I was expecting the haunted house round-up to be a little on the low end this year since we were away for two of the weekends and didn’t get started until the end of the month – I told Henry, “We’ll just go to like, 2. I swear.” Yet somehow, we ended up doing 6 for the 2025 season, including ONE IN ROMANIA!

This haunt sits at the bottom of the legendary Bran Castle (a/k/a Dracula’s Castle) in Bran, Romania. I won’t like – the area surrounding the entrance to the Castle is lined with lots of souvenir stands that MAY OR MAY NOT be ripping off tourists. I mean, if you want to tour Bran Castle and then buy a deformed Labubu, you can do this here! I bought a magnet and postcards, who cares. Take my money.

But also in this area is the haunted house that everyone online warns is a tourist trap. But as a haunted house enthusiast, can you imagine me going to DRACULA’S CASTLE (it’s not really but you know what I mean!) and then just strolling past the haunted house on the way back to the car without going in?! ME, the dork who still writes haunted house reviews in a paper journal?!

Thank god this was open because it wasn’t even 11am yet by the time we exited the Castle after our tour. As expected, no one else was there, no line to stand in, no wait. We paid the equivalent of $9 USD to the ambivalent young man in the ticket booth and then entered!

Ok my memory of this is wrecked because shortly after we left Bran, the curse of Vlad Tepes hit me by way of a violent stomach virus. But I do remember thoroughly enjoying it even though there was only one scare actor inside, creepily trailing Henry through several rooms.

But it was actually more aesthetic than I was expecting. I guess I was thinking it was going to be super low-tech and no frills, like the old YMCA haunts of the 80a where the walls were lined with garbage bags, but the scenes were kind of popping off, not going lie! There was one room in particular with a slight balcony, and you could look all the way up to the ceiling of the room above, and all the way down to the floor below. I don’t know how to explain it better but while I was distracted taking in all the decorations and scenery, there was a slight trick-floor action where it made you feel like you were tipping over the balcony. I screamed for real, lol.

Overall, it was pretty short and maybe they have more actors inside at night, but as a haunted house girlie, this was a must-do and with admission that cheap, WHY NOT?

I was so stoked that we got to do this!

The first haunt we went to back home was late in the season for us – 10/24! Usually we would have at least 4 or 5 under our belts by then but I was on a mission to make the best of it. We left right after work for Crawford School of Terror(I don’t even think I said goodbye to anyone, I was in such a rush to get there!).

This is usually one of my favorites. They got rid of the digital group # thing so we had to stand in an actual line which was whatever. We had gotten there pretty soon after they opened so the wait wasn’t too bad.

I usually have either a REALLY AWESOME EXPERIENCE HERE or just a so-so one. This was a so-so year but to no fault of the haunt. I still loved the theming and the actors (maybe the upper school-themed floor is kind of getting stale, I’ll admit), but it didn’t hit as hard this year and here’s why:

They just aren’t great at keeping groups from converging. I get that some people run through, others go slow, but if they could have some “check-points” where scare actors step in for crowd control, that would be really awesome because then we wouldn’t have caught up with the parents who brought two girls under the age of 5 in with them, one was so young that the dad was carrying her through, and the scare actors really toned it down around them which was sad for us.

However, it did allow me to have a super cringey and creepy moment with one of the actors after she told the little girls that they were cute and I said WHAT ABOUT ME AM I CUTE TOO with my hands spread out like a serving platter under my chin.

She hesitated but did ultimately say yes! I asked Henry later if he was so proud of me but he just scowled.

Not that I am normal in general but haunted houses really exacerbate whatever is broken in my brain and I can get real dumb and filterless.

This was us afterward when I was being sad that my favorite crowd-pleasing scare actor didn’t seem to be there that night (unless he was a new character that I didn’t recognize?). I do want to also add that I got a pumpkin spice latte from ten Crawford Cafe and it was excelsior. Also, the DJ was asking for requests and I kept saying DO YOU DARE ME TO REQUEST G-DRAGON but Henry wouldn’t bite. So I did not request anything but that DJ was admittedly playing some decent stuff unlike another haunt which I will get to in part 2!! (I’m still angry about it!!)

The following Sunday, we went to the Tour-Ed Haunted Mine. We’ve been here a few times over the years but this was one of the best visits! The people who run it are so friendly and you can tell the volunteers put their whole heart into their parts. I screamed and scrammed my face off, you guys.

There’s a good bit of indoor and outdoor walk-throughs until you get to the entrance of the mine which is the best part, obvi. We got into the mine cart thingie with two other groups, but our car was the last one to be unlocked by a clown so we were at the end of the group while waiting to go into the actual mine portion of the haunt. The clown ripped their mask off and tossed it to the side, revealing an older lady underneath who looked at me and said, “I can’t lock these doors when I’m wearing the mask!” We both chuckled and it felt like a really special moment (or just me needing to get extra therapy because I am always on the hunt for older women maternal figures to latch on to).

“You guys can hang back and go in after the rest of them,” she said, like she knows I’m always antsy about having to go thru haunts with large groups! Then she said I looked familiar and asked me my name and then was like “eh guess not” but then continued to make small talk with us for another minute or two before saying, “ok yinz can go in now. ERIN’S COMING!!!!! WE GOT ERIN HERE!!!”

Goddammit I can’t believe I fell for that!! lol.

Long story short, this was incredibly fun with a plethora of excellent jump scares waiting around every corner. The actors were relentless and effed with us so hard (Henry said of them kept pushing past him to get to me – I think he actually gets sad when he gets passed over because I’m the ultimate target. Poor Henry.)

They got me GOOD at the end, and I ran out screaming bloody murder not realizing that the exit spilled out right by the line of people waiting to get in so, super embarrassing for me but great publicity for the mine!

