No one asked, but I woke up feeling pretty refreshed and mostly human on Saturday morning! We got a really early start to the day since it was our last day and, well, you know how maniacal I get about SAND THROUGH THE HOURGLASS and so on and so forth.

We started off the day with a subway ride! You know I’m obsessed with subways and have to ride them in every city we go to, at least once.

Henry contemplating chucking his wedding band into a gutter for probably the 8796875th time since March 26, 2024 :) I think I was in the process of mocking him as he consulted the subway map. I love mocking him, it might even be what I was put on this earth to do.

Subway!

I didn’t take any pictures on the subway because it was pretty crowded, but it was otherwise a pleasant experience! So far, anything is better than Philly and Boston as far as I’m concerned.

And Pittsburgh, obviously. Though, I will say that ours at least isn’t too downtrodden and stinky but it definitely lacks in the convenience department because it barely goes anywhere! I have said for years that if it went to Oakland, Lawrenceville, Shadyside — I’d be getting out of the house way more often because those are all places that I hate driving to (because of parking!!!).

Arcul de Triumf! This is one of the reasons why Bucharest is called Little Paris, obviously. We saw this on our first “night” in Romania when we were driving to our hotel from the airport at approx. 3:ooAM, ugh. I remember being SO EXCITED to see it in the dark though, and thinking, “OK, we are IN ROMANIA!!”

From  there, we walked to King Michael I Park, which is also the location of a Michael Jackson tribute which you might think is odd but he actually had a very big cultural impact on Romania, as he was the first Western artist to perform in post-Communist Romania, after the revolution in 1989. It was a really big deal to Romanians and I get it! Hilariously though, Michael infamously stood on a balcony during his visit and yelled, “Hello BUDAPEST” instead of Bucharest. He wouldn’t be the first nor the last to make this mistake, and Bucharest really leaned into this and made it into a cute little campaign lol:

I had packed these jeans as back-up but they were admittedly a tight squeeze pre-trip. Happy to report that all my puking had me slipping into this pair with ease, LOL. Always looking for the bright side:) But sincerely, I went home weighing three pounds less than I did when we left Pittsburgh. Love that for me.

I felt so much better on this day!

This little plaza had 12 alarmingly giant bronze domes making up the Monument to the Founding Fathers of the European Union. Very creepy to a certain extent and I liked it.

EW. Lol.

EW. Lol.

Obsessed.

I was on squirrel watch the whole time we were there, having not seen ONE SINGLE SQUIRREL anywhere in Romania! Henry saw one in this park for a split second and by the time he told me, I could only catch the tail end of it slipping into the darkened tree boughs. :(

There was quite a bit of construction going on throughout the park during the off season; I can only imagine how nice it will be in the spring and summer! I will say our last day there was probably the warmest day of the whole trip, warm enough for Henry to be like, “YAY I’M WEARING SHORTS TODAY!” I mean, I didn’t think it was THAT warm, but OK. There were lots of people out jogging and walking their dogs (lots of leashless dog-walking in Bucharest, I observed) and there was some little kid obstacle course that was being set up too. It just looked like it was going to be a really nice day at the park.

Back to the underground!

Waiting for the subway to take us back to the Old Town area so we could find food!

December 21, 1989 was the day shit really hit the fan in Bucharest and the people fought back. Timely inspiration, if you ask me. Everywhere we went in Romania, we found nuggets of hope within their history that maybe America could fucking stand up and do the same. LET’S GO, USA. The Romanian dictator at the time – Nicolae Ceaușescu – and his wife Elena were swiftly found guilty and executed ON LIVE TV ON XMAS DAY.

DARE.

TO.

DREAM.

We found this trendy little joint called Nuba Cafe and it looked like a place that would have something wholesome and healthy for me, cautiously ready to finally eat. I can tell you how I knew I wasn’t fully 100% health reactivated – just Henry saying the words, “I’m going to get the shakshuka” made me burp up just a hint of acidic bile. JUST A DROP!

In my journal, I wrote, “Henry got shakshuka which is actually so repulsive to me right now, but cook on, Henry! Only thinking of himself!” I’m such a peach :)

Similar to the place we ate in Cluj, this was also run predominately by young men who looked very bored and disinterested in the roles they were playing, like they were just killing time before the beat drop at their popcorn DJ set later that night. They made zero eye contact with anyone, barely even looked at each other, left a table of GenZers to die at a back table (they were getting SO HUFFY, too, I was eating it up), generally acted as a Romanian Service Industry stereotype.

I think this was an iced chai??

Also, what the hell was going on outside the window behind me that had Henry peering so intently,  like he’s about to buy binoculars on Amazon and have them drop-shipped to his lap?

THIS WAS PERFECT. I ate it so slowly and savored every last scrape of honey that I could finagle. NOURISHMENT. In case you were wondering, they call berries “forest fruit” in Romania and I love that lots.

Another cool-ass building.

I’m getting really sad like I’m living this last day all over again even though it was 3 mths ago at this point. Over 3 mths ago. This is absurd. This will teach me to never again leave my laptop at home while traveling.

Next on the agenda was the Communism Museum! I took a lot of pictures in there so stop by another day and we will go through those together. Aw.

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