With love from Bucharest

Home can be a place or a person and for me its both. Home will always be Bucharest and my family and friends living there.

Bucharest is the capital of Romania, an eastern european country that is often unknown or forgotten by many people. Fun story for everyone, when i was dated one of my previous partners, i had to open Google Maps and show it to his parents as they never heard of it. But only did they know what a little gem it was hiding.

Some people might know it as "The Paris from the east" due to its pretty cool architecture and French style buildings. Walking through home reminds you at every 20 steps of our old comunism regime, the building my parent's flat is in still has bullet holes from the revolution, but it is also a reminder of what my parents and grandparents fought for and the possibilities of the future. It has everything from cheap alcohol, one of the best night life in eastern Europe to the world’s heaviest building, confusing monuments, bookshops and coffee places at every corner.

Our winters are -25 degrees Celsius and our summers are 40+ degrees Celsius so it can get quite hot. The winter picture is what most of my winter childhood has been where i needed all the gear: the gloves, the hat, the warm coat, the scarf and thick boots and get to school. I find it funny when people now complain about 2 inches of snow when i had to go to school in half a metre high and the teachers would get upset that i was 10 minutes late to class. The memories.

My highschool was a really fun and intense one. Lots of memories of laughter, competitions, but also the place that open my mind and where i met some of my best friends and mentors. While the educational system at home puts a lot of emphasis on theory and where you have to become the best student at every subject, if you are good enough to enter the top ones (i always was the straight A type of student) you also get a lot of opportunities. We had weekly guests from different fields sharing with everyone how they chose their career, we had the subject olympics or competitions that we were picked to go and represent our highschool, but also we were encouraged to volunteer, to get out there and be the best version that we can be.

Rooftop bars are something i have discovered in the last five years and have to say that i had to just go. Seeing the city from different perspectives you can really get an idea of the architecture, the life. The photo above looks over University Square that is just around the corner from where i went to highschool. With a really price hotel for romanian standards, Hilton, a National theatre and a few universities around it, it is a central place where i used to meet my friends so often.

One thing i will definitely miss is food. My family likes lots of meat but also we are suckers for pickles. Had to scroll through so many photos to pick the perfect one and as you can see had to go back all the way to 2008. My family had all our grandparents and family over and mom bought specially these traditional platters and then we spent hours preparing all the food and we just had to have pickles. My family makes pickled cabbage, pickled peppers and pickled onions from scratch each year and it has been a tradition that has been passed on for so many years.

If you ever pass through Bucharest, make sure you visit "Carul cu bere" which is a traditional restaurant where you can find the yummiest Romanian food in the city.

The limits is that compared to other countries, Romania is not that great economically and that corruption still plays a big part in a range of places. But i never let me down and i always dreamed higher and bigger.