking great the whole time we were there, and now that I think about it, it was probably the longest uninterrupted span of time I have made it without Henry totally getting on my nerves. I actually LIKED him while we were here…

Maybe I need to pad my house with salt lamps. (Those are bad for cats I think so never mind, hard no.)

After paying for our admission, we got to walk down this cool (literally, the temp was dropping as we descended) stairwell.

Looking chopped.

SALT.

This hallway led us to another small set of steps which opened up into THIS:

You can either take an elevator down to the bottom or walk down. There is a set of steps on both ends of the mine, and we opted to cross over to the steps that weren’t near the elevator, since there was a moderate crowd on that side waiting for the elevator.

We were halfway across one of those catwalks, in an attempt to get to the staircase at the other side, when I looked across and it dawned on me that the walkway was held up by wood planks lodged into the rock. I got VERY SCARED, VERY QUICKLY. Like, my heartrate skyrocketed and I kept murmuring, “omgomgomg” and practically sprinted on Bambi legs to the other side. Hoo boy, that was something. I 100% made sure we came up the steps on the other side when we were done, so that we wouldn’t have to walk across that again.

I kept stopping every so often to take another picture from a landing the lower we got. I just thought it was so incredible, being there! And blessedly not very crowded AT ALL for a Sunday. Although, there was a large group of kids that arrived JUST as we were leaving, so we dodged that bullet.

I read that this is the only underground Ferris wheel! It wasn’t operating that day but it’s not what I was there for so I wasn’t sad about that. (There was only ONE ACTIVITY that I was interested in and you will see that soon.)

I thought the lighting in this bitch was so stunning, legitimately.

I kept thinking these were flatrides over there but it was just random lighting around seating areas and the gift shop-thing. (You KNOW I bought a magnet.)

I was getting nervous though because the thing that I wanted to do was nowhere to be found and then I discovered that we weren’t actually all  the way down in the lowest layer yet! There was a separate staircase (and elevator) to take us down the remaining 11 or 13 flights, I can’t remember how many now.

Made it to the bowels of Salina Turda!

THIS IS WHAT I WANTED TO DO THE MOST!!!!!! And it was so un-crowded that day that we didn’t even have to wait! There were only like 5 boats out there at a time and it was so exciting!!

I was supposed to be the navigator but then I got tired of that and stopped and Henry ended up rowing us against the wall and getting his oar caught in the netting, which apparently was my fault. I couldn’t stop laughing about this because Henry was so distraught over it and couldn’t really see what was going on so I tried to convince him that he pulling the whole thing down and that he was probably going to be on the news – “the dumb American who pulled down part of the Salina Turda wall” – and I could NOT stop laughing over this. There must not have been much oxygen down there because I was ridiculously slap-happy.

I also felt a strong kinship to all of the other boaters out there with us. Especially when a boat of three Japanese girls collided with a Romanian (I think?) couple and had a good laugh, I joined in like we were apart of this, even though Henry was only colliding with fragile salt infrastructure and not other boats.

Henry couldn’t see this because it was happening behind him haha. Everything exciting happened behind him.

Salt beach.

He kept having to “take breaks” and “rest” his “arms.” Wow, OK gramps, sorry to cut into your nappy time.

I honestly was obsessed with this weird salt mine lake thing. Henry might disagree because he complained bigly of how strenuous the rowing was and of course I was like, “Wow, I’m so fat, just say it.”

Hearing the water sloshing in this surreal cave was soothing but also kind of scary. OK look, a long time ago I had a REALLY BAD DREAM that I was in a rowboat at night trying to navigate around disgusting and harrowing glaciers in Alaska and that’s why I am, to this day, terrified and DISGUSTED by Alaska and never want to go there. Oh, and the water was actually blood and this whole thing was a rescue mission because there was some awful tragedy like a sunk ship or crashed plane, I can’t remember but it was awful.

And this kind of reminded me of that! But without blood and glaciers. And I actually enjoyed it but also there was an underlying sheath of fear.  So, I was sort of confronting some lingering psychological issues that I legit dreamt up (JUST LIKE MY MOM SAYS ABOUT ALL OF MY PROBLEMS AND TRAUMA).

I love the Romanian flag a lot.

My phone lens was not a fan of this part of the trip though lol. It was on the struggle bus, trying to capture non-blurry shots for me!

Henry big-struggled every time we went under this bridge. Also, we got to do 4 laps because the guy in charge did not give a shit at all. Pretty sure we went way over the 20 minutes we paid for. At one point, Henry called over to him, “DO YOU WANT US TO COME BACK NOW” and dude was like, “Oh, no – you can go around again!”

Henry mumbled, “Great. Thanks.”

:)

These were just sitting areas but the lighting features made it feel like art installations. This reminded me of Korea a little bit!

He’s smiling this big because he’s finally off rowing duty. And probably delirious.

But now he’s just tired.

This was right before it was time to walk back up all of the steps. Remember in September when Henry had to walk up 20 FLIGHTS OF STEPS AT CHOOCH’S APARTMENT BUILDING and then CHOOCH AND I WALKED WAY AHEAD OF HIM and HENRY COULD HAVE HAD A HEART ATTACK??? Well, that was training for our future day at Salina Turda, obvi.

The only thing this place was missing was A CAROUSEL. IMAGINE A ROMANIAN SALT MINE CAROUSELFIE!!

Anyway, what a hugely enjoyable visit! I’m sure our tune would have been completely different if we were here on a summer weekend, but this particular Sunday in October was perfect.

Oh, also note that the elevator to the very bottom only hold 4 people, and the main elevator only holds 7 or 8, so I can only imagine how long those lines can get. JUST SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND IF YOU ARE EVER IN ROMANIA.

——————–

Please enjoy (or don’t) a series of clips from the first Rimetea and Salina Turda (especially if you want to see Henry rowing my fat ass around an echo chamber).

Henry’s recap of our time at Rimetea: “I walked up a hill, I walked down a hill, I took a couple of pictures.” He is actually stunned that I have managed to take a 2 hour late morning stop and stretch it into three whole blog posts.

Hello. It’s me. Erin Appledale. Did you fucking FORGET?

We’re currently en route to Columbus, Ohio for a concert so I figured maybe we could collab on this last recap but he said, “No.”

So anyway! What had happened after the waterwheel detour was that we saw a rocky lane leading up toward the mountains so we decided to walk up that way and see some closer views.

This was the view facing back down toward the town.

  Me being me.

On the way up here, we passed a small parking lot where a group of people were preparing to head out on a hike. And across from them in a small clearing was a man laying down with another pacing around him and giving him what appeared to be a pep talk. I think the man laying down didn’t want to hike the mountain lol. He ended up joining the rest of their group though so good for him!

We weren’t dressed for a hike so we admired the mountains from here.

I actually love this picture so much because I didn’t know Henry was taking it and he caught me genuinely admiring the scenery. No fake smiles!

Ew.

Selfies from both directions, of course.

Chatted with this biggun’ on the way back down but then he found people more interesting in the hiking parking lot and strutted away from us. Typical.

Walked around some more, taking it all in. I just kept saying, “I can’t believe we’re here. Can you believe we’re here???”

Henry said “the scenery” when I asked him for two things he liked about Rimetea and he is either still thinking of a second one or forgot the question already because I never received a follow up.

