Incoherent Scribblings

Bulgaria Pictures

Clear Black Sea Waters
Originally uploaded by blondelibrarian.

I have finally uploaded some pics from our trip to Bulgaria!

Hop on over to Flickr to see them.

Holiday Wrap Up

My Bulgarian holiday was so relaxing it was almost boring… but I had a great time nonetheless!

We had an uneventful flight to Bulgaria, even though I was temporarily stressed by the fact that we didn’t have name tags on our luggage and couldn’t seem to find any airline provided ones. Luckily our luggage arrived in Bulgaria safe and sound and because I had a hideously gaudy luggage strap wrapped around my suitcase, I had no trouble finding it.

Once we got there, the locals were friendly even though when we tried to ask them for directions we kept getting pointed in the wrong direction. This was probably due to the fact that though we had an address written down and were showing it to the people, it was in Latin letters and, if you weren’t aware, Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet! (We knew this of course, but for some reason were naïve enough to think that an address using Latin letters would be no problem for the locals.)

Several times during our vacation we were looking for something only to discover later that since we couldn’t make out the Cyrillic we had passed by it. I had meant to get an English/Bulgarian or German/Bulgarian dictionary before we left, but never got around to it. Once we got to Bulgaria we decided we really needed one but the only thing we could find was an English/Bulgarian phrase book and it wasn’t very helpful.

Our hotel was clean, about half of the staff spoke English and the other half spoke German, so we had it made! We had a great room with a view of the Black Sea that nearly took my breath away. We also had satellite TV which broadcasted The Cartoon Network in English. (That in and of itself nearly made my vacation!) We had a private bathroom and air conditioning. (For those of you that think this is no big deal, come to Europe some time… you will find it is a big deal!) The bed wasn’t very comfortable, but that didn’t really surprise me. I think in my entire life maybe slept in two hotel beds that were comfortable.

Though the weather wasn’t perfect, it was nice enough that I got to spend some time working on my tan. On the sunny days the beach wasn’t crowded and the sand wasn’t hot, so I got to walk barefoot in the sand (and managed to get a splinter). I had a grand time collecting sea shells and I have the intention of one day making a sea shell necklace with them.

Unfortunately, there were some cool and rainy days, but we made the most of them by visiting the town’s archaeological museum, visiting the nearby town of Nessebar, which is on UNESCO’s World Heritage Site list, and buying souvenirs. My prize purchase is a Bulgarian tea set. (Amusing, considering I don’t drink tea!) We took lots and lots of pictures of both Sozopol and Nessebar and I finally used up the last roll of film on my 35mm camera.

The food was good, but the wine was better. To our delight we learned early on that Bulgaria is not a country of vegetarians. Their traditional cuisine features lots and lots of grilled meat. As staunch carnivores, A. and I were in Heaven. With almost every meal we drank a bottle of Kadarka, a sweet red wine, and had dessert.

On the last evening of A.’s conference there was a conference dinner held at a restaurant that was (as our Bulgarian guide later told us) traditionally Bulgarian. We had a typical Bulgarian meal and that evening we also got to see some traditional Bulgarian dancing and hear some traditional Bulgarian singing. Sadly we didn’t take the camera with us that night so we didn’t get any pictures of the girls in their pretty dresses or the guys in their snazzy boots.

The town wasn’t too touristy (mostly because the “season” hadn’t started yet) and I really enjoyed seeing the architecture and visiting my first Orthodox church. There are over 200 houses in the “old town” that date back to Renaissance times. Most are still lived in and are remarkably well preserved.

I was awed by the Orthodox churches. In comparison to western European cathedrals they are quite modest, but their size gives them a coziness I have never felt in the great cathedrals. And the icons… need I say more? Not only do I find them beautiful, but the depictions of the saints, in my opinion, are really different from the West.

And finally, the prices were ridiculous… in a good way! (read: CHEAP!) It was the first time since I came to Germany that I had been outside the Eurozone, so the first thing we did was change some Euros into Lev. We got almost 2 Lev to the Euro.

I must go on a slight rant here… Lately lots of people have been complaining about the Euro here. However, I think the Euro has had a deeper impact than some would admit. In A.’s conference group, we were the only ones that had changed Euros when we arrived in Bulgaria. Everyone else figured they would take Euros everywhere in Bulgaria. (For those of you not in the know: Bulgaria ISN’T a member of the EU… yet.) Obviously even though they bitch about it, the people have gotten quite used to the whole “one currency” thing… End rant

However, we didn’t think too much about the prices until our first meal. When we got the bill the price was about 30 Lev. A. remarked that wasn’t too bad, we spend more than 30 Euros in Munich for dinner. Then I reminded him that we weren’t paying 30 Euros for dinner, but 30 Lev and in actuality it was more like 15 Euros! The prices made me feel like we were in Mexico! 6 Lev for a bottle of wine, 15 Lev for a whole sack full of souvenirs, 1.70 Lev for a bottle of Coke and a candy bar… we ended up only spending a fraction of what we brought with us.

