**Warning** This post will make you hungry. Do not read on empty stomach.

This should not be a surprise to anyone, but thetwinsontour are way far behind on these blogs.  We were doing so good the first few days. But it’s impossible to keep up, especially when we spend so much time eating.   Thetwinsontour have a new favorite food called Ayvar.  It is available on Amazon for like $12 a jar.  I wonder if there will be any Prime Day or Black Friday deals on Ayvar? Or if maybe Kohl’s will start carrying it at the checkout lane? They have a lot of ridiculous stuff there now.  Not that there’s anything ridiculous about Ayvar.  It’s just pure deliciousness.  What is Ayvar? It’s a spread made from smoked red peppers and magic.  It’s great on bread, cheese, or whatever else they serve it with.  My favorite ayvar accessory is breadsticks– they are a great vessel for shoveling it into your mouth because you will look like a pig if you just use a spoon.   Luckily, we had Ayvar at nearly every meal in Macedonia.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have nearly enough days in Macedonia to feast on this delicacy.

Let’s see here, what else did we do in Macedonia besides eat yummy Ayvar?  We bought a couple jars of it at the grocery store.  (Note from the future, one of the jars leaked so it got left behind.  The other jar is now secured shut with some green duct tape to ensure its safe arrival to Kansas.)

It is really rough to remember what we did after so many ayvar packed days. One of the highlights of Skopje was the old town area and Turkish bazaar. We walked around the old town area with a local guide named Snow White with Frida Kahlo eyebrows. I remember nothing. Much more memorable was eating a typical, local lunch. A group of us headed out during our free time for some lunch–but we let our tour manager guide us where to go. We went to a Kebab place. Now, in my mind’s eye, a Kebab is meat on a stick. Our guide ordered 50 kebabs. For 7 of us. Holy Guacamole. That’s a lot of kebabs. These kebabs were actually shaped like little sausages– but they taste way better than Jimmie Dean. Especially if you put them on bread. With the aforementioned delicacy Ayvar. Yummy, yummy in my tummy. We were all shoveling those kebabs, double fisted, into our mouths as fast as we could. Let me tell you, Joey Chestnut has nothing on the twinsontour when it comes to ayvar smothered kebabs.

Of course, the culinary delights did not stop here! No, sirree, Bob. Next up was coffee served in a coconut! This is obviously a very interesting concoction, especially for someone who only likes coconut in a piña colada. They gave us the extra coconut slices to eat (yeah– didn’t do that.) But, it was an iced coffee, and due to the coconut drinking vessel, it did not require any milk or sugar.

Enough about coffee– next stop was to buy some gourmet Turkish Delights. OMG– these were delicious–haven’t eaten them yet due to all the ayvar in our diet, so these will make it to Kansas. Note–that does not mean we are sharing.

Then we went to the bazaar area– it was a fruit and vegetable market. Our guide was really excited by this–he just kept exclaiming about how wonderful a place it was–as he was grabbing different varieties of grapes and handing them to us to sample. Yes. I ate unwashed grapes. Lots of them. And we didn’t buy any. No one scolded us, so I guess this is allowed, or maybe just tolerated. Like going to Costco on your lunch break for free samples. We only sampled grapes and nuts, though. Fruit was cheap. You could get like 3 kilos of apples for $2. Cheap! So, that was the bazaar.

After that, thetwinsontour wandered around on our own for some souvenir shopping. To buy things we didn’t know we wanted, but suddenly couldn’t live without. When buying silver filigree jewelry by weight, this could be quite dangerous. Luckily, we only wound up with one pair of earrings each.

On the way back to our hotel, we of course stopped for Gelato. thetwinsontour feel no day is complete without Gelato. But this is no surprise to you, dear reader. They had interesting flavors, like Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat. The only flavor sampled was TikTok, which was kind of like Rocky Road. All in all, it was tasty. And, it had been at least an hour since we had eaten, so we were obviously famished.

Oh boy, I have just waxed poetic for hours about food. And I didn’t even get to dinner. We were well and truly on our own for dinner. Luckily there was a whole row of restaurants lined up along the river, right by all the statue covered bridges. We took a few (okay, a lot) of nighttime selfies, and then headed to the restaurant we had decided on–Cafe Cubano. We sat down and looked around–there were only 2 customers with drinks only and the wait staff was busy moving all the chairs. As this did not seem promising and it was already the dinner hour, we headed to Plaza de Toros instead, which was a nice sounding Spanish restaurant. Despite the name, there was nothing Spanish about the menu. One dish had Spanish rice. That was it. We settled on chicken stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon. Then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. It took like an hour. We were so tired. Not to mention famished. Once we were finally served, we wasted no time chowing down on the delicious concoction. It was amazing for not Spanish Spanish food.

We passed by the aforementioned Cafe Cubano on the way back to our hotel (the only Marriott in Macedonia), and there were still very few people and no chairs. But there was salsa music. Seems they are a nightclub by night.

