Before we left Sibiu on Sunday, we put all of our luggage in the car (that thankfully wasn’t booted because we couldn’t figure out the parking machine, but we think it was broken because actual Romanians were also going over to it, squinting, shrugging, and walking away lol), we took one final stroll around old town. We brought the “good camera” and as usual barely used it, but I wanted to get some final shots in because I didn’t feel ready to leave!

I don’t know why this shot is here – it was probably a test but here we are. Part of Sibiu, keeping it!

OMG I look so cooked. The jetlag was real with this one.

The next post will be about the cutest Hungarian village in Romania called Rimetea!

Welcome to my home for the day, isn’t she gorgina?

We didn’t even need an itinerary – just walking these rain-slick cobblestones was entertaining. There is nothing I love more than walking around a new-to-me city.

I can’t stand how pretty it is!!!!

You know we had to pop inside the Korean market, wtf so unexpected! They had New Jeans Pepero and I have regertz now – I should have bought it. I love that Korean is Coreean in Romanian! Also, Magazin = Store/Shop. I fucking flipped out one day (I was on my period, OK??) on Henry for asking what Magazin meant. I was like “HOW HAVE YOU NOT FIGURED IT OUT BY NOW, USE CONTEXT CLUES, MY GUY.”

OK now it’s time for the ROMANIAN FOOD portion of the Sibiu recap! This was an exciting meal because it was our first sit-down meal since we arrived and it was traditional food! (We actually walked out of two other places because it wasn’t true Romanian food and/or there were no veg options, and I hate walking out like that but they were places that didn’t have their menus posted out front so we didn’t know!)

For some bizarre reason, I didn’t write in my vacation journal the name of the restaurant we chose after reading the menu that was set up in the big square, so I will have to ask Henry to look at his receipts when he comes home and will edit this at that point because I don’t feel like waiting.

(Hours later I’m here to report that the restaurant’s name is Zestrea!

We were taken down into the cave-like dining room which was exactly what I had hoped for! Before ordering, the host brought over two shots for us (I’ve been calling it palincă but it apparently has other names depending on the fruit used in it). The ones we were given were plum and cherry. The cherry was actually incredible even for my low-intolerance ass. Granted, it gave me an instant headache but I definitely really liked the taste. Henry’s experience appeared to be more on the excruciating end of the spectrum, lol. I don’t think I have ever seen him wince like that before!

Our waitress was young and super personable – I loved her so much. She helped us each choose a Romanian beer. I got this Bergenbier which is apparently a pilsner whatever that means. It was fine! I couldn’t finish it all though.

Henry got this Caraiman beer, a lager, and I just learned that Caraiman is the name of one of the peaks of the Carpathian mountains!

DUDE IT’S BABY’S FIRST AUTHENTIC ROMANIAN MAMALIGA! I went through a heavy polenta obsession back during the days when I worked at the Tina & Eleanor Company, so 2007-2008 I guess. I remember Bob and Colin used to make fun of me because I would bring different variations of it for my late shift dinner – Henry ended up getting really creative with it too, adding mushrooms, one time we made it dessert-y with blueberries. It was a time to be alive, for sure! I even told my dietician that I anticipated on subsisting primarily on polenta during our trip and she said that was fine, haha.

(Side note: I apparently was so obsessed with polenta back then that I even made an entire CATEGORY for it on this blog, so now I’m excited to add new posts to it, lol.)

I was just going to order some additional sides to go along with it but our waitress suggested the vegetable soup after learning that I don’t eat meat. It was a great decision – warm and hearty on a chilly and rainy day in Transylvania! Can you even imagine a better dinner? I mean, probably everyone reading this (how presumptuous of me, thinking I have readers lol) eats meat so you are all probably thinking, “Yeah, Erin, actually I can think of a thousand better dinners.”

But you guys, this was so filling and delicious. I was so happy.

LOL I just noticed how fucking exhausted he looks.

