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!

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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.

Once again, I was compelled by the power of G-Dragon. For the longest time, I have wanted to get some type of Seoul 1988 Olympics memorabilia because G-Dragon, born in 1988, has made Seoul 1988 Olympics kind of his thing. He can very often be seen wearing Seoul 88 hats. I’m not a hat-wearing, so I went on eBay in search of anything else and I found this jacket at a super reasonable price!

It is honestly SO GOOD. Yes, it stunk like someone’s basement closet from 1988 for sure, but with a bit of airing out it’s fine now! It’s the perfect fall jacket too, I love it so much.

The Mister Softee shirt I wish I had been wearing in Philly last weekend! Also, my Vans match it perfectly which really tickled me.

Also? Eat Flem.

Blair Witch shot.

Oh I look so friendly here but I am actually berating Henry through this fake-ass smile. “Can you please just take the picture without fucking it up, thanks.”

We won’t talk about how frustrating Henry was being in his photographer role. I mean, we got through it but Chooch would have done it better!

I liked this tree.

Also, you can’t tell here but the front has “Leon” embroidered on it which is EVEN BETTER because one of the things I learned on our first trip to Korea in 2018 is that Leon: The Professional has something a bit bigger than a cult following there?? There was Leon merch everywhere – phone cases, socks, etc. I don’t exactly know the lore behind it but it’s a real thing, Leon is big in Korea. So this jacket is even that much more of a chef’s kiss!

Anyway, that’s all from Sunday. I’m tired.

Hello from a late Saturday afternoon in October. The weather has been so beautiful today- sunny and cloudless blue skies. Though, a little bit too hot for my liking now that we’re into fall. 80 degrees but feels so much hotter in the sun!

I started the day off with some Japanese walking around the ‘hood. I can’t remember if I mentioned this on here but for the past month or so, I have been doing Japanese walking every single day. It’s 10 rounds of 3 minutes of walking, alternating between very fast paced and then slow. It’s supposed to be really great for heart health and I have to say that the definition of my leg muscles has definitely come back after going into hiding over this past year. (Perimenopause comes at you in all kinds of stealthy ways, so I’m learning!)

On my walk, I ran into a dog who I actually thought was a coyote at first and she was like, “PANT PANT PANT, COME FOLLOW ME!” so I did, I followed her to the next street over, trying to get her to stop so I could see her tag. But then some lady came out of her house and was like, “Sierra!” I asked her if that was her dog and she said no, she lives down the street “and is always getting loose.”

:(

Poor Sierra was running around with her leash on, ready to go!

Anyway, the lady took it from there but in my head, I was like, “Maybe Sierra doesn’t want to go home. Maybe Sierra wants to live with YOU.” I mean, she ran straight to her house!

I dunno, that made me feel sad.

Then after breakfast, we went to AAA so that I could get my international license. I originally wasn’t going to get one because Henry said all the cars in Romania are stick but they’re not, actually??? The one we rented is automatic so I can drive it. Not that I plan on it, but just in case!

The lady who assisted me was nice enough but lowkey made me feel like I was being interrogated by Homeland Security?? And then I felt like she thought I was trying to scam her because Henry legit just added me to his AAA plan WHILE HE WAS SITTING THERE WAITING FOR and when she asked me if I was a member, I started to say no, but then suddenly—–

“I texted you the membership card!” Henry said in my ear.

Henry was IN THE CUBICLE WITH US NOW, LIKE SO CLOSE THAT WHEN I TURNED MY HEAD AFTER THE SHOCK OF HEARING HIS DISEMBODIED VOICE, I ALMOST BRUSHED MY CHEEK AGAINST HIS SHIRT??? It was the biggest non-haunted house jump scare, almost like a GREY POUPON moment, with him fucking vaporizing into the space at the very mention of “AAA member.”

Did somebody say AAA MEMBER??

Meanwhile, this lady kept getting my name wrong. She kept calling me Kelly and then I noticed that she had my name reversed in whatever she was typing so I had to correct her.

“That must be difficult,” she said about my audacity of having two first names.