Anyways, that is a whole day about food. We ate. A lot. And it was good. And now my mom knows that we have eaten more than gas station candy bars. She worries you know.

Love,

thetwinsontour

So let’s try this. Instead of paying $48/year to load more photos, I am supposed to be able in embed a link from Flickr. Hopefully this works?

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAbeTz

Our first stop today was still in Bulgaria at The Rila Monastery. The first time I heard one of our local guides mention The Rila Monastery, I was only half paying attention and I thought they were saying River Monsters.  I’ll admit I was a little confused about how Jeremy Wade could be fishing for deadly, oversized Anaconda a million miles away from the Lost tribes of the Amazon in Bulgaria, but I was good with it.  So you know, it all made a lot more sense once I saw the name written on the sign.  I digress, but seriously I love watching that show way more than I should.   Back to the monastery.  Despite our valiant initial effort to post daily, we have once again fallen way, way behind.  I have so many facts rattling around in my head that I can’t keep track of everything.  I did try to pay attention to the local guide, so I do know the following discombobulated facts.

Monastery facts:

-founded in honor of a hermit monk who lived in the year 900.  He’s on the back of the 1 Lei coin, so he’s a pretty big deal round these parts. Like huge.

-Like just about every major historical structure, it was destroyed by fire (also popular is destruction by earthquake, but I don’t believe this one has any earthquakes in its history), so it was mostly rebuilt starting in 1834.

-The oldest part is a 14th Century stone bell tower (which makes sense because stone should be able to withstand fire.)

-Currently, the monastery is home to a grand total of 6 monks, but there are living quarters for 250 monks.  

And really I am starting to sound like our local guides that I tend to tune out, so I’m going to move on to the next topic now. 

Macedonia! We made it to Macedonia.  Or I guess we should call it The Republic of North Macedonia, but that’s such a mouthful.  Can you say that three times fast? Well ok, can you say that three times fast with a stack of crackers in your mouth?  Country number 71 for those of you keeping track! Macedonia is actually the name of a region, most of which is in Greece. Hence, the really long official name because the Greeks wouldn’t let them have the name.

Macedonia is a country of nearly two million people.  The candy bars that we paid over $2 for in Bulgaria are only $1 in Macedonia.  Strangely I didn’t see lines of Bulgarians at the border crossing to stock up on half priced Milka candy bars. Weird, huh? Anyways, about 500k people live in the capital of Skopje.  

Skopje is probably the most bizarrely, amazing city thetwinsontour have ever visited.   It’s truly a juxtaposition of wow! and huh?  Skopje was hit by a huge earthquake in 1963 and like 80% of the city was destroyed.  Rather than take that opportunity to rebuild a beautiful, modern metropolitan city, they ended up just building ugly Communist block buildings.  So anyways about 40 years later, the now exiled ruler decided he wanted to boost national pride and make the city beautiful.   How do you do that on a budget? Great question.  Part of the answer is statues.  About 400 should do the trick. Now as you can imagine, when you decide to erect 400 statues and squeeze them all in a small area you kind of run out of ideas.  The most famous Macedonian is Alexander The Great, or as he’s known in his “homeland,” Alexander The Macedonian.  (He died in 323 BC).  There’s a huge giant fountain of him in the center of the main Plaza that’s featured in many of thetwinsontour’s selfies.  But not that far away is the fountain of his father Peter the Great.  It’s not enough for there to be just a statue of Pete, no it has to be surrounded by lions at the base and for some reason statues of Papa Peter, Mama Olympia, and a young Alexander. 

Now it gets even weirder because there is also a statue dedicated to Baby Alexander and his Mama Olympia.  It’s terrible.   There’s 4 sides to it.  You’ve got a pregnant Olympia, you’ve got her breastfeeding baby Alex, there’s also one of her holding a toddler Alexander and a young Al. It’s truly something to behold.

There’s a pedestrian bridge lined with about 20 “famous” Macedonian artists and authors, another bridge right next to it featuring a bunch of ancient Greeks, a fountain of horses, another fountain of lions, a shoe shiner,  and statues of a bunch of other people on every spare spot.  There’s even a statue in the river of a woman diving.  

Since these statues are less than 20 years old, they just painted them all with a fake looking patina so that they look older than they are.   Also, I think they were running low on statue makers because they aren’t really well made. Definitely none by Rodin!  You can see the weld lines at some of their knees where they assembled them.  

Now for the ugly Communist Era grey block buildings.  What do you do with that? Well they just covered them with fake Styrofoam facades so they would look like ancient buildings.   Too bad I used up all the available photo storage space here on the blog because photos would really help about now.  I’ll have to post them to FB later. Which is a good time to remind you to go and like thetwinsontour on FB.  Anyways all of these fake facades make it feel like Las Vegas or Disney World.  It’s odd.   Alas, they ran out of money before everything was finished, so there’s empty half constructed buildings sitting next to the fancy Styrofoam buildings even in the main plaza.   There’s spots where they never finished the sidewalk too.  And a lot of the sidewalk tiles wobble when you walk on them. 