OK but then the time came for DESSERT and even though we were so stuffed (I can’t even remember now what Henry got???? Sarmale, I think??), we HAD to order papanasi (pronounced papa-nawsh) because that is all the travel vloggers talk about. I knew that there were different types too and that they say you need to try it more  than once, so when we asked our waitress for an order, she hesitated.

“Yes….” she said slowly. “we have papanasi, but…” and here is where I thought she was going to say it cannot be served to Americans, it’s made with pig lard, they were out of some important ingredient….You know how it is with me and getting my hopes dashed at restaurants! But then she went on to say in a cautionary tone, “it’s boiled.”

I was like, “OMG, that’s fine! We don’t care! We haven’t had ANY papanasi yet so we want to try all versions and have nothing to compare it to!” She looked relieved and said, “OK! Well, boiled is MY favorite, so I think you are going to like it.”

I was stoked either way! In fact, I had really only seen people eating the fried version which seems way more popular and accessible, so now we wouldn’t have to hunt down the boiled version!

She brought us each a serving even though we only asked for one, and I was like, “Bro, I don’t even care if my stomach rips open, I am eating all of this. WHEN IN ROMANIA.”

Henry had to ask her for forks, which I think she was already about to retrieve for us from a nearby table, but she jokingly said, “Maybe next time I will have you eat with your hands.” IT WAS SO FUCKING ADORABLE, IN HER ROMANIAN ACCENT, I WAS OBSESSED WITH HER.

I’m on a time crunch here, so I asked Copilot to explain this to you:

• • Rolled in a mixture of toasted breadcrumbs and sugar (sometimes with cinnamon or ground nuts added).
  • Served warm with a dollop of sour cream and a fruit jam, such as sour cherry or blueberry jam. 

Then we walked back to the room to lay down for a little bit a/k/a die a little.

But then we went back out once it was fully dark and this part was actually my favorite: we turned down this one street and heard what sounded like singing. I thought it was the group of people ahead of us that were singing loudly but it turned out that it was actually chanting coming from a nearby Romanian Orthodox Cathedral.

Isn’t it fucking gorgeous? I love churches so much.

You know it’s beautiful when there’s a large group of young guys who were clamoring to get their pictures taken in front of it. First, they were taking turns snapping pictures of each other and then finally some guy took a group photo for them. It was actually really adorable to watch.

Meanwhile, I went over to the side where candles were set up because if there is one thing I love doing, it’s paying churches for the permission to light a candle.

There are so many things to light a candle for these days, it was hard to choose.

Then I saw that people were just walking in freely so… monkey see / monkey do.

There was definitely a small mass going on. I thought it was interesting that the entire floor was devoid of pews, but people were kneeling and/or sitting in these ornate high-rise wooded chairs along the sides.

I was trying to take covert pictures from my hip. This is the ceiling.

We stayed for about 15 minutes, listening to the church-y chant/singing, and then continued on our evening stroll of Sibiu. I told Henry later that this was my highlight from Sibiu and he looked perplexed because it wasn’t his, lol.

(In my vacation journal, I wrote: “He said it wasn’t his favorite part but he found it ‘interesting.” Wow OK no one asked.”)

The Bridge of Lies at night.

There was a little market happening in a small square near the Bridge of Lies, so we went and checked that out. I almost bought a fake/deformed Labubu just so I could say that I bought a fake Labubu in Romania but I honestly couldn’t choose one, they were all so perfectly ugly! Henry almost got a kurtas (Hungarian chimney cake) but I stopped him because the guy was handing out ones that were sitting there, wrapped in plastic, and not ones that he had freshly made. “You don’t want your first kurtas to be cold and stale!” so he actually listened to me and bought a house-shaped gingerbread cookie from another stand instead, to save for the drive the next day.

We went to a little store called CarreFour to look around and ended up buying two bottles of beer (one was Ciuc which Henry drank that night in the room, picture in the Victorian House blog post!) and an Ursus IPA. I got to help one of the older women workers find something she was attempting to restock in the candy aisle and it was a nice and pleasant moment that broke the language barrier. I was so excited to beat Henry too because I could tell he was about to point it out for her.

