Sometimes the best days start in a bed that still smells like sleep and little-girl dreams, and end with the taste of pistachio gelato dripping down your wrist while a five-year-old laughs so hard she snorts.
We woke up slow, the three of us tangled like puppies. Then we ran for the car and drove into Sibiu because the Bremen Town Musicians were waiting—donkey, dog, rooster, cat—and Frida needed to see them live. She sat the whole hour and a half with her arms looped around my neck, chin on my shoulder, whispering the story back to me before the actors even opened their mouths.
When it ended, the sky cracked open. Rain like someone flipped a bucket. No umbrellas, of course. So we sprinted through the old fortress wall, cobblestones slick as ice, laughing like idiots. I ducked behind a buttress that’s been standing there since before America was a country, counted to five, and jumped out roaring. Frida screamed with pure joy. Mother rolled her eyes, but she was smiling too.
Ten metres later: salvation. An Italian ice-cream shop none of us knew existed. Hand-made, ridiculous colors, stone floors, wood beams, the kind of place that feels like it was waiting for us. Frida got strawberry and chocolate. I got pistachio and something that tasted like summer in a cup. We stood under the awning, licking fast before it melted in the rain, watching the storm hammer the medieval town like it had a personal grudge.
Later: sushi and ramen, Netflix flickering, Frida building pixel castles on her iPad while I typed this with one thumb and the fire popped on my left.
Some days, the world is trying to break you.
Some days you still get gelato in a thousand-year-old doorway with the best kid on the planet laughing in your ear.
That’s enough.
That’s everything.
More tomorrow, if the gods of custody courts and house titles allow it.