Varna, Bulgaria

On my last night in Sofia my couch surfer took me to a good resturant where he had been before. The menu was Bulgarian with a little English. He made a mistake and ordered something a bit strange, “what is it” I said… “fried yellow cheese”. It was pretty funny seeing him eat cheese for dinner, so I of course gave him some of my meal which turned out to be some strange combination of meat and salad and french fries. Also the cheese they have in Bulgaria is either Cheese (meaning white cheese) or Yellow Cheese.

Fried Yellow Cheese

Train Station in Sofia

Creepy dimly lit underground area near the train station

After my visit in Sofia I hopped on an evening train to Varna, Bulgaria which is on the Black Sea coast. I slept on the overnight train and wandered around the city trying to follow my couch surfers directions, finally I found a taxi driver who was taking a Bulgarian, a Russian and an American (me) wherever we wanted at a reduced rate, the Russian girl helped figure out where it was that I wanted to go, which was great considering I had no clue as to where it was I needed to go.

Upon getting to wherever it was I needed to go, my couch surfer met me and we immediately went swimming in the Black Sea. It was beautiful, the Sea was very calm and the water was astoundingly clear! It was really nice. I saw a few small jelly fish a few bottom feeders and this strange fish that kept trying to follow me around it was very small and swam on the top of the water. Becasue it took an interest in me I didnt want any of it and kept trying to get away from or spash it away from me.

In the Black Sea

Fish that wouldnt leave me alone

After basking in the sun we headed to find some traditional Bulgarian food. I started off with a “Shopska Salad” not sure how its spelled, and this baked chicken and mushroom dish. It was fantastic. I also found some of the first dark beer I had seen in Europe. As we were talking about couch surfing two Australians called him about his couch which I had intended on sleeping on, up until a few hours earlier when I decided to take the night train out of Varna to Bucarest, Romania.

We met up with the Australians and walked around the city for a few hours and had a nice leasurely time strolling through Varna.

Next to a light house with St. Nick

PS the z and the y on this keyboard are switched making typing verz difficult, please ignore anz and all errors

Sofia, Bulgaria

Arriving late put a bad taste in my mouth for the city because unfortunately the night highlights the negative aspects of a city just right and as you all know, first impressions mean everything, even for a city. On my first real day here in the city, I wandered around trying to find cool things to look at. I of course tried really hard to avoid any museums or churches that required money.  Which by now most of you know that I am fairly good at it. I wandered to one of the grandest churches in the city, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and I saw St. Sofia Church, the Russian Church “St. Nikol” and I saw a government area which is the administrative headquarters for Bulgarias presidency, every hour on the hour the guards changed. I was very hungry walking around and wanted to find some food, unfortunately the alphabet here is Cyrillic which I of course do not understand, at first I was a bit worried that I was going to have to point to something in the middle of a menu and hope that it was good. But at a stand selling kebaps and burgers I met a man who spoke English, he gave me a hambuger type thing. There was a lot of stuff on it, and it was amazing! It was like a cross between a Burger, a Gyro and a Turkish Doner Kebap, there were french fries on it, taziki sauce, mayonnaise, meat, ketchup, more mayonnaise cucumber, chili powder/sauce not sure which, and some other stuff, it was amazing.

I walked back to my couch surfers apartment, which I found after wandering through some neighborhoods that looked a bit sketchy. I finally found the National Military Museum, which is next to his house. Its great, you can wake up and look out the window and see a Mig, or a tank looking at you, or trucks with rocket launchers on them.

After Simon returned home we went out for a bite at a local ale house, it was very clever in that they had poor spouts for the beer at each table with a meter that measures the amount you drink in liters, at first we thought it was measuring in money, so we were mislead and unfortunately did not enjoy the end result of that. The food was great! Fairly inexpensive but delicious. Later we took a crazy cab (the driver must have been from India, because he had a total disregard for the lanes) to a student area of the city where after a while we went “cosmo” bowling, it was a lot of fun, bowling in Bulgaria. After bowling we walked by another stand that sold the crazy burgers, I of course needed to get one of them and man was it good!

Thessaloniki, Greece

I arrived in Thessaloniki late in the afternoon met my couch surfer and went back to his house, while he was studying his cousin and her two friends invited me to go with them to see a Greek play. I thought that was pretty cool because I think the Greeks invented Drama. The play I saw was called “The Lady” apparently it was about a band of robbers trying to steal a painting I think, but I am not 100% sure. I could not understand any of it, but it was fun to see a play in a different language. When we got out of the play it was raining really hard, it was crazy, the streets were overflowing in places and there were bits of loose trash flowing in the current down the streets. I was with  one of the girls who couldn’t get her arm brace wet due to an injury, so it was pretty difficult for us to keep it dry while everyone got soaked to the bone. The girls made spaghetti it was really good. While we were eating two girls from Iceland came to the house too. My couch surfer was hosting me and two girls from Iceland at the same time. It was really cool staying in a house full of people to talk with and learn about one anothers cultures. The next day we took a walk to the castle on the top of the hill and saw a beautiful view of the city and of the Gulf of Thessaloniki further down the road was an old city wall tha protected the city a long time ago, at one end there was a castle, in the middle was a rotunda with frescos depicting Jesus Christ and other religious symbols and at the very end near the sea was the beautiful White Tower which is not white. After relaxing at the waterfront for a while we walked to a great Greek resturant where we got a smorgasboard of food it was of course, amazing.

The next day I hoped on a train to Sofia, Bulgaria. I was really excited that I had an entire room to myself and that it was a non-smoking train. Then I realized that no one pays attention to the signs and it makes me very upset. Those of you who know me know that I cannot stand smoke/ing and it was coming right into my area so I had to put on a mask to try to give myself some decent air to breathe, which of course didn’t work as well as I wanted it to. I really wanted to go to the cabin next to mine and throw them off the train, but of course I refrained.

(not happy)

I arrived in Sofia at 11:30PM and I wasnt sure if it was Sofia or not, so I went out to ask someone, and there was no one on the train. It was dark in this seedy looking train station at midnight and I didn’t hear anyone get off the train, yet there was no sign of anyone and only a few people outside the train, not a trainload thou. I gathered my belongings and steped off the train into what felt like dozens of peering eyes, a big disgruntled man saw me and started to follow me into the train station I was walking toward what looked like a security guard just in case, but as I figured he was a cab driver following people around. I tried to call my couch surfer but for some reason I didn’t have the exit code right and couldn’t get ahold of him. Great, stuck in a train station at midnight and I can’t get ahold of my host while a bunch of seedy people lingerd about. Then I saw a man who looked clean cut and like he spoke English, he let me use his phone and my host said he would meet me at the station in 20 min. I told my new friend that my ride would be here in 20 min. We started talking a bit more as creepy guys came up to us asking if we needed a cab. He turned to me and said you really shouldn’t wait here. So we moved inside just as a lady was locking the doors. While inside we got kicked out because the train station was closing. So, outside on the freshly rained pavement my new friend told me that this area was really not safe for either of us, so we walked across the street to get away from who knows what. He was kind enough to wait with me until my ride arrived, relieved I got into a cab with him and headed home.

I hadn’t eaten in quite some time, so we walked to a 24 hour restaurant where I ordered a Bulgarian style pizza and my couch surfer ordered a salad, which was just a bowl of cut up tomatoes. It was pretty funny.

Bulgarian Pizza