I was in such a good mood when we left. I love it when haunts make me feel like I’m in high school again!

We had a concert to go to in Columbus last Wednesday night so we made it into a little day trip because we don’t usually get to spend much time in Columbus – we’re either just passing through onto other destinations or we’re there just for a concert so we get there with an hour or two to spare.

Still, we didn’t get in until around 1:30 but still managed to pack in a good bit before needing to get in line at Skully’s later that evening. Here is what we did because this is a fake travel blog!

Our first stop was Koffee Paradise, a Filipino cafe which is actually right outside of Columbus. If there’s ube on the menu, ubet my ass is gonna be there.

However, I done fucked up by getting the coffee flight instead of the twinzilla which is a split cup so you can get TWO different drinks! But I saw coffee flight and got excited so I ordered that and when asked if I wanted hot or iced, I said hot which was actually untrue but sometimes my mouth just moves on its own, like am I possessed by the most docile prankster entity or what?

I didn’t realize that the flight was actually the equivalent of a full sized coffee cup. That was a lot of caffeine even for me, considering I had beasted an XL Dunkin’ hot coffee on the way there. (I mean, I dragged it over the span of three hours but still.)

So, I had four decent-sized hot lattes to imbibe instead of getting the iced ube and frozen matcha in the clever split cup. I struggled. They were all delicious (ube was god tier out of the 4) but I ended up begging Henry to take the tiramisu one because it was too rich and I thought my stomach was going to split.

Ube crinkle cookies were bus. I wish we had ordered more than two even though I had so many lattes to slam.

This place was such a calming vibe and the staff were so sweet. I’m definitely keeping it on my list so that I can go back for twinzilla redemption! Also two younger people came in wearing PTV shirts and I wanted to say that I liked PTV too but I was afraid they’d think I was invading their safe space. Like “ew that mom likes our music, so lame.” (I’m an OG fan but whatever.)

While we were there, the lady in the background of the picture of my coffee flight from Koffee Paradise walked by outside and these places were nowhere near each other so I was screaming!

This bowl was everything I wanted in that moment. I was obsessed with this place. The music was super intense house beats and I approved of that too even though it didn’t really match the vibe?!

Our server liked my ring (an old one from the Culture Shop way back in the day) and we made smiling eye contact with each other while Henry struggled to pay the bill at the table. Like, “please excuse grandpa, he’s used to paying by check at the register.”

He actually said “cash or charge” today and I was like ok 1980s charge card.

Henry got the house veggie burger and really liked it. In case you were wondering, no it wasn’t a vegan restaurant but Henry likes to rub it in my face that he gets veg options so that I can try it. Like this excuses that it took him 23 years to marry me. ;)

After lunch, we still had a lot of time left so we parked in the area of the concert venue and walked around for an hour which is my favorite thing to do after eating. It was really windy that day, I feel compelled to tell the blog that for historical factors. You never know.

We walked past this brewery called Elevator and it looked so cool but Henry was like I CANNOT DRINK BEER I HAVE TO DRIVE HOME TONIGHT – like OK, six hours??

We stopped in Magnolia Thunderpussy to buy Chooch a record and I sent him this picture – it’s the counter he was standing on when he met Chiodos as a baby 🥹.

Then!!! Get this!!! Henry goes, “let’s go to BrewDog.” It was right across the street from the venue and I was like “are you kidding me, you said you didn’t want to drink when I wanted to go to Elevator but OK SURE let’s go to this place that isn’t even local to Columbus!”

I was so annoyed that I couldn’t even enjoy anything we got in this flight (which we shared because Henry was being responsible and I was still full from our late lunch).

(OK fine the beers were good but that didn’t stop me from referencing Elevator in a manner generally reserved for when one partner is constantly reminding the other of their infidelity. “Remember when we could have went to Elevator which looked so much cooler than this place but you said I don’t want to drink beer today like a little bitch?”)

Those were all the pictures I took for Untappd. You’re welcome.

There were only 2 other people there (2 men at the bar) and the bartender was very nice. Especially considering Henry acted like it was his first time at a bar ordering a flight and I was getting pre-show nervous irritation so I started snapping at him and rolling my eyes which as you know is my most shining quality. Everyone says so. It was especially annoying when I was standing RIGHT NEXT TO HIM and he turned around to yell something at me because he thought I was at a table, and i said, “hello I’m right here” with so much derision that it could have passed for a sound effect for evisceration. The bartender light-heartedly said, “surprise!” but was probably nervously thinking, “yeah these people are gonna be the subject of a future true crime podcast.”

We stayed there for at least an hour, nursing the beers, bitching about the govt, and crying actual tears over missing Korea (me).

And we STILL had time to kill after this, not wanting to get in line yet, so we walked down the street to Insomnia Cookies and got some sugary carbs to soak up the beer.

There went our healthy lunch!

(Ok now I’m mad all over again about Elevator and just tried to start a fight with Henry about it as he’s getting ready for bed LOLOLOL.

“We could have made such great memories at Elevator. It could have rejuvenated our love,” I argued.

“You don’t know that,” he mumbled.

“Wait, is that even what it was called? Elevator?” I questioned.

He’s over this lol.)

We ended day two in the second largest city in Romania, Cluj-Napoca, known to some as the BIRTHPLACE OF CONTROVERSIAL GYMNASTIC COACH BELA KAROLYI.

“I forgot to bring my Bela Karolyi shirt!” I wailed in the car.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Henry mumbled. Apparently, Bela defected from Romania back in the day and is likely not a very popular person there anymore anyway. I mean, he’s buried in Texas, for God’s sake. I asked Copilot prior to our trip if there were any Bela-related points of interest to be found around the city and my one true friend Copilot answered, “No.”