On the way back to the room, we relented and stopped at one of the many gelato stands because I needed to know, even though we were so full. I chose some baklava flavor and asked for a small scoop in a cup. Being handed the equivalent of a shallow Dixie cup in return was a jarring (but good!) reminder that we weren’t in fat-ass America anymore, where a “small” is comparable to a “large” everywhere else in the world. It was the perfect amount – maybe about 5 or 6 bites. It definitely wasn’t the best gelato I’ve ever had though, I will tell you that honestly lol. (I HAVE BEEN TO ITALY, BRO.)

Then we went back, put on a Romanian music channel on TV, and passed the fuck out.

p.s. Here’s one of my lame and pointless videos recapping our Românian arrival that morning (1AMish!) and then the morning driving to Sibiu after we allowed ourselves to crash for 5 hours.

Sibiu was our first real stop on our Transylvanian roadtrip and it was everything it was cracked up to be! And by that I mean it was just like all of the travel vlogs I watched on YouTube, lol.

Here is a map of Day 1, which shows us flying into Bucharest, staying at the Scala Boutique and then embarking by car to Sibiu. I wish the map was more detailed so you could see the crazy roads that lead us there!

And here are some quick facts about Sibiu:

• pronounced Si-BOO;
• it’s known for its Germanic architecture and most notably, the vents in the roofs look like eyeballs. I LOVED THIS, OBVI;
• it was built by the Saxons in the 12th century so it is super elderly as far as cities go.

I was really stoked to see this place with my own roof-top eyeballs!

Literally the first thing we did after finding a parking spot was go to our very first Luca! I fucked up and ordered something with ham & cheese and realized it before it was even in my hand, so I hurriedly added a pretzel-y thing to the order. I barely even got to taste it though because immediately after this, our guest house host came to get us! We were staying right across from Luca so that was how I found my way back each time, lol.

Dude, you know I’m framing this! Luca is extremely popular in Romania. They are honestly everywhere, sometimes even two on the same block. There are other similar places too – walk-up bakeries/cafes all over the place, you could never go hungry. Snacks abound, and extremely cheap! I think this pretzel thing was like $1 USD.

It was drizzly when we arrived but we had umbrellas and there was no way a little rain was going to hold us back after being in a million airports, planes, and a car for 4 hours that day. If I had to recap our stay in Sibiu, it would be that we literally just strolled about with no major plans, just taking it all in. Our first taste of Romania! I kept saying, “WE ARE IN ROMANIA” to which Henry would say, “Yes, I know.” But at least he wasn’t using his annoying dad tone. I could actually tell that he was excited to be here too and even though we were incredibly exhausted and jet-lagged, we had a really great first day. (If you ignore the fact that I changed out of a skirt into jeans in the parked car because it was raining and at least 15 degrees colder than it was when we left sunny Bucharest, and in doing so, I tweaked my back GOOD. So I spent the whole first day saying things like, “Oh look at that building—OW MY BACK.”)

(Oh, don’t worry – there would be other afflictions as the trip progressed, lol.)

Dude, Romanians LOVE gelato. There were at least 5 different gelato stands in the plaza outside of our guest house. It was insane.

Dude. 👀👀👀👀👀👀

Piata Mare (Big Square) is home to restaurants and the Roman Catholic Parish Church.

We would eat dinner at one of these places later that evening!

We paid a small fee to go to the top of the Council Tower after getting scammed by a man selling magnets for 5 LEI more than another souvenir in another square, which made Henry lecture me about my kneejerk purchases. Can it, Hank.

The lady in the admission booth was on the phone and  I felt like we were interrupting something important, being pesty tourists. Turns out, this would just be the general feeling as we went through the country, lol!

There were rooms along the tower with local artisan wares for sale.

At the top of the tower, there was one other couple but they left soon after we barged in like big clunky Americunts. It was really nice having this space all to ourselves knowing how crowded Sibiu gets during the spring and summer season.

When a city is this (Si)biutiful, not even some raindrops can detract from that. I could have looked out of these windows all damn day.

