Blogs from Plovdiv Province, Bulgaria, Europe - page 3

Enjoyed an excellent Bulgarian Merlot 2003 before settling in for a quite night in the village. On the morning of the 27th, pushed on out of the Shiroka Laka valley and continued on twisted, narrow, barely-maintained mountain roads. Surprisingly close to SL, we came to the Parapova ski resort. This looked great in that the forest was dense and evergreen, but not so great in that it was like an outpost of Pomland inserted in the Bulgarian mountains. Pubs, and chip butties. Worth another visit though. Dropped back into Bulgarian villages pretty quickly and then onto the Chepelare district. Spotted a side road to Skalni mostova which took us deep into the mountains and near the peak of a 2000m mountain complete with abandoned/under-utilised mountain resort. Few people around and the air was cold and damp, ... read more

So, it was time to part from the mountains - probably appropriate since our pace of travelling and general movement had become extremely slow. Our next destination was not Varna (like every other backpacker) but Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second city. We took the train again, preferring perhaps unwisely legroom over the option of an air-conditioned bus. Arriving at Veliko Tarnovo station (after some expert Bulgarian language attempts to the taxi driver) we were rather bemused as to how to obtain a ticket as the woman was shut firmly behind her screen doing her best to ignore us. Luckily though, the people of Veliko Tarnovo are pretty helpful and a young girl came over and did everything for us which was rather nice of her! Again, this train journey involved a change - but it wasn't remote as ... read more

So, we met the new bunch of kiddies yesterday - world of difference b/w the two groups. Three of the girls came into our kitchen, introduced themselves and asked if we'd go play football. We had just woken up (it was like, 11am haha), so we told them later. (Even though it was supposed to be our 'day off' we still didn't mind). When we finally went downstairs they all came over and were like shaking hands w/ us and everything haha. Aw, too cute! And then even ask for things - it's no more grabbing glasses or cameras, I love it. I have a couple cute shots of the younger ones wearing my glasses (which turn into sunglasses outside). I played football most of the time we were out - the older ones seem to ... read more

Well we are in our final country and final stop of the trip. We are in a place called Plovdiv, about 3 hours from Sofia where we were yesterday, and where we will be tomorrow for our fight on Monday. Sofia was odd, it didnt seem like a capital city, not helped by the fact we arrived there at 6am. There was little to see, which we knew would be the case. We went to see a cathedral and a crypt which SB probably went on about yesterday. This morning we came here after much fun. We struggled to find the tram in Sofia, and once we did find it we were fined 10 leva each for carrying rucksacks! For the entire trip we've been asking if were okay to carry rucksacks and most places have ... read more

So, first off a bit about our schedule - first week we're with 15 orphans, aged around 6-10yrs, all with either physical or mental disabilities. Second week we're with older kids (11-15ish), but we don't know how many, or if they're disabled. Our daily schedule is usually 9:30-11:30am outside w/ the kids (sometimes 30-60min inside on the comp as well), a well deserved break where we literally eat and then flop out in our rooms, and then 4-6pm we play inside w/ the kids trying to get them to do crafts or stuff like that. Plovdiv is quite warm - and be quite, I mean boiling. I think the lowest it's been here is 30 since we arrived, plus the humidity... so it's toasty. It's fine in the shade I suppose, but we don't often have ... read more