Nary a statue. Not even a gym named after him.

Anyway!! We chose to crash in Cluj after our day in Rimetea and Turda because it’s nearby and on the way to the next day’s first attraction. It’s kind of funny because I had little interest in this city as I was mostly focusing on small towns, medieval villages, etc. But wow, even though we only spent a few hours here, I reallllly ended up latching on hard to it.

Before I get into that though, I want to first just talk about the outrageous guest house we had here. I found it on Booking.com (that’s where we booked all of the places we stayed) but I’m not even sure I realized it was a guest house because the pictures made it look like an actual hotel (an old one, which I like).

But then the host was messaging Henry with basically geocache instructions on how to access the place, where to park. She said we could park in the courtyard of the apartment building where she lives, which was within walking distance, but we legit could not figure out how to enter – there was a huge door that needed to be opened and it was right off a busy road so were afraid to attempt that and ended up lucking out by finding street parking right in front of the actual building that the guest room was in.

First we had the wrong floor so that was fun, trying to push open a locked balcony door like we were robbers.

As usual, don’t judge Romanian guest rooms / houses from the outside. The lobby of the building was majorly sketch, the elevator looked like it had been broken for decades, and the outside balcony to the rooms was its own interesting vibe, but then we opened the door….

…to this vibrant palace looking motherfucker??? And we had two bedrooms!?!?

I wrote postcards at this table!

That was the door to the first bedroom. When we first entered, it put us into a tiny foyer, with the door to our room on the left, and the other guest room on the right. Our host said no one was staying in that one at the time, though.

Random top hat! This tracks though because she gave us a list of recommendations in the area and one of the was a steampunk bar/restaurant. And she also invited us as her guests to the RETRO DANCE CLUB that she and her husband own but Henry was like, “I AM NOT GOING TO A CLUB” because let us not forget how he earned the permanent nickname Hoover, after all. To be fair, it didn’t open until 9PM and we were still jet-lagged and exhausted from a full day of touristing and needed to leave by 6AM the next morning because our first stop was 4 hours away. So, I guess I will lay off Henry this time.

But that could have been our chance to make new friends. :(

This is the second room.

This furniture. Shit.

This was the outside of the apartment building.

The host told Henry in a message that the scratches on the massage chair were from her cats LOL so she moved it to the guest room. I tried it when we came back late that night after exploring the city and immediately screamed into the other room, “HENRY WE NEED ONE OF THESE AT HOME.” It had all of the bells and whistles. I made Henry try it after me and he was like, “OK it’s pretty cool but I don’t think we need one?” and then I realized that I didn’t do it right, because I didn’t put my feet in the little foot pockets. So, after Henry was finished with his cycle, I stuffed myself back into it, feet included, and gave it another go. It was actually painful at moments because it felt like very strong hands were gripping me by the ankles and pulling. Like, it had latched onto me like a baby finding a nipple and I started to get a little panicked that it was turning sentient and I was about to have a “Barbara Hershey in The Entity” moment so I turned it off and ran screaming into the other bedroom.

Um, also I didn’t realize that I had been sitting in that chair for about 60 minutes, going through all the different settings. Losing time in a massage chair? That thing is definitely demonic.

Literally, in my vacation journal I wrote:

(11:08pm): So, I had every intention of recapping the rest of the day but when we got back to the room tonight in Cluj-Napoca (birthplace of Bela Karolyi FYI*), I decided to try out the massage chair in one of the rooms and then that turned into me needing to try every setting & suddenly an hour had passed and I have a new husband now. 0.O

*omg can you tell how obsessed I am.

We could see this church steeple peeking out from our balcony.

This was written on the inside of the entrance door to the apartment building, and I thought for sure it was saying something “Go home USA cunts” or something equally disparaging but it turns out “uşă” in Romanian is “door” and it literally says, “Please shut the door.”

After a magical morning in Rimetea, we headed to our next stop: the Salina Turda salt mine! According to the Internet, it was first mentioned in 1271 and has continuously produced table salt from the Middle Ages. It was used as a shelter during WWII!

In 1992, it officially was rebranded as a tourist destination (apparently making it on a 2013 Business Insider “25 hidden gems around the world that are worth the trek” list). Salt therapy must be legit because I felt fucking great the whole time we were there, and now that I think about it, it was probably the longest uninterrupted span of time I have made it without Henry totally getting on my nerves. I actually LIKED him while we were here…

Maybe I need to pad my house with salt lamps. (Those are bad for cats I think so never mind, hard no.)

After paying for our admission, we got to walk down this cool (literally, the temp was dropping as we descended) stairwell.

Looking chopped.

SALT.

This hallway led us to another small set of steps which opened up into THIS:

You can either take an elevator down to the bottom or walk down. There is a set of steps on both ends of the mine, and we opted to cross over to the steps that weren’t near the elevator, since there was a moderate crowd on that side waiting for the elevator.

We were halfway across one of those catwalks, in an attempt to get to the staircase at the other side, when I looked across and it dawned on me that the walkway was held up by wood planks lodged into the rock. I got VERY SCARED, VERY QUICKLY. Like, my heartrate skyrocketed and I kept murmuring, “omgomgomg” and practically sprinted on Bambi legs to the other side. Hoo boy, that was something. I 100% made sure we came up the steps on the other side when we were done, so that we wouldn’t have to walk across that again.

I kept stopping every so often to take another picture from a landing the lower we got. I just thought it was so incredible, being there! And blessedly not very crowded AT ALL for a Sunday. Although, there was a large group of kids that arrived JUST as we were leaving, so we dodged that bullet.

