Now that we’re into FEBRUARY, and this trip was in OCTOBER, I think it’s time to just blast through the rest of this or else my sentimental tendencies will just keep prolonging the inevitable.

I was finally feeling like mostly myself again so I was stoked when we accidentally walked by a famous bakery that I’ve been following on Instragram for years! We were actually starting to walk the opposite direction but there was YET ANOTHER “Fast Car” cover playing near the entrance and when I walked closer to Shazam it for Chooch (we hate “Fast Car,” all versions), I was like, “OH WAIT, it’s the bakery!”

Honestly, I wanted everything. But we specifically needed to get Prajitura cu Prune, which is like a cake-y dumpling thing with a whole plum inside. That’s what they’re famous for and there was ONLY ONE LEFT AND WE GOT IT. We were the only people in there at first, but as we were ordering, it started to fill up FAST and then a tour group came in too and I heard the guide telling them about the prune things and that sadly they were all out! I felt bad but also, we bought one, not dozens so not our fault!

We also got two pies – one was apple and one was cherry (I think??). I thought I was way more ready to pig out but once we took everything back to the room, I could only tolerate a small bite of each.

Honestly, it’s finny now being so many months on the other side of it, but those last few days there were wild for me. I can’t remember if I mentioned this, but I was having a really weird period too, where it was like, “Here I am, just kidding, no really, hello I’m here” for two days before ACTUALLY arriving in a deluge (sorry to any male / non-menstruating readers out there lol), then I got that stomach thing at the same time, so I was in some type of hell. At one point, we had passed some sketchy looking tattoo shop in an alley, so I motioned toward it and said, “Maybe I should try to add a staph infection to my growing ailments while we’re here.”

This area was so cute and quirky!

The rest of Saturday was spent shopping (I was on a mad search for something cool for Chooch) and looking for a post office / mailbox to mail the last three post cards I had. I think this was a 30,000+ step day because I was frantic to SEE EVERYTHING and NOT WASTE A SINGLE SECOND.

Henry was annoyed for the people who live here and have their windows blocked by a gigantic banner ad.

We finally stopped at an Eyfel to get some diffusers to bring home as gifts. I asked the girl working there which one is the most popular and she goes, in a VERY ANNOYED, CANNOT BE BOTHERED huff, “There is not just one.” Then she came out from behind the counter and silently pulled forward the 4 top scents and retreated without a word, LOL.

We ended up getting 4, one for both of our moms, Sue, and Margie. I instantly regretted not getting any for us. This stuff was EVERYWHERE in Romania and smelled so good. Our guest rooms had them, restaurant bathrooms, etc. Of course, then I came home and saw that you can buy it on Amazon, so….cool. Sigh.

We walked by a sidewalk flea market type thing happening and I was like, “Let’s just take a look…” It was mostly old jewelry and clothes, but there was one vendor selling KPOP PHOTO CARDS and I was so tempted to buy one (they had a bunch of Enhypen) but then I got distracted by the next vendor who had several racks of original streetwear-ish t-shirts. A Tyler the Creator shirt was in the front so that caught my eye and inspired me to start digging through the rack and that’s when I found THE GIFT for Chooch:

He loves Frank Ocean. You can’t tell, but the face is actually puffy, like it was sewn on separately. Plus, it was MADE IN ROMANIA and that was the most important thing. This picture was from a week after we came home and went to see him in Philly. <3 I would love to take Chooch to Romania someday! I’m glad that Henry and I took this trip as a duo because you know, we gotta learn to spread our wings and fly (lol) and we did have such a great time traveling together….but, I really missed Chooch.

Even though now we know he’s the catalyst, since Henry and I actually managed to get along 90% of the time in Romania. A MIRACLE.

More Bucharest facades.

View from our guest room. We stopped back to drop off our bags, eat our baked goods, and sit for a minute. I am happy to report that there was no more puking on the agenda for me.

Shared mirror in the hallway. My smile was a real smile and not a grimace for the first time in 2 days.

We went back in the evening, on the prowl for fries. Fries are a big deal in Romania and there are several really popular fast food chain options.

<3’d all the cats we saw along the way!

We settled on Cartofisserie (cartof means potato in Romanian, don’t say you didn’t learn anything from my wildly unpopular Romanian blog series) and it did not disappoint.

This is how I knew I was feeling better – I practically fought Henry to the death over the last fries in the box. I could have easily beasted the whole thing on my own, honestly. But yeah, hot and salty carbs after days of barely eating – nothing better than that.

Cartofferie also has a wide array of sauces you can add to your order and each one we chose was a hit.

I want to go back and eat these fries all over again, please and thanks. Ugh.

The famous Stavropoleos Monastery.

Super small and a tour group was filing in as we were trying to get back out so it was pretty claustrophobic. So beautiful though.

Creepy!

I loved the shape of this building.

We stopped at Vice Cream – another indication that I was feeling better! I had pistachio but then made Henry go back down and get a scoop of the rice pudding & raisin flavor to share – IT WAS SO GOOD.

There was a guy set up on the streets of Old Town taking pictures of people walking for this cute souvenir paper. Of course I was like WE HAVE TO DO THIS and were probably the only people who actually approached him rather than him trying to lure subjects over. I was like, “YES, US PLEASE, DO US NEXT” lol. I thought this was so cute!

We also went back to one of the gift shops from the day before because I was whining about the religious section that I wanted so desperately to buy something from. Henry was very “mmmmm” about this but I got my way. The hardest part was trying to choose just one to bring home, but I eventually settled on this one which is currently on display* in our religious bathroom:

*(This is a lie – after I took this picture, Henry went in and took everything off the walls in the bathroom because “we’re” painting the walls gold.)

One last look at the Parliament building while out scouting for a mailbox, lol. I am seriously so lame. Henry was just like, ‘YOU AND THESE FUCKING POSTCARDS.”

Our last Luca :( Then it was time to go back to the room so “we” could finish packing. We had to leave around 3AM the next morning and that was not great, and the whole travel day was exhausting with very little positive moments other than the most important one – making it home safely. Henry and I were not speaking at all by the time our last connecting flight happened lol.

We never did find a mailbox but our host told Henry that we could just leave the postcards on the table and they’d take them to the post office for us the following Monday – so nice! And they did it too because all of the recipients have since received their post card. :)

Aside from the health stuff & flight delays, the actual Romania portion of the trip was superb. 10/10. Renting a car was 100% the way to go. The countryside was the stuff dreams are made of. Most of the interactions we had with people were wonderful. Obsessed with the music. To be quite honest, it still doesn’t feel like we were really there and I am so grateful that Henry helped me make this happen after pining over this country for most of my life.

My favorite place was hands down Sighisoara. Wish we had more time in Cluj-Napoca. Need a Brasov do-over after getting sick! I’d love to go back and do a road trip in another region, see the Danube and the Black Sea. This was not a one-and-done for me!

Henry’s last words: “I enjoyed it immensely and would go back.” This is why we don’t have a YouTube channel, you guys. It would just be me jawing off with Henry grunting his annoyances in the background.

Here’s the last video compilation. Sigh. Thanks to anyone who followed along with these drawn-out recaps.

Slowly getting to through the camera photos from our Romania trip. I simultaneously am so relieved to almost be wrapping up these recaps but also – so sad. It really was one of the best times of my life and I will never forget it! (How can I with a vacation journal, 1000 pictures, and approximately 75 blog posts about it? Yes, I know – I’m exhausting. Try being me!!)