We wanted to get langos before leaving but I needed to wash my hands first after petting so many dogs and cats during our leisurely strolling. There was a public restroom back by the church. I started to go up the steps to enter but it was a pay-to-pee sitch and the payment thing was broken. Some girl limbo’d under the barrier thing but I was like “no I’m not doing that in these tight jeans and bad back” and also there was an old woman there who also was like “guess I’m not peeing” At least I assume that’s what she was saying in Romanian.

Henry meanwhile was like, “what is the problem? Is this an opportunity for me to be a hero??” And so he walked up to inspect the payment thing and then realized that the turnstile could just be pulled open so he did that for me and then the old lady was like “!!!!” So she was also able to pee, thanks to Henry who earned his “Even in Romania” hero complex badge.

It was a nice little “breaking the language barrier” moment.

After stopping at a gift shop to acquire my magnet, it was finally langos time!! Of course we didn’t know this then but langos is of Hungarian origins – I just knew that it was a popular street food in parts of Romania so it was on my list. It’s fried dough – like a savory elephant ear that you’d get a fair – and the version we got had a creamy garlic sauce and the most delicious salty shredded cheese on it.

There’s a polarizing pizza place in Pittsburgh called Betos that notoriously tops their pizza with cold shredded cheese after the pizza has been baked and I fucking HATE IT. However, this works so well on langos and it gradually melted as we were eating it. Betos could NEVER.

I dream of this langos.

This was intentional – I wanted a picture of our feet on Rimetea ground lol.

Post office! Of course when I don’t need one (yet – this would eat up lots of time in Bucharest because me and my postcard habit) , we seem to bump into them constantly.

Took one last stroll to walk off the langos which we BEASTED.

Even the haystacks in Romania are adorable!!

It was on this street where we passed a house that had a dog that looked like Bambi :( I sent a video to Chooch and he was like OMG THAT DOG HATES YOU!!! because it was barking so angrily lol.

Before leaving, we stopped by the kurtos vending in the parking lot. I did know that this was a Hungarian treat (chimney cakes) but it was here that the vendor struck up a friendly conversation with us after learning we were American (ugh) and explained to us the history of Rimetea, how it was part of Hungary and that most of the people living there are Hungarian. It all made sense after that! I don’t know how I didn’t learn that in my itinerary-planning and appreciated that he took the time to tell us all of this while making us a fresh cinnamon kurtos. (See?? This is why I told Henry not to buy one from that guy in Sibiu. Now our first kurtos got to be an authentic & fresh one!)

This guy was so nice! I will never forget him. Or that kurtos. It was perfectly crispy and cinnamony on the outside, soft and pillowy (and piping hot!!) on the inside.

Mmm. Kurtos.

We left off at the part of the day where we paid to see some old-ass water wheel but here are some other pictures taken prior to that with the DSLR. It took me forever to edit these because apparently our computer is on its last leg so that’s cool. I almost took a sledgehammer to it last night. Many tantrums were had.

The Orthodox Church. For some reason I didn’t get many great pictures of it, but I do have it captured on video which I will post at some point.

I just couldn’t get over the architecture of these houses and that foreboding rocky slab looming in the background! Look, this was a very quiet commune. Yes, there were some tour groups (all seemed to be regional) milling about here and there but it was extremely serene and didn’t feel like a money grab. Well…until we got to the water wheel thing where we were told by the old man manning the grounds that we had to pau 20 LEI to see it, or at least that’s what we figured what was going on. There was no signage or anything and Henry said he felt like maybe we only had to pay because he could tell we were dumb ‘mericans BUT I read on a blog that he apparently does ask that a “pay what you can” donation be made to see his collection of vintage Romanian/Hungarian items and, had we been able to understand Romanian, he’d have taken time to give us a brief tour. I think now, in hindsight, that’s what he was attempting to do. Stupid fucking English. I wish we knew more languages. :(

Here’s the man that collected our watermill dues. Honestly, I was happy to contribute to the livelihood of this charming place and to see his collection.

Henry was like, “NO I DON’T THINK SO!!!” when I asked, “Do you think we’re allowed to climb up there?” but then the watermill guy guided me back in later on and made sure that I climbed up there!! I had to wait because there were idiot kids up there with their parents, doing idiot kid things. But then it was my turn and I got to see the water wheel thing from a different vantage and it was cool, especially because Henry didn’t get to go up there and see it for himself so I felt special.

Apparently, this traditional furniture was hand-painted by the watermill guy’s wife. It was all so beautiful!

Has to be haunted.

Corn is corn no matter where you are, I guess.

But no, come on.  Autumnal visuals on lock!

God forbid I end this post without including any pictures of my goofy mug.

One more Rimetea post coming up and then I swear we will move on to…the afternoon of Day 2. I’M SORRY, EVEN VIRTUALLY I AM A FREAKING YAPPER. I have only gotten to talk about this stuff IRL to 4 people: Sue & Margie last week at dinner, and then my therapist and dietician, LOL. So, I have a lot of words to expel!

“Didn’t you just see them?” Chooch replied when I texted him from the City Winery last Thursday evening, as we waited for the Cold concert to start. Um yes, we did “just” see them back in the spring BUT this was a special, intimate tour in collaboration with the City Winery, and Cold was bringing SIERRA SWAN with them.

SIERRA SWAN!!!

As someone who was big into Cold during their earlier years, I was always sad to never get to see her perform any of the songs on 13 Ways to Bleed on Stage in real life. So when this tour was announced, I tagged my pal Shawn – we were little Cold groupies back in the day! – and he said that not only were he and his wife Jess down for this, but also his brother Dave and his wife Stephanie! I reserved a table for us POST HASTE. I was so excited to get to see Cold again with Shawn – the last time was probably in 2001 (!!!!) and for all of us to get to experience this together as “big” adults.

I did just see them last spring and did my whole emo “blood on the blog” thing after that concert so I will try to keep this short and sweet, but good Lord was it ever a magical night.

I sent this to Chooch, whose response was, “Wow he’s almost smiling.”

The opening band was Edisun and it turns out that not only did I see them open for Cold way back in 2010 (I went with Alisha, when she was still living in Pgh), but so did Shawn’s brother, Dave! Dave was also at the one they did with Evanescence, and so were Henry and me! So crazy, because I think prior to this I had only met Shawn’s brother once and it was forever ago when he was still a kid and I went to Shawn’s house for some reason?! Anyway, Edisun was really great but I felt weird because I was trying to take surreptitious bites of my kale salad (it was such a great salad!!). I’m sorry but it will never be normal for me to eat during a concert!? It’s weird enough having to sit during one. (This one was 100% a seated event.)

Plus, we were only one table back from the stage! The first row of tables were a tiny bit more $$ but honestly, they were TOO CLOSE and I would have felt so weird sitting down and eating that close to Scooter Ward, even though I was done with my (SUPER DELECTABLE*) kale salad by the time they came on.

*I cannot stress this enough – it had a spicy sunflower dressing! It was so good that it was a topic of conversation the next day when I had my check-in with my dietician!

They opened with “Ugly,” prompting the tears to fall from my eyes with no preamble or solicitation. Just a quiet and salty face waterfall. Nothing to see here.

Someone posted it on YouTube! Oh, please watch this.