I read that this is the only underground Ferris wheel! It wasn’t operating that day but it’s not what I was there for so I wasn’t sad about that. (There was only ONE ACTIVITY that I was interested in and you will see that soon.)

I thought the lighting in this bitch was so stunning, legitimately.

I kept thinking these were flatrides over there but it was just random lighting around seating areas and the gift shop-thing. (You KNOW I bought a magnet.)

I was getting nervous though because the thing that I wanted to do was nowhere to be found and then I discovered that we weren’t actually all  the way down in the lowest layer yet! There was a separate staircase (and elevator) to take us down the remaining 11 or 13 flights, I can’t remember how many now.

Made it to the bowels of Salina Turda!

THIS IS WHAT I WANTED TO DO THE MOST!!!!!! And it was so un-crowded that day that we didn’t even have to wait! There were only like 5 boats out there at a time and it was so exciting!!

I was supposed to be the navigator but then I got tired of that and stopped and Henry ended up rowing us against the wall and getting his oar caught in the netting, which apparently was my fault. I couldn’t stop laughing about this because Henry was so distraught over it and couldn’t really see what was going on so I tried to convince him that he pulling the whole thing down and that he was probably going to be on the news – “the dumb American who pulled down part of the Salina Turda wall” – and I could NOT stop laughing over this. There must not have been much oxygen down there because I was ridiculously slap-happy.

I also felt a strong kinship to all of the other boaters out there with us. Especially when a boat of three Japanese girls collided with a Romanian (I think?) couple and had a good laugh, I joined in like we were apart of this, even though Henry was only colliding with fragile salt infrastructure and not other boats.

Henry couldn’t see this because it was happening behind him haha. Everything exciting happened behind him.

Salt beach.

He kept having to “take breaks” and “rest” his “arms.” Wow, OK gramps, sorry to cut into your nappy time.

I honestly was obsessed with this weird salt mine lake thing. Henry might disagree because he complained bigly of how strenuous the rowing was and of course I was like, “Wow, I’m so fat, just say it.”

Hearing the water sloshing in this surreal cave was soothing but also kind of scary. OK look, a long time ago I had a REALLY BAD DREAM that I was in a rowboat at night trying to navigate around disgusting and harrowing glaciers in Alaska and that’s why I am, to this day, terrified and DISGUSTED by Alaska and never want to go there. Oh, and the water was actually blood and this whole thing was a rescue mission because there was some awful tragedy like a sunk ship or crashed plane, I can’t remember but it was awful.

And this kind of reminded me of that! But without blood and glaciers. And I actually enjoyed it but also there was an underlying sheath of fear.  So, I was sort of confronting some lingering psychological issues that I legit dreamt up (JUST LIKE MY MOM SAYS ABOUT ALL OF MY PROBLEMS AND TRAUMA).

I love the Romanian flag a lot.

My phone lens was not a fan of this part of the trip though lol. It was on the struggle bus, trying to capture non-blurry shots for me!

Henry big-struggled every time we went under this bridge. Also, we got to do 4 laps because the guy in charge did not give a shit at all. Pretty sure we went way over the 20 minutes we paid for. At one point, Henry called over to him, “DO YOU WANT US TO COME BACK NOW” and dude was like, “Oh, no – you can go around again!”

Henry mumbled, “Great. Thanks.”

:)

These were just sitting areas but the lighting features made it feel like art installations. This reminded me of Korea a little bit!

He’s smiling this big because he’s finally off rowing duty. And probably delirious.

But now he’s just tired.

This was right before it was time to walk back up all of the steps. Remember in September when Henry had to walk up 20 FLIGHTS OF STEPS AT CHOOCH’S APARTMENT BUILDING and then CHOOCH AND I WALKED WAY AHEAD OF HIM and HENRY COULD HAVE HAD A HEART ATTACK??? Well, that was training for our future day at Salina Turda, obvi.

The only thing this place was missing was A CAROUSEL. IMAGINE A ROMANIAN SALT MINE CAROUSELFIE!!

Anyway, what a hugely enjoyable visit! I’m sure our tune would have been completely different if we were here on a summer weekend, but this particular Sunday in October was perfect.

Oh, also note that the elevator to the very bottom only hold 4 people, and the main elevator only holds 7 or 8, so I can only imagine how long those lines can get. JUST SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND IF YOU ARE EVER IN ROMANIA.

——————–

Please enjoy (or don’t) a series of clips from the first Rimetea and Salina Turda (especially if you want to see Henry rowing my fat ass around an echo chamber).

Henry’s recap of our time at Rimetea: “I walked up a hill, I walked down a hill, I took a couple of pictures.” He is actually stunned that I have managed to take a 2 hour late morning stop and stretch it into three whole blog posts.

Hello. It’s me. Erin Appledale. Did you fucking FORGET?

We’re currently en route to Columbus, Ohio for a concert so I figured maybe we could collab on this last recap but he said, “No.”

So anyway! What had happened after the waterwheel detour was that we saw a rocky lane leading up toward the mountains so we decided to walk up that way and see some closer views.

This was the view facing back down toward the town.

  Me being me.

On the way up here, we passed a small parking lot where a group of people were preparing to head out on a hike. And across from them in a small clearing was a man laying down with another pacing around him and giving him what appeared to be a pep talk. I think the man laying down didn’t want to hike the mountain lol. He ended up joining the rest of their group though so good for him!

We weren’t dressed for a hike so we admired the mountains from here.

I actually love this picture so much because I didn’t know Henry was taking it and he caught me genuinely admiring the scenery. No fake smiles!

Ew.

Selfies from both directions, of course.

Chatted with this biggun’ on the way back down but then he found people more interesting in the hiking parking lot and strutted away from us. Typical.

