Baby It's Cold Outside

After nearly 4 months of work, I finally got a much-needed 2-week holiday for the semester break. Mike had another week of work, so I decided to make the most of my time off and go to Bulgaria. I've seen many places in Bulgaria, but Veliko Tarnovo, said to be one of the best towns in the country, was a place I'd never made it to. I didn't think I could visit Bulgaria without also visiting Sofia, so I managed to fit both of them into a 4-day visit. A 10-hour night bus to Sofia and back plus a 3-hour bus to and from Veliko Tarnovo means I spent almost a whole day unterwegs, but it was worth it.

My ex-boyfriend is Bulgarian and I wrote to his parents, whose company I always enjoyed, asking if they wanted to meet up. They were more than happy to and they picked me up at the bus station when I arrived. Geri had prepared a great meal and we ate and caught up (I hadn't seen them for over 2 years). At that point I had been studying Bulgarian in the States so I was pretty good, but since learning Russian my Bulgarian moved to the back burner. They had to learn Russian during Soviet times, so we were able to communicate easily with each other using a mix of Russian, Bulgarian and a little English. In 2007 Efrem's brother Vilislav spent 5 months in Colorado doing Work and Travel, so his English had greatly improved and he was happy to talk to me. We spent the day together and they offered to let me stay the weekend, but I'd already found couchsurfers so they picked me up in the evening.



The couchsurfers, Ganka and Andrey, were a couple who lived together with a roommate and a beagle. They were very hands-on hosts who spent their whole weekend with me. They spent a whole afternoon with me shopping for a pair of purple boots. When I was in Sofia last time I bought the perfect pair of boots, but wore them out and left them in Kyrgyzstan. I searched in vain for a replacement pair but couldn't find one, so Sofia was my last hope. I ended up finding a great pair in the very last shop we visited, so I'm glad they put up with me the whole time! They took me bowling and out to dinner in a great Bulgarian restaurant, and it was a really great couchsurfing experience. Mike and I are more hands-off hosts who let our surfers do their own thing, so it was a bit strange to be chaperoned.

At the bowling alley there was a Land Rover with a mini Land Rover on the dashboard, which was just too funny to not photograph.



I caught a bus from Sofia to Veliko Tarnovo, a journey that had been impossible just a few days before due to snow in the mountains. Luckily it had stopped snowing and I had no problems on the way. I was met in VT by my couchsurfer Iva-Simona, an art student. It was the coldest day/night of the winter in VT (about -20 Celsius) so I really hadn't chosen the best time to visit. However, I dressed warmly and we sucked it up. Iva-Simona and I walked to her friends' house where there was a gathering of her classmates. They were playing Belot, a popular Bulgarian card game that no matter how many times I watch I can't for the life of me figure out the rules. I watched for a while and her friends were friendly and willing to speak English with me even though they hadn't practiced since high school English class. We switched to Parcheesi and I won once. It was freezing when we left around midnight and caught a cab home. Iva-Simona had a two-bedroom apartment but only heated her bedroom, so the room I stayed in was freezing. She had a tiny space heater that made it a bit warmer, but I spent the night fully dressed in my Pamiri socks, lined jeans, sweater and hat.

The next time I met Iva-Simona at her university and got a tour from her and her friends of the art faculty. I'm not usually into art, but it was fun to see "art in action" and have her friends explain to me how different types of printmaking are done. Iva-Simona had to work but her friend took me out to lunch at a Bulgarian restaurant which happened to be Lonely Planet's "pick" and definitely lived up to the hype. I had sach, which is a mix of meat and veggies baked on an iron board and is just delicious (and sach in Turkish means hair, which made it slightly unappetizing to imagine what it would be before it arrived). The girls then gave me a quick tour of the Old Town but it's hard to enjoy sightseeing when it's -20 degrees. VT's best known landmark is Tsarevets Fortress but it was so cold and icy that I didn't even feel safe walking up the hill to get inside. All the real sightseeing stuff will have to wait for another time. It was just a taste of what the town has to offer.



Veliko Tarnovo is located on both sides of a river and the Old Town and the newer Soviet part are separated by a peninsula with an art museum and my favorite statue in the world. I don't know what it is about this statue but ever since I first saw pictures of it a few years ago I felt like it was something that should be in Lord of the Rings.



The Old Town has a lot of churches and a cathedral that dot the skyline with their crosses and steeples.





Iva-Simona and her friends Ani and Tsvetelin took me out to dinner right before I had to catch my bus and I got to enjoy Bulgarian pizza which is usually eaten with mayonnaise. I thought this was strange but Mike tells me it's a common thing. The last thing we did before I caught my bus back to Sofia and then to Istanbul was take our picture a free tourist computer.



I had really great couchsurfing experiences in Bulgaria, I got to eat wonderful food, practiced my Bulgarian (which by the end of my stay had started to come back) and toughened myself up in the cold. I had such a good time that I'm now thinking of making Bulgaria my next work destination if I can get a work visa somehow.