The whole set was so beautiful and very “Storytellers”ish – even moreso than the last one which was where they played A Different Kind of Pain and 13 Ways to Bleed on Stage in their entirety. The best part though was that it was all different stories that Scooter told this time so it felt fresh and extra special. Scooter is so funny and interesting, and when he tells a story, I hang off of every word. I EVEN HEARD HENRY LAUGHING A FEW TIMES BEHIND ME! If someone can get Henry to take a time out from watching Instagram Reels, that’s pretty major.

There was one table in the front but over to the side full of people who had quickly gotten drunk and chatty, and Henry kept mumbling, “Shut up!” under his breath. Why would you come to this super intimate show and talk?? “Everyone enjoys concerts their own way” – OK, cool, but how are you enjoying it when you’re talking over the band and creating annoying background chatter for everyone else? Call me a Concert Karen if you want, but seriously. Go sit at the bar.

Sorry, this is a screenshot from the one lone video I took all night, but this is THE SIERRA SWAN.

Setlist: (There wasn’t one on Setlist.fm for the Pgh show but I’m confident the Philly setlist is the same)

1. Ugly
2. A Different Kind of Pain
3. End of the World
4. No One
5. Another Pill
6. Suffocate
7. Superstar
8. Bleed
9. Better Human
10. Delivering the Saint
11. The One that Got Away
12. You Got Away (Sierra’s song)
13. Welcome2MyWorld
14. Quiet Now (his story on this song’s background drew tears from the eyes of nearly everyone in that room – probably not Henry – and it of course made me think of Drew and how quiet the house is without her. I am so broken)
15. Trouble Is (Sierra’s song)
16. Strip Her Down
17. Check Please
18. Gone Away

After the show, we hung back at our table and chatted a bit, letting everyone clear out. I really enjoyed our company that night, so so so much! Especially Shawn’s anti-truffle rant which caught the attention of this lady who was there alone and seated at one of the empty seats at our table. So we started chatting with her in between sets and learned she is originally from Florida and moved here with her now ex-husband. She was so nice but I regrettably forget her name because I was drinking a wine flight and I am such a light weight.

I really wanted to say hi to Scooter, after years and years and years of getting so emotional that I would legit run out of venues after losing my courage. Yes, I have two super old pictures with him from 2001 but they are awful. With Jess’s encouragement and Shawn agreeing to accompany me, I decided to try for an updated photo.

Oh you guys. I am still a mess around this lyrical genius. The way he emotes such raw and visceral pain from his entire being just makes my heart race. Even when we first got to the venue and were standing in line to get our tickets scanned, Scooter walked over to the front of the line and my heart was beating so hard that it drowned out everything else in that room. “He needs to leave before we get up there or I’m not going to be able to do this!” I cried to Henry, imagining myself fumbling my phone when trying to show our tickets, dropping it on his foot, bursting into tears and running out of the City Winery.

Typical Erin moves.

Thank god Shawn and Dave took the lead with this one and made it super casual and normal while I was standing there blubbering on about the time Scooter gave me a Starburst in 2001 in Hershey.

“I still like Starbursts,” Scooter said in his cool and quiet way, and you know I have been holding that soundbyte inside the deepest pocket of my brain reserved for all the special shit. Like:

• my Pappap saying “doopah” instead of butt when warning me not to sit on the cold porch floor.
• G-Dragon saying, “I have something to tell you,” in Newark regarding THE BIGBANG REUNION.
• Baby Chooch saying, “You…motherFUCKER!” apropos of nothing.

I’m not saying this in a sexual / lusty kind of way at all, but Scooter had his hand on my lower back and adjusted it several times and I literally thought I was going to die just because he was touching me (NOT IN A STARSTRUCK WAY BUT IN A “THIS MAN’S MUSIC HAS GOTTEN ME THROUGH SOME SHIT AND NOW HIS  HAND IS ON MY BACK” KIND OF WAY I DUNNO I CAN’T EXPLAIN IT BUT SOMEDAY MY FRIEND ALYSON MIGHT READ THIS AND I KNOW SHE WILL GET IT).

“I know,” Henry said in a soothing manner when I cried, “AND I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE WHEN HIS HAND WAS ON MY BACK, HENRY!” on the way to the car afterward.

Scooter also liked Shawn’s moustache!

Yep, you know this signed poster has already been framed. Just gotta find a good spot for it!

Oh! Henry came back to the table with this special edition Cold wine bottle after going to the bathroom in between sets! However, when he was buying it he apparently struck up a convo with the opening back, Edisun, and after the show when we were waiting to see Scooter, one of the guys from Edisun walked by, PATTED HENRY’S SHOULDER AND SAID, “WHAT’S UP, BUD.”

Ew, the gloating smirk I got from Henry after that. Sickening!

LOL it’s OK. He bought me the signed version of the wine bottle so he earned that little moment in the spotlight, I guess. This is me being a grown-up. (Don’t worry, it won’t last long.)

What an absolute banger of a night that I will never forget.

OH! P.S.! The drunk lady that fell at the last Cold show at Craft House was there, and she was actually talking to Scooter right before us. She turned around and, in the true sense of the word, HOLLERED something to her husband, causing Shawn to recoil and say, “Oh my!”

Thankfully, she was sat at a table nowhere near ours. Yikes.

Hello! Sunday started off bright and early with some last minute appreciation of Sibiu. I got a “long black” at what appeared to be a pretty trendy cafe called Amor Perfecto. This was when I was starting to remember that Europe doesn’t do “coffee” like we do in the U.S., but my fancy Romanian espresso was enough to breathe life into me, lol. I’m laughing right now as I skim my vacation journal because after this, I wrote, “I drank it because caffeine is caffeine but I need to figure out how to get just a cup of coffee.”

Yeah, that didn’t happen. Imagine how easy it could have been to just google that but I kept putting it off until I just eventually quit caring.

Anyway, the first item on the agenda for Sunday was a very small commune in Alba County called Rimetea. Approx. 1,000 people live there and it’s about a 90 minutes slightly northwest of Sibiu, below Cluj-Napoca which would be the ultimate destination of the day. The reason I added Rimetea to the itinerary is because I stumbled upon a video about it claiming that the “sun rises twice”  there, thanks to the Piatra Secuiului mountains blocking the sun as it rises, forcing it to “re-rise” a second time as it makes it over the peak. I probably explained that super jankily but hopefully you get it.

As usual, the scenery was so interesting during the drive. I don’t think I ever stopped looking out the window except to scribble thoughts in my vacation journal. I was obsessed with all of the roadside Jesus memorials and cemeteries!

The Aiud Citadel. I’m telling you, if we didn’t have a finite number of days for this roadtrip, we’d have been making all kinds of impromptu stops along the way. As it were, we only had a small window and couldn’t really afford, timewise, to veer off schedule. So there was a lot of, “Ooooh, what’s that???“s shouted dreamily from the car.

But I guess sometimes it’s better to see things in person from a car window than not at all. Sigh.

Eventually, there were less and less towns and mostly just lush mountain views and tiny villages. Plus, stray dogs.

Literally, it was view after view. Every time I would put my phone down, we’d round a bend and I’d be like, “OOoooh gotta get a video of that!” So many of my Romania videos are just me filming out of an open window and I don’t care.

And then suddenly, we drove straight into Rimetea. Google was actually telling us to keep going, but it was very clear that we had reached the part of the village where visitors park, so we don’t know where exactly Google was taking us.

