Barbara Thompson

Friday, August 15, 2025 Obviously we are in Vidin because that is what the sign says! We took a drive to see the fortress of Belogradchik. It was a nice drive through the countryside. This place was under the ocean some million years ago, then continents shifted and rocks poked up, then more millions of

Thursday, August 14, 2025 I did it again. Lost my mind while doing ordinary water tasks. We were sitting at lunch with people and I decided to fill up my glass with water from my bottle of water. I started pouring, and you guessed it, I did not stop. I looked straight over my glass

Wednesday, August 13, 2025 We did an all-day tour of Bucharest today. Tour guide Stefan (our waiter was Stefan, the Capt is Stefan. Everyone is Stefan) apparently got paid by the word. I was delighted at first, then thought “Shut up, Stefan” a lot. We stopped by the palace of Parliament. It’s the heaviest building!

Tuesday, August 12, 2025 I couldn’t get to sleep, then woke up early. Dumb. At least I feel good – not hit by the not-sleeping bus. Except I don’t feel good because today was a tough heart day. Luckily, we had absolutely nothing to do. We packed up and left our hotel about noon. We

Monday, August 11, 2025 We took a regular sized bus to the Transfăgărășan highway – the world’s best road, according to Top Gear magazine. It was built by Nicolae Ceaușescu in the 1970s so his army had a route to Transylvania from Bucharest that the USSR wouldn’t see coming. I guess they didn;t have sattelites

Sunday, August 10, 2025 Do you remember that commercial with Ricardo Mantelbahn with rich Carpathian something? Since we have been in the Carpathian mountains today, my brain has been trying to do a clip of it. Ricardo is dressed as Khan (definitely wasn’t in the commercial, but…) and he is saying rich Carpathian… and I

Saturday, August 9, 2025 We are officially starting our Bu to Bu trip (TM by Alexander) – Bucharest to Budapest. I was able to fall asleep for about half-an-hour on the flight to Bucharest. The steward gave us “scrambled egg sandwiches” (egg salad), which I thought was adorable. There was no inflight entertainment (WHAT?), so

Friday, August 8, 2025 We had a lovely breakfast with Regina and Brad before they left for a day in St. Paul and Minneapolis. We had about an hour to double check luggage before Dave picked us up for the airport. Super quick trip through security had us in the Escape lounge in less than

Thursday, August 7, 2025 We met Brad and Regina on our cruise to the Amazon in February 2023. We enjoyed their company so much – it was the high point of the trip! We told them if they were ever in MN to let us know – and they did! They were in Indiana at

Wednesday, August 6, 2025 Today was our packing day. We leave for vacation Friday and have guests coming tomorrow. We needed to get it done! I wrote notes and stuck them on the computer so I wouldn’t just play Solitaire all day. It worked…most of the day. Alexander came for dinner, to help empty out