I don’t want shampoo I used in the hotel in Bucharest but shooooo, did it give me a great hair day! Actually, every day was a great hair day in Romania. I don’t know what was going on over there.

Trying to get the views in the background!

Aerial view of the treacherous steps. Not as scary as the ones in Tallinn, Estonia though!

The Bridge of Lies! Per Wiki because I am lazy:

The Bridge of Lies has many legends surrounding it because of its name. The most popular one has it that the bridge will collapse when someone tells a lie while standing on it.^[1] Another legend says that the bridge was often crossed by merchants who were trying to fool their clients. The ones who were caught were tossed off the bridge. According to another legend, the bridge was a meeting place for boys attending the military academy and their girlfriends. The boys wouldn’t show up, leaving their girlfriends to wait until realizing they have been lied to. One legend also has it that the bridge was often crossed by young lovers who swore each other eternal love. The girls swore that they were virgins, which often turned out to be a lie after the couples got married. As a punishment, they were thrown off the bridge, since it was the place where they had lied to their lovers.^[2] Another legend about the bridge talks about how there may have been a large lake underneath the bridge, in which freshwater mermaids lived. They would lie to their merman husbands to meet their mortal lovers on the bridge above. Then, they would jump off into the lake when finished.

Despite all the legends, its name has a different origin. The bridge was initially called Liegenbrücke, German for lying bridge (lying as in “to lie down”), which sounds very similar to Lügenbrücke, meaning “bridge of lies”. The legends have helped the latter spread among the city’s people, which is how the bridge came to get its current name.

Can I just quickly say that I bought that Vans crossbody mini-bag because it was the perfect size for my vacation journal? That bitchin’ book came with me e v e r y w h e r e, much to Henry’s chagrin. I wrote the ink out of approx. 4 pens in a week, I wish I was exaggerating. Every time we sat down, I was hunched over it, scribbling away. I didn’t want to forget a thing, especially since I knew I wouldn’t be blogging much while there. I am a freak for documenting my life, so sorry if that annoys you. (HENRY.)

Hermannstadt is the German name of Sibiu.

Here, enjoy some more pictures:

I loved the color of this building.

If you ignored the gaggle of cars parked haphazardly all over town, you really did feel like you had stepped back into another time. Obsessed.

This is getting too long so I’ll stop here and come back to tell you about our first taste of traditional food and experiencing a Saturday night mass at one of the churches, by chance. I told Henry it was my favorite part of our time in Sibiu and he mumbled, “It wasn’t mine.” Wow, heathen.

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!

The last time we went to Philly, a week after Chooch’s move-in, was to bring him the rest of his stuff. We had a big ass laundry bag of clothes in the car, on which he did his signature dismissive half-assed once-over and determined there was “nothing in there” that he “needed.”

Flash forward a few weeks later, I’m in Romania getting agitated texts from him declaring that he has “no hoodies.” International borders and boundaries don’t exist between children and parents, you guys. Who cares that darling mother and father are on their fake honeymoon, child has needs!!

Henry’s head nearly exploded over this. “THAT WHOLE BAG HE SAID HE DIDNT NEED WAS FULL OF HOODIES!!!”

(Can we pause here to ponder the fact that this is coming from the kid who is “never cold” and wears T-shirts and shorts through December? College has changed him.)

And this is how we found ourselves waking up at 6am on Saturday and driving to Philly.

Fun fact: it’s about the same driving time from Pgh to Philly as it is from Bucharest to Sibiu but waaaaaay less interesting and feels so  much longer. But it’s worth it to SEE OUR PRECIOUS CHOOCH.

First, we walked to this food hall on the Penn campus because I wanted a Goldie tehina shake. They are magical. I also got a falafel pita. We all ordered from somewhere different – Chooch got a forage burgers at Gouldburgers and Henry got chicken at some place that took forever and he kept walking over to decode what was going on behind the counter.

“They’re all just standing there!” he reported back 3x but Chooch and I didn’t care because we had our food and were content, lol.