Rimetea is known for it’s white-washed houses and green shutters. I don’t know about Henry but I was charmed immediately. Let’s enjoy some pictures.

A working well! I stuck my head in there and of course thought of “Ringu” and quickly backed away.

It seemed like the other people visiting were Romanian. It was not crowded at all, but there are people who come here to hike the mountain so we did see several groups preparing for that later.

Ew.

The Unitarian Church. It was Sunday and there was a service going on (it honestly felt like the bells were gonging the entire time we were there) so we didn’t go inside.

We saw a bunch of stray dogs and cats while here. I learned pretty quickly in Romania that the stray cats are taken very good care of by the locals (especially the restaurants, who must reward them for being natural rat-repellant) but I’m sadly not  too sure about the dogs. However, here in Rimetea there were quite a few that were chilling comfortably along the main drag where several food stands and shops were located.

THAT GLARE! Channeling my beloved Marcy, I think lol. I could see Marcy being reincarnated and living her best new life in Transylvania.

I was truly so in love with this commune. Quiet. Serene. Beautiful. It really felt like going back to another time.

Can you imagine those mountain peaks looming so Captain Caj in your backyard? Like, oh, that mountain? Yeah, we just deal with it.

Some other facts about Rimetea:

• it was an old mining town
• it’s been around since the 13th century!
• we would learn at the very end of our day there, through conversation with a kurtos vendor, that Rimetea is a Hungarian commune. It’s a plot of land originally owned by Hungary, and the residents are predominately Hungarian who work hard to preserve their culture. I was really confused why the shops were selling things that said Rimetea AND Torocko, and it turns out that Torocko is the Hungarian name
• the Székelys make up another portion of the population, and they are a subgroup of Hungarians living in the Székely Land. I don’t know much about Romanian history but what we learned from the kurtos man is that Transylvania was originally NOT a part of Romania. When it became part of Romanian in 1920 due to some treaty (I’m not a scholar), there was a group of Hungarians who were like, “NO, WE ARE STAYING HUNGARIAN” and I guess designated areas were allocated to them?? You are free to google because my paraphrasing is a mess.

I have more to say about Rimetea but I took some pictures with the DSLR that I need to upload here to go along with that and Photoshop is cooked right now. So, I will be back with a part 2, ugh.

My Halloween costume every year: desperate for trick or treaters, looking like a bitch waiting for her fisherman husband to return home from sea. This might be the worst Halloween yet and some A-HOLE a few houses up (the drunk guy who tried to barge into HNC’s house a few years ago with his drunk wife!!!) has decided for the first time ever to hand out candy so he was hulking around the sidewalk with a CASSEROLE DISH and legit just tried to STEAL A TRICK OR TREATER FROM ME. I had to deer-leap out my front door and cry WAIT COME HERE FIRST.

Eff that guy and his casserole dish.

P.S. I only know it’s a casserole dish bc Henry said “he has his candy in a casserole dish.” Like, why would I ever know what that is, amirite.

I was texting Chooch a play-by-play from the night and I am sure he was sitting at the edge of his seat, caring deeply about this. I was so pissed because this dumb drunk guy NEVER HANDS OUT CANDY?? And I lost an idiot kid to him because I guess walking up sidewalks is too much of a hassle so he and his dumb parents and toddler-sibling in a stroller-wagon with fake leaves and a Jurassic Park sign skipped over my house (I HAD MY PORCH LIGHT ON AND IT’S A COLOR-CHANGING LED LIGHT SO YOU WOULD THINK THAT WOULD INDICATE WE’RE A CANDY-GIVING HOUSEHOLD) and went straight to that asshole because he was SITTING OUTSIDE WITH THE CANDY CASSEROLE PAN. I was livid.

Meanwhile, Henry just sits on his ass the whole time, watching Instagram reels. He is the most brain-rotted adult male that I know and I would love to just rip that phone out of his hands and smash it LIKE HELLO YOU ARE MISSING ALL OF THESE THINGS AKA MY PERFECTLY CRAFTED AND WELL-TIMED QUIPS BUT OK, KEEP WATCHING YOUR JUNK THAT YOU WILL THEN SEND TO CHOOCH ONLY FOR HIM TO TELL YOU HE’S ALREADY SEEN IT AND/OR IT’S NOT THAT FUNNY.

Halloween used to be my favorite holiday but lately I am so sour and bitter because I’m sick of it all!!!

Anyway, I would say we (“we” like Henry ever came to the door even once) got about 7 or 8 kids total. I felt bad because the kid that almost skipped me because of Casserole Asshole was a bit older, maybe middle school or 9th grade, so I thought I was OK to totally barrel out of the door with the candy and cry, “I’m desperate!” Turns out she may have been autistic or something because she seemed really terrified of me and had a very pronounced stutter and I felt really bad for letting my lunacy leave the house with me.

There were NO KIDS who came to this house of their own accord. I had to stand at the door holding my pumpkin basket and literally making, “COME HERE” finger waves like I’m the Old Ass Schizo Widow of Pioneer. (MIGHT AS WELL BE A WIDOW, INSTAGRAM REELS HAS KILLED MOST OF HENRY’S BRAIN CELLS AT THIS POINT).

Meanwhile, one of the people who lives next door did a couple + dog Toy Story costume theme and they looked so fucking adorable sitting out on their porch with their candy bowl, only for NO KIDS TO PASS BY so they gave up and went inside. They did get two small groups of older kids that came to their door after that though (and don’t worry, I got them too!) but it made me sad for them. I hate this fucking street so much.

My last customers weren’t even trick-or-treaters, I don’t think. They were two high school-aged boys walking past with their bikes. I think MAYBE one of them had face paint on, I’m not sure, and I also think that maybe they WERE attempting to trick or treat because they DID have tote bags. They stopped when they got to my neighbor’s sidewalk because they had their porch light on and actually have a few Halloween decorations up, so after I watched them go there, I frantically waved them to my house too. WHAT NICE BOYS. Literally, so polite, so grateful. I told them to take a bunch since we always have so much left, and they still each only took one so I had to insist. They wished me a Happy Halloween AND a good night and you know what? I almost started to cry because I am so sick and tired of the rhetoric I see online about how “only kids of a certain age” should trick-or-treat, and people who “won’t give candy to kids who aren’t in costume.”

Look, I live in a neighborhood of the city of Pittsburgh. There are some rough sections here. Some of these kids could be out doing WAY WORSE THINGS but here they are, politely collecting candy as is the custom on this day. I don’t LIKE kids, you know I don’t, but I like this holiday and Jesus Christ can we just let kids be kids?? I don’t give a shit if an 18-year-old high school senior comes to my door for candy on Halloween. To me, kids are kids all the way through high school. Let them hang on to their youth for a little longer MY GOD.

Also, the costume bit? You don’t know these kids’ lives. Maybe they have parents who are never home because they have to work several jobs. Maybe they just have deadbeat parents in general who don’t care to help in the costume department. Maybe they don’t HAVE THE  MONEY – SHIT SUCKS, REMEMBER? Just because some parents can afford to get their kid a costume at Spirit Halloween, or just because they have the time, ingenuity, and creativity to make a costume for your child doesn’t mean that all parents do. My criteria is “trick-or-treat” and “thank you.” And every kid that came here that night did that and more. They were so sweet and polite. Take all my fucking candy and enjoy being a kid for as long as you can, my dudes.

