Alas, a border jump made fairly painless and uneventful with the benefit of a sleeper train. After spending the day in Istanbul, I boarded the train around 10pm and was ready to crash. This was not to happen without fielding a string of well-meaning but annoying questions from the Malaysian traveler I was sharing the cabin with. I tried to deter this seemingly endless game of "where have you been/what have you seen" by muttering something about my in a my recent stay in a Turkish psych ward.
After managing to fall asleep in a train teteering side to side so much I was sure it was going to derail, I got about 4 solid before spending 2 early morning hours getting processed out of Turkey and into Bulgaria. No exit tax and no visa fee--hooray!
When I arrived at the station in Sofia, Bulgaria I was shocked to see a pair of uncovered breasts staring out at me from the magazine rack in the station. Quicky, I took cover behind a column and waited for the morality police to come out, burn the kiosk and hang the vendor. After a few scared moments of anticipation, it dawned on me that I had made the geographic and cultural cross from the Middle East into Eastern Europe, where cheap vodka, casinos, and smut filled magazine racks would probably be more the norm. Along with these supposed luxuries, I was also gaining to need to start worrying about petty theft and scams, what neighborhoods I wandered into, and the frigid weather. No worries just yet however, as I was being taken under the wing of my old roommate Gergana, who lives and works in Sofia. I am currently crashing at the pad of her and her two roommates, and enjoying the domestic comforts of stable accomodations, being able to grocery shop and eat decent meals, and receive an immersion into Bulgarian life. As always hanging with Gergana is great and my residency with the trio of Bulgarians has produced almost more of a nightlife in my few nights here than in my whole Middle East trek. My personal highlight so far is when we attended a birthday celebration of a girl, whose party was made up entirely of Bulgarians and Romanians, save your favorite odd man out. At the height of the party a long pondered question was answered--can System of a Down's heavy metal anthem "Chop Suey" be socially danced to. Witnessing the answer made me appreciate my newly acquired presence in Eastern Europe and eager to get home to try out the hilarious dancing chops I saw at the party.
After managing to fall asleep in a train teteering side to side so much I was sure it was going to derail, I got about 4 solid before spending 2 early morning hours getting processed out of Turkey and into Bulgaria. No exit tax and no visa fee--hooray!
When I arrived at the station in Sofia, Bulgaria I was shocked to see a pair of uncovered breasts staring out at me from the magazine rack in the station. Quicky, I took cover behind a column and waited for the morality police to come out, burn the kiosk and hang the vendor. After a few scared moments of anticipation, it dawned on me that I had made the geographic and cultural cross from the Middle East into Eastern Europe, where cheap vodka, casinos, and smut filled magazine racks would probably be more the norm. Along with these supposed luxuries, I was also gaining to need to start worrying about petty theft and scams, what neighborhoods I wandered into, and the frigid weather. No worries just yet however, as I was being taken under the wing of my old roommate Gergana, who lives and works in Sofia. I am currently crashing at the pad of her and her two roommates, and enjoying the domestic comforts of stable accomodations, being able to grocery shop and eat decent meals, and receive an immersion into Bulgarian life. As always hanging with Gergana is great and my residency with the trio of Bulgarians has produced almost more of a nightlife in my few nights here than in my whole Middle East trek. My personal highlight so far is when we attended a birthday celebration of a girl, whose party was made up entirely of Bulgarians and Romanians, save your favorite odd man out. At the height of the party a long pondered question was answered--can System of a Down's heavy metal anthem "Chop Suey" be socially danced to. Witnessing the answer made me appreciate my newly acquired presence in Eastern Europe and eager to get home to try out the hilarious dancing chops I saw at the party.
Well, weather wise, it is freckin' cold here. Somehow my eternal summer wanderings took a major wrong turn. Heavy apparrel and a liquid jacket are pretty much required before setting out here and I finally managed to get my hands on some suitable clothing today. Hashing out future plans at the moment. As always, you'll be informed.
Nazdrave,
BQ
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1 comment:
the architect behind this blog seems to be influenced more and more by his travels in and among the draconian kingdoms in middle east and the former soviet satellites .... pray, sayeth, that peace will soon fall upon your wandering ideologies
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