At Home in Veliko Tarnovo

Alright, trying to squeeze a few posts out here in the next couple days to get us all caught up. Recently spent 4 days in the beautiful Bulgarian town of Veliko Tarnovo. Spent my stay living in a guesthouse with a trio of genuine and interesting people--the ever-hospitable owners, Nick and Cathy, and the one other guest, Alejandro, a young Spanish traveler making his way around the country. Evenings were spent eating the sumptuous food Cathy prepared and drinking their stock of homemade Rakia, essentially moonshine. Alejandro would bust out the flamenco guitar and Nick and I would spin tales from the road. One big hippie family we were. Having taken on Alejandro as a protege (he would probably say the opposite), we would hit the town late night to see what we could fall into. Our first venture out proved fruitful when we extended invitiation for lunch and dinner the next day by seperate local parties. Although the former would later be unspokenly retracted, most likely when our half-truthing antics got out of hand. We did however spend the next evening's dinner in the company of a fun and diverse group of people, all except one being foreign to Veliko Tarnovo. 9 people, 6 different countries (none but me were native English speakers although all spoke it well, thankfully) and amazingly it seemed normal. The party could've lasted until Christmas but others were dispersing home for the holidays, Alejandro had to see about a girl, and I had to see about Romania.

Bulgaria proved to be a good decision to venture into. I'm gonna miss the plastic 2 Liters of beer that sell as cheap as water, the "Balken Red" hairdo's the old ladys wear and the dark clothed, crimped hair, knee-high boot look sported by the younger class that so reminds me of the Russian Barbie that I had er..my sisters had growing up. But, the road calls as it so often does and I was off.

More soon,
BQ