Then we had to drive to Giant so Chooch could get groceries, legit my least favorite thing to do and I am so vocal about how much I dislike it. I was no help as usual. Just stood in everyone’s way. I did help Chooch choose bags of frozen fruit for smoothies though because smoothies are one thing I excel at even though I haven’t made one for myself since that fateful July morning that Drew died and will probably never again make my own smoothie, we’ll see, but the trauma has affected strange parts of my once-daily rituals.

So fucking boring. Although I was happy when Chooch said that he needed to start eating more fruits and vegetables. Yay! Someone else’s parent probably convinced him of that, who knows.

Back on campus, I demanded that he take us up to the top floor because I wanted to see it. He actually hadn’t been there yet himself?!!? It’s only 3 floors up from his room but I needed to see the views. It’s a really nice space up there – it has a kitchen and a really nice lounge area. I feel like I would be hanging out there a lot if I lived there, but that’s just me.

There were two girls up there doing work so we were mindful of that and kept our weird family squabbles to a whisper.

Then it was picture time, Chooch’s favorite! We got him that Frank Ocean shirt in Bucharest from some streetwear rack at a sidewalk market type thing that we stumbled upon by happy accident. Chooch seemed to actually like it so I was stoked! The Frank Ocean head is separate piece of puffy fabric attached to the shirt and the tag says that the fabric is made in Romania. So I had to get it.

I feel like the only time I look genuine in pictures is when someone is taking a picture of me with Chooch. THAT IS MY REAL SMILE/FACE YOU GUYS. I love him so much and miss him.

The vibe is very different with these two lol. Also would like to point out how much better I am at making sure dumb things aren’t in the picture when I’m the one behind the camera. Henry is the worst at that!

I think this is when I was interrogating him, things like, “If your dad and I got divorced, whose side would you pick?”

“Penelope’s,” he said with no hesitation.

Then I asked him if he’s ever surprised that we haven’t gotten divorced by now and he said, “You literally have only been married for like a year.” He’s giving us a lot of credit!

Then Chooch started saying he was bored which means he was ready for us to leave so he could go play Spikeball or whatever it is he does there on the weekends. I was just so happy to get to spend a few hours with him though! And we booked his flight home for Thanksgiving so I have that to look forward to, as well. I think I’m OK. Things are OK. He seems happy and that is all I need to know.

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

25 years ago last week (missed the exact anniversary, I’m a failure) I went to Canberra, Australia alone to make my dream of seeing the Cure come true. You can’t ever say I’m not a go-getter.

It’s kind of eerie/cool but there were numerous Cure “Easter eggs” around Romania while we were there, like that poster I kept seeinglike that poster I kept seeing, another poster for a concert next summer that they’re headlining with 21 Pilots, and hearing The Last Day of Summer at a bookstore in Bucharest and that is actually one of the songs on the album that the Cure was touring in support of when I saw them in 2000. Such strange and delightful kismet!

OH AND THIS TRANSYLVANIA TCHOTCHKE I HAD TO BUY BC IT LOOKS CURIOUSLY LIKE ROBERT SMITH:

Henry recently digitized my old 8mm tape from that trip and it was my first time rewatching this in probably 20 years. The cringe session was intense. I know I’m going to regret this but here’s the clip of the actual meeting. Ugh I hate myself so much. The way Robert side eyes me and says “we just spent 6 weeks there…” when some radio person tells him I came from America to see them.

Henry just kept saying, “you were just a kid, it’s ok” instead of what I wanted to hear which was, “No! You were great! Look how…not frumpy and awkward you’re being! You made a…great impression! So much…personality! Robert probably still remembers this moment fondly and didn’t even notice the glaze of anxiety on your chubby face.”

Instead, when I said, “Oh…I was going to put this on Instagram but didn’t remember it being this cringy” Henry goes, “yeah I was gonna say, when I was pulling this off the camera I thought, ‘oh she will never want anyone to see this.”

WOW OK SUPPORTIVE.

I still have never properly written about this experience, just little pieces. Maybe Someday.

(THAT’S A CURE SONG BTW.)

Also, here’s a recording of when I was on a radio station in Canberra trying to weasel my way in to meet the Cure lol. It worked!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

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 :)

Bullet point post? Sure, OK.