It’s really hard to know what to think.  Some in our group think that every former Communist country should cover their buildings in Styrofoam to make it pretty and attract more American tourists. (I think this is completely ludicrous for more reasons than you want to read.  Speaking of, are you still here?.)  The local guide we had in Skopje was very diplomatic and said that the money could have been spent on other things that would benefit the people more. (I agree 1,000% and I think this would be the consensus of most people if the mayor of Olathe tried to do this to the downtown.) Our tour guide says it’s humiliating that they tried to create a national identity that is fake just like Disney World.  It’s not real.    You just can’t create a national identity by willpower and statues alone.   However, I do admire their, or maybe just that one guy’s, determination to transform the city and national identity.

Now, on to less complicated subjects.  Even more well-known than my friend Alex the Great, is Mother Theresa.  She is of Albanian descent, but she was born in Skopje, Macedonia not far at all from the ginormous statue of Alexander.   Her birthplace was destroyed in that big earthquake of 1963, so there’s just a plaque there now. Her statue is a couple of blocks away by her museum. To my knowledge there’s only one statue of her. Seems like they missed a great statue opportunity.  They could have a young Mother Theresa, or her and the Pope, or her in India.  There’s so many possibilities here, and all just wasted.  Maybe thetwinsontour should leave insurance for a job in city planning and beautification?

Side note (from a few days in the future), in Albania our guide told us that no one in Albania knew who Mother Teresa was until 1991– after the fall of Communism. There are very few Catholics in Albania– like 10%. Most are Muslim. But, during Communism religion was not allowed. Hence, no one knew about their national treasure in her heyday.

If you are still reading this, thetwinsontour love you very much!

Love,

thetwinsontour

Another great day in Bulgaria! Basically we walked around the old town and saw everything we saw yesterday. I tried to pay attention to the guide, but there are so many layers of history that I got all kinds of confused between the Tracians and the Communists and the plot to kill the president at the church in 1925 and being neutral in WWII until 1941 and the Turks, I have no idea about anything. 

We stopped outside some Turkish Baths. I don’t think they are in operation anymore, but the natural hot spring is still there. There is a fountain where you can drink it straight out of the tap– or fill your water bottles. The water has good minerals to make you healthy and strong and to live forever– or at least to 124 according to our guide. Since thetwinsontour are fearless adventurers, we of course sampled the waters! It was warm, but not hot (40 degrees Celsius whatever that means). And it did taste mineral-ly. All in all, not bad– I mean, we are still alive and kicking. No side effects or typhoid. We will have to wait and see if we live to 124, though, ok?

We also went to the Natural History Museum which is really not our thing.  We did see some jewelry that said it was from the 5th Millennium BC.  Which, if my English is correct means 5,000 BC.  Mind boggling.  The rest was pretty boring. But we did manage to sneak away for photos with some wonderful, ancient, headless statues.  I  couldn’t find a plaque that said how old they were. So I am going to declare them Tracian because I want to, not because I have any support for that.  

After all that we drove up the mountain to see the Stone River, an amazing river of super giant rocks.   See gorgeous photos of courageous rock climbers below. It was most definitely treacherous. But, since thetwinsontour are more sure-footed than a mountain goat, it was easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Love,

thetwinsontour 

PS. Enjoy these pictures. We have reached our maximum allotment of photo storage. I can’t delete any old photos, nor can I figure out how to pay for more storage here. Why is everything so complicated?

Seriously, is there anything better than Roman Ruins? Everyone should know by now that thetwinsontour LOVE Roman Ruins.  Today we hit the jackpot! Plovdiv, Bulgaria is recognized by Unesco as the second longest inhabited city in the world (after Damascus). For some reason, I want to say it’s 8,000 years old but I know that’s impossible and the Unesco website is no help.  Anyways, it’s an old city that has seen lots of different empires.  I do know it was a city of seven hills, but one of the hills was mined so much that it eventually wasn’t a hill anymore and they built a shopping mall there instead.  So now they call it the city of 6 hills and a shopping mall.  

Imagine if you will, its the year 85 AD, you are a Roman citizen living in the vast Roman empire, and you want to go watch Hamilton or maybe Rent.  Where would you go? Why to the Roman Amphitheater in Plovdiv of course! The very same Amphitheater that thetwinsontour went to today! It’s very nearly 2,000 years old.  (When you get that old, it’s ok to round up.) Now, the cool thing is that it is still being used today to stage productions.  Unfortunately we didn’t get to see anything other than the stage. Actually, it’s better that way.  Have you ever sat on a Roman Era marble seat for two hours? Well, I haven’t either but I am sure the excitement wears off in about 5 minutes and after about 7 minutes you start to lose the feeling in your legs. It can’t be comfortable at all, even with the thin little cushions they have put down for extra butt comfort.  

