Lost in Bulgaristan

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This country is sweet! I was immediately impressed by the cheap beer (a 1.5 Litre bottle of good Zargoska lager for $1.50 Canadian!) and the amount of good looking women walking around. Maybe it was Turkey and the lack of female presence in public for the past 4 1/2 weeks but Bulgaria has it going on!

The train ride here was something else though. I boarded the train at the Turkish border city of Edirne but there weren't any ticket sellers at 2am when the train rolled through from Istanbul. So, I boarded the train deciding to pay once I was onboard. Not so easy, the first two sleeping car attendants I talked with were both loaded and one was really trying to rinse me for something crazy like 40 Euros to stay in a sleeping car! I was bounced around several different cars as it seemed like nobody knew how to deal with me and sent me onto the next car. Finally, I found a sleeping wagon to myself as the attendent was passed out and he couldn't notice me on his car. After a few hours of sleep I awoke to find myself missing a connection that nobody had told me about. Some fresh, sober attendents in the morning were really helpful and told me how to get back on track and only charged me 10 leva (about 8 Loonies) for the whole debauchery. I was late getting into Plovdiv but the experience only brought a smile to my face...and also something to write about in this blog!

Another day in Plovdiv and another new beer to consume. This time it is Kamenitza, a locally brewed lager and it's pretty damn good too! Finally, I was able to transfer the funds necessary for the Russian course in Moscow in June. I had to eventually open up a Bulgarian account with a local bank, then pull money out of 3 different accounts in Leva (Bulgarian currency because their ATMs will not dispense any other currency), and then wire the money. It was explained to me that the Bulgarian banking system is still quite fragile after an economic crisis in 1996. There is special legislation in place that makes taking out large sums of money difficult, to say the least.

After Plovdiv, I went to Veliko Tarnovo and haven't departed since...originally planning 2 or 3 days but now it's been 5! I have met some great people here that both work at the hostel (Pesho, Toshe, Mila... y'all know you rock!) and travelers (Janna and Danielle, heads up in the Czech Republic, because you never know). Well, I'm finally off tomorrow as it looks like I will be able to meet up with a long-lost Canadian friend in Budapest, Hungary for the weekend....I'll let you know what develops.

One last parting story from Veliko though and it's a classic. It seems the staff at the hostel like to create nicknames for people who stay here and my buddy Toshe had some real funny stories. My favorite was about an Aussie who stayed here for a while. Apparently, he had "coke-bottle" glasses that he wore and he had to read the computer screen from about 2cm away. Anyway, the nickname that the staff granted upon him was "The Sniper". Adding to the story though, he did alright with the ladies in town as well and hence, the written text on the computer screen was not the only thing he was "scoping".

Till Hungary.

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