Yesh, apparently it is VERY DIFFICULT for many people if you go by the amount of times I’m “Kelly”d at work by people outside of our department ON THE DAILY. I cannot say for sure that there has ever been a day that has gone by in my 15 years without me being misnamed at least once.

She did get it right on the license at least, but on my receipt she fucking spelled my last name with THREE Ls.

KELLLY.

Ok.

Over that portion of the day.

Then we went to the grocery store to get some travel-sized toiletries, and I was so annoyed the entire time because I was not cut out for grocery shopping.

“Jesus Christ, that took forever!” I oof’d as we left the check-out.

“We were literally here for 15 minutes,” Henry time-splained.

“Well, it felt like all day, like we should be walking out to moonlight.”

After this, we went to Lolev in Lawrenceville because they have a pumpkin stout which honestly sounded disgusting to me BUT it’s called SEVER and it has MICHAEL MYERS ON THE CAN. I felt like I had to have it.

We got there literally right as they opened and got a robust, “Welcome! You have the distinction of being the first customers of the day!” from the bartender. You know how I love me a warm welcome! So right away, I knew I was right to claim that this place is my favorite local brewery.

I knew, at that moment, that we were not going to “just get the Michael Myers beer.” I mean, first of all, Henry asked for a half pour of it to try and I was like, “Well in that case, I’m getting one too.” I got their Oktoberfest / Marzen which was a delight. So, then we settled in at the bar at this point and chatted with the bartender who was very informative and friendly, which we love to see. I was telling him that I only recently got into beer and Lolev is BY FAR my favorite, the one place that I keep thinking of, ESPECIALLY their matcha beer! He said that I’m not alone in that camp, and that it will be back in March!

He seemed really touched though by the praises I was doling out and Henry decided he had to get into the convo too and said, oh my god hold on I have to get in the right headspace to relive this moment, put my cringe-resistant pants on.

OK, 60-year-old blue collar professional driver Henry said, ahem: “Yeah some places around here have good aesthetics but then the beer is mid.”

EXCUSE ME SIR WHAT IN THE GEN-Z IS THIS.

Aesthetics??

Mid??

I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the bartender but I was straight SHRIEKING in my head, and as soon as we left, I lost my shit and laughed all up in his face.

Never mind the fact that I told the bartender about my HAUNTED HOUSE JOURNAL COLLECTION circa 1995. This was after he sold me on the 2025 Pgh Brewery Passport Book. “You seem like someone who likes to keep track of things and take notes,” he said. BOY AM I EVER.

But wow – that one half-pour almost decommissioned me for the day! I might enjoy the taste of (some) beers now but I am still a light weight. And honestly, let’s keep it that way.

The end.

We only got about 2 – 2.5 hours with Chooch on Saturday but it was so worth it. We got to University City a little after 3PM and there was a flea market thing going on so one of the streets was blocked off AND THERE WAS A MISTER SOFTEE ICE CREAM TRUCK PARKED PLAYING ITS HAUNTING MELODY!

“Did you get a Mister Softee???” I panted by way of greeting.

“No,” Chooch sighed because unlike me, he does not fine reasons to obsess over the little things, like an East Coast soft serve franchise with a creepy cone logo. 

“I wish I had worn my Mister Softee shirt,” I murmured through waves of regret.

This time Henry got to take the elevator up – we did not make him climb 20 floors, which is he STILL crying about, by the way. In fact, I even texted Chooch the other day and said, “OMG guess what he’s crying about right now.”

“Idk. The steps?”

DING DING DING.

“I’m sorry, but you two fuckers LEFT ME IN THE STAIRWELL. I could have had a heart attack!!! I could FEEL MY HEART BEATING IN MY EARS,” Henry raged from the kitchen when I told him I ratted out his whining to our judgmental son.

Chooch actually had one of these already on his desk! Granted, he had it upside down, but that’s fine. I fixed it, framed the Marvel Cave one, and then picked up the ICONIC picture of Henry rummaging through my backpack in the Busan train station. Chooch took this picture of him that day and we laughed about it heartily for the rest of the trip. I can vividly remember sitting at a table in the train station, nursing drinks from a cafe, and cracking up over this while Henry sat alone and smoldered haha. We were so slap-happy. Then I printed and framed the picture for Chooch that Christmas.

