Bulgaria

Cute cafe in Sofia- not how I was feeling though.

 Look, Bulgaria and I got off to a really bad start.

Sofia

My first day in Sofia began with me getting off the overnight train from Serbia (nowhere near as bad as many would have you believe), getting lost, falling asleep in the hostel common room , then being approached by the creepiest person I have met travelling. He asked if I wanted to go lift weights with him and implied that lifting weights wasn’t all we’d be doing (he later terrified another girl at the hostel by pulling open the bathroom door while she was in a towel and asking if she could show him how to use the shower, all the while unconcerned that he had an erection). Later that night, with a stomach-ache, I leaned over in bed, on top of my kindle, smashing half the screen. Upon changing for bed, I discovered my well-worn jeans had thrown in the towel and split. The rain had started that afternoon and the temperature had dropped to around 13 degrees. An email from my parents informed me that a relative had died. This is my biggest fear, being away for something like that.

Sofia, Bulgaria was responsible for three days of the worst homesickness I’ve had.

But I loved it there.

The cold (on my second day, it was warmer at home in Hobart- in winter- than it was in Sofia) allowed me to curl up in bed and watch movies. It offered brief respites where I went and discovered the cute cafes and pretty streets of Sofia. I ate 5€ vegan buffet at the wonderful Dream House and wandered the book market- pouncing on the rare box of English texts and leaving with a Sherlock Homes. I bought replacement jeans in the July sales (Zara!) and ate a lot of chocolate. And Sofia obligingly stayed cold and let me be miserable, which is just what I needed.

Cute cat family in Plovdiv

 

Plovdiv took a whole different tack. My favourite city in Bulgaria out of the four that I saw, I had three nights and that is too many. Unless you aren’t in a rush, like me, and want to sit in the garden of the amazing Plovdiv Old Town Hostel and read your book. Plovdiv old town is perfect and small, up on this tiny hill, all cobblestones and grand manors that are now museums or guesthouses. The cobblestones make dragging or carrying your bag up in the mid thirty degree weather super fun, by the way. Outside of museums and monuments and the more tourist-like sites, English does not exist- making walking two kilometres and navigating a giant Bulgarian supermarket nice and difficult. The man that kept the desk was called Niki as well (male Bulgarian name, very amusing).

Roman amphitheatre hidden under the Plovdiv main street

In Plovdiv I met an English couple travelling for five weeks who were so polite that every morning they asked my permission to sit and talk with me during breakfast. We discussed the difficulties of travelling alone and they reminded me that travelling as a pair has its downsides too. As a pair, you don’t need to be outrageously friendly; you are allowed to depend on each other sometimes. But of course, this means that no one actually talks to you. Downside.

I travelled with them on the train to Istanbul and left them at the station. Travelling is like that. You have a few days with these people, who in real life, you’d like to know more, that you think you could be friends with and then, they are gone into the wind and you move on.

After Turkey, with its heat and junk food and tour group and bus rides, I came back.

Balchik, a tiny town on the coast had been recommended- the seaside is beautiful, it has avoided the commercialism of Varna and its quiet and cosy and secluded. Balchik has the largest botanical garden in Bulgaria. But it was the owner of the small guesthouse that really made this place. He collected me after I got myself lost and called from a service station, chastised me for attempting to walk, laughed at my distaste for the heat and gave me a lift to the gardens. Later that evening, we sat down to a salad made from the greens of his garden and zucchini fritters that he taught me to make as he went. We talked about his family living in London and how he likes the quiet of his house and his dogs and cats sat around my legs. He told me about his sons and their sons and I went to sleep early.

Beautiful gardens #1

Beautiful gardens #2

 For a place that started out so bad, Bulgaria made it up to me.