Losing my shit
Braşov, Romania
After a visit to Bran Castle, we were looking for a place to have dinner and blew through EIGHT food options before sitting down to eat. I about lost it.
The outing looked like this: walk 30 minutes from town to the Braşov bus station, ride 30 minutes to Bran Castle, spend 3 hours in and around Bran Castle, take the 30-minute bus ride back to Braşov station, walk 30 minutes back into town.
Now getting back into Braşov, we start thinking about food. Who’s hungry? What do we want? How soon should we eat? There’s a pizza place coming up, a 12-minute walk according to Google. We arrive and there’s no seating, it’s only takeaway. Why can’t we just order something and find a place to sit and eat? No, I don’t wanna carry it or carry leftovers back home. Okay, what else? There’s a curry house nearby. I do NOT want Indian, I hear someone say. We pass a Greek restaurant. Nope, not interested. I find a bagel sandwich shop 7 minutes up the road. No one is too pumped about bagels, but it’s cheap enough, then maybe we’ll get an ice cream afterward. The bagel shop is tiny and has a sign in the window: Closed. Grrr. Okay, there’s an Italian place 5 minutes from here. Is it that one with the huge windows and gold, cursive letters? It looks fancy and there are no prices on the menu. Bad sign. Across the street is a sports bar called Champions, so we go there. Where do you wanna sit? Here? There? Upstairs? I wanna sit upstairs. How do you get upstairs? No, let’s just sit down here. Okay, we settle in a booth on the main floor, boys start playing with their Rubik’s Cubes while we scan the menu on our phones. They don’t serve food. Heads bowed in defeat, we get up and go somewhere else. Around the corner there is a burger place. My heart is beating fast and I want to start screaming because ohmygodcanwejustfindafuckingplacetoeatalready. We sit at the burger place, scan the menu, they serve chips instead of fries, no one likes anything on the menu. We get up and leave. Leo has been going on and on and on for 3 days about the restaurant Next Door that we already went to and really liked, but already went to and now I’m just pissed and feeling petty. I concede with obvious disdain and we head down the little street toward Next Door and see Bistro de l’Arte, a place we’d been meaning to go to. That’s IT. We’re going there. We get a table outside, agreeing with the server to leave by 7:20pm because the table is reserved, presumably for adults eating at a very adult dinnertime. Ari first got excited about “pancakes” on the menu but turns out it’s a savory corn pancake with smoked meat. He doesn’t like anything on the menu. Josh says, I’ll take Ari somewhere else. Sends me through the g-d roof. With my best polite-while-seething voice I tell the waiter sorry, but we need to leave. Five steps down is Next Door where we *finally* end up eating a meal an hour and 20 minutes later.
All the deciding and questions and I don’t want this and can we have ice cream; we spend every moment together. It feels like my nervous system is worn away and exposed, like an open tooth socket. There are a million decisions to make and it’s never quiet and someone always needs something. I knew this would happen on this trip and nearly nine months in, we’re all feeling the rub of each other’s company. Perhaps none more than me.
Josh later suggests I go and spend some time by myself tomorrow. I think I’ll take him up on that.
