Varna

When in Bulgaria everyone was telling me not to trust public transport, and that the best way to get around the country was by hitchhiking. But being that I knew no Bulgarian and all of my trains were paid for, I decided to take the best train in the country—the express train to Varna. If you don’t know, Varna is a beach town on the edge of the Black Sea and Bulgaria’s third largest city. When staying with Jordan he mentioned that Varna would be a much better capitol because it is cleaner, nicer and the people are better. After this epithet of Varna I was really interested to see what it would really be like.

I was going to be staying in a hostel about 5 km outside of town, at the X Hostel. I found out about the hostel while drinking at the Art Hostel in Sofia via a flier in which mentioned all the free things that came with the hostel. And on their website they boasted that hostelworld.com rated them best hostel of ’08, so I felt like it would be a pretty good time. Taxis are pretty cheap in Bulgaria and are swarmed everywhere like bees, so I pulled one over and took it to the hostel.

Upon arriving the owner introduced me to himself and told me beers were in the fridge and there was going to be a BBQ later in the night if I wanted to join and it all was going to be pretty cheap, he told me where the nearest beach was and what was the best spots in Varna for sightseeing and for swimming. It was like reading a Lonely Planet, but one that catered to my personal needs.

I took a nap and read and wrote a bit before the BBQ and was introduced to everyone at the hostel. The season wasn’t in its height so only one dorm was open at the hostel and likewise everyone there was going to be my sleeping mates. There were two British men in their forties or older, one German man who was looking at a house in Bulgaria, one Belgian kid in his 20s just traveling around and a Korean girl who’d been living in Munich for 6 years while studying.

Together we prepare the food and got to know each other, as traveler to traveler. We all related to the heat and beauty of the Black Sea, as none of us had such a nice coast or no coast at all. Of course we enjoyed some wine and beer as well, but just to push our stomachs to the hunger that was needed to finish the amount of food being cooked.

Daniele, the hostel owner, was having the BBQ because to of his friends from England and a few other people were all coming to the hostel that night. Once the other guests arrived the party started and I was happy to have some food in my stomach. We had all kinds of meat patties, chicken breasts, sausages, salads, spinach dip, fries, zucchini, eggplant and a number of other things to eat with your hands.

The feast lasted about three hours and then transformed into a full on social party. Everyone was drinking beers and talking about their exploits and I joined one circle and we talked about travels, politics, literature, films and whatever subject breezed by.

The next day I ventured down to the beach and had a swim. It was really pretty, the Black Sea. The water was warm and held little seaweed, the water was an unfamiliar blue to my PNW eyes and the sands were hot and golden. In case no one told you, the beaches are top optional, so yes, every so often you see topless women and no one makes a big deal out of it. The waves were easy to ride and barely caused your body to be pushed and the bottom was reachable for about twenty feet and there were no extreme drops. The sun burnt my shoulders and darkly tanned my arms, but the rest of me remained milky.

The beach I was at was mostly surrounded by hotels. Something I don’t understand is that outside of each hotel was the shore, but between the shore and the hotel would be a few pools, in case you didn’t want to swim in sea…but it was so hot and beautiful. And the sea was pretty safe, though I guess if you wanted to just put your kid in the water and step away, the pool is a better choice. Who knows what the justification of it all was.

When I got back to the hostel there was three new people at the place. They were the friends of the owner, he was hosting them for a few days, just to catch up on old times and show them around the area. They invited me to join them in go-cart racing, and I accepted. I hadn’t go-carted in awhile and the prices were pretty cheap, it was about $1 for a lap. We all went out for 4 laps, and then the friends went racing for 4 more. You could tell they had all been friends since childhood, the way they pushed each other around the corners and bumped into the back of each other unremorsefully.

Around midnight the hostel owner, two of his friends and I decided to go out to a disco and see the Varna down town beach strip. We took a taxi down to the center and stepped out into a brief rainstorm. Thunder and lightning started to hit all over, but the rain ceased and we were able to walk around freely. We found a cabana-esque disco and walked in, ordered some drinks and watched all the drunks dance. I really enjoy watching people at discos, the weird ways they dance, the funny ways people will lips the words, the couples and potential couples. I think it is all really entertaining. I especially like how awful the music can be. I enjoy dancing, but much more when I have people I can dance with that know I am not a serious dancer. See, I know I look like an idiot and I like the people I’m with to be idiots too, so I feel more secure about it. But with new people, and classy Italians like the few I was with, I just sit and watch people.

We stepped out around 2 am and decided to walk to a beach on the bar. We grabbed beers and went out to the beach and sat under some umbrellas on some wooden beach chairs. In the distance we could see the lightning striking near our hostel and out in the middle of the sea. It lit the sky a strange purple color. Then it started to pour and we ran back to the open bar and hid under the 60ft umbrella. After the rain stopped we darted into a taxi and returned back to the hostel.

I really remember that night as being one of the best moments in my traveling history. It wasn’t particularly special, or breathe taking, but it was relaxing and the ocean and thunder combination really set a nice mood. And I expected myself to be tired or worn out but I was absolutely alert and aware, I wasn’t tired one bit. Plus the people were really nice. Two of the Italians had just come from Istanbul, so we talked a little bit about that, but they were not especially fluent in English so conversations were short and vague. But they seemed to have had fun.

The next day I went to the city of Varna to walk around and by a bus ticket to Bucharest. The city of Varna is kind of interesting, but most coastal towns are mostly interesting because of the beach, and Varna isn’t really an exception. Though the town is really nice and has some interesting things. You can walk for miles along a promenade and there is a Cathedral that is particularly nice. The city is decorated with giant sculptures sporadically placed throughout the town and the hill sides hold some nice homes.

When I returned the hostel had two new Australian guys. The Italians, Australians and I all decided to go for a swim at the closest beach. The waves were really big, probably because of the storm, but that only made them more fun to ride. Most of the time if you jumped up when the wave came, you wouldn’t be thrown to the shore, or if you dived into it, but almost always you would have to close your eyes and hold your breath because the wave engulfed everything.

We returned after a few hours and I ate and prepared my things for traveling.

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Part of trip: Europe Trip 2

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