Right now, especially in the evening, Bucharest smells divine, like a $60 Diptyque candle.
I open the doors and windows of the house to let the scent fill the house. I can't figure out what it is, it's everywhere, but nowhere particular.
Last week I had a priest-beekeeper come to the embassy to sell honey. He brought huge jars of farm fresh acacia honey, which he sold for about $8. He told me soon he can bring other kinds of honey, depending on the bees, of course. He thinks the next variety will be "Tei tree, with the flowers." "Tea tree?" "Lime," he says. "But not lime the fruit." Google and I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.
When we got to our house on the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria the air smelled sweet and delicious. "It's the lime tree," said the propriator. "The Bulgarians are crazy for it. You'll see them picking it everywhere, to make tea and to bathe in. We call it Tilia," she said in her British accent. Okay, let me look that one up.
Linden. Stefan made tea, Camille put the flowers in her bath (it's suppose to calm hysteria) and I'm just breathing the flower-scented air.
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 