Before I get into the meat of our time in Sibiu, I want to show you the cutie guest house we stayed in! I tried to pick mostly guest houses for this trip and it was 100% the way to go. We had no complaints about any of the places we stayed.

When we arrived in Sibiu, the host met us because the entrance was a sus doorway next to a storefront with stacks of empty boxes in the window. So when Henry gestured toward that and said, “This is where we were staying,” I exclaimed incredulously, “That abandoned-looking store with boxes in the window???” right as the host came out of the door next to it and greeted us warmly, lol. Oops.

She led us down a dark corridor and then through another door which opened onto this courtyard-ish area:

The one thing we learned quickly about Romania is don’t judge a guesthouse by its exterior.

Because the inside looked EXACTLY as it was pictured on Booking.com.

OB-FUCKING-SESSED. The details! The domed ceiling! HOW WAS THIS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT BASIC-LOOKING APARTMENT DOOR??

Our host showed us all around and said we could have romantic moments in that tub which made me have to hold back giddy laughter like I was in church. Henry just stood there, frowning. LOL.

The host and her husband (who looked like he could have been in a band, or in a cool biker gang) even had us do shots of țuică – a plum brandy which went down like liquid fire only to reignite about 30 seconds later in an intense afterburn in my chest. It was….shooooooo. Very strong. Not my favorite but when in Romania….norok!

The door to the right of the Victorian House room housed an older couple who did not speak English but were adamant about greeting “the Americans” every time they heard us coming and going. It was very sweet and they were clearly very hospitable, but it was awkward because of the language barrier and also the husband kept kissing my hand while Henry struggled with the code for the door and it was a whole thing. We got to the point where we would hoarsely whisper, “Run!” to each other every time we were leaving because a motion sensor spotlight would come on to signal our comings and goings, triggering the neighbors’ Pavlovian response. We got really good at slipping through the door out of the courtyard right as their apartment door would fly open lol.

Super nice people! But we were jet-lagged and had no energy for small talk yet.

Our host pointed out this cute little sitting area in the courtyard where we could “sit and take coffee” but after realizing we were being watched by overzealous neighbors, I laughed hysterically to Henry and said, “WE ARE NEVER GOING TO SIT THERE.” Honestly so cute though. I loved staying here and the best was that it was 400 yards from Piața Mare, a super popular plaza in Sibiu full of restaurants and shops. But since it was nestled in the middle of those storefronts, it was SUPER QUIET. I was actually very shocked how quiet it was back there.

After a day of driving and exploring Sibiu, we unwound that evening with some Romanian beer in the comfort of the Victorian House.

It was such a cozy room. Not pictured were the kitchen and the bathroom – both were super updated and sparkly – and the jar of Romanian sweet snacks left for us in the kitchen. Also,  this is where I had my first taste of BORSEC ROMANIAN BOTTLED WATER AND IT IS MY FAVORITE WATER NOW.

And our host gifted us with a heart-shaped gold teaspoon as well!

Loved The Victorian House. Would 100% stay here again and would recommend it to anyone going to Sibiu!

I started collecting magnets from all of our road trips years ago, mostly amusement park magnets adorn our fridge. I’m still a little kid about shit like this (although as a kid, I collected SPOONS from everywhere I went at the suggestion of my Grandma Kelly ❤️ and then my mom THREW THEM ALL AWAY) and I get super tunnel vision about this every time we go away. “I CAN’T LEAVE WITHOUT A MAGNET!” I’ll cry in the key of Sally Struthers Starving Kids Commercial.

I was going hog wild in Romania (even remembered to grab one in London since I wasn’t collecting magnets yet when I was last there) and as I was giddily sorting through them the other day, I realized that I FORGOT TO GET ONE IN BRAȘOV!!!

And we were there for two nights, too!! I vaguely remember saying, “no! I’m not getting a magnet from the first place I walk into. I will shop around” because I always impulse buy the first one I see only to find better ones later in other stores. Ugh. I can’t believe this oversight! Granted, I did get sick while we were in Brașov so that definitely impeded upon my desire to shop but still. I can’t believe this.