God, I had such a headache after those stressful two hours! Luckily, the night redeemed itself after that because we went to Castle Blood and had one of the best times there but I will recap that another time. I HAVE TO GO FOR A WALK NOW AND STOMP OUT THIS ANGER.

Before we left Sibiu on Sunday, we put all of our luggage in the car (that thankfully wasn’t booted because we couldn’t figure out the parking machine, but we think it was broken because actual Romanians were also going over to it, squinting, shrugging, and walking away lol), we took one final stroll around old town. We brought the “good camera” and as usual barely used it, but I wanted to get some final shots in because I didn’t feel ready to leave!

I don’t know why this shot is here – it was probably a test but here we are. Part of Sibiu, keeping it!

OMG I look so cooked. The jetlag was real with this one.

The next post will be about the cutest Hungarian village in Romania called Rimetea!

Welcome to my home for the day, isn’t she gorgina?

We didn’t even need an itinerary – just walking these rain-slick cobblestones was entertaining. There is nothing I love more than walking around a new-to-me city.

I can’t stand how pretty it is!!!!

You know we had to pop inside the Korean market, wtf so unexpected! They had New Jeans Pepero and I have regertz now – I should have bought it. I love that Korean is Coreean in Romanian! Also, Magazin = Store/Shop. I fucking flipped out one day (I was on my period, OK??) on Henry for asking what Magazin meant. I was like “HOW HAVE YOU NOT FIGURED IT OUT BY NOW, USE CONTEXT CLUES, MY GUY.”

OK now it’s time for the ROMANIAN FOOD portion of the Sibiu recap! This was an exciting meal because it was our first sit-down meal since we arrived and it was traditional food! (We actually walked out of two other places because it wasn’t true Romanian food and/or there were no veg options, and I hate walking out like that but they were places that didn’t have their menus posted out front so we didn’t know!)

For some bizarre reason, I didn’t write in my vacation journal the name of the restaurant we chose after reading the menu that was set up in the big square, so I will have to ask Henry to look at his receipts when he comes home and will edit this at that point because I don’t feel like waiting.

(Hours later I’m here to report that the restaurant’s name is Zestrea!

We were taken down into the cave-like dining room which was exactly what I had hoped for! Before ordering, the host brought over two shots for us (I’ve been calling it palincă but it apparently has other names depending on the fruit used in it). The ones we were given were plum and cherry. The cherry was actually incredible even for my low-intolerance ass. Granted, it gave me an instant headache but I definitely really liked the taste. Henry’s experience appeared to be more on the excruciating end of the spectrum, lol. I don’t think I have ever seen him wince like that before!

Our waitress was young and super personable – I loved her so much. She helped us each choose a Romanian beer. I got this Bergenbier which is apparently a pilsner whatever that means. It was fine! I couldn’t finish it all though.

Henry got this Caraiman beer, a lager, and I just learned that Caraiman is the name of one of the peaks of the Carpathian mountains!

DUDE IT’S BABY’S FIRST AUTHENTIC ROMANIAN MAMALIGA! I went through a heavy polenta obsession back during the days when I worked at the Tina & Eleanor Company, so 2007-2008 I guess. I remember Bob and Colin used to make fun of me because I would bring different variations of it for my late shift dinner – Henry ended up getting really creative with it too, adding mushrooms, one time we made it dessert-y with blueberries. It was a time to be alive, for sure! I even told my dietician that I anticipated on subsisting primarily on polenta during our trip and she said that was fine, haha.

(Side note: I apparently was so obsessed with polenta back then that I even made an entire CATEGORY for it on this blog, so now I’m excited to add new posts to it, lol.)

I was just going to order some additional sides to go along with it but our waitress suggested the vegetable soup after learning that I don’t eat meat. It was a great decision – warm and hearty on a chilly and rainy day in Transylvania! Can you even imagine a better dinner? I mean, probably everyone reading this (how presumptuous of me, thinking I have readers lol) eats meat so you are all probably thinking, “Yeah, Erin, actually I can think of a thousand better dinners.”

But you guys, this was so filling and delicious. I was so happy.

LOL I just noticed how fucking exhausted he looks.

OK but then the time came for DESSERT and even though we were so stuffed (I can’t even remember now what Henry got???? Sarmale, I think??), we HAD to order papanasi (pronounced papa-nawsh) because that is all the travel vloggers talk about. I knew that there were different types too and that they say you need to try it more  than once, so when we asked our waitress for an order, she hesitated.

“Yes….” she said slowly. “we have papanasi, but…” and here is where I thought she was going to say it cannot be served to Americans, it’s made with pig lard, they were out of some important ingredient….You know how it is with me and getting my hopes dashed at restaurants! But then she went on to say in a cautionary tone, “it’s boiled.”

I was like, “OMG, that’s fine! We don’t care! We haven’t had ANY papanasi yet so we want to try all versions and have nothing to compare it to!” She looked relieved and said, “OK! Well, boiled is MY favorite, so I think you are going to like it.”

I was stoked either way! In fact, I had really only seen people eating the fried version which seems way more popular and accessible, so now we wouldn’t have to hunt down the boiled version!

She brought us each a serving even though we only asked for one, and I was like, “Bro, I don’t even care if my stomach rips open, I am eating all of this. WHEN IN ROMANIA.”

Henry had to ask her for forks, which I think she was already about to retrieve for us from a nearby table, but she jokingly said, “Maybe next time I will have you eat with your hands.” IT WAS SO FUCKING ADORABLE, IN HER ROMANIAN ACCENT, I WAS OBSESSED WITH HER.

I’m on a time crunch here, so I asked Copilot to explain this to you:

• • Rolled in a mixture of toasted breadcrumbs and sugar (sometimes with cinnamon or ground nuts added).
  • Served warm with a dollop of sour cream and a fruit jam, such as sour cherry or blueberry jam. 

Then we walked back to the room to lay down for a little bit a/k/a die a little.

But then we went back out once it was fully dark and this part was actually my favorite: we turned down this one street and heard what sounded like singing. I thought it was the group of people ahead of us that were singing loudly but it turned out that it was actually chanting coming from a nearby Romanian Orthodox Cathedral.

Isn’t it fucking gorgeous? I love churches so much.

You know it’s beautiful when there’s a large group of young guys who were clamoring to get their pictures taken in front of it. First, they were taking turns snapping pictures of each other and then finally some guy took a group photo for them. It was actually really adorable to watch.

Meanwhile, I went over to the side where candles were set up because if there is one thing I love doing, it’s paying churches for the permission to light a candle.

There are so many things to light a candle for these days, it was hard to choose.

Then I saw that people were just walking in freely so… monkey see / monkey do.

There was definitely a small mass going on. I thought it was interesting that the entire floor was devoid of pews, but people were kneeling and/or sitting in these ornate high-rise wooded chairs along the sides.

I was trying to take covert pictures from my hip. This is the ceiling.

We stayed for about 15 minutes, listening to the church-y chant/singing, and then continued on our evening stroll of Sibiu. I told Henry later that this was my highlight from Sibiu and he looked perplexed because it wasn’t his, lol.