Now, thetwinsontour had pledged to listen to the local guide once we got to the Amphitheater because we wanted to know ALL THE THINGS about the Amphitheater because thetwinsontour LOVE Roman Ruins.  Alas, that did not happen. We were overwhelmed by the amazingness of the  Amphitheater.  We quickly started exploring and ended up down on the stage wandering around and just basking in the glory of 2,000 year old ruins.  I thought I was taking a million pictures, but I didn’t get that many at all.  Now since this is still used for plays and things, they do have to maintain the stairs and benches.  Some of the stairs are quite new and even and safe, but some are clearly 2,000 years old and have been worn away by 2,000 years worth of footsteps.  Have I mentioned how much thetwinsontour LOVE Roman Ruins?

There are also a few random sites around town where they have discovered more Roman Ruins.  In the middle of one of the longest pedestrian zones in the world (not sure the guide was correct on that one, but we will go with it) is the Roman sport arena.  It’s not very complete, but it is there.  And we happened across several other little random ruins too.  The history of it all is just mind bogglingly amazing.  

After all that excitement, it was time to hop on the bus and head to Sofia, Bulgaria.  Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria.   We went for a quick walk around town before dinner.  And guess what! The metro station is full of Roman Ruins too! Roman Ruins are everywhere! (maybe in every metro station?) Are you sitting down for this? Take a deep breath before proceeding.

We walked on an ORIGINAL ROMAN ROAD! It’s just part of the subway passages and you have to walk on an ORIGINAL ROMAN ROAD! I walked on the same road that maybe Julius Caesar or Marcus Aurelius or Russel Crowe or the most famous Bulgarian ever, Spartacus, might have walked on.  It’s like a 2,000 year old road and I walked on it!

The crazy thing is that they have so many random Roman Ruins that they are literally just leaning up against a wall as decoration in a subway station.  Like, yeah these are our crappy leftover ruins that we don’t know what to do with so let’s just lean them up against a wall.  If I wasn’t worried about baggage weight limits I could just grab one out of the subway station and sneak  a giant Roman Ruin home with me.  Any of them would look nice in my flower garden. I’d even keep the weeds out of the garden to better show off my Roman Ruin.

Ok, I can’t handle the excitement anymore so I am going to wrap this up.  But tomorrow we get to go and see even more Roman Ruins.

Love,

thetwinsontour

PS. Don’t forget to follow thetwinsontour on TikTok.  We posted a great one there today!

Bulgaria! This morning we left Romania and headed to Bulgaria.  It’s about an hour and a half drive to the Bulgarian border from Bucharest. But then we drove another hour and a half to get to our destination–two cute little towns called something I need to look up (I’m pretty sure the name is written on the magnet I bought) and then to Aranassi.

The first town has a cool old fortress. We didn’t go inside.  We just stood in front of the entrance and took pictures.  I really wish I had some facts to drop here, but as I am sure you can guess I was too busy taking pictures to listen to anything the guide was saying.  I can tell you that she was wearing some amazing silver sneakers with clear soles that are made in Bulgaria. They were beautiful, and if I come across them they will be mine!

Anyways after taking pictures of the fortress, we walked through the Old Town and the souvenir shops! I was rushed, but did pickup several pairs of copper earrings for $3.50 to $5. New earrings make thetwinsontour happy! We also picked up some Rose flavored hand lotion that is probably too odorific to wear, but its a great Bulgarian souvenir.  Bulgaria’s top export is Rose Oil (like for perfumes).  They are very proud of the Rose oil.  That’s actually what all the tshirts said. I didn’t notice any that just said Bulgaria, I only saw ones that said Bulgarian Rose which seems a little goofy to me.  Anyways the lotion was only $2 a tube, so it was a great deal.  We passed on the decorative bar soap, face cream, shampoo, liquid soap, actual Rose oil, and I don’t know what else.  Like I said, we were rushed or I’m sure we would have found more things to buy.  Thetwinsontour are good at that–buying things. 

After lunch in the neighboring town of Aranassi, we went to a church for a special choral concert.  The choir consisted of just 4 old men, but it sounded like 20.  The acoustics in Orthodox Churches is apparently amazing because of the cupola (the one required to be painted with either Jesus or the Holy Trinity).  Speaking of paintings, the church interior is also covered with really old frescoes.  The old part was built & painted in the 17th Century and the newer part was painted in the 18th Century.  Luckily they have all been cleaned and restored so that we can see them clearly.  Four hundred years of candle smoke isn’t good for frescoes. 