Anyway, these are the only pictures from Sighisoara we took with the camera, mostly just of the cemetery and the cafe where I got the best pie of my freaking life!

<3 you, Sighisoara!

We were just watching some travel YouTuber’s video the other night of the best/cheapest places to travel in Europe in 2026 and Sighisoara was on his list. I was happy but also like bro, don’t tell everyone the secret!

This was right outside the entrance to the cemetery.

The Scholar’s Steps from above! I loved those steps.

Cemeteries are basically my whole personality.

OK back to listening to the Pens game on my phone!

I’m so glad that my illness wore off in time to go to the Museum of Communism because this was one of the main things I was interested in seeing in Bucharest. This will mostly just be pictures.

Also, sex is life.

Blessedly, there were not many people there when we arrived, which was kind of crazy since it was a Saturday. The museum itself is upstairs from a cafe, and it’s pretty small – one hallway and three rooms. So I imagine it can be pretty claustrophobic on a crowded day.

The museum is very interactive – you’re encouraged to flip through pamphlets, turn on TVs, TRY ON CLOTHES (my favorite part!) so it was really nice to get to do these hands-on things without feeling like we were being pushed along.

Everything was fine until this young British couple (“young” to me since I am officially old now, but probably in their early 30s?) arrived and blew past us, skipping over the entire beginning section and then forcing us to have to change directions so we wouldn’t be behind them. The girl was fine but the guy was like a super snotty Robert Pattinson and I mean that both figuratively and literally – he was arrogant and also putting his post-nasal drip on full display to the point where it sounded like it was being aired over a loud speaker. The snorting and grossly intense sniffling and swallowing and wet coughing – OH MY LORD, GO AWAY.

The two sections of the museum featured many interesting artifacts from Communist Romania, such as military things, currency, and print advertisements.

Imagine how triggered MAGA would be if they went anywhere in a foreign country and saw that the British flag denotes English and not the ‘MURICA flag. Cry about it, fascists.

Henry really loved twiddling and diddling the dials.

These glasses were ALMOST as big as I need them to be!

The next room was set up to resemble a typical house back in Communist Romania and it was neat (I can’t believe I said “neat,” GOSH*) and made it extra fun to try on Romanian women ensembles.

*(I have noticed an uptick in grown ass adults eschewing “oh my god” for GOSH lately and I am not scared to say that it gets on my motherfucking nerves. Are you OPIE? Is this MAYBERRY?? Are you LEAVING IT TO BEAVER? I literally can’t stand it. I’m sorry, but taking the Lord’s name in vain is one of the few liberties we still have left, it feels like, so PLEASE DON’T TAKE THAT AWAY TOO. Especially at work! Why are you sending me Teams responses to my enflamed tirades that say GOSH?? I’m over here on the verge of self-immolation from all the stress and unhinged ire I feel on the daily and you’re going to hit me with a GOSH? GTFO.)

Anyway, I was happy in this moment.

I couldn’t get Henry to try anything on, but I went HAD 3 WARDROBE CHANGES. I couldn’t get enough. No one else was in this room yet so I was living my best Communist housewife life.

TENNIS.

I love this graphic design so much.

Henry was said he couldn’t diddle this one. :( Also, the museum staff at that time consisted of two college-aged guys who seemed like they couldn’t have cared less if someone touched this, although the music did turn up at one point (I think Henry jiggled something, I don’t know) and they came CRUISING over from the hallway to readjust the volume.

CONFIRMED: Henry said that yes, it was him that did this accidentally. “I wouldn’t say HE CAME RUNNING though. He was already on his way in.” Mmm. That’s exactly what someone would say when they want the readers to think it was less of a deal than it really was.

:/

As I’m writing this, ICE agents are reportedly following WHITE PEOPLE into grocery stores to see if they’re buying food for their neighbors of color and then attempting to follow them home, just saying. People never thought this shit would happen here, but sadly, we have lots of dumb ass motherfuckers who voted for it.

I did NOT want to part with these glasses.

Ending on an inspirational note.

So many important and uncomfortably close-to-home lessons to learn here.

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.

*(Just a reminder that it was now Friday, late afternoon.)

Old Town seemed to be the best bet for food so we stayed there and started scoping out menus. I know this is wildly annoying and invasive for some travelers, but I loved that there were girls stationed outside of every restaurant, trying to entice people to choose their spot. They almost always started with, “Hello, you can sit here, have a coffee…” I don’t know, I appreciated their verve.

We ended up choosing a very trendy, Instagrammable place called Old Habits. I really liked the girl who lured us in (don’t tell her, but we had already looked at the menu and decided to eat there) because she had this really cool, IDGAF attitude. She kept going back over to her little customer-fishing podium, looking at her phone, smoking a cigarette, and drinking (I’m pretty sure) beer. I love Romania, you guys. I love it.

Honestly, all the spots in Old Town looked so cozy and cute. But it was the mismatched pillows, hot air balloon decor, and neon that swayed me. I still didn’t have much of an appetite but Henry kept asking, with the strained hope-tinged tone of a boy asking if dad was ever going to come back, “Are you going to want to eat at some point today? Maybe? Yes? No? Dot dot dot question mark?”

Oh, this area was a whole-ass vibe. Especially when some old lady randomly brought over tropical birds for people to hold? While they were eating? And I’m sure for a fee, as well? That felt kind of questionable, but you know, Romania.

Wow. OK. Henry actually posted this on Instagram. Romania changed him.

The one thing that I remember vividly about this moment is that there was a halloumi burger on the menu and it sounded like something I would have beasted on a normal day, but I was terrified of ordering it. So I got some kind of plain tomato penne.

I only ate about 1/4 of it because almost immediately after our (super sweet, btw) server set it in front of me, my stomach was like, “Yo, we’re still not alright in here, remember??” as my body was internally doing the Lord’s work trying to protect me from whatever virus was ping-ponging around my intestinal tract.

Actually, even just looking at this….yeah, I feel super burpy, lol.

Henry ended up eating all of his food (he got mici and I would love to thank him for that, loved sitting across from those meat sticks) and mine. The server was so upset when she came out and saw how much I had left. “Oh, no! You didn’t like it?” she asked, all concerned type shit. I told her that no, I did like it (I really did) it was just too much. She admitted that she asked the chef to give me extra since I don’t eat meat. Seriously! What a sweet person. If you’re in Bucharest, go to Old Habits. They are nice there and while I can’t speak very much on the food since I was in a state, Henry says his mici was delicious.

Then we walked back to the room to drop off the honey and wine (for Sue!) we bought at the farmers market thing. I was so sick from eating lunch when I clearly wasn’t ready to resume eating anything more substantial than crackers. I passed out in bed for about 45 minutes and then felt renewed enough to walk to the Parliament building.

(When I say I am the most stubborn sick person, you guys, I mean it. Nothing gives me FOMO more than being sick. I will forever be the one kid mouse in Secret of Nimh – TIMOTHY!!! – who is sick and watching his siblings play outside with the most forlorn expression.)

Bro. This building. It’s actually so much more impressive IRL.

Some facts from the Visit Bucharest website:

• the largest administrative building (for civil use), as confirmed by the Guinness World Records Book
• the 3rd place worldwide by its volume
• the heaviest and the most expensive building in the world

Apparently, the dictator at the time – Ceaușescu – got the inspiration for this building after a trip to North Korea.

These birds were so effing cool – like a cross between a pigeon and a crow.

I was in poor condition, guys. Just looking at these pictures, I can remember how weak I felt at the time while still wanting to see everything and take it all in. Bucharest!