Walked around some more, taking it all in. I just kept saying, “I can’t believe we’re here. Can you believe we’re here???”

Henry said “the scenery” when I asked him for two things he liked about Rimetea and he is either still thinking of a second one or forgot the question already because I never received a follow up.

We wanted to get langos before leaving but I needed to wash my hands first after petting so many dogs and cats during our leisurely strolling. There was a public restroom back by the church. I started to go up the steps to enter but it was a pay-to-pee sitch and the payment thing was broken. Some girl limbo’d under the barrier thing but I was like “no I’m not doing that in these tight jeans and bad back” and also there was an old woman there who also was like “guess I’m not peeing” At least I assume that’s what she was saying in Romanian.

Henry meanwhile was like, “what is the problem? Is this an opportunity for me to be a hero??” And so he walked up to inspect the payment thing and then realized that the turnstile could just be pulled open so he did that for me and then the old lady was like “!!!!” So she was also able to pee, thanks to Henry who earned his “Even in Romania” hero complex badge.

It was a nice little “breaking the language barrier” moment.

After stopping at a gift shop to acquire my magnet, it was finally langos time!! Of course we didn’t know this then but langos is of Hungarian origins – I just knew that it was a popular street food in parts of Romania so it was on my list. It’s fried dough – like a savory elephant ear that you’d get a fair – and the version we got had a creamy garlic sauce and the most delicious salty shredded cheese on it.

There’s a polarizing pizza place in Pittsburgh called Betos that notoriously tops their pizza with cold shredded cheese after the pizza has been baked and I fucking HATE IT. However, this works so well on langos and it gradually melted as we were eating it. Betos could NEVER.

I dream of this langos.

This was intentional – I wanted a picture of our feet on Rimetea ground lol.

Post office! Of course when I don’t need one (yet – this would eat up lots of time in Bucharest because me and my postcard habit) , we seem to bump into them constantly.

Took one last stroll to walk off the langos which we BEASTED.

Even the haystacks in Romania are adorable!!

It was on this street where we passed a house that had a dog that looked like Bambi :( I sent a video to Chooch and he was like OMG THAT DOG HATES YOU!!! because it was barking so angrily lol.

Before leaving, we stopped by the kurtos vending in the parking lot. I did know that this was a Hungarian treat (chimney cakes) but it was here that the vendor struck up a friendly conversation with us after learning we were American (ugh) and explained to us the history of Rimetea, how it was part of Hungary and that most of the people living there are Hungarian. It all made sense after that! I don’t know how I didn’t learn that in my itinerary-planning and appreciated that he took the time to tell us all of this while making us a fresh cinnamon kurtos. (See?? This is why I told Henry not to buy one from that guy in Sibiu. Now our first kurtos got to be an authentic & fresh one!)

This guy was so nice! I will never forget him. Or that kurtos. It was perfectly crispy and cinnamony on the outside, soft and pillowy (and piping hot!!) on the inside.

Mmm. Kurtos.

We left off at the part of the day where we paid to see some old-ass water wheel but here are some other pictures taken prior to that with the DSLR. It took me forever to edit these because apparently our computer is on its last leg so that’s cool. I almost took a sledgehammer to it last night. Many tantrums were had.

The Orthodox Church. For some reason I didn’t get many great pictures of it, but I do have it captured on video which I will post at some point.

I just couldn’t get over the architecture of these houses and that foreboding rocky slab looming in the background! Look, this was a very quiet commune. Yes, there were some tour groups (all seemed to be regional) milling about here and there but it was extremely serene and didn’t feel like a money grab. Well…until we got to the water wheel thing where we were told by the old man manning the grounds that we had to pau 20 LEI to see it, or at least that’s what we figured what was going on. There was no signage or anything and Henry said he felt like maybe we only had to pay because he could tell we were dumb ‘mericans BUT I read on a blog that he apparently does ask that a “pay what you can” donation be made to see his collection of vintage Romanian/Hungarian items and, had we been able to understand Romanian, he’d have taken time to give us a brief tour. I think now, in hindsight, that’s what he was attempting to do. Stupid fucking English. I wish we knew more languages. :(

Here’s the man that collected our watermill dues. Honestly, I was happy to contribute to the livelihood of this charming place and to see his collection.

Henry was like, “NO I DON’T THINK SO!!!” when I asked, “Do you think we’re allowed to climb up there?” but then the watermill guy guided me back in later on and made sure that I climbed up there!! I had to wait because there were idiot kids up there with their parents, doing idiot kid things. But then it was my turn and I got to see the water wheel thing from a different vantage and it was cool, especially because Henry didn’t get to go up there and see it for himself so I felt special.

Apparently, this traditional furniture was hand-painted by the watermill guy’s wife. It was all so beautiful!

Has to be haunted.

Corn is corn no matter where you are, I guess.

But no, come on.  Autumnal visuals on lock!

God forbid I end this post without including any pictures of my goofy mug.

One more Rimetea post coming up and then I swear we will move on to…the afternoon of Day 2. I’M SORRY, EVEN VIRTUALLY I AM A FREAKING YAPPER. I have only gotten to talk about this stuff IRL to 4 people: Sue & Margie last week at dinner, and then my therapist and dietician, LOL. So, I have a lot of words to expel!

“Didn’t you just see them?” Chooch replied when I texted him from the City Winery last Thursday evening, as we waited for the Cold concert to start. Um yes, we did “just” see them back in the spring BUT this was a special, intimate tour in collaboration with the City Winery, and Cold was bringing SIERRA SWAN with them.

SIERRA SWAN!!!

