In the Carpathian Garden. The City of Queues

 

By the time one of us (and let's be clear, not me) managed to roll out of bed, it was pushing 9am. We wandered to a nearby café and ate some sandwiches, cured salmon, and poached eggs, joined by four dogs who weren’t exactly the best of friends with each other.

Since the hotel had decided a hard log was a suitable substitute for a pillow, we ventured to the reception to request something softer and less tree-like. Turns out, the hotel's pillow inventory was exclusively limited to these wooden impostors, but a supremely helpful young man handed me the address of a department store where tourists can purchase a pillow worthy of dreams. He shared a tale of his own pillow struggles, confessing he's been traveling with his own pillow for six years, which has seen more hotel beds than a bedbug inspector. Grateful for the insider info, we headed back to our room, pillow-less.

By 11am, it was crystal clear that our planned excursion to the Black Sea was off the books for today. Instead, we headed to Ceaușescu’s residence. No walk-ins allowed, and since the next tour was more than half an hour away, we skipped the wait. We strolled through the nearby park and, dear loyal reader, snapped some photos foryou of a children's slide that, I kid you not, seemed designed to train future bobsledders from toddlerhood.

Learning from yesterday’s missteps, by 1 PM we were back at the market. The queue at the mici stall was impressively long—it reminded me of old times when floral fabric arrived at the textile shop, and half the town would line up, hoping the supply wouldn’t run out before their turn. After a 20-minute wait, we secured the mici. Scott also grabbed a bottle of beer from his favorite vendor from yesterday, and polished off all four sausages in record time. Speaking of the vendor, when Scott asked her if she spoke English while buying beer the previous day, she gave him a long look from head to toe and declared she spoke Romanian, English, French, and a bit of Spanish. They immediately hit it off and chatted away.

In the evening, we returned for more fresh pasta and planned to watch the illuminated fountains, but ended up just crashing at the hotel instead.