Meanwhile, I presented one of his roommates with the shoo-fly pie we had brought from Dutch Haven and I don’t know what I was expecting, the equivalent of a Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes winner reaction, but he was like, “OK” or something and I was like, “WOW OK” and then stewed over that for the rest of the day. I brought it up immediately after we left the room and were waiting for the elevator.

“I don’t think your roommates like me,” I whined to Chooch, who did not care about this at all and said, “Well, they were having a conversation and were distracted” but ONLY ONE OF THEM WAS IN THE ROOM DURING THE PIE PRESENTATION.

“I like your high school friends better,” I said sadly but also not without a hearty dose of crybaby poutiness.

“Wow,” Chooch mumbled, again not caring.

Then we took Chooch to GIANT, a grocery store which is apparently of no affiliation to our local Giant Eagle grocery stores. He’s trying to be a grown-up I guess and opted for the lowest tier of the dining plan and alleges he will be “cooking” at “home” for most of his meals.

Um.

‘K.

Henry left us to go to the bathroom so we wandered down the baking aisle where Chooch started to ogle the flour.

“I should get flour,” he said.

“For what??? Isn’t that for BAKING?” I cried, gagged by incredulity.

“Um, yeah, that’s why I want to get it,” he scoffed.

“Well, I don’t know what kind you’d need so you have to wait for him to come back from the bathroom,” I said, dusting this whole uncomfy sitch off my shoulders.

“Yeah, I wasn’t asking you, believe me,” he sighed.

He did grab a thingie of sugar though because he said they “made lemonade” whatever that means the other night and had to use I forget what to sweeten it. Honey I think he said, I quit listening because I WAS SO BORED.

While we were there, Henry signed up for a Giant loyalty card thing because he’s a good homemaker. Chooch also made us buy him a pineapple plant, not shown.

And just like that, our time with Chooch was up. We took him back to his apartment, his roommates came down to help him with the groceries, and then Chooch and I hugged goodbye awkwardly which ACTUALLY IS PROBABLY JUST AWKWARD TO EVERYONE ELSE BUT  NORMAL FOR US SO LEAVE US ALONE.

This was Henry’s truck stop dinner later that night. He had to assemble his hoagie that he bought at 7-Eleven and that’s the face he made after I started dry-heaving to best convey my disgust at this splayed meat exhibition.

Also fun to note is that I was still on a mission to get all of my steps for the day so at every truck stop, I made Henry walk all around the parking lot with me, EVEN THROUGH THE BIG RIG SECTIONS and we started laughing because to all of the truckers in their cabs, they probably thought I was a LOT LIZARD leading Henry to the PARTY ROW for some COMMERCIAL COMPANY.

Why yes, I did Google trucker sex lingo and apparently there really isn’t much they use over the CB in case the POPO BE EAR-PEEPIN’. But I learned PARTY ROW and COMMERCIAL COMPANY after going down the lot lizard rabbit hole and just an FYI, I learned about lot lizards back when I had a Blackberry and used to play around on some CB radio channel on it with truckers.

Well, I guess that’s all. Chooch is officially back in Philly, working his co-op which he said seems cool so far, and learning how to make things with tofu which is already a step ahead of me.

I’m not crying about him being gone, I’m crying about him surpassing me in the cooking area.

Just so  you know.

1. I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

I asked the library to recommend books written by Romanian authors or set in Romania to help me prepare for our trip – I like to educate myself on more than just “Instagram famous cafes” when I’m traveling somewhere new, OK?? Anyway, this book was EXACTLY what I was hoping for.

It’s technically YA I guess, but didn’t really feel that way. Set in 1989 Communist Bucharest, it was very eye-opening. I feel like this is a leg of Communism that we don’t really learn about in school, and it was kind of blowing my mind to know that while I was reading the Babysitter’s Club books and going to roller skating parties, kids in Romania were being blackmailed and spied on by turned family members.