Now the walls of Orthodox Churches are usually lined with a row of benches for the elderly who aren’t able to stand for 3 hours of church.  But what I have discovered, while sitting to enjoy the musical entertainment, is that these benches are not conducive to sitting.  Not at all.  What I can’t figure out is if Eastern Europeans have significantly smaller butts than me, or if they are just designed that way to trick the entire congregation into standing.  I mean it’s not easy to stay sitting in those benches very long. And by long, I mean longer than 23 seconds. 

So when this church was built, Bulgaria was under Turkish rule.  They allowed Christians to build churches with the caveat that the church couldn’t be any higher than the mosque.  Also the stone walls around their homes/properties couldn’t be any taller than a Turk on horseback. To make the short churches tall enough to walk in, they had to dig down into the ground, so they are partially submerged. Under Turkish rule, even though they were allowed to build short, submerged churches, they weren’t allowed to look like churches– they are plain ugly buildings.

Our guide told us some of the differences between Orthodox and Roman Catholic, but, well, I am not sure what all he said. Orthodox has a Patriarch, not a Pope. All the Patriarchs are exactly equal. There was some big split back in like 1096– pretty sure that is when Charlemagne was the Holy Roman Emporer. And, Orthodox use the Julian Calendar and not the Gregorian Calendar, so they are convinced Christmas is January 7th. (I bet that really messes with all the Christmas movies on the Hallmark Chanel.) Orthodox doesn’t worship statues, they prefer icons and frescoes. There are no statues anywhere in an Orthodox Church. I have no idea where I am going with this comparative study, so I will just stop now.

We did get 3 gas station potty breaks today. We tried to control ourselves in the snack department, but it is oh so hard. thetwinsontour love gas station snacks. We might have stock piled Lion Bars like a squirrel gathering acorns before a blizzard. But, hey– We had Romanian money to burn!

I really think that is probably enough jibberish and nonsense for one day.

Good night from Bulgaria!

thetwinsontour

City tour. Blah blah blah.

City tours are terrible– they drive you around on the bus pointing out buildings for you to snap pictures of out the bus window. They describe the different architecture, which buildings used to be embassies, etc. Throw in a church, a couple of quick jumps off the bus for pictures, and a bunch of complaining about not being able to stop the bus in rush hour for other pictures. Voilà! City Tour. The Bucharest city tour is really no different from any other city tour we’ve taken.

We went to the ethnographic museum which has old houses from all the different regions of Romania. Like wooden houses with straw roofs and things. Most of the houses didn’t have fireplaces because you had to pay taxes per chimney. So, they just smoked the bacon in the attic to warm the house. Since it was a Monday, the houses were all closed, so we just took pictures from the outside. It’s a great place for selfies!

Our afternoon (and lunch) were at our leisure. Naturally, we went for crepes. Anyone who knows thetwinsontour knows thetwinsontour love crepes. The one we chose was savory– savory crepes make a great meal! Especially when you go for chicken, cheese, and pickle! Except things are never quite how you imagine. This was a giant crepe, covered in shredded cheese and garnished with red peppers. There was no melted cheese inside the crepe with the chicken. And the pickles? Yeah, those red peppers were pickled red peppers. It was a delightful meal, but not at all what thetwinsontour envisioned.

Before dinner, we had a guest lecturer who was on the front lines, protesting, the night the socialist regime fell in Romania– December 1989. He was 15. His best friend was standing right next to him and got shot in the head. He did not survive. When I was 15, I knew nothing about politics– I sure was not out fighting the establishment and bringing down Communism.

Anyways, here are some Romania in the 80s facts. They were very poor and had monthly rations.It was a very difficult time. They got 30 eggs, a pound of butter, 1 kg sugar, and a liter of cooking oil per person. There was no coffee nor Coca-Cola. There was Pepsi–Pepsi signed some kind of agreement after Nixon visited Romania. However, Pepsi had to be requested special. And each family could only have 25 bottles per month. (which is weird– how do 25 bottles fit in a box? like 24 makes more sense.) There was a dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, who wanted -and succeeded–in making Romania the only country in the world to be debt free. I think it was because he didn’t want to psy interest to World Bank. However, everything comes at a cost. Everything Romania produced was exported. Everything. Hence the rations. They raised chickens, but only got to keep the chicken feet. Same with the pigs. They had pigs feet. And, really, chicken feet and pig feet don’t stretch very far or sound very appetizing to thetwinsontour. So, they mixed them with SOY to make it all go further! Everything was mixed with soy, which also doesn’t sound very appetizing. There was also 2 hours of TV per day. And an hour and a half of that was dedicated to the glories of the dictator. A VCR cost as much as a house or a car. Each family could only have 1 car, but gasoline was rationed, too. However, Romania was debt free.

That is about the extent of my memory.

Bye bye!

Love,

thetwinsontour

Today we went to some beautiful sites in Romania that we have already seen, and they were just as lovely this time around as they were the first time!