As someone who was big into Cold during their earlier years, I was always sad to never get to see her perform any of the songs on 13 Ways to Bleed on Stage in real life. So when this tour was announced, I tagged my pal Shawn – we were little Cold groupies back in the day! – and he said that not only were he and his wife Jess down for this, but also his brother Dave and his wife Stephanie! I reserved a table for us POST HASTE. I was so excited to get to see Cold again with Shawn – the last time was probably in 2001 (!!!!) and for all of us to get to experience this together as “big” adults.

I did just see them last spring and did my whole emo “blood on the blog” thing after that concert so I will try to keep this short and sweet, but good Lord was it ever a magical night.

I sent this to Chooch, whose response was, “Wow he’s almost smiling.”

The opening band was Edisun and it turns out that not only did I see them open for Cold way back in 2010 (I went with Alisha, when she was still living in Pgh), but so did Shawn’s brother, Dave! Dave was also at the one they did with Evanescence, and so were Henry and me! So crazy, because I think prior to this I had only met Shawn’s brother once and it was forever ago when he was still a kid and I went to Shawn’s house for some reason?! Anyway, Edisun was really great but I felt weird because I was trying to take surreptitious bites of my kale salad (it was such a great salad!!). I’m sorry but it will never be normal for me to eat during a concert!? It’s weird enough having to sit during one. (This one was 100% a seated event.)

Plus, we were only one table back from the stage! The first row of tables were a tiny bit more $$ but honestly, they were TOO CLOSE and I would have felt so weird sitting down and eating that close to Scooter Ward, even though I was done with my (SUPER DELECTABLE*) kale salad by the time they came on.

*I cannot stress this enough – it had a spicy sunflower dressing! It was so good that it was a topic of conversation the next day when I had my check-in with my dietician!

They opened with “Ugly,” prompting the tears to fall from my eyes with no preamble or solicitation. Just a quiet and salty face waterfall. Nothing to see here.

Someone posted it on YouTube! Oh, please watch this.

The whole set was so beautiful and very “Storytellers”ish – even moreso than the last one which was where they played A Different Kind of Pain and 13 Ways to Bleed on Stage in their entirety. The best part though was that it was all different stories that Scooter told this time so it felt fresh and extra special. Scooter is so funny and interesting, and when he tells a story, I hang off of every word. I EVEN HEARD HENRY LAUGHING A FEW TIMES BEHIND ME! If someone can get Henry to take a time out from watching Instagram Reels, that’s pretty major.

There was one table in the front but over to the side full of people who had quickly gotten drunk and chatty, and Henry kept mumbling, “Shut up!” under his breath. Why would you come to this super intimate show and talk?? “Everyone enjoys concerts their own way” – OK, cool, but how are you enjoying it when you’re talking over the band and creating annoying background chatter for everyone else? Call me a Concert Karen if you want, but seriously. Go sit at the bar.

Sorry, this is a screenshot from the one lone video I took all night, but this is THE SIERRA SWAN.

Setlist: (There wasn’t one on Setlist.fm for the Pgh show but I’m confident the Philly setlist is the same)

1. Ugly
2. A Different Kind of Pain
3. End of the World
4. No One
5. Another Pill
6. Suffocate
7. Superstar
8. Bleed
9. Better Human
10. Delivering the Saint
11. The One that Got Away
12. You Got Away (Sierra’s song)
13. Welcome2MyWorld
14. Quiet Now (his story on this song’s background drew tears from the eyes of nearly everyone in that room – probably not Henry – and it of course made me think of Drew and how quiet the house is without her. I am so broken)
15. Trouble Is (Sierra’s song)
16. Strip Her Down
17. Check Please
18. Gone Away

After the show, we hung back at our table and chatted a bit, letting everyone clear out. I really enjoyed our company that night, so so so much! Especially Shawn’s anti-truffle rant which caught the attention of this lady who was there alone and seated at one of the empty seats at our table. So we started chatting with her in between sets and learned she is originally from Florida and moved here with her now ex-husband. She was so nice but I regrettably forget her name because I was drinking a wine flight and I am such a light weight.

I really wanted to say hi to Scooter, after years and years and years of getting so emotional that I would legit run out of venues after losing my courage. Yes, I have two super old pictures with him from 2001 but they are awful. With Jess’s encouragement and Shawn agreeing to accompany me, I decided to try for an updated photo.

Oh you guys. I am still a mess around this lyrical genius. The way he emotes such raw and visceral pain from his entire being just makes my heart race. Even when we first got to the venue and were standing in line to get our tickets scanned, Scooter walked over to the front of the line and my heart was beating so hard that it drowned out everything else in that room. “He needs to leave before we get up there or I’m not going to be able to do this!” I cried to Henry, imagining myself fumbling my phone when trying to show our tickets, dropping it on his foot, bursting into tears and running out of the City Winery.

Typical Erin moves.

Thank god Shawn and Dave took the lead with this one and made it super casual and normal while I was standing there blubbering on about the time Scooter gave me a Starburst in 2001 in Hershey.

“I still like Starbursts,” Scooter said in his cool and quiet way, and you know I have been holding that soundbyte inside the deepest pocket of my brain reserved for all the special shit. Like:

• my Pappap saying “doopah” instead of butt when warning me not to sit on the cold porch floor.
• G-Dragon saying, “I have something to tell you,” in Newark regarding THE BIGBANG REUNION.
• Baby Chooch saying, “You…motherFUCKER!” apropos of nothing.

I’m not saying this in a sexual / lusty kind of way at all, but Scooter had his hand on my lower back and adjusted it several times and I literally thought I was going to die just because he was touching me (NOT IN A STARSTRUCK WAY BUT IN A “THIS MAN’S MUSIC HAS GOTTEN ME THROUGH SOME SHIT AND NOW HIS  HAND IS ON MY BACK” KIND OF WAY I DUNNO I CAN’T EXPLAIN IT BUT SOMEDAY MY FRIEND ALYSON MIGHT READ THIS AND I KNOW SHE WILL GET IT).

