Alright, I may be from the land of no snow (aka South Texas) but I love the Christmas season. You can bet that right after Thanksgiving I was hungry for decorative things to fill our home. Unfortunately I found a small selection at high (oh so high) prices. I know I must stop comparing US prices to Romanian prices but I can't help it. My mind tells me instantly "You could buy that garland for $1 in the states, why pay $10 here!?"...

Leaving Bucharest is fast becoming my favorite past-time. Luckily another opportunity presented itself this weekend, when I went to see a friend's hometown- Vatra Dornei. Although the ski slopes are what usually draw visitors, we did no such thing since there was no snow to ski on. Still the food, company and general merriment made for another great weekend in the mountains.[Click any image to view slideshow]   ...

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Cata and I went straight to Medias after Paris for what I thought would be a small, low key, family party. That concept quickly changed when I walked into a kitchen filled with three Romanian women (Cata's mom plus two aunts) standing in a production line around a giant deep fryer. Nearby trays were slowly being filled with chiftele (fried meatballs), snitel de pui (breaded/fried chicken breast) and fried fish. This is serious,...

Ahh Paris. What can I say that has not been said before? It is all true- beautiful, romantic, unique, charming, stylish, delicious.  A few things that struck me about the city: the way of life, cultural diversity, and fantastic food quality. The pace at which people move and live felt like a calm river as opposed to the raging waters of say New York or Bucharest.'Parisians have got it right' I told Catalin throughout...

We did it!  On September 30th 2011, Catalin and I went to the courthouse and were legally wed. I  know this took a lot of our friends/family by surprise so I'll take this time to explain a bit. Many people were not invited to our civil ceremony in Bucharest because we will be having a larger, more traditional, wedding ceremony in Texas (where we'll be married by the church). In short, this was one part of a two part...

American's have 'American cheese'. Romanians have 'Cascaval'.  Cascaval is a common, affordable, and ubiquitous cheese here. If you order a cheese sandwich - Cascaval.  Burrito? Cascaval all over it. Cheesburger? Cascaval again. This is great if you enjoy the flavor but a lot of times I don't. The tricky thing with this cheese is that there are a lot of variations that look exactly the same but taste different (see...

A few weeks ago my friend Mike pulled into Gara de Nord on a midnight train, officially ending his Trans-Siberian journey in Bucharest, Romania. I was determined to get him outside the city and had a weekend trip planned. Mike, Catalin and I drove north through the Carpathian Mountains on the Transalpina highway. This is a road similar to the Transfagarasan in that it goes through the mountains but unlike the aforementioned, it...