Finally our time in Sozopol was up and we headed back to Munich. Somehow we got stuck in the “kid” section of the plane and had to listen to babies crying and mothers trying to keep their kids occupied for the 2 hour duration of our trip. This began to wear on my nerves after a while, but luckily the plane ride was short and other than that uneventful.

Even though I *heart* Sozopol and will definitely be going back, I am also glad to be home and believe it or not, even after such a relaxing vacation, I still feel like I need a vacation to recover from my vacation!

(Pictures from my trip will be coming soon!)

A Different Kind of Vacation

Growing up, my family only went on one “real” vacation. When I was 13, my dad, mom, sister, grandma, and I loaded up into our 1976 Monte Carlo and hit the road for a National Lampoon style vacation. We didn’t go as far as California, only to Colorado, and didn’t have nearly as many mishaps, but it set the stage for how I would define “vacation.”

For me, vacation became synonymous with sightseeing and tourist traps. I had a list of places I wanted to visit, sights I wanted to see, and things I wanted to do. If I went somewhere and didn’t accomplish these things, I felt like my vacation had been a failure.

When we first got together, A. and I did a lot of traveling. I took him to New Orleans, he took me to Florida, and for the first part of our honeymoon, we went to Arizona. After we arrived in Germany he took me to Rome for the second part of our honeymoon. We saw the sights, ate delicious food, drank too much wine, and paid too much money for worthless trinkets. Though we enjoyed ourselves, we were always on the go and never really took the time to relax. Whenever I got home I would always exclaim that I “needed a vacation to recover from my vacation!”

Then last year, A. suggested that we go visit his relatives in Greece. I was so excited. The ancient ruins were just overflowing in Greece and it had always been on my list of places to visit. When he told me that his relatives lived in an area of eastern Greece that was mostly devoid of ruins and that we would stay in his family’s little bungalow where I would have to cook during our time away, I put the brakes on his plan. Go to Greece and not see any ancient ruins and worst of all… COOK?! Was the man mad?

It was then that I was introduced to a different kind of vacation, and one that is very common here in Europe: Somewhere in “vacation” land you buy a little bungalow in the middle of nowhere that may or may not have indoor plumbing, you pack up your things as if you were moving, and spend three or four weeks “relaxing” there.

I was perplexed as how this was supposed to constitute a “vacation.” A. explained that it is a vacation because you are able to get away from the daily grind and relax by doing absolutely nothing in your little bungalow. You spent your time going to the beach, fishing, or just reading a book in the garden. I agreed that this would be the perfect type of vacation except two things: First, it sounded incredibly BORING and second, if I had to cook during vacation, then in my book, it was NOT a vacation and I would rather stay home. Well, you guessed it, last year we didn’t go on vacation to Greece, we stayed home.

Earlier this year, A. tried to talk me into visiting Greece again. I agreed to visit Greece as long as we didn’t have to stay in the bungalow and he promised me I didn’t have to cook. He was still mulling over this plan when he was invited to a conference in Bulgaria. The conference itself would only be a few days and A. suggested that he stretch his time in Bulgaria to a week and that I come along.

Honestly, Bulgaria had never been on my list of places to visit, but when A. told me that the conference was at the Black Sea coast, it sounded intriguing. I looked up the place that we were to visit on the web. I found out that Sozopol is an ancient Greek settlement and boasts an archeological museum, but for the most part is a beach resort. It wouldn’t be a vacation full of sightseeing. It would be a beach vacation made up of frolicking at the beach, ambling along the streets of an ancient Greek settlement, eating Bulgarian food, drinking wine, and just plain relaxing.

It was a different kind of vacation than I had ever taken, but I aimed to enjoy every last minute of it…

Holiday at the Black Sea

Almost two months from now, A. will be conferring along the Black Sea in a little place called Sozopol, Bulgaria, “one of [Bulgaria's] most popular beach resorts. Preferred by people for its casual ambience and ancient atmosphere.” And guess what?! I will be going along!

When I studied in Paris, my roommate was Bulgarian. Her name was Déliana and she tried to persuade me to come home with her to Sofia over Christmas that year, but I opted to go to London and Amsterdam instead. At that time (1994) Bulgaria hadn’t been free from the Soviet Union for that long and honestly, I was a little wary of traveling there. However, after the Christmas break the pictures Déliana showed me from her home peaked my interest and before I went back to the States she began teaching me the Bulgarian alphabet and those basic language things like “hello,” “goodbye,” “please,” and “thank you.”

I never thought at that time I would ever visit Bulgaria. And so even though Déliana and I corresponded for about a year, eventually we lost touch and unfortunately, I have forgotten all the Bulgarian she taught me.

I love to travel and the idea of spending a lazy week along the cost of the Black Sea soaking up the June sun and exploring the ancient landscape while A. confers with his nerdy colleagues sounds like a little piece of Heaven to me.

Even though I suppose I better try and get a hold of an English-Bulgarian (or in an emergency a German-Bulgarian) phrase book before I go…