Honestly though – this building was stunning to look at it. You can also take tours inside but that was not something I felt up to doing. I needed to be outside in the fresh air.

The Vlad Tepes Fountain!

I started to feel SICK and needed to sit down. We found a nearby bench and it happened to be right near a cafe so I thought, you know, maybe I needed caffeine since I hadn’t had any coffee at all that day. The cafe was called The Coffee Shop Constitutiei and interestingly also serves whiskey.

Henry got me a matcha latte and it only made me feel worse. Sigh.

I don’t know what he got – flat white, maybe? – but I liked the frog!

We made our way back to the room after this and stopped at Mega Image to get laundry detergent and snacks to bring home for Chooch, then went back to the room where I violently puked up my pasta and then felt great! And thank god because we had a really nice time exploring the area at night, and this included me buying some things at a gift shop manned by a very apathetic man. I bought magnets and a cute little handmade box to keep Romanian coins in, but there was a whole section of RELIGIOUS things that I was salivating over and Henry’s response was to FROWN.

We had to walk by this building every time we went to the Old Town section. I was obsessed with it.

Another Cure poster sighting!!!

This is the CEC Palace looking handsome AF at night. (I think this is actually a bank now??)

Zlătari Church. I bought a really pretty green bracelet here, in case you were wondering. If a church has a gift shop, bet on me spending money.

University Square.

We saw some lady holding a bouquet of flowers completely wipe out on the sidewalk – I don’t know if she was drunk or if she tripped, but she went all the way down and I had a moment of paralyzed panic where I felt like I should help but couldn’t get myself to kick into hear. Luckily, two other people helped her up so I said, in my signature socially awkward robotic monotone, “Oh no” and we continued on our way.

We passed this brewery called Ground Zero and I was feeling OK still so told Henry to go ahead and get a beer. I didn’t feel THAT GOOD though so I decided to stick with something non-alcoholic and just got a Fritz. Henry wanted to get a flight but some dumb guy in front of us ordered like 8 flights for his group so they didn’t have any of the glasses left. The bartender was super nice and apologetic about it but it wasn’t his fault!

Henry got the Amber Guerre, a red ale. I checked it in on Untappd and apparently liked my tiny sip enough to give it a 4.

Russian Church. We started to go in but there was mass going on and I panicked so we left lol. I am easily susceptible to recruition.

We walked past this place and I was OBSESSED with that back wall so I had to take a picture. It’s called Drunken Lords and is also a music venue. Sadly, my FRITZ COLA was making me about to vomit again so we had to make it an early night and start walking back to our room at 9PM, so lame. And on the way back, Henry kept pointing out street food places and beer and I was like, “CAN YOU NOT.”

I’m glad I was able to get out and do SOME things but I can promise you that there were so many other things I had wanted to do and just couldn’t. What can you do, though? At the end of the day, I was still there, in actual Bucharest (!!!), and that is what matters the most to me.

Here’s the daily video compilation!

We left our guest house in Brasov on Friday morning and began our 3ish hour drive to Bucharest. The final city on our weird honeymoon road trip! It was sad though because it also meant leaving the Transylvania region. And also, it meant being in the car while still half-sick, aren’t you so thrilled this portion of the trip is still on-going. You know, I’m really wondering if I had norovirus.

Before we leave though, I had to stand on a sidewalk with all the luggage while Henry walked the mile or so away where he parked the car, and I’ll be real with you – I wasn’t feeling so hot. I hadn’t puked at all that morning but I was still squeamish at the mere sight of food, so imagine how stoked I was still be standing next to a truck making a potato delivery.

But…better than fish, I guess.

We saw this cemetery on the road! The geotag on my photo says it was from Sinaia, which is the area where Peles is. I forgot we had to drive back out that way in order to get to Bucharest.

To be honest, I slept for most of the drive there which is how you know I was sick because I am usually like if Aerosmith wrote “Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” for a passenger princess on a road trip.

The hallway of our apartment for the next two nights! It had a tiny, rickety elevator and I loved it. Still sickly but smiling!

This apartment was very cozy and clean. And it had a washer so Henry was like YES, LAUNDRY TIME! MY FAVORITE!

He’s so weird. And domestic.

Ofc I had to add my name to the chalkboard wall! I lit up like a Kindergartener peeling glue off their fingertips in art class when I saw it and immediately went on the hunt of the chalk.

We had a little enclosed balcony and this was the view from it. (It also had a lilac Eyfel diffuser in there and I was determined at this point to finally go to one of the shops and buy some.)

The first thing on our agenda was to just basically get out and poke around while also walking to a post office so I could – GOD FORBID – buy stamps for my postcards. This has to be on Henry’s list of Reasons Not to Travel with ERK – being one of the only surviving postcard senders left on earth which means we are always having to find post offices in foreign places.

Sometimes in the US too! We had a bitch of a time finding a place to mail my post cards in Iowa and this was with me PRE-PLANNING by buying postcard stamps AT HOME before we left! (Actually, I made Chooch go to the post office for this and he was so annoyed.)

Anyway, no surprise here but Bucharest was way different than any of the places in Romania we had previously explored. I mean, obviously it’s the capital so it’s already going to have that gritty, urban vibe to it and the Communist / Bauhaus architecture was popping. I personally found it beautiful and unique but apparently travelers complain about it?

Fun fact is that Bucharest is known as Little Paris. It has been A LONG ASS TIME since I was last in Paris (literally mid-90s) but I didn’t really get that feeling? It’s also been A LONG ASS TIME since I’ve been to Berlin but if I had to compare Bucharest with a Euro city I’ve been to, it would be Berlin.

We spent most of our time in Old Town, I would say. It was really close to where we were staying and just had a really cool vibe to it. Yes, full of tourists but not overwhelmingly so. (Consider the season!) We had to pass through here on the way to the post office, so we also popped into the famous Cărturești Carusel bookstore that EVERYONE GOES TO when they visit Bucharest. It is so prevalent in all of the “things to do in Bucharest” travel vlogs that it very quickly turned Henry averse to it and he did NOT want to go.

I have to say you guys – I was very underwhelmed. I mean, it was pretty at its core but it wasn’t anything to LITERALLY write home about? Just a book store. However, I do need to mention that A SONG FROM BLOODFLOWERS was actually playing inside there and I NEVER hear songs from that Cure album, especially out in the wild. And that is one of my favorite Cure albums too. I took a quick video, of course, so that will be posted later once I compile all my clips from this day.

(And yes, we found the post office!)

This was the square outside of the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development where a farmer’s market type thing was going on. There were so many different stands with local honey and I was like I NEED TO GET HONEY FROM ONE OF THESE PLACES but it was so hard to choose.

Also, there were so many food stalls but I wasn’t ready to eat yet :( I wanted Henry to at least enjoy the cheese samples but he was being SO WEIRD about it and said he didn’t want to ask for samples when he knew he wasn’t going to buy any cheese. Like, wow, much martydom.

I did end up getting honey from here – a whole cute set of it – and I think I already wrote about this when we first came home but it got taken by TSA at the Dulles airport because of a checked bag that ended up getting UNCHECKED because we were put on a different flight and then they wouldn’t let us recheck it and LONG STORY SLIGHTLY TRIMMED, my carry-on was routed over to the SUS LANE and the TSA agent (super nice guy, at least) was like, “I’m so sorry but I have to take this unless you go back and check in your bag” and we were like, “We tried that” and then honestly the clock was ticking, we were already cutting it close, so I was like ENJOY THE ROMANIAN HONEY MY GUY and we left it there. :(

Literally we have the worst luck with these things, even when we initially do it the right way.