(In my vacation journal, I wrote: “He said it wasn’t his favorite part but he found it ‘interesting.” Wow OK no one asked.”)

The Bridge of Lies at night.

There was a little market happening in a small square near the Bridge of Lies, so we went and checked that out. I almost bought a fake/deformed Labubu just so I could say that I bought a fake Labubu in Romania but I honestly couldn’t choose one, they were all so perfectly ugly! Henry almost got a kurtas (Hungarian chimney cake) but I stopped him because the guy was handing out ones that were sitting there, wrapped in plastic, and not ones that he had freshly made. “You don’t want your first kurtas to be cold and stale!” so he actually listened to me and bought a house-shaped gingerbread cookie from another stand instead, to save for the drive the next day.

We went to a little store called CarreFour to look around and ended up buying two bottles of beer (one was Ciuc which Henry drank that night in the room, picture in the Victorian House blog post!) and an Ursus IPA. I got to help one of the older women workers find something she was attempting to restock in the candy aisle and it was a nice and pleasant moment that broke the language barrier. I was so excited to beat Henry too because I could tell he was about to point it out for her.

On the way back to the room, we relented and stopped at one of the many gelato stands because I needed to know, even though we were so full. I chose some baklava flavor and asked for a small scoop in a cup. Being handed the equivalent of a shallow Dixie cup in return was a jarring (but good!) reminder that we weren’t in fat-ass America anymore, where a “small” is comparable to a “large” everywhere else in the world. It was the perfect amount – maybe about 5 or 6 bites. It definitely wasn’t the best gelato I’ve ever had though, I will tell you that honestly lol. (I HAVE BEEN TO ITALY, BRO.)

Then we went back, put on a Romanian music channel on TV, and passed the fuck out.

p.s. Here’s one of my lame and pointless videos recapping our Românian arrival that morning (1AMish!) and then the morning driving to Sibiu after we allowed ourselves to crash for 5 hours.

Sibiu was our first real stop on our Transylvanian roadtrip and it was everything it was cracked up to be! And by that I mean it was just like all of the travel vlogs I watched on YouTube, lol.

Here is a map of Day 1, which shows us flying into Bucharest, staying at the Scala Boutique and then embarking by car to Sibiu. I wish the map was more detailed so you could see the crazy roads that lead us there!

And here are some quick facts about Sibiu:

• pronounced Si-BOO;
• it’s known for its Germanic architecture and most notably, the vents in the roofs look like eyeballs. I LOVED THIS, OBVI;
• it was built by the Saxons in the 12th century so it is super elderly as far as cities go.

I was really stoked to see this place with my own roof-top eyeballs!

Literally the first thing we did after finding a parking spot was go to our very first Luca! I fucked up and ordered something with ham & cheese and realized it before it was even in my hand, so I hurriedly added a pretzel-y thing to the order. I barely even got to taste it though because immediately after this, our guest house host came to get us! We were staying right across from Luca so that was how I found my way back each time, lol.

Dude, you know I’m framing this! Luca is extremely popular in Romania. They are honestly everywhere, sometimes even two on the same block. There are other similar places too – walk-up bakeries/cafes all over the place, you could never go hungry. Snacks abound, and extremely cheap! I think this pretzel thing was like $1 USD.

It was drizzly when we arrived but we had umbrellas and there was no way a little rain was going to hold us back after being in a million airports, planes, and a car for 4 hours that day. If I had to recap our stay in Sibiu, it would be that we literally just strolled about with no major plans, just taking it all in. Our first taste of Romania! I kept saying, “WE ARE IN ROMANIA” to which Henry would say, “Yes, I know.” But at least he wasn’t using his annoying dad tone. I could actually tell that he was excited to be here too and even though we were incredibly exhausted and jet-lagged, we had a really great first day. (If you ignore the fact that I changed out of a skirt into jeans in the parked car because it was raining and at least 15 degrees colder than it was when we left sunny Bucharest, and in doing so, I tweaked my back GOOD. So I spent the whole first day saying things like, “Oh look at that building—OW MY BACK.”)

(Oh, don’t worry – there would be other afflictions as the trip progressed, lol.)

Dude, Romanians LOVE gelato. There were at least 5 different gelato stands in the plaza outside of our guest house. It was insane.

Dude. 👀👀👀👀👀👀

Piata Mare (Big Square) is home to restaurants and the Roman Catholic Parish Church.

We would eat dinner at one of these places later that evening!

We paid a small fee to go to the top of the Council Tower after getting scammed by a man selling magnets for 5 LEI more than another souvenir in another square, which made Henry lecture me about my kneejerk purchases. Can it, Hank.

The lady in the admission booth was on the phone and  I felt like we were interrupting something important, being pesty tourists. Turns out, this would just be the general feeling as we went through the country, lol!

There were rooms along the tower with local artisan wares for sale.

At the top of the tower, there was one other couple but they left soon after we barged in like big clunky Americunts. It was really nice having this space all to ourselves knowing how crowded Sibiu gets during the spring and summer season.

When a city is this (Si)biutiful, not even some raindrops can detract from that. I could have looked out of these windows all damn day.

I don’t want shampoo I used in the hotel in Bucharest but shooooo, did it give me a great hair day! Actually, every day was a great hair day in Romania. I don’t know what was going on over there.

Trying to get the views in the background!

Aerial view of the treacherous steps. Not as scary as the ones in Tallinn, Estonia though!

The Bridge of Lies! Per Wiki because I am lazy:

The Bridge of Lies has many legends surrounding it because of its name. The most popular one has it that the bridge will collapse when someone tells a lie while standing on it.^[1] Another legend says that the bridge was often crossed by merchants who were trying to fool their clients. The ones who were caught were tossed off the bridge. According to another legend, the bridge was a meeting place for boys attending the military academy and their girlfriends. The boys wouldn’t show up, leaving their girlfriends to wait until realizing they have been lied to. One legend also has it that the bridge was often crossed by young lovers who swore each other eternal love. The girls swore that they were virgins, which often turned out to be a lie after the couples got married. As a punishment, they were thrown off the bridge, since it was the place where they had lied to their lovers.^[2] Another legend about the bridge talks about how there may have been a large lake underneath the bridge, in which freshwater mermaids lived. They would lie to their merman husbands to meet their mortal lovers on the bridge above. Then, they would jump off into the lake when finished.

Despite all the legends, its name has a different origin. The bridge was initially called Liegenbrücke, German for lying bridge (lying as in “to lie down”), which sounds very similar to Lügenbrücke, meaning “bridge of lies”. The legends have helped the latter spread among the city’s people, which is how the bridge came to get its current name.

Can I just quickly say that I bought that Vans crossbody mini-bag because it was the perfect size for my vacation journal? That bitchin’ book came with me e v e r y w h e r e, much to Henry’s chagrin. I wrote the ink out of approx. 4 pens in a week, I wish I was exaggerating. Every time we sat down, I was hunched over it, scribbling away. I didn’t want to forget a thing, especially since I knew I wouldn’t be blogging much while there. I am a freak for documenting my life, so sorry if that annoys you. (HENRY.)

Hermannstadt is the German name of Sibiu.

Here, enjoy some more pictures:

I loved the color of this building.

If you ignored the gaggle of cars parked haphazardly all over town, you really did feel like you had stepped back into another time. Obsessed.