• I tried to be strong and ignore the fact that Wonho is doing a North America tour but even Henry was like, “I mean…” Granted, I still had to sweet talk him a bit because we are hemorrhaging money – but concerts are my life force. Even more so now than ever. I got very reasonably priced tickets during the fan presale on Monday and I guess now we’re going back to Toronto next month. But it’s Wonho! And he is worth it.
• In my dream last night – I know, I know, dream recaps are so lame – I had decided to go back to college. Like, at the age I am now, but I was literally living on campus in similar student housing that Chooch has this year but much older and dated. I had several roommates and I think it was coed. ANYWAY, prior to this, Henry had taken me out to get groceries and then we met our friend Brittany (sans Todd) at some place for lunch. There were other people there I didn’t know, but I had leftovers so I was stoked to have food for later. Because, college student. But then later that night after Henry left me for home, I realized that I left everything – the groceries and leftovers – somewhere AND HAD NOTHING. Oh, the way my panic was so palpable that the first hour of my morning was fucked today after I woke up. It was so bad. And on top of that, I was running away from a skunk that was unlike any skunk I have seen but when I got back to the apartment building, I heard the fire alarm going off and I was trying to stop one of my roommates from going in but it turns out she was mad at me because she allegedly heard me “talking about her” when she was in the room and I didn’t know it, so I had anxiety over that and was trying to back-pedal, and then she said, “Besides, the fire already happened.” Then it turned it out I was there for some undercover assignment, but I wanted to go home and I felt so lonely and trapped. I told Henry this and he said, “Yeah, I can see the food part totally happening IRL though, you depend on me.” Wow.
  • Cool story, Erin.
• Saturday night, Henry and I had finally* finished the final episode of Squid Game and I was so traumatized, then I opened Insta to a post of an empty cat bed and immediately knew that this cat I follow – Ella – had died. I started sobbing before I even read the caption. All of this happened in the minute it took Henry to go to the bathroom so he returned to find me crying on the couch. He looked so confused, so I wailed, “A CAT I FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM DIED.” This is why I hate social media pet accounts! I mean, Chooch ran one for Drew and it’s just … there now.
  • *I could only watch one episode every few weeks because I’d have to mentally steel myself each time. That was one of the hardest shows I have ever endured.
  • Speaking of Drew, I cried big and hard over her this morning. Grief comes back to bite us when we least expect it. And for some reason, ever since she died, Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl Like You” and Cutting Crew’s “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight” are impossible for me to listen to without feeling every ounce of my body ache with sadness. I don’t know why I relate these to her now but they used to be two of my favorite songs and the radio shockingly plays both VERY often. The Foreigner song came on around 5AM one day last week and rocked me out of a deep sleep. I just lay there in bed trying not to cry and feeling like I was trapped in the worst nightmare.
    • I still keep her food bowl next to Penelope’s. </3
• Speaking of Penelope! She is a very good girl, the best girl, and I am dreading leaving her for 10 days.

• My backyard friends have also been doing well. I think Girl Buddy 2.0 had babies but I don’t know where her nest is now! We haven’t had babies around here since spring so I’m hoping to see some little ones here soon. Additionally, I also have a bun-bun who follows me around now.
• Well, I thought I wasn’t going to have anything else to say tonight but then I went upstairs to start packing and saw that MOTHERFUCKING HENRY had taken the jeans that I FOLDED IN A REALLY COOL WAY THAT I LEARNED BY WATCHING A YOUTUBE SHORT YESTERDAY AND SAID TO HIM, “I FOLDED MY OWN JEANS IN A REALLY COOL WAY THAT I LEARNED BY WATCHING A YOUTUBE SHORT” only to see that HE TOOK THOSE JEANS, UNFOLDED THEM AND ROLLED THEM. WTF?? Yes, I lost my shit because:
  • It was hard for me to do!
  • I can’t just “do it again” because I ALREADY FORGOT HOW
  • the whole point is that ONCE AGAIN IT PROVES THAT HE DOES NOT FUCKING LISTEN TO ME. I stood in front of him so proud and told him that I had folded them!
  • I DON’T FUCKING CARE IF YOU THINK THIS IS PETTY. THIS IS A BATTLE THAT I CHOOSE TO FIGHT I AM NOT WALKING AWAY FROM IT.
  • He tried to get MAD AT ME for BEING MAD AT HIM and no hahaha uh uh motherfucker that’s not how this is going to work here.
    • I DON’T EVEN WANT TO GO NOW.