Does it count if you buy a magnet online?? I mean, I was truly in Brașov but is that cheating? What if I never make it back to get an authentic one? Only I would have restless nights over a magnet (OR LACK OF ONE).

Anyway, here are my new magnets for the collection:

WHAT SHOULD I DO?? Buy the one I found on eBay? Make my own out of one of the pictures I took while there? Maybe that’s the way to go. Calm down, Erin. No one cares.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jinxed it. Hello, London!

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

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

‘allo, British pidge.

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

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

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

Just a girl taking pictures to take pictures.

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

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

Literally the first animal that came to mind.

Gorgina.

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

Idiot.

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

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

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

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

I had to take my own fucking picture.

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

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

Or are we both just exhaustED?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fried Halloumi. Yes.

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

…but the hallway had it.

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

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

My last coffee before Romania.

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

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

After a miserable day of travel, we are home! And I have been wide awake since 2AM ofc. Just some quick thoughts off the cuff because I missed blogging so much but I didn’t bring my laptop with me and I absolutely hate trying to blog from my phone:

• I miss Romania but am so so so so so happy and content to be sitting here at 5:55AM with my precious Penelope purring on my lap <3
• Happy to have A CUP OF COFFEE – “long blacks” are not for me!
• My favorite Depeche Mode song – It’s No Good – came on in the rental car (I miss that car) at 3:30AM on the way to the Bucharest airport yesterday and now I will forever associate it with Romania. I have only ever heard that song out in the wild once before and that was a million years ago at lunch with Kara, Chris, and Christina at The Library.
• Henry dumped half of his chicken tikka masala all over him on the flight from London to DC and I was so embarrassed. He just sat there with a clump of it in his fist while he continued to shovel more in his mouth and then he stunk like a food truck for the rest of the day.
• “We” drove 1,111 miles through Romania!
• I can’t choose a favorite part but I truly fell in love with the Maramures region and Sighisoara.
• Rural Romania has a HUGE amount of stray dogs, alarming even. I wanted to take them all home. (Even the vicious ones that tried to attack our car from the road.)
• I came back weighing a few ounces less than I did when we left thanks to whatever food poisoning / stomach virus I contracted last Thursday – it’s always something with me! I am still not right.
• Turns out that Henry and I actually can travel without Chooch as a buffer and get along mostly OK! (I mean, there were moments, and let’s just say that when we were seated in different rows from each other on our last flight home last night, I counted that as a blessing, lol.
• The only thing I found actually super overrated on the MOST DO list from all the “travel vloggers” was this bookstore. I was so stoked to see it but it was just…I dunno. A bookstore. BUT!!! A non-radio song by The Cure came on while we were there and I was like, “OK, this the vibe.” But if not for that, I wouldn’t have stayed there for more than a few minutes.
• I would go back to Romania in a heartbeat – especially to explore some of the other regions we didn’t have time for. I’d like to see Timisoara and Constanta / the beaches. The Black Sea. And definitely do the Maramures drive again. It was absolutely breathtaking. BUT!!! Korea is still bae. Korea is still where I would live if I wasn’t a person lacking the ability to get rid of her  “things.” (You’re a pack rat, Erin. Call it by its name.) (OK thanks but I prefer MAXIMALIST.)
• I have never traveled somewhere before where both there and back flights were so incredibly botched. I know it could have been way worse and we could have been faced with full on cancellations, but it was a headache both ways and I am actually so glad Chooch wasn’t there because he and I would have easily feasted off each other’s frustrations and irritability, and it would have been so much worse.
• Romanian pop music is chef’s kiss. We went to bed every night with one of the music video channels on and there were times when a song would arouse me from a deep sleep because it was that good. My Shazam got a ton of use!
• 1,111 miles and probably 1,111 new photos on my camera roll now.
• We stayed in some of the most memorable guest houses ever and I’m so glad we went that route over hotels.
• I sent so many texts to Chooch that started with, “OMG you would be so embarrassed if you were right now – [insert one of the many embarrassing things Henry did here].”
• Gelato is huge in Romania. My favorite flavor that I tried was rice pudding with prunes from Vice Cream in Bucharest- DON’T HATE. It was delicious.
• Once again, every airport personnel / TSA agent we encountered both there and back were lovely EXCEPT  THE ONES IN PITTSBURGH. Literally some of the nastiest, looking-for-an-argument people I have ever encountered have been employed at the Pgh International Airport. They get our trips off on the wrong foot every single time. This time I got ridiculed by some asshole who, as I was waiting for my turn to go through the body scanner, opened a door and yelled at me to “slide over.” There was a person in a wheelchair to my right so I assumed she was asking me to move out of the way so that the person in the wheelchair could go through the door she opened, so I took a step back and she yelled, “NOW WHERE DID SHE GO????” because she evidently wanted me to move over and go through a different scanner instead of the full body one because the line was getting too long. MAYBE USE YOUR FUCKING WORDS THEN, BITCH because to me “slide over” meant “get out of the way of the oncoming wheelchair.” I feel sorry that these people are affected by the shut-down but the truth is, a lot of them are always this fucking rude. (In Pgh, anyway.) I still said HAVE A NICE DAY!! to every single one of them, though. And not even ironically.
• For as annoying as those “perpetually connected” bottle caps are in Europe, I was super annoyed this morning when I untwisted my bottle of American water and I had to chase down the cap after it frisbee’d out of my fingers and went rolling across the floor.
  • (My favorite water brand in Romania was BORSEC, by the way. I just let Henry know that he can buy me a 6-pack of the 50.7 oz bottles for $29.99 on Amazon.)
    • (But, fuck Amazon.)
• The agent we got at the MPC line in Dulles was so nice in a very laidback way. He asked questions about why we were in Romania (yes, I know, it’s his job but he made it feel like he was genuinely interested) and even asked, “Did you go to Castle Bran?” HELL YEAH WE DID. Henry let me answer the questions thank god and as we walked away, I said, “And that’s how you do it.” HE IS THE WORST AT ANSWERING THESE BANAL QUESTIONS!
• I don’t know what’s in the tap water in Romania and while it renders it unsuitable to drink, it was incredible for my hair. Every day was a good hair day, it was amazing. 11/10, would happily wash my hair in Romania again any day.

