Going from Turkey to Bulgaria was a lot like returning to the doldrums of home after a week in an exotic country. Despite Bulgaria being a new destination, it took a few hours to readjust to the reality of my return to Eastern Europe. While every country in this region certainly has its own culture and character, there are a few things that unquestionably connect this part of the world.
Everything in Bulgaria is in Cyrillic, and I was able to speak Russian with anyone who didn’t speak English, which was actually comforting after the confusion of Turkish. The architecture, mostly Soviet, old and crumbling, is similar to that in Ukraine, but the parts of Bulgaria I saw were much cleaner. From my very limited experience here (only 1 night in Sofia and 1 night in Veliko Tarnovo) there seemed to be little developmental difference between Bulgaria and Ukraine, and my first 2 days there I was trying to figure out (on a surface level guess) why Bulgaria is in the EU and Ukraine isn’t.
I later put this question to rest. After a 20 minute nervous walk with a large dog who insisted on trailing either just in front of me or just behind me (I was never scared of dogs before I moved to Ukraine…), I noticed that all the dogs on the street (all 3 of them) had green tags on their ears. I asked the guy working at the hostel about this, and he said that the tags are a sign that this or that stray dog has been neutered and vaccinated. Also, it’s illegal to euthanize them. That fact right there puts Bulgaria about 10 notches higher than Ukraine on the development factor, in my book. Ukraine is overrun with stray dogs and cats, and even people who own pets don’t spay or neuter, so the strays are just making babies all over the place. I don’t know what it takes for a country to be developmentally stable enough to attack that problem, as I’m sure that there are many more prevalent problems to address, but I hope Ukraine soon gets to the point where it has the money and resources to move some of its focus to issues such as the stray dog/cat population.
The flight from Istanbul to Sofia, Bulgaria (the capital, for those of you who don’t know) was crazy cheap: $28. Originally, I had wanted to skip Bulgaria altogether, but you can’t beat that kind of price for travel, and it was a good way to get out of Turkey. Hence, Bulgaria. The Sofia airport was tiny, but clean, new and calm. The city of Bulgaria felt the same, minus the new part. I was expecting something more like Kiev, but Sofia is conquerable in about an hour or 2, and there seems to be much, much less congestion. It’s just a smaller city, I guess.
We took a taxi from the airport to our hostel, and the driver was immediately impressed that we were Americans who speak Russian. We thought he was just a friendly guy, conversing about the city as we made our way to the hostel, pointing out landmarks on the way, but when he dropped us off he tried to charge us 15 euros, rather than 15 lev, which is more than double what we should have paid. Note to anyone ever travelling in Sofia, the taxi drivers will try to take you on a mini tour of the city. Don’t let them do it! The second taxi driver, who drove me to the bus station the next day, tried to do the same, but since I was prepared and knew the city, I was able to set him back on track.
There really wasn’t much to interest me in Sofia, but like I said, I enjoyed the calm of the city. I strolled around on my own, had lunch at Subway and made a half-hearted search for the Dunkin’ Doughnuts that was well documented all over the city but nowhere to be found. Much like I feel when I see a Starbucks, I have no shame in capturing any small relic of home that I can find when outside of Ukraine. A turkey sandwich, my #1 most missed food from back home, really hit the spot.
Veliko Tarnovo was a 3.5 hour bus ride east of Sofia. Lonely Planet touts it as the up-and-coming Prague or Budapest, so I went with high expectations. In my opinion, Lonely Planet was a little ahead of itself. I mean, yes, VT was old and interesting, but it’s no Prague. Nowhere near Prague, in fact. I’m perfectly fine with a city like VT, but don’t go getting my hopes up by comparing it to something like Prague.
VT is in the mountains (the Balkans, to be exact), and walking anywhere in the tiny city requires a fairly intense hike up and down uneven cobblestones. After about 2 hours of exploring the city, the next thing to do would have been a day trip hike. I originally planned to do something like this, but after spending more than I am comfortable with in Turkey, and after realizing that I am about 4 weeks behind on what I need to get done for my online economics class, I decided to devote myself to the shaded patio swing. It’s no fun doing homework when you’re on vacation, but VT was a good place to relax and get some work done without feeling like I was missing out on too much. There was no possible way I could have done the same in Turkey.
I’m writing this post on a train in Romania, but I have to tell you about the train ride I took to get here. I had asked the hostel worker when I first arrived in VT how I could get to Bucharest, Romania, and he gave me a pretty simple answer. The next day, I asked again, and his answer completely changed. This led to some confusion on my part, and I wasn’t sure if I’d need to spend another night in VT or try to catch a 4 a.m. train in a city that is a 2.5 hour bus ride away. In the end, me, C and a Canadian I met in the hostel, split a cheap taxi to the neighboring city, hoping to buy a direct ticket from there to Bucharest. (At this point, it’s about 11:30 at night.) Quite as expected, the woman could only sell us the ticket to the Bulgarian border city, and there, on the same train, we would need to buy a ticket into Romania from the conductor. I didn’t care much about where or who we bought the ticket from, I just really wanted a sleeper car. So, we got on the train, sat in our 2nd class, $3ish, sit-only seats, and prepared ourselves for the 2 hour ride and 2 hour wait before getting a sleeper into Romania. Maybe 20 minutes after the train left, I decided I really didn’t want to sit for that long, so I went on over to the sleeper car to see what I could arrange. Turns out the train is on the Sofia-Kiev track, and the sleeper car was the 2nd class equivalent you can get in Ukraine. I had been told that a sleeper ticket to Bucharest would be 45 lev, so I was surprised and pleased when the conductor offered me 30 lev a person. It felt like a deal, but the deal buzz was promptly killed as we paid and watched the conductor pocket at least 30 of the 90 lev we paid him. I mean, really, he could have at least waited till he walked away from us to put the money in his pocket, but nope. It went straight there. There is just no escaping the corruption sometimes.
In retaliation for the bribe we unknowingly paid, we refused to pay for sheets, and so ended up sleeping on the cushions and pillows bare. As of right now, I feel no immediate bed bug-like itching, but I’ll wait a few more hours before I brag that I got out on the good side of that situation….
We got to the border around 3:30 a.m. and had to wake up to deal with passport control, which involved no bribing and very few questions, thankfully. I think we sat at the border for at least 2 hours, but we were quite happy on our sheet-less beds. We arrived in Bucharest around 8:30 with no major issues, and I’m so thankful for how smoothly the whole trip worked out, considering its beginning. It was one of those situations when speaking Russian really, really helps. I would almost say that Russian was necessary. If we’d only been able to speak English, we probably would have sat in those first seats for the entire 12:50-8:30 a.m. trip, and I would be miserable right now on my 2nd train from Bucharest to Brasov.
(Pictures to come. The internet’s too slow to upload here.)
