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.

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