But first things first. No trip is complete without  a gas station pee stop.   And of course gas stations mean snacks! Our guide insisted on buying everyone’s snacks.  No one should let that man loose in a gas station by himself. He bought so many snacks! (which if thetwinsontour say it’s a lot of snacks, it’s a lot of snacks) So we had a ton of pretzels and Communist Era chocolate bars.

I should probably be a better tourist and listen to my guide instead of walking around taking selfies. But, really, what would be the fun of that. Anyways, we went to this monastery called Sinaia Monastery, which was really lovely. I don’t remember how old it is. However, I do remember that it was built sometime before 1862 because that is when Romania switched from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Phoenician alphabet, and this place features Cyrillic writing in its paintings. And, hmm, what else? I remember that Orthodox Churches have 3 rooms. It is required. I do not know what they are called, but the front room is like the front porch. Also, the cupola always features Jesus. There are no pews– you have to stand– and Orthodox services are like 3 hours, but potty breaks are allowed. Even though there are 3 rooms, only the clergy is allowed in the 3rd room– the altar room. Us peasants aren’t even allowed to see it– it is Verboten. (They probably actually use it for storage and are hiding the Rubbermaid totes back there– at least that is what thetwinsontour do at their house.) Also interesting about the Orthodox Church– the themes of the churches are all the same! The wall in front of the secret altar always has a picture of Mary on the left, Jesus on the right, and the Assumption. Always. Like, they must not value creativity and thinking outside the box.

After the monastery, we headed off to lunch. It was fish. Thetwinsontour do not do fish. This was some kind of trout. At least they cut the head off before they set it in front of us. But the tail was still there. I might have made my guide slice and de-bone it for me. And might means did. If you were confused. But you shouldn’t be confused. You should know these things about thetwinsontour by now. Unsurprisingly, we were not impressed by the fish. Fortunately, for the starter we had some kind of delicious vegetable cream soup (squash?) with a ton of croutons. Really, I would have happily eaten 3 bowls of that stuff instead of the fish. And of course there was ice cream for dessert which is always a good thing. Pretty sure this was a lemon mint ice cream. Not sure if this is a good thing, but we ate it all anyways. You know, just to be sure. No hasty, uninformed decisions allowed when it comes to ice cream.

Then we were off to Peles Castle, more of a Palace really. Its not super old in the grand scheme of things. It was built in the late 1800’s by the first king of Romania, King Carol I. What is really interesting about this guy is that he was German, not Romanian. Romania decided that they wanted a King, so they went out shopping amongst the family members of the monarchs of Europe to find one. It seems like the plot to a great comedy starring Tom Hanks, or more likely a really awful movie starring Will Ferrel that goes on forever and makes you want to poke your eyes out with a grapefruit spoon. The Romanians really wanted some French guy who was related to Napoleon III, but he had no desire to be a king. This Carol guy was their second choice. So, he accepted, came to Romania, and eventually built this Palace. But this is the cool thing, instead of draining the Romanian coffers to build his beautiful Castle/Palace, he built it with his own money! Way to go Carol! There were only 4 kings of Romania, so it wasn’t a very long-lived dynasty. King Carol’s only child was a girl that died at age 4, so his nephew was the second King. The last King died in Switzerland just 6 years ago, but his reign ended in 1947. I assume this was because they became a Communist country, but we didn’t really go over all that. Anyways, the castle is still there, and it is lovely with some great selfie opportunities.

Oh, another thing– King Carol’s wife, Queen Elizabeth (not of England. There can be more than one Queen Elizabeth people) was quite a talented artist. Several of her paintings adorn the walls of the castle, most notably her series of the Four Seasons. There are three of them because she didn’t like winter. So if you are Queen you can just paint a series of 3 paintings and pass it off as the 4 seasons. You can just completely ignore winter if you don’t like it. Gutsy. I like it.

Well I think that’s enough Romania for one day. But I would like to take this moment to acknowledge that my mother is watching Artichoke AT HER HOUSE. She is not OK. Who is the she in the prior sentence? Well it could be my mom or Artichoke. Either interpretation is extremely accurate. So if you are in the area, stop by and play fetch with Artichoke and then help my mom sweep dog hair up off the floor.

Love,

thetwinsontour

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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This is a whirlwind tour of Panama, and today we transferred to our next hotel in the Gamboa Rainforest which is only about a half hour outside of Panama City. Our transfer wasn’t until noon, so we decided to squeeze in a morning activity to the Panama Canal visitors center.

