Bucharest, September 4, 2024

We wake up and I find ’m covered in mosquito bites from the knees down. Throughout the day, they’ll progress from a mile burning to an itch so maddening I’m prepared to scratch off my skin. We don’t have a tour today, so we wander, and end up in a gothic boutique perfumery and jewelry store. The shopkeeper sprays four scents on me and tells me to walk around, see how they wear, and come back to buy my favorite. Jason was born without a sense of smell, so the perfumes are lost on him; I was born without a trust fund, and as the perfumes are about $300 a bottle, they’re lost on me, too. 

For lunch, we walk outside Old Town to a cafe called FROG. Go here. Have the turkey focaccia sandwich. See god. (Jason says it was good but doesn’t seem as obsessed with it as I am, so your religious mileage may vary.) A woman sitting on the patio greets her friend, who has brought her baby and her dog (the baby is fine but the dog is cuter). I can’t pronounce some of the words on the menu, not even after sounding them out, ask Jason if I’m getting dumber. (I tell him not to answer that; my brother would say I was always this dumb.) 

Turkey focaccia, portokalopita, and coffees

The Contemplation of Lunch, 2024

We wander again, and Jason points out how much graffiti there is: indeed, the lower eight feet of most buildings in this area (and Old Town, too) are covered in tags and some art. We have to scurry across crosswalks as no one seems to slow for pedestrians. We check out a really cool antique shop (Setar Magic) but don't find anything we can’t live without, so we take an Uber to the Village Museum  

Doll with taxidermy duck head at Setar Magic 

Our Uber driver hits us with the one-two punch of racism and sexism (Mayah would call this the “wombo-combo”). First he tells us about how he hates Roma people (using the slur, of course). He follows up with how, while he’s not sure if he likes Trump, “You must admit, he’s very strong.” When we try and share our opinion that he’s actually just a loudmouth buffoon, our driver says “But a woman cannot be president. Women are too soft. They are more…mother. Maternal. And, forgive me for saying so,”—he nods to me—“but, they bleed.” I just channel my friend Kaia and give him a peace sign in the rear view mirror and stick out my tongue. The four kilometer drive feels a lot longer.

The Muzeul Naţional al Satului „Dimitrie Gusti”—National Village Museum—is a large outdoor complex made up of relocated historic houses and buildings, most from the 19th and early 20th centuries. As we learned yesterday, most of the structures in Romania pre 1850s were wood and fairly rustic compared to the rest of Europe due to constant Ottoman Empire occupation and warfare, meaning they didn’t last centuries. In recent decades, when rural villages were flooded for things like hydropower, some of the buildings were purchased by the state and transferred here. 

Carving on a church door

The complex smells overpoweringly of manure, but we won’t see any horses or cattle. We will see plenty of those skinny, half-feral cats that are all over Old Town. They are alternately harassed by hooded crows, or do the harassing. A skinny young calico stalks a grasshopper, but wanders away once he kills it. We hear what sounds like mourning doves in several trees, but we never see them. 

Most of the houses and buildings are shut and locked; maybe we’re in the off season? They all have placards in front to tell you where they came from, who lived or worked in them, and show a picture of the interior. My favorites are the church that reminds me of the Black Church in Norway, and the house that was moved with its chicken coop.

House (left) and coop (right)

Interior of one of the few open houses

The plan was to rent a car to get to Brasov the next day. Ironically, in the Uber to pick up our rental car, Jason gets a call from the company to tell us that, as an American, you can’t drive a car in Romania without an international drivers’ license. Even though we can’t pick up the car, they for some reason can’t cancel our reservation. At the ticket counter, they still can’t cancel for us (“Call this number tomorrow and someone will help you.”) 

We go to a coffee shop to make a new plan to take the train to Brasov in the morning. With most other folks I would feel anxious and guilty, but Jason is so easy going that it feels like an adventure; a feature instead of a bug. 

Walking back to Old Town, we pass an Orthodox Church with an evening service in session. We stop outside to lean against sun-warm walls and listen to the priest sing. A man walking past removes his hat when he moves past the doorway. A woman stops and crosses herself three times.