Get stoked for what will likely be several mths of dragged out vacation recaps, you know how I do.

We are having legitimately a great time in Romania, I am actually shocked (sorry Henry) because I thought for sure we’d be fighting and breaking up a thousand times a day AND DON’T GET ME WRONG there are moments but they pass quickly because I am not letting Henry’s appalling inability to take a decent picture of me ruin my day, and I am like NOT TODAY, HANGER every time I start to act like a brat because I missed a feeding.

We are currently in Sighișoara, a medieval town north of Bucharest and famous for being the hometown of Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula. It is fucking beautiful here for real but it’s the off season so I can only imagine how crowded it must get in the summer – that’s what the front desk guy at our hotel said, that we’re lucky to be here when it’s quiet.

All of our accommodations so far have been soooooo cute except for the one last night – because Henry booked that one on his own since it was just something we needed out of necessity in between stops. It was nice though don’t get me wrong! A pension in a small town called Beclean and we actually had the whole entire place to ourselves – the owner left after checking us in. I liked that but also for some reason it creeped me out and i was scared to go to sleep lol.

My camera roll is sagging under the weight of all the pictures and video I have taken since we left last Thursday but I just can’t stop. Every time I think, “OK nothing can top this view,” we turn a corner and Romania is like, “lol u thought.” I fear I’m going to be really annoying (more than usual) with recaps when we get home! To anyone who still reads this, apologies in advance.

I will leave you with my new favorite song, which is apparently the #1 song in Romania right now at least according to whatever pop station we had on in the car on Saturday. Apparently the singer is Moldovan though, not Romanian.

P.S. the first song we heard when we got in our rental car at 2:30AM last Friday/Saturday was Huntr/x “Golden.” Kpop Demon Hunters is truly a global sensation lol.