The fact that the TSA agent was actually nice and treated us like human beings made me less mad though, for sure. I know it was probably just thrown out but in my imagination, he took it home, smeared it on some toast, and shared it with his neighborhood squirrels while wondering if I made it home safely. (He was kind of cute, OK??)

Korean market!

And by this point, it was mid-afternoon and Henry was like, “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BE OK TO EAT” like just say it bro, I’m ruining your life by being sick! Anyway, we’ll talk about lunch in the next post because I have blogging fatigue. :(

This Brasov wrap-up is going to be a quick one since I spent a good bit of time crashed out in the room. :( Henry went out while I was sleeping and bought me a ring that I had been eyeing the day before. Can you believe it? He actually paid attention. I know, I’m just as stunned as you are.

Anyway, I woke up around 5 and was in no shape to go out but I am so stubborn and didn’t want to waste any more time in that room! Plus, my EVERY PEN I brought with me from home had run out of ink from all of my obsessive journaling, so I wanted to at least go out and buy a new pen.

And that’s pretty much all we did on our last evening in Brasov – walked around and shopped while I avoided making eye contact with all of the food we were passing along the way. :(

(According to my vacation journal, I only slept for 2 hours so I guess not too much of the day was wasted unless you count the zero time we spent in Viscri earlier that day, ugh.)

Hilariously, we went to so many souvenir shops in Brasov looking for pens (I’m picky), but Brasov ended up being the one place I didn’t buy a magnet. I still have no idea how I managed that! Wait a failure.

There were many times when I had to sit down on a bench while Henry went into shops on my behalf before I started feeling kind of….burpy. You know how what I mean.

In one of the souvenir shops, there were these wooden vampire things that looked JUST LIKE ROBERT SMITH, even Henry was like, “Why does that look like Robert?” so ofc I had to buy one. I even sent a picture to Chooch who is the #1 naysayer in my contacts, but he too agreed!

Apparently, there was some older broad that Henry kept running into when I was dead in the room, and then we kept seeing her when I was with him too – she was kind of Joan Rivers-y, and I made some comment about her after we ran into her for like the 8th time and it turned out I was fixated on someone entirely different because I didn’t see who Henry was originally pointing out and that’s very on brand for our “marriage.” Rarely on the same page, etc.

I just asked him what else he did while I was dying back in the room. Here is his recap:

“I walked around and got food.”

WOW, COOL.

He thinks he got a pretzel from somewhere. And he got “um, a hotdog?” that was like “inside some kind of pastry that wasn’t very good.”

Then he got something to drink and just walked.

Thrilling! Thanks for the filler, Henry.

He just said that there were two people who tried to get him to buy them food at both places?? He said they stood next to him until he got to the window and then they pounced.

I just asked if they were together and he said no – one was at one place, and one was at the other place. One was an older maybe unhoused man and the other was a kid.

Henry tells the worst stories. Do not ever try to interview him, he will fucking enrage you with his vagueness.

Another highlight for me was seeing this young woman singing and playing the violin – she reminded me so much of my old law firm friend Kaitlin and her songs made me tear up, they were so emotional. (I have some footage at the end of the video that will be at the bottom of this post!)

Also, buying this beautiful Romanian sweater from a boutique and praying that I didn’t puke in the fitting room. (I didn’t.)

Then, and this was so dumb, can you believe my stupid ass was like, “Let’s split an ice cream.” What the actual fuck, Erin. Granted, as I mentioned in an earlier Romanian post, when you get a “small,” it’s ACTUALLY small. Like, the tiniest little scoop because non-Americans don’t need to gorge themselves. So, I thought, OK we’ll get a small and I’ll just take a bite. Yo, I threw up as soon as we got back to the room, LOL.

I can’t even remember what flavor we got. I blacked it out of my mind.

We did do a fair bit of walking that night though because of course I pushed myself. You know I must have been sick though if I only took three pictures the whole time.

And then I remember waking up numerous times throughout the night to puke some more. Yay, vacation vomit!

Brasov, you were amazing though. I hope I can go back someday!

Here’s the video from Thursday, October 16, 2025. Next up: 2 days in Bucharest!

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!

I feel like this is the one thing most people know about Romania – “Dracula’s Castle.” I am really phoning it in, I know, but here is what Wiki says:

Marketed outside Romania as Dracula’s Castle, it is presented as the home of the title character in Bram Stoker‘s novel Dracula (1897). There is no evidence that Stoker knew anything about this castle, which has only tangential associations with Vlad the Impaler, voivode of Wallachia, whose byname ‘Drăculea’ resembles that of Dracula. Stoker’s description of Dracula’s crumbling fictional castle also bears no resemblance to Bran Castle.

Some of the more negative travelers will tell you that this is nothing more than a tourist trap and I would have to vehemently disagree. Take the whole Dracula element out of it and this is still a legitimate piece of medieval history. It was built in the 1300s for God’s sake! It contains art and furniture curated by Queen Marie but even if the whole Castle was empty, I’d still want to go there. It is so old! And so eerily perched upon a hill!

I do apologize, but this is going to be a big photo dump because I was acting like a kid in Japan who was given her first Nikon and unlimited rolls of film. I wanted to snap every nook and cranny, but I did find some restraint, I promise.

Henry booked us the full package (wow, spend it daddy) for once, opting to go for the guided tour with “skip the line” plus the optional torture chamber and Queen’s elevator thingie at the end. I didn’t care about all that shit but was happy that we had the skip the line thing because this place gets crowded and fast. We were the first people at the gate though! One lone traveler joined us after a bit and I was quietly laughing to myself because he also looked like a coaster thoosie so it was making me feel like we were waiting for a theme park to open and not freaking Dracula’s Castle in Romania.

Our guide’s name was Mihnea and I will be honest and say he was not giving docent. If I had to guess upon meeting him on the street, I would think he was part of the Romanian Intelligence Service of whatever is more secret than that, even. He was all in black and super mysterious with just a touch of “possibly a vampire.” I didn’t get any pictures of him but he’s possible in some of the video I recorded that day.

This was before the official tour started. We had to walk up the long and steep walkway with Mihnea and then he had us wait here for him while he did BTS tour guide stuff or attend to some secret government espionage thing. WE DIDN’T ASK.

Did you know that Vlad the Impaler never even lived in this Castle? Although it’s alleged that he may have been held prisoner there at some point.

I also find it interesting that while the rest of the world associates Vlad with Dracula and considers him a veritable monster, he is regarded as a national hero in Romania and I love that.

In modern times (aka the 1900s when I was born), Queen Marie lived here until her death in the 30s (who reads this thing for exact dates, anyway?), and then her daughter, Princess Illeana, was driven out in the 40s by the Communist regime and a decade later, the Castle was opened to the public as a museum.

JUST A LITTLE HISTORY FOR YOU.

Coat of Arms.

A window.

Oh! Through that doorway is the famous super steep and narrow staircase that E V E R Y T R A V E L Y O U T U B E R records. And yes, your girl also recorded the ascent, LOL.

Our guide told us to watch our heads at the top and then the lone tourist who looked like a coaster thoosie totally thwacked his forehead REAL HARD and I felt so bad but also had to turn around quickly because I was afraid I was going to start laughing.

The view out of every window was so on point. Probably not back in the day when flaming arrows were headed straight for you though. Just my guess.

