After a miserable day of travel, we are home! And I have been wide awake since 2AM ofc. Just some quick thoughts off the cuff because I missed blogging so much but I didn’t bring my laptop with me and I absolutely hate trying to blog from my phone:

• I miss Romania but am so so so so so happy and content to be sitting here at 5:55AM with my precious Penelope purring on my lap <3
• Happy to have A CUP OF COFFEE – “long blacks” are not for me!
• My favorite Depeche Mode song – It’s No Good – came on in the rental car (I miss that car) at 3:30AM on the way to the Bucharest airport yesterday and now I will forever associate it with Romania. I have only ever heard that song out in the wild once before and that was a million years ago at lunch with Kara, Chris, and Christina at The Library.
• Henry dumped half of his chicken tikka masala all over him on the flight from London to DC and I was so embarrassed. He just sat there with a clump of it in his fist while he continued to shovel more in his mouth and then he stunk like a food truck for the rest of the day.
• “We” drove 1,111 miles through Romania!
• I can’t choose a favorite part but I truly fell in love with the Maramures region and Sighisoara.
• Rural Romania has a HUGE amount of stray dogs, alarming even. I wanted to take them all home. (Even the vicious ones that tried to attack our car from the road.)
• I came back weighing a few ounces less than I did when we left thanks to whatever food poisoning / stomach virus I contracted last Thursday – it’s always something with me! I am still not right.
• Turns out that Henry and I actually can travel without Chooch as a buffer and get along mostly OK! (I mean, there were moments, and let’s just say that when we were seated in different rows from each other on our last flight home last night, I counted that as a blessing, lol.
• The only thing I found actually super overrated on the MOST DO list from all the “travel vloggers” was this bookstore. I was so stoked to see it but it was just…I dunno. A bookstore. BUT!!! A non-radio song by The Cure came on while we were there and I was like, “OK, this the vibe.” But if not for that, I wouldn’t have stayed there for more than a few minutes.
• I would go back to Romania in a heartbeat – especially to explore some of the other regions we didn’t have time for. I’d like to see Timisoara and Constanta / the beaches. The Black Sea. And definitely do the Maramures drive again. It was absolutely breathtaking. BUT!!! Korea is still bae. Korea is still where I would live if I wasn’t a person lacking the ability to get rid of her  “things.” (You’re a pack rat, Erin. Call it by its name.) (OK thanks but I prefer MAXIMALIST.)
• I have never traveled somewhere before where both there and back flights were so incredibly botched. I know it could have been way worse and we could have been faced with full on cancellations, but it was a headache both ways and I am actually so glad Chooch wasn’t there because he and I would have easily feasted off each other’s frustrations and irritability, and it would have been so much worse.
• Romanian pop music is chef’s kiss. We went to bed every night with one of the music video channels on and there were times when a song would arouse me from a deep sleep because it was that good. My Shazam got a ton of use!
• 1,111 miles and probably 1,111 new photos on my camera roll now.
• We stayed in some of the most memorable guest houses ever and I’m so glad we went that route over hotels.
• I sent so many texts to Chooch that started with, “OMG you would be so embarrassed if you were right now – [insert one of the many embarrassing things Henry did here].”
• Gelato is huge in Romania. My favorite flavor that I tried was rice pudding with prunes from Vice Cream in Bucharest- DON’T HATE. It was delicious.
• Once again, every airport personnel / TSA agent we encountered both there and back were lovely EXCEPT  THE ONES IN PITTSBURGH. Literally some of the nastiest, looking-for-an-argument people I have ever encountered have been employed at the Pgh International Airport. They get our trips off on the wrong foot every single time. This time I got ridiculed by some asshole who, as I was waiting for my turn to go through the body scanner, opened a door and yelled at me to “slide over.” There was a person in a wheelchair to my right so I assumed she was asking me to move out of the way so that the person in the wheelchair could go through the door she opened, so I took a step back and she yelled, “NOW WHERE DID SHE GO????” because she evidently wanted me to move over and go through a different scanner instead of the full body one because the line was getting too long. MAYBE USE YOUR FUCKING WORDS THEN, BITCH because to me “slide over” meant “get out of the way of the oncoming wheelchair.” I feel sorry that these people are affected by the shut-down but the truth is, a lot of them are always this fucking rude. (In Pgh, anyway.) I still said HAVE A NICE DAY!! to every single one of them, though. And not even ironically.
• For as annoying as those “perpetually connected” bottle caps are in Europe, I was super annoyed this morning when I untwisted my bottle of American water and I had to chase down the cap after it frisbee’d out of my fingers and went rolling across the floor.
  • (My favorite water brand in Romania was BORSEC, by the way. I just let Henry know that he can buy me a 6-pack of the 50.7 oz bottles for $29.99 on Amazon.)
    • (But, fuck Amazon.)
• The agent we got at the MPC line in Dulles was so nice in a very laidback way. He asked questions about why we were in Romania (yes, I know, it’s his job but he made it feel like he was genuinely interested) and even asked, “Did you go to Castle Bran?” HELL YEAH WE DID. Henry let me answer the questions thank god and as we walked away, I said, “And that’s how you do it.” HE IS THE WORST AT ANSWERING THESE BANAL QUESTIONS!
• I don’t know what’s in the tap water in Romania and while it renders it unsuitable to drink, it was incredible for my hair. Every day was a good hair day, it was amazing. 11/10, would happily wash my hair in Romania again any day.

Get stoked for what will likely be several mths of dragged out vacation recaps, you know how I do.