UPDATE: Henry apologized and watched the video on how to fold jeans and refolded them for me lol.

No one asked, but my Nourish app journey has been going well! It’s been a little over a month and I did go into this knowing that I lose weight extremely slow but something clicked into place the other day and after having lost 2 pounds in the first several weeks, I dropped 3 more since Friday and I am so stoked! Mostly because I CAN SEE THE DIFFERENCE. I feel so much better, I’m sleeping better, I have more energy. And I really love my dietician! We’ve had three Zoom calls so far so I like that it’s not a strict weekly check-in. And she is so encouraging and praises me for my protein and fiber intake! She’ll say things like, “You tend to go over your carbs, but I’m not mad about it.”

Perimenopause has been such a silent pest over the last 1-2 years! I was doing so well, not needing to track my food, staying active, and then BAM – I gained ten pounds over the last year, mostly in my belly – and none of my old diets and tricks have helped. I was in such a calorie deficit all summer, walking every day, doing cardio, lifting. Not a single ounce dropped and no muscle tone gained (because while I was gaining weight, I was losing all of my good muscle tone!!!). It has been so frustrating, mostly because I honestly am a very vain person. I care deeply how I look, and I’m not ashamed to say that. However, I am ashamed to admit that this has caused me to cancel plans in the past and actually fear going to social events where I have to eat, so that part is not good.

And that’s why I finally took Henry’s advice and found professional help because apps alone aren’t doing it for me. I need a real person. And Amanda, my dietician, has opened my eyes bigly to all the errors of my ways. I never ever fucked with macros before. It seemed too complicated. But she has set my goal numbers for me and it is very fascinating having to adjust my diet to make sure I’m hitting my goals, rather than just counting calories. Especially as a somewhat vegan-leaning vegetarian.

After our initial consultation call, we had a check-in after a week to see how things were going with me tracking my food and understanding macros, etc. I didn’t know this at the time, but dieticians have access to your “journal” on Nourish so I had to sit there while she went through EVERY DAY OF MEALS that I ate in the last week, stopping to make comments (“You could have added some more protein here by xyz” type shit) which was jarring at first and I felt so under the spotlight.

“OK first of all, it’s no wonder you like having smoothie bowls every day – these look SO GOOD! But wait – it says here that the smoothie bowl you had on Saturday had tofu in it. That must have been AI putting in inaccurate information,” Amanda said. But I said that no, that was probably right because Henry has been known to slip in some soft tofu in there to bump up the protein.

“That is brilliant!” she said. “Oh my god, I have never heard of that – what a hack!” and then she went on to praise Henry for his ingenuity and his pretty smoothie bowl plating (“bowling”?) like, OK we get it! EVERYONE LOVES HENRY. HENRY IS THE HERO OF EVERY STORY!

Ugh.

AND JUST SO EVERYONE KNOWS I AM 100% SURE THAT HE DIDN’T MAKE UP THE TOFU HACK!! It’s probably a very well-known thing to do in the veg community AND HE PROBABLY LEARNED IT FROM ONE OF HIS GRANOLA MOM COOKBOOKS!!

I mean, he does make very visually appealing smoothie bowls. And they are delicious.

BUT STILL!!!

THIS IS ABOUT ME!

Sigh.

Anyway, this has been my dietary update. I am super happy with Nourish, adore my dietician (we chatted about Romania last week and she was like “please don’t track your food but please DO post pictures of it because I want to see!” 😂) thankful that my insurance covers it, and grateful that it is helping me conquer my fear of food! I am 46 and learning how to eat, better late than never! Hahaha ugh.