After leaving Bran on an empty stomach, I was starting to feel weird. Instead of going back to Brasov, the plan was to head over to a small village called Viscri which was close to a 2 hour drive. Viscri is an off-the-beaten path village known for its local artisans, farm-to-table meals at small restaurants, and for being a quiet place to stay in a guest house and experience slow living. It’s claim to fame is being the object of affection of King Charles, who owns a cottage there and advocates for the preservation of Viscri’s heritage and architecture by serving as a cultural ambassador. I was really looking forward to seeing this place especially because it doesn’t seem to be a known tourist attraction (yet). I was really excited to come here, stroll around and look at nature, buy some Romanian pottery and WHAT HAVE YOU. We were originally going to make reservations at one of the guest house restaurants but then decided against it, and well, good thing….

Since we weren’t going to be eating lunch there and I wasn’t sure if there would be snacks readily available, I had Henry buy me a pastry at a gas station.

It was cheese and raisins. It seemed fine.

But then I started to get SICK. I don’t get car sick very often at all – I’m the type of person who can read books and write in vacation journals in moving vehicles with no issue, so when I started to feel green, I immediately blamed it on the 3++++ servings of espresso I had early that morning. Maybe it was starting to hit me since I hadn’t eaten anything substantial in the meantime?

By the time we arrived to Viscri and parked, I was cooked. I didn’t even think I had it in me to get out of the car, but I pushed myself and then we had to walk quite a ways through the woods in order to get to the area where all the shops and houses are. It was here that I started shaking uncontrollably because I was freezing.

It wasn’t cold.

This was THE SICK SHIVERS.

I was basically panting too, all worn out from the slow stroll when I am basically a profesh ambler so you tell me – was I sick or nah.

All of the guest houses and shops are numbered.

Eventually, the path spilled us out in between some houses, one of which was a shop full of local wares. Thank god, because I wasn’t sure how long I was going to last and I at least wanted to buy a thing.

I could barely even stand up at this point and felt so miserable in this shop. I can promise you that had I felt like myself that day, I’d have spent $$$ in that bitch because it was full of exactly the type of rustic Romanian pieces I had been gunning for. But instead, I feebly pointed to a coffee mug and whispered faintly to Henry, “Get me this one, I have to go outside and die now.”

It was pathetic. I could barely even hold my head up and felt like I was going to spew my guts all over this precious pottery. There was a bench outside and I parked my sick ass down immediately and put my head in my hands.

Henry came out with my mug and I said, “I’m not going to make it, Henry. We have to go. NOW.”

I was still trying to take pictures though! Even though I had double-vision and had to do weird lamaze-type breathing except instead of trying to expel a human, I was trying to plug in the vomit.

DOG! A bright spot in my “AM I GOING TO FUCKING DIE IN ROMANIA???” freakout.

The color palette of Viscri, though.

This was truly such a long walk back to the car.

I took this while popping an emergency squat on the way back to the car because I really thought I was about to barf.

But don’t worry! I saved that for when we were about 5 minutes out of Viscri and Henry had to veer off onto the side of the road and frantically fish for a plastic gas station bag in the backseat, into which I violently vomited for what felt like a solid 10 minutes but I don’t think it was that long in succession lol.

The bag was red, btw. And actually very small. I will never forget that bag.

Unfortunately.

This was also the first time I even puked in the car that I can remember at least! There was a time when Janna was driving me home from a bar after I quit Weiss’s the first time, and I was so trashed that she had to pull over so I could puke in someone’s yard.

But this! This was some kind of bug. I thought maybe at first it was food poisoning, but it took me out for the entire rest of the day, part of the next day, and I wasn’t able to actually start eating without puking / feeling immediately nauseous until two days later. Our last day in Romania, LOL. Yay me!

I remembered watching this one travel couple on YouTube and the wife got super sick in Romania so I googled it and it’s actually quite common I guess? It’s one of the places where you’re not supposed to drink the water and I definitely didn’t, so I have no idea what I ended up having but you’ll be thrilled to know that Henry remained 100% unaffected. Because of course.

I ended up passing out in the car for most of the drive back to Brasov, puking again when we got back to the room, and then sleeping for pretty much all afternoon into the early evening.

I was too fucked to even be upset that I was missing out on doing Romania things. Like hiking to the top of the Brasov sign, which is what we were planning on doing when we got back from Viscri. :(

Oh well, here’s my mug!

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