“I know,” Henry said in a soothing manner when I cried, “AND I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE WHEN HIS HAND WAS ON MY BACK, HENRY!” on the way to the car afterward.

Scooter also liked Shawn’s moustache!

Yep, you know this signed poster has already been framed. Just gotta find a good spot for it!

Oh! Henry came back to the table with this special edition Cold wine bottle after going to the bathroom in between sets! However, when he was buying it he apparently struck up a convo with the opening back, Edisun, and after the show when we were waiting to see Scooter, one of the guys from Edisun walked by, PATTED HENRY’S SHOULDER AND SAID, “WHAT’S UP, BUD.”

Ew, the gloating smirk I got from Henry after that. Sickening!

LOL it’s OK. He bought me the signed version of the wine bottle so he earned that little moment in the spotlight, I guess. This is me being a grown-up. (Don’t worry, it won’t last long.)

What an absolute banger of a night that I will never forget.

OH! P.S.! The drunk lady that fell at the last Cold show at Craft House was there, and she was actually talking to Scooter right before us. She turned around and, in the true sense of the word, HOLLERED something to her husband, causing Shawn to recoil and say, “Oh my!”

Thankfully, she was sat at a table nowhere near ours. Yikes.

Hello! Sunday started off bright and early with some last minute appreciation of Sibiu. I got a “long black” at what appeared to be a pretty trendy cafe called Amor Perfecto. This was when I was starting to remember that Europe doesn’t do “coffee” like we do in the U.S., but my fancy Romanian espresso was enough to breathe life into me, lol. I’m laughing right now as I skim my vacation journal because after this, I wrote, “I drank it because caffeine is caffeine but I need to figure out how to get just a cup of coffee.”

Yeah, that didn’t happen. Imagine how easy it could have been to just google that but I kept putting it off until I just eventually quit caring.

Anyway, the first item on the agenda for Sunday was a very small commune in Alba County called Rimetea. Approx. 1,000 people live there and it’s about a 90 minutes slightly northwest of Sibiu, below Cluj-Napoca which would be the ultimate destination of the day. The reason I added Rimetea to the itinerary is because I stumbled upon a video about it claiming that the “sun rises twice”  there, thanks to the Piatra Secuiului mountains blocking the sun as it rises, forcing it to “re-rise” a second time as it makes it over the peak. I probably explained that super jankily but hopefully you get it.

As usual, the scenery was so interesting during the drive. I don’t think I ever stopped looking out the window except to scribble thoughts in my vacation journal. I was obsessed with all of the roadside Jesus memorials and cemeteries!

The Aiud Citadel. I’m telling you, if we didn’t have a finite number of days for this roadtrip, we’d have been making all kinds of impromptu stops along the way. As it were, we only had a small window and couldn’t really afford, timewise, to veer off schedule. So there was a lot of, “Ooooh, what’s that???“s shouted dreamily from the car.

But I guess sometimes it’s better to see things in person from a car window than not at all. Sigh.

Eventually, there were less and less towns and mostly just lush mountain views and tiny villages. Plus, stray dogs.

Literally, it was view after view. Every time I would put my phone down, we’d round a bend and I’d be like, “OOoooh gotta get a video of that!” So many of my Romania videos are just me filming out of an open window and I don’t care.

And then suddenly, we drove straight into Rimetea. Google was actually telling us to keep going, but it was very clear that we had reached the part of the village where visitors park, so we don’t know where exactly Google was taking us.

Rimetea is known for it’s white-washed houses and green shutters. I don’t know about Henry but I was charmed immediately. Let’s enjoy some pictures.

A working well! I stuck my head in there and of course thought of “Ringu” and quickly backed away.

It seemed like the other people visiting were Romanian. It was not crowded at all, but there are people who come here to hike the mountain so we did see several groups preparing for that later.

Ew.

The Unitarian Church. It was Sunday and there was a service going on (it honestly felt like the bells were gonging the entire time we were there) so we didn’t go inside.

We saw a bunch of stray dogs and cats while here. I learned pretty quickly in Romania that the stray cats are taken very good care of by the locals (especially the restaurants, who must reward them for being natural rat-repellant) but I’m sadly not  too sure about the dogs. However, here in Rimetea there were quite a few that were chilling comfortably along the main drag where several food stands and shops were located.

THAT GLARE! Channeling my beloved Marcy, I think lol. I could see Marcy being reincarnated and living her best new life in Transylvania.

I was truly so in love with this commune. Quiet. Serene. Beautiful. It really felt like going back to another time.

Can you imagine those mountain peaks looming so Captain Caj in your backyard? Like, oh, that mountain? Yeah, we just deal with it.

Some other facts about Rimetea:

• it was an old mining town
• it’s been around since the 13th century!
• we would learn at the very end of our day there, through conversation with a kurtos vendor, that Rimetea is a Hungarian commune. It’s a plot of land originally owned by Hungary, and the residents are predominately Hungarian who work hard to preserve their culture. I was really confused why the shops were selling things that said Rimetea AND Torocko, and it turns out that Torocko is the Hungarian name
• the Székelys make up another portion of the population, and they are a subgroup of Hungarians living in the Székely Land. I don’t know much about Romanian history but what we learned from the kurtos man is that Transylvania was originally NOT a part of Romania. When it became part of Romanian in 1920 due to some treaty (I’m not a scholar), there was a group of Hungarians who were like, “NO, WE ARE STAYING HUNGARIAN” and I guess designated areas were allocated to them?? You are free to google because my paraphrasing is a mess.