We had 9:30 reservations, but we decided to try and sneak in early. So yes, we got there about 9:20. So early! Hey, we are slow. Anyways, when we got there there was a big group of people and a lot of grumbling. Apparently the boats had already passed through the locks, and there were no more scheduled until 2pm. They recommended we come back in the afternoon. However, since we paid $8 for an Uber to get out there (that includes the tip), we weren’t going anywhere! And the Imax theater was closed due to Covid. And the museum was also closed due to Covid (confined spaces). The only possibility was to go up to the observation level and look at the locks where the boats were supposed to be. Which is exactly what we did. Now the thing is, to get upstairs to the observation deck you have to walk through the museum. Most of the museum is roped off. You can take pictures as you walk through, but you aren’t allowed to be in museum mode and stop to read anything. I found myself taking way more pictures walking through not looking at anything than I ever would have taken had I been in full on, nerdy, museum-mode.

Anyways, we went up there and looked at the engineering marvel that continues to marvel even more than 100 years later. But let’s be honest, we would have been bored rather than marveled, had there been marveling taking place. We went because we didn’t know how you could come to Panama and not visit the Panama Canal.

After that, it was back to the hotel to begin the next chapter of our Panamazing adventure–the rainforest! We saw several cappuccino monkeys through the van window on the way here, and some very large iguanas, so we have high hopes of wildlife sightings!

Did I mention we are in the rainforest? Do you know why they call it the rainforest? I think it has something to do with rain. Lots of rain. It was pouring rain during lunch, but it did stop for the afternoon so that we could take the aerial tram up the mountain and climb the 10 story observation tower (ramps, not stairs thank goodness!) to get a bird’s-eye view of the rainforest and Lake Gautan. They give you a little audio guide to listen to while you are riding the cable car up the mountain, and it talked about all of the animals that live in the rainforest and the sounds they make. Except when your sister’s audio device is about 4 seconds ahead of yours, you get really excited when you hear the cries of the howler monkey until you realize it’s just part of the dang audio program. So distressing! And even more distressing is that we didn’t see any of the wildlife it talked about. No rain-hating sloths, no howler monkeys, no cappucin monkeys, no tamarinds (Jefferson? tamarind), no swarms of parrots flying above the canopy, no poisonous frogs, nothing.

And while we were gone, some of the other guests saw a group of 3 toucans right off our back balcony. I’m hoping that these toucans live nearby and we can see them tomorrow. I’m also hoping that they saw them while we were gone, and not during the hour I spent laying on the hammock not looking for toucans when we got back.

I digress, back to the tram. They told us it was a 15 minute ride each way. But I think that’s when there’s lots of people because it has to stop to load and unload? She told us that you can usually spend about 15 minutes in the tower, but since there were no hoards of people waiting in line behind us we could spend longer up there if we wanted (oh we wanted because that’s what we do). Picture it in your mind, dark ominous clouds overhead and sounds of thunder in the distance. A deserted tower except for thetwinsontour. No one else around for miles. Just empty cars in front of us, behind us, and every car that passed us. Now there were people coming down as we started, but we had the whole observation tower to ourselves. We love these private travel moments! But the whole time we were there, we had this sense of urgency because of the thunder rumblings in the distance. Not enough to make us actually move faster, but a sense of urgency that maybe we should be moving quickly. It didn’t start to sprinkle until we started the return journey (and so you don’t think the place is abandoned, there were 2 groups of people that arrived at the top station as we were leaving. They didn’t get private selfie time like we did).

We pulled out our raincoats in anticipation of the rain we feared was coming, but that just made me sweat. Luckily, the rain didn’t start in earnest until we made it back to the hotel. And this was epic, monsoon, cats and dogs, biblical rains that just kept raining and wouldn’t stop. We were supposed to go on a night walk at 7pm, but by 6:45pm it was still raining. Needless to say, we didn’t go out on a night walk. That rain didn’t stop until at least 7:20 or 7:30 while we were eating dinner.

And now it’s bedtime so we can dream of all of the excitement to come tomorrow.

Love,

thetwinsontour

ps. We have 7 followers on TikTok. That’s probably enough for us to make a living at, but we would always appreciate a few more. So as the signs I saw today outside the government building that I couldn’t get a picture of from the Uber said #DaleUnLikeA #democracia, which means #GiveALikeTo #democracy, but in this instance let’s switch out #democracy for #thetwinsontour in a bit of poetic license, ok? Good. Thanks.

Greetings from lovely Panama. It is super hot and sweaty here, but I would like to take this opportunity to applaud the Panamanian dedication to mask wearing. Everyone, and I mean everyone is wearing them in the streets despite the heat and humidity. Groups of teenagers hanging out in the park. Families sitting in the grass admiring the ocean view. Construction workers walking down empty streets. People playing basketball and volleyball in the parks. Old ladies that have fallen asleep on park benches. Taxi drivers with no passengers. I don’t know how they do it in this heat, but if they can do it, I can too!