You guys, in every single video or picture I’ve seen from people touring this place, the courtyard and walkways have been PACKED with poeple. But since we were FIRST! there was NO ONE ruining our shots! Definitely worth getting there early on a weekday.

Mihnea scolded some woman who started to encroach on our area while he was taking our picture. Worth the extra price of getting the guided tour! Don’t fuck with Mihnea!

That’s the town of Bran down there.

Sorry, I was obsessed with these old ass shingles. Don’t mind me.

Family tree.

Of course, they do play into the Dracula bit by having several little exhibits related to Dracula in media/pop culture and also the origin of vampire lore in Romanian culture, as well, more specifically Strigoi. 

I learned about strigoi from my old Darkchat friend, Cinn, in case anyone cares.

A group of middle-aged American women pushed their way in front of us in this room and Mihnea was like “Oh hell nah” and made an exasperated throat noise because they were talking so loudly while he was trying to do his spiel.

ALWAYS THE AMERICANS.

You guys, Princess Illeana gave up being a royal, turned into a nun, and died in ELWOOD CITY, PA! That’s not too far from us! We were like, “OMG WE HAVE TO GO AND SEE HER GRAVE” and of course have not made it there yet. Maybe this weekend?! I just thought that was a really cool semi-Pittsburgh connection.

Maybe this castle isn’t as grand as Peles, but I loved every inch of it.

Shingle Time!

TORTURE CHAMBER TIME! Mihnea waited outside of it for us, LOL. I was glad to be in there just the two of us so I could hoarsely whisper vile and depraved threats to Henry.

WINDOWS IN THE TORTURE CHAMBER. (It actually wasn’t a torture chamber per se but just the section of the castle where all the various torture devices were displayed. God forbid I should give inaccurate information!)

I kept trying to push Henry inside of this, LOL. Why the smiling face, tho???

Some lady was very sweet and took these pictures for us outside of the gift shop. She was either American or Canadian and pounced as soon as she saw me attempt to take a selfie of us. Super nice lady!

Then we bought a bunch of shit in the gift shop (Henry even bought a Bran Castle hat, LOL, dork) and parted ways with Mihnea as we had reached the end. Since we bought that extra elevator experience thing, we got to leave by going down the elevator that Queen Marie installed so she could have easier access to the Royal Gardens. Of course the current elevator has some Dracula-y video show playing in it which is kind of corny but also – when in Romania, right? It deposited us in this underground walkway thing that was lined with video screens showing different scenes of Vlad and vampire history in Romania. I thought it was really cool, actually, but there was this couple that came down right after us and they blew past all of that and went straight to the end where you could have your picture taken.

“Why would you skip all of this??” I whisper-cried to Henry, because I thought it was actually really cool and worth the upcharge of the deluxe “we’ll never be here again” package we splurged on. And the best part is that the picture at the end was included in that!

Worth it.

After we got our picture printed in yet another gift shop, we left through a door that spilled us out onto a lower courtyard area.

Sorry, a million pictures of me but bro, I’m at Bran Castle. Let me have this, please.

From here, we went back down to where all the vendors were, bought some magnets and postcards, I almost bought a fake Labubu (intentionally), Henry peed in an underground bathroom, and we did the Bran haunted house!

We tried to get food but this was our first taste of WE HATE TOURISTS attitude from the locals which was kind of hilarious considering these people were vending in quite possibly THE most tourist-trappy area of all Romania. I was trying to ask for Placinta cu Branza which is like a savory cheese pie but I wasn’t saying placinta with the exact accent required so the girl was like YOU’RE A MORON which I inferred from her impatient huffing and tone. Then she sent me to some other girl who was more English-y but also even more busy and was like IT’S NOT READY YET. YOU CAN HAVE THIS OR THAT, OR I DON’T KNOW and then stalked off and I was like OR I CAN LEAVE BYE because I was scared, you guys. These were legit Romani I’m pretty sure and they were not fucking around.

So we left that area and started walking back to the car and saw another little food stand thing that also had placinta but when we tried to order it the older woman sternly shook her head NO so…no placinta for us, fam.

This was just the beginning of what would end up being the worst day of the whole trip NOT TO BE DRAMATIC NO NOT ME, NOT EVER.

Also, it occurred to me that I never posted the video recap from the day before this! If you are hard-pressed for something to watch, here it is.

Real quick I want to show-and-tell the bitchin’ coffee mugs I got when we were in Chicago last month! Technically, I was shopping for Kevin and I don’t know him very well so when I saw these mugs at Wolf Bait, handcrafted by local artist Liz Born, I was like, “OH WELL GUESS MAMA’S GETTING HERSELF A CHRISTMAS PREZZIE INSTEAD.” I mean, I would LOVE to gift someone a she-bopping rat mug for Christmas but literally the only person aside from me who I know would appreciate it is probably…Bill. I don’t even know.

But then I felt guilty and decided I didn’t need the mugs so we left.

I pouted REAL BIG until Henry was like JESUS CHRIST so we went back the next morning before leaving for home and he bought me the two I wanted lololol. I mean, I could have just bought them myself but it was more fun this way. (Besides, I found Kevin a normie mug there made by an art therapist who works at two local correctional institutions and then goes home and makes pottery as a way to process her stressful days. It was a beautiful, texturally pleasing mug!)

My favorite part was that when we went back the next morning for my redemption shopping spree, one of the owners was there and we had the absolute pleasure of chatting with her about the mugs and Pittsburgh (she has a friend here who owns a curiosity shop!) and she was just the best. Her entire personality felt like a raunchy GIRLS NIGHT comedy. Just an amazing person and I am so glad we went back! Wolf Bait is my new go-to shop in Chicago for gifts (for myself lol).

This was the positive experience I needed to turn my day around because for some reason, I had woken up that morning in the hotel feeling like I wanted to be a royal pain in the ass that day. I don’t know why I get like this, but we had picked a restaurant the night before to go to that morning for breakfast and I immediately said I didn’t want breakfast, I didn’t want to eat, I was having a big food scare. Can’t just let myself live!

Then we went to The Brewed for coffee and Henry was being annoying and having no spatial awareness, being in everyone’s way, and then they were preparing for an event so there was nowhere to sit inside and I just felt like I was going to flip out in public so I demanded the car keys and went and sat in the car like a little fucking bitch.

But then we went to Wolf Bait and it brought me back down to earth. And yes, we talked about this in therapy lol. I think I need bigger help for my food issues though because I feel like I’m getting worse.

Shop at Wolf Bait. Cool bye.

My goal of wrapping up these recaps before the end of the year does not seem to be within reach now. But! We have reached the point of the trip where my luck ran out and the PINCH ME I’M DREAMING spinning on a hilltop mindset finally record-scratched me back to reality, lol. But at least this morning was nice! We’ll get to the bad part another day. First, let’s talk about our day trip to Bran Castle a/k/a Dracula’s Castle!

Bran is about an hour drive from Brasov so we set out around 7AM because this is a place that you need to get to before it opens since it’s such a big tourist attraction (or trap, as some reviews online say! BUT IT’S FUCKING BRAN CASTLE IN ROMANIA, OK? You can’t skip that).