I have more to say about Rimetea but I took some pictures with the DSLR that I need to upload here to go along with that and Photoshop is cooked right now. So, I will be back with a part 2, ugh.

My Halloween costume every year: desperate for trick or treaters, looking like a bitch waiting for her fisherman husband to return home from sea. This might be the worst Halloween yet and some A-HOLE a few houses up (the drunk guy who tried to barge into HNC’s house a few years ago with his drunk wife!!!) has decided for the first time ever to hand out candy so he was hulking around the sidewalk with a CASSEROLE DISH and legit just tried to STEAL A TRICK OR TREATER FROM ME. I had to deer-leap out my front door and cry WAIT COME HERE FIRST.

Eff that guy and his casserole dish.

P.S. I only know it’s a casserole dish bc Henry said “he has his candy in a casserole dish.” Like, why would I ever know what that is, amirite.

I was texting Chooch a play-by-play from the night and I am sure he was sitting at the edge of his seat, caring deeply about this. I was so pissed because this dumb drunk guy NEVER HANDS OUT CANDY?? And I lost an idiot kid to him because I guess walking up sidewalks is too much of a hassle so he and his dumb parents and toddler-sibling in a stroller-wagon with fake leaves and a Jurassic Park sign skipped over my house (I HAD MY PORCH LIGHT ON AND IT’S A COLOR-CHANGING LED LIGHT SO YOU WOULD THINK THAT WOULD INDICATE WE’RE A CANDY-GIVING HOUSEHOLD) and went straight to that asshole because he was SITTING OUTSIDE WITH THE CANDY CASSEROLE PAN. I was livid.

Meanwhile, Henry just sits on his ass the whole time, watching Instagram reels. He is the most brain-rotted adult male that I know and I would love to just rip that phone out of his hands and smash it LIKE HELLO YOU ARE MISSING ALL OF THESE THINGS AKA MY PERFECTLY CRAFTED AND WELL-TIMED QUIPS BUT OK, KEEP WATCHING YOUR JUNK THAT YOU WILL THEN SEND TO CHOOCH ONLY FOR HIM TO TELL YOU HE’S ALREADY SEEN IT AND/OR IT’S NOT THAT FUNNY.

Halloween used to be my favorite holiday but lately I am so sour and bitter because I’m sick of it all!!!

Anyway, I would say we (“we” like Henry ever came to the door even once) got about 7 or 8 kids total. I felt bad because the kid that almost skipped me because of Casserole Asshole was a bit older, maybe middle school or 9th grade, so I thought I was OK to totally barrel out of the door with the candy and cry, “I’m desperate!” Turns out she may have been autistic or something because she seemed really terrified of me and had a very pronounced stutter and I felt really bad for letting my lunacy leave the house with me.

There were NO KIDS who came to this house of their own accord. I had to stand at the door holding my pumpkin basket and literally making, “COME HERE” finger waves like I’m the Old Ass Schizo Widow of Pioneer. (MIGHT AS WELL BE A WIDOW, INSTAGRAM REELS HAS KILLED MOST OF HENRY’S BRAIN CELLS AT THIS POINT).

Meanwhile, one of the people who lives next door did a couple + dog Toy Story costume theme and they looked so fucking adorable sitting out on their porch with their candy bowl, only for NO KIDS TO PASS BY so they gave up and went inside. They did get two small groups of older kids that came to their door after that though (and don’t worry, I got them too!) but it made me sad for them. I hate this fucking street so much.

My last customers weren’t even trick-or-treaters, I don’t think. They were two high school-aged boys walking past with their bikes. I think MAYBE one of them had face paint on, I’m not sure, and I also think that maybe they WERE attempting to trick or treat because they DID have tote bags. They stopped when they got to my neighbor’s sidewalk because they had their porch light on and actually have a few Halloween decorations up, so after I watched them go there, I frantically waved them to my house too. WHAT NICE BOYS. Literally, so polite, so grateful. I told them to take a bunch since we always have so much left, and they still each only took one so I had to insist. They wished me a Happy Halloween AND a good night and you know what? I almost started to cry because I am so sick and tired of the rhetoric I see online about how “only kids of a certain age” should trick-or-treat, and people who “won’t give candy to kids who aren’t in costume.”

Look, I live in a neighborhood of the city of Pittsburgh. There are some rough sections here. Some of these kids could be out doing WAY WORSE THINGS but here they are, politely collecting candy as is the custom on this day. I don’t LIKE kids, you know I don’t, but I like this holiday and Jesus Christ can we just let kids be kids?? I don’t give a shit if an 18-year-old high school senior comes to my door for candy on Halloween. To me, kids are kids all the way through high school. Let them hang on to their youth for a little longer MY GOD.

Also, the costume bit? You don’t know these kids’ lives. Maybe they have parents who are never home because they have to work several jobs. Maybe they just have deadbeat parents in general who don’t care to help in the costume department. Maybe they don’t HAVE THE  MONEY – SHIT SUCKS, REMEMBER? Just because some parents can afford to get their kid a costume at Spirit Halloween, or just because they have the time, ingenuity, and creativity to make a costume for your child doesn’t mean that all parents do. My criteria is “trick-or-treat” and “thank you.” And every kid that came here that night did that and more. They were so sweet and polite. Take all my fucking candy and enjoy being a kid for as long as you can, my dudes.

God, I had such a headache after those stressful two hours! Luckily, the night redeemed itself after that because we went to Castle Blood and had one of the best times there but I will recap that another time. I HAVE TO GO FOR A WALK NOW AND STOMP OUT THIS ANGER.