Here we are in Romania! I know you are saying weren’t thetwinsontour just there? The answer is yes! We were here in October of 2019. But this time we are adding on 3 more Balkan countries! For the sake of 3 more  countries we will gladly visit parts of Romania again. The current country tally is 69, so we will be at 72 by the time we head home.   This is so exciting!

So we do have several noteworthy facts from our flight over here. First of all thank goodness for TSA precheck! Yes, we finally got around to doing that.   Chicago O’Hara is back to being an absolute nightmare.   In order to get to Terminal 5 you have to EXIT, take the train, and go through security AGAIN! The boarding passes for our second flight out of O’Hara didn’t say TSA precheck on them. Luckily, a very nice lady told us to go to the ticket desk and just get a new boarding pass which took us about 2 minutes. (pro-tip, remember this!). With our new boarding passes in hand, we were able to walk right past several thousand people (seriously) waiting in the regular security line.  I estimate that line would have taken about 3 days versus the 10 minutes we spent. TSA precheck is a beautiful thing, and I don’t know how we ever survived without it.

Flying on Austrian Airlines, we were looking forward to watching some good German movies. But none of the German movies had subtitles (in German or English). Needless to say, this did not go well. Apparently, it’s been a really, really long time since I took German even though it feels like it was just a few years ago. On the other hand, once we gave up on German, we really enjoyed “Vivo” another cartoon with music by Lin Manuel Miranda (the genius behind Encanto and Hamilton). Highly recommend if you are tired of not talking about Bruno.

So now to Romania! We arrived here about 1pm and starving! (Despite our snacks and the new candy we bought at the Vienna airport.) Our guide took us to the Old Town where our fist stop was for Portuguese Egg Tarts! Anyone who knows thetwinsontour knows that thetwinsontour LOVE Portuguese Egg Tarts almost as much as they love alliteration. Pro-tip: never pass up a chance to eat Portuguese Egg Tarts. Just don’t do it! Eat ALL the Egg Tarts even if you are in Romania and not Portugal. Thetwinsontour will never lead you astray when it comes to desserts! So after our preprandial pastry, we went to a German Bier Haus for lunch where we dined on bean soup in a bread bowl. Delicious despite the beans! And then we went to what our guide refers to as the best Italian restaurant in Bucharest– yes, it is the Gelato place. Thetwinsontour can concurr that this is obviously the best Italian restaurant in Bucharest.

And that pretty much sums up Day 1 in Romania.

Love,

thetwinsontour

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