This is getting too long so I’ll stop here and come back to tell you about our first taste of traditional food and experiencing a Saturday night mass at one of the churches, by chance. I told Henry it was my favorite part of our time in Sibiu and he mumbled, “It wasn’t mine.” Wow, heathen.

Before I get into the meat of our time in Sibiu, I want to show you the cutie guest house we stayed in! I tried to pick mostly guest houses for this trip and it was 100% the way to go. We had no complaints about any of the places we stayed.

When we arrived in Sibiu, the host met us because the entrance was a sus doorway next to a storefront with stacks of empty boxes in the window. So when Henry gestured toward that and said, “This is where we were staying,” I exclaimed incredulously, “That abandoned-looking store with boxes in the window???” right as the host came out of the door next to it and greeted us warmly, lol. Oops.

She led us down a dark corridor and then through another door which opened onto this courtyard-ish area:

The one thing we learned quickly about Romania is don’t judge a guesthouse by its exterior.

Because the inside looked EXACTLY as it was pictured on Booking.com.

OB-FUCKING-SESSED. The details! The domed ceiling! HOW WAS THIS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT BASIC-LOOKING APARTMENT DOOR??

Our host showed us all around and said we could have romantic moments in that tub which made me have to hold back giddy laughter like I was in church. Henry just stood there, frowning. LOL.

The host and her husband (who looked like he could have been in a band, or in a cool biker gang) even had us do shots of țuică – a plum brandy which went down like liquid fire only to reignite about 30 seconds later in an intense afterburn in my chest. It was….shooooooo. Very strong. Not my favorite but when in Romania….norok!

The door to the right of the Victorian House room housed an older couple who did not speak English but were adamant about greeting “the Americans” every time they heard us coming and going. It was very sweet and they were clearly very hospitable, but it was awkward because of the language barrier and also the husband kept kissing my hand while Henry struggled with the code for the door and it was a whole thing. We got to the point where we would hoarsely whisper, “Run!” to each other every time we were leaving because a motion sensor spotlight would come on to signal our comings and goings, triggering the neighbors’ Pavlovian response. We got really good at slipping through the door out of the courtyard right as their apartment door would fly open lol.

Super nice people! But we were jet-lagged and had no energy for small talk yet.

Our host pointed out this cute little sitting area in the courtyard where we could “sit and take coffee” but after realizing we were being watched by overzealous neighbors, I laughed hysterically to Henry and said, “WE ARE NEVER GOING TO SIT THERE.” Honestly so cute though. I loved staying here and the best was that it was 400 yards from Piața Mare, a super popular plaza in Sibiu full of restaurants and shops. But since it was nestled in the middle of those storefronts, it was SUPER QUIET. I was actually very shocked how quiet it was back there.

After a day of driving and exploring Sibiu, we unwound that evening with some Romanian beer in the comfort of the Victorian House.

It was such a cozy room. Not pictured were the kitchen and the bathroom – both were super updated and sparkly – and the jar of Romanian sweet snacks left for us in the kitchen. Also,  this is where I had my first taste of BORSEC ROMANIAN BOTTLED WATER AND IT IS MY FAVORITE WATER NOW.

And our host gifted us with a heart-shaped gold teaspoon as well!

Loved The Victorian House. Would 100% stay here again and would recommend it to anyone going to Sibiu!

The last time we went to Philly, a week after Chooch’s move-in, was to bring him the rest of his stuff. We had a big ass laundry bag of clothes in the car, on which he did his signature dismissive half-assed once-over and determined there was “nothing in there” that he “needed.”

Flash forward a few weeks later, I’m in Romania getting agitated texts from him declaring that he has “no hoodies.” International borders and boundaries don’t exist between children and parents, you guys. Who cares that darling mother and father are on their fake honeymoon, child has needs!!

Henry’s head nearly exploded over this. “THAT WHOLE BAG HE SAID HE DIDNT NEED WAS FULL OF HOODIES!!!”

(Can we pause here to ponder the fact that this is coming from the kid who is “never cold” and wears T-shirts and shorts through December? College has changed him.)

And this is how we found ourselves waking up at 6am on Saturday and driving to Philly.

Fun fact: it’s about the same driving time from Pgh to Philly as it is from Bucharest to Sibiu but waaaaaay less interesting and feels so  much longer. But it’s worth it to SEE OUR PRECIOUS CHOOCH.

First, we walked to this food hall on the Penn campus because I wanted a Goldie tehina shake. They are magical. I also got a falafel pita. We all ordered from somewhere different – Chooch got a forage burgers at Gouldburgers and Henry got chicken at some place that took forever and he kept walking over to decode what was going on behind the counter.

“They’re all just standing there!” he reported back 3x but Chooch and I didn’t care because we had our food and were content, lol.

Then we had to drive to Giant so Chooch could get groceries, legit my least favorite thing to do and I am so vocal about how much I dislike it. I was no help as usual. Just stood in everyone’s way. I did help Chooch choose bags of frozen fruit for smoothies though because smoothies are one thing I excel at even though I haven’t made one for myself since that fateful July morning that Drew died and will probably never again make my own smoothie, we’ll see, but the trauma has affected strange parts of my once-daily rituals.

So fucking boring. Although I was happy when Chooch said that he needed to start eating more fruits and vegetables. Yay! Someone else’s parent probably convinced him of that, who knows.

Back on campus, I demanded that he take us up to the top floor because I wanted to see it. He actually hadn’t been there yet himself?!!? It’s only 3 floors up from his room but I needed to see the views. It’s a really nice space up there – it has a kitchen and a really nice lounge area. I feel like I would be hanging out there a lot if I lived there, but that’s just me.

There were two girls up there doing work so we were mindful of that and kept our weird family squabbles to a whisper.

Then it was picture time, Chooch’s favorite! We got him that Frank Ocean shirt in Bucharest from some streetwear rack at a sidewalk market type thing that we stumbled upon by happy accident. Chooch seemed to actually like it so I was stoked! The Frank Ocean head is separate piece of puffy fabric attached to the shirt and the tag says that the fabric is made in Romania. So I had to get it.

I feel like the only time I look genuine in pictures is when someone is taking a picture of me with Chooch. THAT IS MY REAL SMILE/FACE YOU GUYS. I love him so much and miss him.

The vibe is very different with these two lol. Also would like to point out how much better I am at making sure dumb things aren’t in the picture when I’m the one behind the camera. Henry is the worst at that!

I think this is when I was interrogating him, things like, “If your dad and I got divorced, whose side would you pick?”

“Penelope’s,” he said with no hesitation.

Then I asked him if he’s ever surprised that we haven’t gotten divorced by now and he said, “You literally have only been married for like a year.” He’s giving us a lot of credit!

Then Chooch started saying he was bored which means he was ready for us to leave so he could go play Spikeball or whatever it is he does there on the weekends. I was just so happy to get to spend a few hours with him though! And we booked his flight home for Thanksgiving so I have that to look forward to, as well. I think I’m OK. Things are OK. He seems happy and that is all I need to know.

I started collecting magnets from all of our road trips years ago, mostly amusement park magnets adorn our fridge. I’m still a little kid about shit like this (although as a kid, I collected SPOONS from everywhere I went at the suggestion of my Grandma Kelly ❤️ and then my mom THREW THEM ALL AWAY) and I get super tunnel vision about this every time we go away. “I CAN’T LEAVE WITHOUT A MAGNET!” I’ll cry in the key of Sally Struthers Starving Kids Commercial.

