I texted Henry this morning like, “We were in Romania. That’s so weird.”

Weird as in CRAZY FUCKING COOL, in this context. It feels like it didn’t really happen but also like we had just…always been there. I can’t explain it. It was new but felt familiar somehow.

Anyway! It’s been almost 2 weeks since we left at this point so I guess I better start from the beginning!

This was at some beer place in the PIT airport. Henry was reading my vacation journal, like, “How could you possibly have found so much to write about already???” Bro, you have known me for 25 years now. I always have something to say.

I had started writing in the shuttle to the airport ffs!!! He was already embarrassing me in front of people and I even drew a diagram in my journal to illustrate the situation. BASICALLY WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS….we arrived at the airport parking place. The office is in a parking lot separated by a small road and a diner is on the other side. The shuttle driver was parked in front of the office and Henry said to her, “I just have to go into the office first.” She and I stood there and watched as he casually strode past the office, crossed the street, and headed toward the diner. He was just about to open the door when I called out, “Henry, where are you going??” and the shuttle driver was like, “Yeah, I was going to say….”

Henry played it off and made a joke about how he was going to get some eggs first and I was like, “OK grandpa, let’s go” and lead him into the parking office. This set the tone for the whole trip and he became “Grandpa” from here on out. Sigh.

UGH THIS FUCKING BAG OF TRAIL MIX LASTED FOREVER. It kept making appearances on every flight, ISTG.

Our flight from PIT to Chicago was quick and uneventful. Then all of the delays happened in Chicago, which I already mentioned, causing our connecting flight from Heathrow to Bucharest to get moved to 8PM that night, London time, putting us in Bucharest at 1AM.

We landed in London around noon. My therapist was so proud of me when I told her about this yesterday, because instead of being a tyrant and pouting or declaring that I just wanted to cancel the whole thing, I chose to be Brightside Erin and suggested that instead of rotting in Heathrow for a thousand hours, we should take the express train out and see what we could see around London. I hadn’t been there since the 90s, and Henry never has. Hilariously, I mentioned this in Chicago when we were waiting to board the first time, before the DELAYS happened. I said, “I haven’t been to London since I was a teenager. I know we’re not actually GOING to London, but you…”

Jinxed it. Hello, London!

Ugh my greasy face on the express train. I was glad to have my carry-on because I was able to at least change shirts in the airport before facing the non-travelling public out in the non-airport world.

We didn’t want to push it, time-wise, so we got off at Paddington Station and just did as much as we could around there without straying too far. Yeah, we had a long layover, but with the rate things were taking a turn for us, we didn’t want to get too immersed and miss the only other flight to Romania that day.

‘allo, British pidge.

I saw other people doing this so I had to do it too because that’s how I live my life. Creeping in the wake of those before me.

This guy was like, “I will not wait, I need to take this picture now.” THANK GOD THE  BACK OF MY HAIR LOOKED OK.

I didn’t even realize how close he was behind me until I got up to leave and almost slammed into him.

Just a girl taking pictures to take pictures.

It never failed, London tried so hard to assist me but I looked the opposite direction every time.

   

We decided to go to Hyde Park because it’s extremely close to Paddington Station and after being in airports and on planes for…20 hours (??) at that point, I just wanted to be outside where I could roam free like a…buffalo.

Literally the first animal that came to mind.

Gorgina.

We mostly got along except for anytime I asked Henry to take my picture and he made sure to get my most mongoloidish angle.

Idiot.

We got conflicting information re: luggage lockers. One guy at Heathrow said NO, another said, “Yes, once you get to the station” and then the guys at Paddington said NO. So Henry got to drag around my carry-on all afternoon lol.

(Literally everywhere we go gets compared to Korea immediately and it never looks good for the other place. Korea would never have us dragging our shit around.)

Me: Take a picture of me with Kensington Palace in the background.

Henry: *makes sure to get everything but Kensington Palace in the background*

I had to take my own fucking picture.

This resulted in a quiet and terse “don’t want to argue out loud in London” exchange about Henry is useless as my photog.

Then he begged for another change and took this one. He is exhausting. Or am I exhausting?

Or are we both just exhaustED?

I was really missing Chooch here because of all of the wildlife. (Also, I felt The Guilt for being in London without him when he has wanted to visit there since he was a kid. Not that we were able to do much, but still.)

Dude, I was obsessed with Kensington Palace as a kid. Every time we went to London, I would come home with books about palaces. I can still hear clear as day this one British flight attendant on the plane home to the US stopping to see what I was reading, and saying, “Oh, Haunted Royal Homes!” It’s weird the things you remember, you know? I also remember that first time in London, being so convinced that the hotel we stayed at was haunted that I would walk down the hallways with my hands out in front of me “in case one of the ghosts have a knife.” OK, Small Erin. Calm down.

I can’t remember the name of the hotel now but there was a restaurant in it called Monique’s and it was the first time I ever had a fried egg on a burger and I could not get over this. I went home and told everyone in my 5th grade class about it and they looked at me like I was insane, like why would you want that on a burger how gross, and now an egg on a burger is so pedantic unless it’s some exotic animal egg. Like an emu egg. I don’t know!

I toured this when I was a kid and was so enthralled. Who wasn’t obsessed with Princess Di back then, though.

What are the odds, but immediately upon leaving the palace grounds, we were face-to-face with the ROMANIAN EMBASSY. It almost felt like a taunt, to be honest! Like, we should have been IN Romania by that point, not in London looking at a limp Romanian flag.

Then we went to this place – The Bayswater Arms –  for a small non-airport lunch.

It wasn’t too memorable but I liked the dark, English vibe.

Henry got the British ale taster flight. I really liked the one in the middle. I was going to be like “WHO KNOWS WHAT IT IS” but in the interest of being a Better Blogger, I consulted my Untappd account and it is apparently a Greene King Abbott Ale and I gave it a 4.5. And now you know.

Fried Halloumi. Yes.

The bathroom was in the basement. I didn’t even have to go but needed to see if I felt Casper vibes. Not too much in the bathroom….

…but the hallway had it.

Ew! His pursed lips. Anyway, we popped into this bakery – Granier’s I think – to grab a treat or two to eat back at Heathrow. I got a cardamom roll but it did not scratch my Scandinavian itch.

Made it back to the airport with still too much time to kill, if you ask me, but you just don’t know these days with security, etc. We just moved through all of the processes very swiftly though, and then ended up having about 2 hours left, which was annoying. I just want to get there, you guys. So badly.

My last coffee before Romania.

I sent this to Chooch – Henry walked over to this vending machine like 3x and just stood there pressing buttons like a weirdo. Chooch was like, “Ugh, you know he’s going to get something. Good luck with that.” We are the biggest haters of Henry’s chewing.

And then they finally announced our gate! It was us and basically 95% native Romanians

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