On our long walk from the guest room to the car, we stopped at a cafe that wasn’t actually even opened yet but my big dumb American ass saw lights on and a barista behind the counter, so I barged right on in and ignored the “closed” sign on the door. UGH I hate myself. (Yes, the sign was in Romanian but come on, dumb stoop American tourist – be more aware!!) An older man came out from the back to see what the fuck was happening I guess, and he took over for the barista. To both of their credit, they were extremely friendly and forgiving. They didn’t even point out that they weren’t technically open and the guy even patiently explained the whole Romanian “long black” mystery to me. He suggested that if I wanted a larger size, to do three shots instead of two and I AGREED TO THIS? WHY DID I SAY YES SO CALMLY TO THREE SHOTS OF FUCKING ESPRESSO ON AN EMPTY STOMACH?

Foreshadowing, my friends, lol.

Anyway, I know the “pictures from the car window” is so tiresome, but ROLLING FOG ALONG THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS ON THE DRIVE TO THE BRAN CASTLE? Come on. I was hanging out that car window like a motherfucking dog.

Can you imagine living here?! I mean, I personally would hate it because it’s already hard enough for me to go to Kpop concerts just living in PITTSBURGH. Imagine rural Romania!? But I wouldn’t object to living here part time? Like, a month out of the year. Henry can do farm things with a mule while I lay in a field and read books watch Kpop videos on my phone.

We eventually made it to Bran, which was still somewhat Sleepy Town. This was our first glimpse at DRACULA’S CASTLE! We had a good hour to kill so we parked and found a cafe, like I really needed more caffeine after my TRIPLE long black!

We walked to Bran Coffee a bit down the street from where we parked.

IT LOOKED LIKE THIS INSIDE AND I LOVED IT!

THIS WAS NOT MY DRINK. I opted for no drink. Henry thinks this was a flat white, but he doesn’t have a vacation journal that he writes in habitually so we may never know (he just exclaimed from the kitchen that he is sure this was a flat white but it’s also possible that he wants my 1.5 readers to think he’s fancy). I will tell you that my croissant was the worst croissant I’ve ever had – so dry and hard that I would have needed to borrow Vlad’s sucker-fangs to make any purchase on it.

“I love Romania and all but Korean cafes are by far superior,” I muttered to Henry, who said, and I quote (because I wrote this in my vacation journal!!!), “You ain’t kidding.”

Cafe culture in Korea is just…different. It’s a whole genre.

Anyway, after this, we made our way over to the Castle ticketing area where all of the local vendors were noisily setting up their wares and food-stuffs, and it was really starting to feel lively! However, knowing that this place gets super crowded, I started to get the PEE JIG / INDIGESTION feeling that I get when we’re trying to rope drop at an amusement park. Even though Henry booked us guided tour tickets for 9AM AND “skip the line.” We don’t normally spend the extra money for fast pass bullshit but this was an exception.

More on the tour in the next post, because it’s time for me evening feeding.

I finally sat down and started going through more of the DSLR pictures we took in Romania. Here are the salvageable ones from the Merry Cemetery + some blurry/unfocused Henry gems because they capture the true disdain that shows on my face when he is doing something I don’t approve of, in this case, using  my camera lol:

Classic Erin, annoyed AF.

Piața Sfatului, or Council Square, was lined with restaurants and bars and has got to be the place to be in the summer season. And winter! In autumn, it was still beautiful and blessedly uncrowded. I have seen so many pictures of the iconic BRASOV sign on Mt. Tampa back there and it felt beyond surreal to see it in real life. It’s the little things!

Strada Sforii! It’s one of the narrowest “streets” in Europe, only wide enough for two people to walk down side-by-side and was intended for firefighters to use it as a quick accessway. This is a must-do in Brasov and I was stoked that we made it there in between hordes of tourists! I have seen videos where people are pushed through in a crowded line – no fun in that!

I would say the top complaint I have seen across the board about Romania is their unhinged graffiti problem. We definitely saw less of it the more rural we got, obviously, but once we started making our way south toward Bucharest again, the tags began popping off. Brasov was a clear indication that while the buildings were old as shit, we were in more urban land for sure. Graffiti doesn’t bother me – as long as it’s not on churches, etc. Probably, it shouldn’t be here either but I felt like it added some flavor, I don’t know! It was fun to go through and look at all of the different languages. I didn’t see it in my pass-thru but on one travel vlog I watched on YouTube, I saw something written in Korean!

I knew if I looked hard enough, I’d find at least ONE Kpop reference, lol. #StanATEEZ

I took pictures with the good camera too and haven’t had a chance to even LOOK at them. Basically, I’m saying these Romania posts have no end in sight. I’m sorry.

Huntr/x representin’!

I mean, I don’t know! The graffiti gives it a grimy, sleazy flair! I think it would be such a cool backdrop for senior portraits. I have no idea why that was my first thought.

After moseying around town some more, we stopped back at the room to chill for a bit and I had to stop and take a million pictures from the catwalk thing that lead to our room. I just couldn’t get enough of this sight! It’s the main reason why I booked this room.

Then on the way back out, it was darker so I had to take more pictures LOL. Me one day in the nursing home: “Have I ever shown you my BRASOV SIGN pictures?” Every nurse under employment: “YES. ALL 87 VERSIONS.”

Brasov has a Romulus statue too!

I loved the lighting on this building!

After some shopping, we ended the night at a bar near our room called AFTAR STUBE.

Henry for some reason asked to sit outside and it was SO COLD. I was visibly shivering and although Henry was ignoring my frost-bitten status, the waiter noticed and asked if I needed a blanket.

YES, PLEASE.

He grabbed one from a stack inside an old telephone booth and brought it over to me and I was so grateful. He had come off very brooding and dark-vibey up until this moment (not that I minded, we were in Transylvania for fuck’s sake, ride that stereotype my guy).

Even though it was so chilly out, it was a great atmosphere. Groups of people came out here and there to smoke, so it wasn’t like we were ostracized but I still wished we had sat inside where the action (and heat) was.

I don’t want to paint myself like some kind of hop ho, but I was openly moaning while lapping up this sexy glass of sweet froth.

(FORESHADOWING: for as much as I loved this in moment, I feel extremely queasy just thinking about it right now. Ugh.)

This was a classic Romanian beer – very delightful! Bere Czell toasted my check-in on Untappd! (It was Henry’s beer, but I stole a few sips lol.)

Then this confident girl strutted onto the patio! The blurry picture is the result of me being slightly inebriated, my hands shaking from the cold, and the cat not standing still for even a split section.

One of the younger servers told us her name – it sounded like Video but that wasn’t it – and said she is a neighborhood stray who comes there for food every day. After I said, “aw” to the stray part, he said, “She is….” and after struggling for a moment to find the fitting English word, finished with, “living.” LOL. She definitely looked happy and healthy!

That was one thing I noted very quickly about Romania – they love their stray cats. It seems that many local restaurants have quid pro quo relationships with them – they keep the rats away, the restaurants give them scraps.

“Video” was following the younger server around like she owned the place. I loved it.

We split this veggie pizza – it was perfect with beer!

I stopped after my Hop Hooligans dessert beer, but I made Henry get this IPA from Clandestin because I follow them on Instagram and wanted to taste it lol. Also, it’s worth noting that I kept the labels of both cans, of course. I’m Captain Packrat.

What a great end to our first night in Brasov!

Last Saturday, Henry and I drove to Chicago to see Key at the Riviera Theater. Key is a member of one of my absolute favorite groups, SHINee. I am so happy that in the same calendar year, we had the much-appreciated pleasure of seeing not just Key, but also Taemin and Onew on their own respective solo tours. That’s 3/4 of (present-day) SHINee!

(RIP always to Jonghyun – the 8th anniversary of his death was actually a short 5 days after the Key concert which made it bittersweet.)

