Blogs from Rousse Province, Bulgaria, Europe

Der erste Teil der Fahrt war noch ganz nett. Bergig, kurvig. Dann kam die Stadt Bello Tarnovo und damit der Zivilisationsschock. Was seit Tagen vergessen war nämlich McDonald, Praktiker, Bauhaus und Co erhob plötzlich seine schrecklichen Fratzen und alles war, wie daheim. Immerhin die alten Straßen und die an den Fels geklebten Häuser waren sehr pittoresk. Und die Touristen, die pflichtgemäß diese Schönheiten abwanderten, staunten über ein deutsches Motorrad das diese Gässlein entlang schlich. Am Praktiker Parkplatz, ich brauchte Kleber, sprach mich ein Mann an. Zuerst das Übliche, woher, wohin, allein, Frau, Alter... und das alles ohne gemeinsame Sprache. Aber dann kam er schnell zur Sache und wollte mir unbedingt eine brandneue Stihl Kettensäge verkaufen, die er dezent in einem schwarzen Plastikbeutel herumschleppte. Er wollte einfach nicht verstehen, dass ich keinen Bedarf... read more

On the bus to Sofia 12 noon August 10 2014 When you consider that Romania and Bulgaria have such a long border and even a joint tourism promotion sponsored by the EU it is amasing how difficult, and expensive it is to get between the two. They have a bit of a geographic excuse; the Danube that forms a lot of the border is about 1km wide and there are only two bridge crossings. We used the one at Ruse (pronounced Rue-seh). Bucherest seemed a nice enough city although we did not have a chance to explore. Are we the only people to have visited Bucherest who never saw Ceausescu's People's Palace, the largest Parliment building in the world. We had been told buses went from the Filaret bus station to Ruse. We took the Metro ... read more

Perhaps I should explain a little about this trip. Val and I had decided that as we aged 'gracefully' we might have to look into a different mode of travel. We LOVE to travel on our own to lesser known destinations but the reality is that it gets harder as one gets older. So this trip was what we referrd to as ' Plan B'. We were going to join a river boat tour on the Danube, see 7 or more countries without a lot of the usual trains, planes, buses, and automobiles. We chose Grand Circle Travel as we have both done several trips with them and their sister company Overseas Adventure Travel ( Peru, Thailand, Chile, Egypt for me and Val has done Morroco and China a well as Chile, Egypt, and Thailand). For ... read more

The weeks are now flying by way too fast for my liking. This time in two weeks, I shall be up in the air on the way back to the UK! Scary stuff! An update from my last week... Spent Sunday relaxing in the 28 degree sunshine and did some documentation and what not while tanning! We decided to go to the supermarket in the afternoon to buy some more resources and gifts for the children at the home as leaving presents. We bought them a wash bag each, filled with their own comb/ brush, a sponge, toothbrush and deoderant for those who used it. We aim to give these to the children before we leave and also leave our reccommendations to the staff and the students of possible interventions they can do with the children ... read more

The weeks appear to be going by quicker and quicker now... too quick for my liking. Half way through already. With regards to the children's home, our role was to set goals for each of the individual children and work alongside them to achieve thier goals by our final week of placement. With us being half way through, I reviewed the goals I set and feel on target for the children to reach their goals by the end, if not before. They are achieveing above and beyond our expectations, using Supernanny's naugthy step technique for the behavioural issues, giving the children the choice and freedom to play, allowing them to explore a variety of environments to stimulate all their senses, and ensuring the more disabled ones sit in a variety of positions through the day to ... read more