Making progress
Switching Bucharest apartments, incoming furniture from Belgium, Netflix recommendations + travel news
Life Lately
After appealing our embassy-assigned apartment in Bucharest for the third time, we finally received the good news that we can switch locations.
Unfortunately, though, no other embassy-owned or leased housing will be open and available until the summer sometime—maybe June or July.
This means we’ll be staying in our current ground floor apartment that burglars tried to break into for another four months or so at least.
Now knowing this, we decided to go ahead and order all our furniture that’s been in the State Department’s storage in Belgium.
This includes everything from our home in London: our comfy sectional couch, our white dressers, tufted headboards, wool rugs, coffee tables, wall art, vases, etc.
It’s beloved interior décor accumulated throughout our lives that we haven’t seen in over a year now. We’ve been living with rental furniture and embassy furniture for the last 13 months while we switched from London to Washington, DC and finally to Romania. It’s been a bit of a baptism by fire into the Foreign Service.
Don’t get me wrong—embassy furniture is very nice, solid and well-built. It’s just not ours.
We initially delayed the arrival of our large furniture shipment in hopes we’d be switching apartments sooner rather than later. We hung onto that hope week after week.
“Any day now we’ll find out. Any day now we’ll get an update, and a move will be imminent.”
Unfortunately, the timeline of things did not go as we’d hoped.
So for the time being, we’re ordering all of our stuff here and will make this place feel as much like home as we can.
We’ll see what happens in the coming months and where we’ll move our furniture next.
What to Watch
Based on a popular book series, The Åre Murders follows a Stockholm detective who investigates the disappearance of a young girl in a small Swedish town. The five-part series has episodes ranging from 35 minutes up to one hour. We binge-watched the entire season in a day. It’s good!
The Night Agent season 2 also just came out on Netflix. This FBI thriller is a fun watch set in Thailand, New York and Washington, D.C. Personally, I thought season 1 was a bit slow, but season 2 more than makes up for it with great pacing, complex relationships and an engaging plot.
In the News
Demand for European train travel is at an all-time high and train operators are launching new routes as a result.
New journeys connecting Paris with Berlin, Marseille and Milan were announced, as well as new high-speed routes between Barcelona and the south of France.
There’s even rumors Virgin Group may launch a new English Channel train route to compete with Eurostar in connecting England and France.
Following frigid temperatures across much of Europe, Eurostat released data showing where citizens most struggle to heat their homes.
Residents of Spain, Bulgaria and Lithuania have the most difficulty keeping their residences adequately warm, while residents of Luxembourg, Finland and Slovenia seem to be the warmest and coziest at home, with just 2-3% of the population reportedly struggling.
A mysterious string of earthquakes has been rocking the Greek island of Santorini. Residents have evacuated as the tremors increase in strength.
Over 12,000 earthquakes have been recorded since January 26, according to the University of Athens’ crisis management committee.
New Blogs
I recently published three new Bucharest-specific blogs:
Therme Bucharest Review: A First-Timer’s Complete Guide (by a Local)
Best Restaurants in Bucharest | Where to Eat in Romania’s Capital
I’m continually updating all my blogs with new information, so let me know if you have any tips or suggestions for things to add!
Top Travel Accessories
My #1 travel accessory recommendation will always be Apple AirTags. In fact, we’re using these on a daily basis right now as we track the location of our incoming furniture shipment.
I can see in real time the exact location of the moving truck. Highly recommend you include these in your checked bags anytime you travel!
Another new-fangled can’t-travel-without product I’ve found are these magnetic power banks that connect to the back of your phone and juice the battery when it’s running low.
Great for long-haul trips when you may or may not have access to a power outlet, or when you just can’t be bothered to dig out the right charging cord.
That’s all for now! Feel free to comment on anything I mentioned or whatever has been on your mind.
Cheers,
Michelle
Connect with me on Instagram or Threads.
Destination Guides
Hungary | Italy | Romania | United Kingdom | United States
“When overseas, you learn more about your own country than you do the place you’re visiting.”