After an afternoon of shopping in Logan Square and scarfing down Beacon Doughnuts at Logan Vegan, we made our way to the Hilton in Evanston, where I changed into my concert OOTD. I went with this metallic gold blouse thing that I forgot I owned, because I felt that it gave off outer space / galactic vibes like some of Key’s stage outfits!

It is a really awkwardly-fitting top which I forgot about but I didn’t bring any back-ups, so oh well, too bad so sad.

The theater was about a 25 minute drive from our hotel. Originally, we had talked about just taking the L or whatever they call their train in Chicago, but it was legit 0 degrees that evening and it required a transfer so I cried, “CAN WE PLEASE JUST DRIVE?!!?” If it spring/summer/fall, sure, let’s pub-transit it up, who cares. But I absolutely hate being outside in the cold and please, just give me convenience.

I wanted to leave early because who knows what parking challenges we had ahead of us, but of course, we found parking immediately on the street that the theater was on, and it was also right outside of this place called FAT CAT, where we had some pre-show beers and small bites.

I found out about the Brown University shooting on the TV behind Henry. Happy Holidays.

I had a delightful winter ale from Spiteful Brewing called Jingle Balls. I have learned in my brewery travels that I genuinely like winter / Christmas beers. You’d think I’d be a lush for the October / pumpkin ones but they just don’t hit the way I want them to!!?

LOL purposely used this picture for Untappd because I’m such a sweetheart. This was Henry’s Cinnamon Prost from Old Irving Brewing Co. It was good! I stole a few sips. He also got a winter ale called Fall For Revenge from Pig Minds and it was also worthy of a few stolen sips. I stuck with just one beer for myself because this stupid brewery passport stamp-collecting has made me concerned that I’m becoming an alcoholic.

I also got a delicious carrot ginger soup and Henry and I shared a plate of vegan chicken bites. It was perfect pre-concert food and I didn’t feel sick at all afterward!

Toward the end of our stay there, a young couple came in on a date. She was from Australia and it sounded like they go to college together, I guess? Anyway, he ordered a DUVAL which I LOVE and he tried to give her a taste but she said she doesn’t like beer. It took everything in my power to not blurt out, “I DIDN’T EITHER UNTIL I HAD MY FIRST BELGIAN BEER TRY IT YOU MIGHT LIKE IT.” But I bit my lip and tried to focus on other things, like, I don’t know, Henry.

But then the guy started talking about THE BEERS HE HAD WHEN HE WAS IN BELGIUM and I made anguished eye contact with Henry, like, “PLEASE LET ME INTERRUPT” but Henry gave me a tiny head shake, like, “no Erin, don’t barge into their date.”

UGH.

Our time at Fat Cat was excelsior with ONE EXCEPTION: we started the evening out with a superb server and then I guess her shift ended so she was swapped out with some super intense man server who made me feel so pressured to be done with everything in front of me – he tried to take Henry’s beer when he still, god forbid, had one small chug left to it so Henry swiftly pulled the glass away and said, “I’m not finished yet.” Jesus Christ, bro, let us BREATHE. I could see if he was trying to usher us along to free up a table but…it was not crowded there AT ALL.

Oh, I’m sorry – one other complaint. Every time the door opened, Father Frost came wafting in and that place NEVER WARMED UP. I was so cold that I eventually put my coat back on.

We eventually left around 6:20 because the doors for Key were supposed to be at 6:30. When I tell you it was the SHORTEST LINE I have ever stood in for a Kpop concert, I’m not lying – that’s how you know the cold was no joke. Plus, it was a seated concert so I’m sure no one felt the need to be FIRST.

Doors were late opening and I eventually reached the point where I was so cold that I seriously worried about losing my toes. I did have a hat and gloves on but I was just wearing Vans and two pairs of socks. I had to march in place to keep my blood from freezing too.

Thankfully, there were still some brave souls passing out freebies, and I of course was being very overzealous about asking for some. I love my freebies, OK?? And I genuinely appreciate everyone who takes the time to make these special little mementoes.

Finally, we got to go inside! I truly feel like it was 7PM by the time we got in there. I was in so much fucking pain that when Henry left me to go to the bathroom, I had to get up out of my seat and walk around out of genuine fear that there was something medically wrong with my feet. My LORD I can’t remember the last time I was this cold!? Maybe when I did that effing ghost hunt at the abandoned school in South Park?!! That was definitely during the winter, in the middle of the night at a school with no utilities. Super awesome times.

I went back downstairs and accidentally ended up in the merch line, which was VERY SHORT, so even though Henry was instructed to get me a shirt after he went to the bathroom, I scooped one up super quickly – legit THE EASIEST merch experience I have had at a Kpop concert to date. Chef’s kiss, A+++ efficiency.

We were in the center section of whatever “LOGE” is – the front part of the balcony, 4 rows back. It was awesome – there was a railing behind us with the walkway and then the rest of the balcony started back from that.

Henry’s seat mate saw us struggling to take a selfie (they had these bright blue stage lights going from the moment everyone entered the place and they were extremely blinding to the point where I honestly wished I had sunglasses in my purse) so she offered to take several for us which was so nice! She looked extremely familiar. We chatted with her a bit and learned that she’s from Buffalo and also traveled to Chicago last February to see Taemin, so we think we might have recognized her from that show! I love the Kpop community. I can’t tell you how many of the same faces I used to see at my old sad boy concerts but god forbid anyone talk to me at those things.

Oh you guys. Did Key become my SHINee bias after this!?!? Is it time for me to just admit that I legitimately cannot be forced to choose a bias at this point because I love all SHINee members equally and for some many different reasons? Key put on such a strong show from start to finish. He is also exceptionally fluent in English AND SO FUCKING FUNNY that it almost felt like a stand-up show at times. His MENTS were hysterical!

We stan a man who can sing, dance, and make us laugh with his effortless humor and biting sassiness. Key delivers on all points!

View this post on Instagram

The two seats next to me remained empty all the way up to when Key took the stage, and even during the 1 or 2 songs. Eventually, two women took the seats but then it turned out one of the seats belonged to someone else – a MAN! I kept telling Henry that I hoped a man would be sitting next to me, I don’t know why since I actually fucking hate men, and it actually happened! I will say, it was an older demographic for Key and there were more men than usual – one of them was down by the stage and Key even called him out during one of his MENTS and even said, “KPOP is a weird industry, right? So WEIRD…..” I was dying. Actually, there were so many moments where Key had me laughing so hard that my stomach was starting to hurt. HE IS SO FUNNY!! Key mentioned numerous times that he was so grateful to finally get to do a solo tour in the US, after being an idol for 18 YEARS. He even threw shade to his agency at one point too which was amazing.

(Honestly, do better, SM. You have the most amazing talent on your roster and you treat them like shit.)

I am so glad that we were able to attend one of his shows because he deserves all of the sold-out venues, for real. What an icon.

View this post on Instagram

One of my favorite moments was when people started yelling “RING DING DONG!” which is a super popular SHINee song from back in the day that is such an ear worm that it was actually banned in Korea during exam season because it would get stuck in students’ head and make it hard for them to concentrate – LOL I’M NOT KIDDING, this is an actual thing in Korea where songs will get banned for that reason.

Anyway, Key famously is sick of that song so people do this to goad him. He stopped talking and said, “Oh shut up!” in the most harmless way and then when someone else yelled, “REPLAY!” (SHINee’s debut song 18 years ago!) he said “shut up” again and then immediately sang, “Noona namu yeppeo….” and we all fucking lost our minds!