I was going hog wild in Romania (even remembered to grab one in London since I wasn’t collecting magnets yet when I was last there) and as I was giddily sorting through them the other day, I realized that I FORGOT TO GET ONE IN BRAȘOV!!!

And we were there for two nights, too!! I vaguely remember saying, “no! I’m not getting a magnet from the first place I walk into. I will shop around” because I always impulse buy the first one I see only to find better ones later in other stores. Ugh. I can’t believe this oversight! Granted, I did get sick while we were in Brașov so that definitely impeded upon my desire to shop but still. I can’t believe this.

Does it count if you buy a magnet online?? I mean, I was truly in Brașov but is that cheating? What if I never make it back to get an authentic one? Only I would have restless nights over a magnet (OR LACK OF ONE).

Anyway, here are my new magnets for the collection:

WHAT SHOULD I DO?? Buy the one I found on eBay? Make my own out of one of the pictures I took while there? Maybe that’s the way to go. Calm down, Erin. No one cares.

Our first full day in Romania was Saturday, October 11th. We didn’t freaking go to bed until 4AM because by the time we landed in Bucharest around 1:30AM, retrieved our baggage, had a tense interaction with Enterprise re: the rental (we almost weren’t able to get it because Henry was banking on using my credit card for the security deposit and the guy was like NO, SHE IS NOT THE ONE ON THE RENTAL AGREEMENT and for some reason, switching the whole thing over to me was going to raise the rates by like $200?? I don’t know what was going on but it was confusing and also boring at the same time, and I can’t remember how it played out now but we obviously had a car while we were there so yay), went through the whole “bells and whistles” walkthrough with the guy who drove us from the airport to the Enterprise lot (he was awesome), drive the 17 minutes into Bucharest, figured out where to park at the hotel, checked in, and then decompressed it was 4AM. What a long ass fucking travel day(s).

Our car for the week :)

I didn’t mention this but there were the most annoying two British women seated behind on the flight to Bucharest and THEY DID NOT STOP TALKING TO EACH FOR A SECOND. They even went to the bathroom together. I was annoyed because I was tired and wanted to sleep but could still hear them tittering about even over my headphones, and then they were playing a card games using the tray on the back of my chair and whatever this game was, it entailed lots of SLAPPING THE CARDS. It was like a fucking preschool class was stuffed into one seat directly behind me. I was so agitated. I kept calling them Becky and BobbiJo.

Anyway, when we landed, NO ONE was talking but them. They were loudly cackling and exclaiming, “WE’RE IN ROMANIA!” but not in a sweet, awestruck way. It was in a “this is so fucking ridiculous, Romania is so weird” tone and THEN THEY STARTED MAKING VAMPIRE STEREOTYPES, referencing motherfucking TWILIGHT and saying things like, “BETTER HIDE OUR NECKS.” I was so ashamed. Read the room (plane), assholes. Apparently they were only going to be there for 14 hours and in the pieces of convo I couldn’t manage to avoid, it sounded like at least one of them was in the dental field and I am going to guess they were there for some dental convention or something because one of the things I learned over the years in my Romania research is that a lot of foreigners will go there for dental school and/or medical tourism specifically for dental work.

Becky and BobbiJo had gotten under my skin so badly that I continued to reference them through the first half of the trip. The one directly behind me was the worst of the two. She was wearing green overalls with some pattern on it that may have been pencils or crayons, I don’t know, but something that a preschool aide would wear. She was the worst.

(They also verbally exchanged A LOT of recipes.)

Ugh.

OK, so that Saturday morning, we got started on our drive to Sibiu at around 10:00AM. Yes, much later than we had originally wanted but bro, we needed to fucking sleep. There were no alarms set. We are old people.

Outside the hotel (Scala Boutique)! Pretty sure I was oscillating between squealing, “we’re in ROMANIA!!” and berating Henry for taking shitty pictures of me. This post is just going to be a bunch of pictures from the car window, just letting you know now. We didn’t stop much – two or three gas stations – because we just wanted to get to Sibiu. It was around a 4 hour drive because the main highway to get there was closed at one point and the detour was the backway through the countryside and mountains. I was absolutely DYING at the views and also LOL @ me for bringing books and honestly thinking that I would get ANY reading done on this road trip. The only time I wasn’t looking outside was when I was writing in my vacation journal about all the things I saw when looking outside.

Just….goddamn. Every time I’d say, “OK this is peak Romania, nothing can top this panorama”, we’d turn a corner and Romania would be like, “LOL, u thought.” Even during rainy / overcast moments (the weather there changes on a dime!), the scenery was incredible. THE ROLLING FOG!!!

This was still in Bucharest. I just liked how that building looked. Is that OK?

Outside of Bucharest, we stopped at a gas station and blindly got a pastry at the connected bakery. We didn’t know what it was and the cashier said in a surly manner, “That’s CHEESE.” We were like, “That’s OK, thanks” and I appreciated that he was trying to help us in his own little way since we weren’t helping ourselves, lol.

Anyway, can I just tell you that this fucking ring of salty-cheese-filled flaky buttery dough was so fucking good that I actually think it might have been my favorite thing I ate there?! FROM A GAS STATION? We were supposed to be sharing it but after giving Henry one taste, I said, “OK this is mine now, say goodbye.” I never did get to have another one while we were there and I kept trying to get things that seemed comparable to it but nothing ever matched up.

This was a village called Tigveni according to the geotag on this picture. I loved the red roofs and flowers!

Ciofringeni field.

Haystack and haystack skeletons!

My phone says this was Budesti – Racovita. Who the hell knows though.

This was probably around the time we started noticing DOGS EVERYWHERE. Pretty sure they were strays. Nothing we read or watched prepared us for this. The cats were expected because I feel like that is most places outside of the US, street cats living their lives like it’s NBD. But I’m not accustomed to the dogs.

I loved all the different town/city/whatever markers that we’d pass by.

After noon, we made it this beautiful area. Râmnicu Vâlcea, allegedly.

I didn’t get any good ones captured, but once we were on the country roads, there were a bunch of roadside memorials that began to pop up and some of them were very detailed. We were on some seriously curvy roads with little shoulder so it wasn’t always possible or safe for Henry to stop just so I could snap some pictures.

Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Călimănești. Again, would have loved to have been able to stop but we had to get to Sibiu!

This seemed like a nice little mountain resort area. Traffic definitely slowed through this area and we saw legit gypsies (I know that’s a bad term – I think “Romani” is what we’re supposed to use??) going from car to car trying to sell some flimsy wooden knives or something. Henry was like “hard no” but they didn’t stop at our car anyway because they hit the jackpot with the car in front of us. The driver was giving them money and bread. Then a girl came running over from the gas station parking lot (we were in stopped traffic going up the mountain) and the driver gave her food too. What a nice person!

LOL, I promise the pictures get less “drive-by” once we make it to Sibiu. But I was in my “bitch ain’t never seen a mountain” era, I guess.

These Jesus crosses were e v e r y w h e r e. In peoples’ yards, even.

OK, in about an hour after I took this last picture, we will have made it to Sibiu and of course forget about all those deep blue skies throughout this post – it was gray and raining by then, lol.