We’re in Cluj-Napoca (THE BIRTHPLACE OF BELA KAROLYI BTW REMEMBER WHEN I WAS OBSESSED WITH HIM) and apropos of nothing, we see this large silk screen of another man I’m obsessed with, Robert Smith, covering this window as we crossed the street. Had to stop for a picture.

When we were driving to our hotel in Bucharest (at 3am never forget I know I won’t), we spotted numerous posters of this same image hanging in various spots in Old Town so now I’m on a mission to find out why. They’re not concert posters…

It’s giving me the feels though because EXACTLY 25 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK, I saw the Cure for the first time in Canberra, Australia. (And met them!)

Anyway!! It’s 5:46am and we’re getting ready to embark on the Maramures portion of the trip. It already feels like our time in Romania is half over but it’s not. The “do t wanna leave” panic is strong with this one.

I knew I was going to love it here. I knew. Decades of dreaming about it, numerous failed attempts over the last 15 years, and here I am, with Henry who might not always understand the root of my obsessions, but he’s here for it and that’s all I can ask for!

In more ways one it has taken forever to get here, but we made it! We left the house around noon on Thursday (EDT) and flew to Chicago where we were supposed to have a 5:00-something overnight flight to Heathrow, land 8:00am London time and then get on a connecting flight to Bucharest at 9:15am which would have put us here around 2pm Romania time on Friday. But right before boarding the London flight, they made an “oh btw” announcement that “a door” needed to be fixed and maintenance was on their way. First it was a “20 minute” delay. Then an hour. Then, “they asked for another hour.” It turned into over three hrs and our chances of making the connecting flight went out the window. The ONLY other flight that day was at 8pm, putting us in Bucharest after 1am. Not great but at least the flight wasn’t outright canceled but believe me that I had wished it was after we FINALLY boarded only to get EVERYONE situated and a flight attendant to come on and say yeah sorry but we have been informed that maintenance needs to check on one more thing and everyone has to deboard. Oh yeah and bring all your stuff with you. Everything.

The outcry! I was just freaking out like, is this plane safe? Are we ok? I overheard a flight attendant tell the ppl behind us that it was actually the door where the inflatable evacuation slide is. “Believe me, you don’t want that inflating in-air,” he said and that was an image that was seared in my mind from that point on.

You wanna talk about a rowdy group of passengers. Most of them were already drunk from the first round of delays and a group of the rowdiest ran right back to the bar across from our gate (K15, never forget). So by the time we reboarded (the whole crew was over it by then and allowed us to just bunch into crowds and get our passes scanned out of group order), some ppl were so trashed that I was worried we were going to be a dystopian in-air social experiment but almost everyone fell asleep / passed out immediately.

And then we got to take the Heathrow Express to London for some blessed open air / no-airport quality time. It wasn’t the worst layover that’s for sure.

However, by the time we touched down in Bucharest, picked up our rental, drove the 17 minutes to the city and checked in to our cutie hotel, it was after 3am. (Side note: that airport was BUSY for being after 1am and Bucharest was still bumping at 3am.)

We left the next morning to start our Transylvanian roadtrip, and I was so sad to check out because it was so pretty/creepy there! And both women we talked to at the desk were so nice. The one the next morning especially! She gave us the sage advice of “don’t feed the bears! They are not pets.” (It’s a real problem with tourists here – way worse than me and the squirrels!)

Well, we are currently in Sibiu and I woke up in the middle of the night and decided to just check in and share photos of the Scala Boutique Hotel!

It looks like he’s peeing on the door?!

From this morning!

Courtyard view.

Initial thoughts: Romania was worth the wait 100%! We have had some really nice interactions with a bunch of people here so far and also Sibiu has a small Korean store called Komart lol. Had to throw that in there.

P.S. you know what’s funny/sad? I have wanted to come here for so long that I already had a “Romania” category on my blog, probably from 2007?? After several failed attempts, I finally made it! Grateful that Henry was on board with this :)