I felt so energized and WARM after this show. Key is a gem, a true treasure. I’m honestly tearing up as I recap this because it was a really emotional night for me and so many others in that theater who have never had the good fortune of seeing SHINee. We’re just collecting their solo concerts at this point. (LET’S GO, MINHO!!!!)

I screamed so much that night that I could feel my voice submitting its PTO request before we even left the Riviera.

SET LIST

1. Strange
2. Helium
3. CoolAs
4. Want Another
5. Killer
6. Guilty Pleasure
7. HUNTER
8. Heartless
9. Good & Great
10. Pleasure Shop
11. Picture Frame
12. Another Life
13. BAD LOVE
14. Gasoline
15. Imagine
16. GLAM (the guy next to me popped off during this one & I loved it!)
17. This Life
18. Lavender Life

In case Henry one day gets famous and you get asked about what his favorite Key song is on a radio show morning trivia sesh, it’s Gasoline. He didn’t hesitate at all when I grilled him over his favorite part of the night.

I couldn’t go to bed that night until I sorted through all of my freebies! I was so stoked to get a Helium bracelet <3

Wait an absolute banger of a concert. And without expended too much energy on this, I would be remiss to not mention that while he was here in the US – IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING TOUR – he got dragged into this ridiculous scandal where some broad was busted for administering illegal injections outside of hospitals. From my understanding, she was a trusted woman who was giving medical IVs to clients, sounds like to treat mild things like dehydration and exhaustion, but her clients didn’t know she was unlicensed. First, a comedienne went down for this, and it happened that she was co-starred with Key on a variety show, and then it was discovered that at some point, she had posted a picture on her Instagram of Key’s very famous dogs, which brought him into the scandal.

This happened a few days before his Chicago show and I was actually concerned that the rest of his tour was going to get canceled because that’s how nasty Korea can be over these things. First, everyone over there was up in arms because he wasn’t releasing a statement. (HE WAS IN AMERICA, ON TOUR. LET THE MAN BREATHE.)

Then when his tour ended, he released a statement admitting that he did receive treatments but didn’t know she was unlicensed, so then everyone bitched because his statement was too INSINCERE. Jesus Christ. So he ultimately has stepped down from all of his variety shows and upcoming commitments, including the SM Town concert in 2026. Unbelievable. I LOVE Korea for many reasons, but there are also numerous reasons that makes me so angry with them as a country too.

If his career is ruined over this….I just can’t even think about that. Please go listen to his music.

Where did we even leave off, who knows, I am so far behind on these recaps and am currently kicking myself for not taking my laptop with me so I could have least done some of these there! (I know it was a vacation but I truly enjoy blogging for some reason.)

OK yeah, we spent the morning at Peles Castle, ate lunch at that cutey place with the cat and nice view, and then continued on our way to Brasov, where we would be staying the next two nights.

Brasov still had that medieval feel to it but the size of it (and the graffiti) was also a bit of a reminder that we were heading back to big civilization. This was another pain in the ass place as far as parking goes, and we ended up quite a bit away from our guest house. And surprise—I knew AS SOON AS I STEPPED OUT OF THE CAR that my period had started so it was a race to find somewhere close with a bathroom.

Hilariously, now when I think of Brasov, the first two things that come to mind are awful – one being hit with a heavy period and cramps and the other one, well, we’ll get to that in due time, LOL. Let’s just say my body decided to do a Great Purge all at once.

MAGA anyone?

I remember vividly that we were following this Asian man tourist on our way to find a bathroom and he looked like he had a good eye so I was purposely taking pictures of everything he was taking pictures of. I don’t even think Henry (or he) noticed.

We found a cafe! It was called Meron and I ran in, asked where the bathroom was, and yelled, “JUST ORDER ME COFFEE, ANYTHING!” and as I was running away, I heard the barista ask Henry “For here or to go?” and Henry said “To go” like a fucking doof so I hollered, “FOR HERE!” over my shoulder. Jesus, can you please let me sit and chill with a hot cup of coffee after tamponning it up?

MEN WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT.

Anyway, this place was realllly nice. It turned out that since we were staying in, we ordered from the table so Henry didn’t have to screw that up for me and I was able to just order when I sat down. I got this really fancy coffee that took a while for them to brew and was served in this cool medicinal-looking bottle.

This picture is what Henry deserves.

Anyway, thank you Meron for having a bathroom and really tight coffee. (Don’t worry, I didn’t bleed out in their restroom or leave a trail.)

I really liked the vibe of Brasov. I mean, I liked everywhere in Romania, really.

Brasov is famous for its Hollywood-esque signage on the side of Mt. Tampa.

After dealing with my GIRL ISSUES like I am in middle school and haven’t figured out how to handle a period yet, we found our guest house which was in an apartment building and another adventure accessing. There was a code that Henry kept fucking up, and then directions that he couldn’t follow, etc. It took us an embarrassingly long time to find the room, is all I’m going to say.

These old buildings, I swear to fucking god, every single step you take bounces and ricochets off the walls and ceiling. There is no sneaking into these places.

To get to our room, we had to exit a door on the second floor, walk across a balcony to another door which opened to a foyer and shared kitchen space, and then our room was one of 4 on that floor. It was….beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

The most “modern” room we had on the whole trip and at first I was like, “Oh…” because I had really grown so accustomed to the rustic and old aesthetic of the other ones, but then I quickly got over that and ended up LOVING THIS PLACE….until I immediately locked myself in the bathroom and actually started to have a panic attack!!!

Henry saved me but he did message the host about it and they were like, “Oh yeah, there is a key for the bathroom in the desk by the front door because that happens sometimes.”

LOL I never fully shut the bathroom door again while we were there.

This was the view from our balcony! And you can see the bar that we’d go to later that night.

In case you ever go to Brasov and want to stay here, it’s called 1910 Boutique.

I sent pictures of this place to Chooch and he was like WOW HE NEVER GETS PLACES LIKE THIS WHEN I’M WITH YOU. Places like this in America would cost 2x what we paid in Romania!!!

Such a gorgeous room and view!!

After getting settled, we went out to explore. One of the first things I saw was THE DRACULA RESTAURANT and was it a tourist trap? I mean, of course. But in the window, a DRACULA IPA AND COLLECTORS GLASS was on display and c’mon. When in Romania, amirite? Ya gotta get the Dracula beer at the Dracula Restaurant when in NOT JUST ROMANIA BUT MOTHERFUCKING TRANSYLVANIA. I have no shame or regrets about this.

If you can believe this, there actually was a table of diners who appeared to be locals. I can’t be sure, but they seemed chummy with the waitstaff in a way that made me feel like they had been there many times before.

However, it was funny to watch people stop, peer in, and keep walking LOL.

Absolutely worth it.

We weren’t hungry yet since we had eaten lunch about 2 hours prior to this but we still wanted to order SOMETHING. I suggested getting this traditional Romanian pancake-ish dessert to share.

It was delightful! As was the server and the whole experience. I got my Dracula IPA gift set (it came with two bottles and the glass!) and two little Dracula-themed bottles of palinca for Margie. Oh, and a Dracula pen for Chooch! Did I ever mention that Chooch has some gigantic pen collection that I think started because he has a compulsion to take pens from places? I don’t know, maybe I’m making this sound more nefarious than it is. But Henry was flipping out when he was cleaning his room after he went to college, like WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THE PENS, MY GUY.

…to be continued.