Yesterday morning started out with thetwinsontour leaving the house at 4am. Artichoke was only slightly confused, but it did not bother her one bit to eat her breakfast 4 hours early. The only thing that gets thetwinsontour out of the house at 4am is international travel (or a really good Black Friday sale at Kohls)! A flight at 6:35am to Houston, a 43 minute layover, and then a flight to Panama. Oh wait, that 43 minute layover has you worried too? I don’t know why. We landed at 8:52am and boarding started at 8:55 for our next flight. United sent me a text stating that it would take 16 minutes to get to the gate, so we were hauling it to get there. Either all of our 3.0 treadmill walking has turned us into Olympic caliber speed walkers or it was only about a 5 minute walk. I prefer to believe the former rather than the latter, but its hard to say. Anyways we made it to our gate right as they were boarding group 2, and we were group 3. So it all worked out perfectly.

There was some kind of mix-up with our hotel reservation. They had our reservation down for December 1 instead of November 14. We booked this trip through a travel website as a package trip– so I know we didn’t do it! Then they started to tell us that they were at full occupancy. Say what? Fortunately, they had a solution! They gave us a suite!! Yes, thetwinsontour have a suite! There are 2 bedrooms! We each have our own room! Yes! I don’t have to listen to my sister snore! And, we have a balcony! Only the suites have a balcony! This is the life! The suite life that is! Ha! See what I did there? Please don’t unfollow us.

Once we got situated at the hotel, we started walking towards the old town in search of something to eat and do. Now this is where I begin to doubt my Olympic speed walking abilities. The lady at the front desk told us it was about a 30 minute walk from the hotel. Now it’s a straight shot from the hotel, you just walk along the coastal promenade with all the other mask-wearing Panamanians out for a stroll, but it took us way longer than half an hour. And then we got to where we could see the old town across some very busy streets with no crosswalk anywhere to be seen. So we asked the security guard, and he’s like follow me. The next thing we know, he’s stopping traffic so we can jaywalk across the street. However, once we got there we weren’t sure if we were just in the wrong spot or if everything was just closed because it was Sunday. At any rate we wandered around a bit and couldn’t find any restaurants. But, we did find a way to get back to the coastal promenade without having to cross the busy street without our own personal crossing guard.

We gave up hope of finding anything else because we were so hungry, hot, and tired, so we settled for the fish market–a food court of restaurants specializing in sea food and ceviche. Don’t worry! We found the one restaurant that has chuletas (pork chops) on the menu. You didn’t really think thetwinsontour were going to eat fish “cooked” in lemon juice or seafood with eyes in it did you? And the best part is that I got a side of patacones (fried green plantains) and my sister got a side of yummy fried yucca. Never pass up fried bananas in any form–that’s thetwinsontour motto–we even have it cross stitched on a throw pillow! Not really, but if I ever saw such a magnificent pillow, it would be coming home with me! The pork chops were only so so, and impossible to eat with the plastic silverware. Finger food!

After that we had a long walk back to the hotel, but don’t worry we did stop along the way and buy stuff from the street vendors. Our faithful readers know that thetwinsontour cannot resist a little shopping. And over 14,000 steps later (18k for the day) we were back at the hotel.

So now for today, we figured we should go see the Panama Canal even though I saw it out the window of the airplane, it is an engineering marvel even today. Guess what? The visitors center is closed on Mondays! There goes that plan. We also thought about going to Panama Viejo, which is the ruins of the original Panama that was destroyed by pirates in the 1600s, but it is also closed on Mondays.

What to do, what to do? Back to the Casco Viejo to see if we can find the interesting bits, but this time in an Uber. Uber was a much better idea and less than $3! Gustavo, our driver from New York, told us we needed a hat because by 9:30 or 10 it was going to be pretty hot (he tells us this at 9am). And he was correct. The sun was sweltering all day long. Sweat was pouring off us by the gallon. Our goal was to walk around and see the sights and grab an ice cream. It was a great plan! But we kept stopping along the way to shop. We did finally make it to the Gelato place just in time for lunch, with delicious lemon Gelato for dessert. Then a lot more wandering around (shopping), until the monsoon rains stranded us a souvenir shop for a while. The sun was shining so bright this morning, we decided it was safe to leave the umbrellas behind. Rookie mistake. It lasted about 20 minutes, and then it was done just like Disney World.

For dinner it was back to the Casco Viejo to dine at a restaurant with Panamanian food other than ceviche. We went with the house special, Pechuga de Pollo Diablica (chicken breast named after the restaurant)

We really need to work on our culinary writing skills if we are going to become world-renowned food critics because right now I have no words to describe this deliciousness. It was so good. Like moths to a flame, like holiday shoppers to a sale at Kohls, like Artichoke’s muddy feet to a freshly mopped floor, we were helpless to order anything else. Why? BECAUSE IT HAD MASHED PLANTAINS ON TOP OF THE CHICKEN. MASHED PLANTAINS I SAID! Our newest motto is if it has MASHED PLANTAINS, EAT IT! Seriously, that’s the best life advice you can ever get.

The end!

Love,

thetwinsontour

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