1st Stamp :)

April 29, 00:39 local time Bucharest

This is my first blog entry written on a mobile device (iPhone)...so hopefully it catches enough of my spelling errors :) 

I am currently sitting in one of the cutest hotel rooms in Bucharest at the Vila Toparceanu, being serenaded by, what must be, a pack o dogs.  Mom and I are both so happy to have nice beds.  

I had to get a new passport in January so that it wouldn't be too close to expiration during this trip.  So my first stamp in this new passport is Bucharest! It's a great new chapter in my life. I've become really happy living in SoCal, and this trip has really changed from what I had originally wanted back in November, when I bought tickets.  This is now more vacation than anything else!! and backpacking through countries is new to me.  I'm used to moving, living and then traveling for long periods of time.  So I'm super excited!! 

What a couple of flights! It's been 20 hours of flights and airports.  With the Air Traffic Controller furloughs that happened at home all the flight schedules got pushed behind so our flight out of LAX that was suppose to leave at 9:30 left about 10:45.  That meant more time in the lounge in LAX but also crazy rushing once we got to Heathrow.  The flight to London was great-we had three seats for just me and mom so we got to sleep a lot which was great.  In Heathrow, getting from terminal to terminal, through more security scanners and then out to the plane took an hour which isn't bad timing but by the time we landed we had a 45 min layover vs out orinal 3.5 hour layover....always a blast running through the airport with a huge backpack haha.  But we made it and now we are ready to wake up in 6 hours to see Bucharest! On the plane of love listening to the different languages, and excitingly enough I've realized the Romanian has some similarities to Spanish (mom later read that Romania is a Romance language), which was really surprising to me.  I was expecting a more Slavic language.  I guess I will really see tomorrow when I'm not so tired :)