Five stars. I highly recommend this book but can understand why, in our current climate here in America, it might not be the best read.

2. Human Rites (Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, #3) by Juno Dawson

OK this is why I don’t like fantasy series! I adored the first two books in this series but by the time I got around to reading the last one (hopefully this is it!), I had completely forgotten what happened in Book 2 and felt so lost. Way too many character arcs, plots, side missions, etc. I quickly lost interest and fell out of love with this case of misfit witches. Literally any single one of them could have died and I wouldn’t have felt a thing, which was not the case at all during the first two books.

But again –  I’m not the best when it comes to book series (EXCEPT BEARTOWN AND THE RAVEN BOYS CYCLE!) so take my review with a grain of salt.

3. I See You by Clare Mackintosh

I like this author, and I think I have decided that I like British thrillers best. This one was entertaining and the twist actually got me good.

4. The Lake of Lost Girls by Katherine Greene

OK I expected this to be lame because it was one I got on Hoopla when I was in-between holds from the library. I had never heard of this one but it was GOOD. First of all, great as an audio book because there are podcast chapters. The rest of the chapters go back and forth between two POVs and two timelines – one is set in 1998 and follows a college student who goes missing around a time where other girls from campus also went missing, and the other is present-day and follows her younger sister who is now an adult and sniffing around the case.

This was a GREAT book to listen to on my walks. Another twist I didn’t see coming.

5. Lauryn Harper Falls Apart by Shauna Robinson

Corny but cute, great fall vibes, and I loved that it focused on mending a broken friendship and NOT a romance.

6. Time, Death, and the Unspeakable Secret by Mircea Eliade

Another library recommendation but I couldn’t get through it. Short stories, man. Plus this was way too academic-feeling, like I was reading it for a grade. I couldn’t get myself to enjoy it. VERY dense and philosophical which makes sense because it was written by a Romanian philosopher and professor. So, I’m the problem! Me and my dumb-dumb walnut brain.

7. Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack

What. Oof. OFC this is being turned into a TV series. The worst books always are.

8. 13 Months Haunted by Jimmy Juliano

Not bad! I wasn’t creeped out too much but it was an interesting plot and I loved all of the late 90s/early 00s Internet throwbacks. It made me so nostalgic!

9. Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee

I really wanted to love this but it was too stream-of-conscious-y for me, like reading a series of LiveJournal posts, albeit thoughtful and well-written. Woman gets told by husband that he’s having an affair and wants to leave her, then she gets breast cancer, and somehow expresses absolutely no anger.

10. Too Old for This by Samantha Downing

Super far-fetched but had several LOL moments. I just wanted her to be able to fucking sit down and rest!

11. How Can I Help You by Laura Sims

A former killer nurse gets a job as a librarian. Everything is fine until a new person is hired, and she happens to be an aspiring writer with great observation skills. It was alright.

12. Play Nice by Rachel Harrison

OMG YES. 5 STARS. GAGGED.  I fucking adored this. Rachel Harrison is totally my style with the way she writes her dialogue and the personality she pumps into her characters makes the whole thing come to life in my head. This book took precedence over everything else in my life during the few days I was reading it. I actually got legit scared two nights ago when I was reading it in bed before going to sleep – it was one of those, “JUST ONE MORE CHAPTER AND THEN I’LL TURN OFF THE LIGHT, GET OVER YOURSELF, HENRY!!” moments where I did NOT want to stop reading – and I fucking swear to god I heard movement downstairs and kept whispering DID YOU HEAR THAT to Henry, who had already fallen asleep. I don’t know why he bitches about the light being on when he’s just going to fall asleep anyway, motherfucker used to nap at Warped Tour for god’s sake.

Last night, I was brushing my teeth and a towel slowly fell off the hook behind me and made me scream and practically deep-throat my toothbrush, so that was great.

And this morning I was taking a shower and became acutely aware of the fact that I was home alone and it was still dark outside.

I loved that at the heart of this book though was an INTENSE family drama. And lots of trauma. Grief. Regret. While still making me laugh!!

Yeah, this book checked all the boxes for me. My favorite Rachel Harrison book so far!