Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Zdrasti! That's Bulgarian for hello to good friends. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend filled with family, friends, mutant chocolate bunnies and harmful, non-biodegradable basket fillings. My Easter was great but certainly different than ones I've had in the past. The normal routine of hunting for an Easter basket in the most obscure location my parents can think of (dishwasher) was replaced by a little trip to a faraway land called Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

My tourist visa expired on April 3rd so I decided to make a little vacation out of the border run. There were 4 of us - myself, Beth, our friend Kait and our other friend Ben, that departed from the Sirkeci Train Station at around 10pm on Friday the 3rd. This station held the main terminal (which is still intact) for Istanbul during the 1800's when the Orient Express was operating. Istanbul was the endpoint of the 18 stop, 1,200 mile long train trip from Paris.

The overnight train to Plovdiv was doable although I'm not sure if I'd do it again. It certainly provided the bare necessities one would need for an overnight train ride - horizontal sleeping device (not to be confused with "bed") and fabric (not to be confused with "sheet"), but that's about as far as it went. Our train was probably assembled in the early 7th Century B.C. so I'm surprised that I'm even alive to relate this story to you all!

We got to the border station at around 4am which, let me tell you, was a special treat for us all. Picture a dark and desolate train station in the middle of nowhere; a giant line full of sleepy, smelly train goers in a tiny little room lit with those awful, awful white light bulbs. AWFUL. The man behind the counter looked like border control was the last thing he wanted to be doing at 4:00 in the morning. When I gave him my passport (which expired the next day), he goes, "Oh...BYE." I considered this a win despite whatever his intentions had been. Any successful exit out of the country without having someone interrogate me on why I've now spent 6 months in Turkey "travelling" is fine by me!

Upon entering the city of Plovdiv, the feeling that it was once a Soviet occupied area slowly began to creep up on you. In the distance, atop one of the seven hills in the city, was a militaristic statue that we later discovered was a Russian soldier built to commemorate the Russian's liberating Bulgaria from the Nazi's in 1944. Soviet bloc housing units towered over various parts of the city and old rundown factories were just laying in vacant outlying fields. Plovdiv lies at the bottom of the Rhodope Mountains; a beautiful mountain range full of rocky cliffs and rivers that I think must have been a bizarre contrast during the Soviet occupation between something that is so naturally and aesthetically pleasing versus something that pushed for such severe uniformity. I kind of assumed that once the Soviet regime ended, all of the remnants would have been destroyed and people would have wanted to break off as far away and quickly as possible? I don't know, maybe culturally this happened, but architecturally speaking I was just surprised to see so much left over from those days. We took a trip out of the city on Sunday and passed what looked like an old Soviet compound with a giant yard of rusty tanks! I really wanted to go sit in one, but a) I would have been trespassing and that's about where that idea fizzled out.

Once we got a little deeper into the city of Plovdiv we noticed that not everything was decrepit and anti-happiness feeling. No judging a book by it's cover eh? I think the city has done a nice job preserving itself despite what it's been through and how old it is. It dates back some 6000 years and has traces of a Neolithic settlement in 4000 BC. Dayummmm..who knew Bulgaria was so old? It was also an important Roman city (which makes sense because there are ruins EVERYWHERE - both excavated and available to the public eye as well as some that have been built over - oops!) in addition to being an important city for E. Europe in the Middle Ages.

I really enjoyed walking around looking at all the buildings because it was so different than what I've been seeing for the past 6 months in Turkey. It reminded me of Prague a little bit except smaller and not as built up. There were two mosques left over from the Ottoman Empire that may or may not be active - we couldn't be sure because no audible call to prayer was being projected. After spending 6 months where one mosque is basically call to pray battling the mosque across from it, it's a little weird for me to see a silent one. Other architecture around the city goes something like this: fierce gladiator ampitheater, precious little houses from the Middle Ages, giant gray cinder-block apartment; half-crumbled bathhouse with goddesses carved into them, adorable housing from the Middle Ages, giant gray cinder-block apartment that has been converted into a McDonalds.

As we were told before leaving on our trip, there really isn't much to do in Plovdiv other than walk around, eat and drink cheap beer; therefore, this is exactly what we did! This pattern makes for a surprisingly relaxing weekend in a place where you've never been to before and don't speak the language. I don't mean that to sound like we spent the entire weekend drinking, because we didn't; I just mean that it's nice not having an agenda. We spent most of Saturday walking through the little cobblestone streets taking pictures, eating ice cream and thinking of what our next meal would be. It was also AMAZING to be back in a country that eats and appreciate pork. One of the downsides of being in a Muslim country is that it's slim pickins on the pig menu. The "ham" they sell in Turkey looks more like balogne so I tend to steer clear from it. The ham in Bulgaria though....that's what I'm talking about. It's amazing AND it's dirt cheap. You can buy about a lb of bacon for $3, so naturally we bought 2. They also have cheese galore (stocked up on that too) and a decent selection of national beers that perhaps would get old after awhile but tasted a heck of a lot better than Turkey's one and only Efes, which tastes like poisoned drinking water.

We spent some of our afternoon at a beergarden overlooking the city which turned out to be a nice change of scenery from the masses of istanbuli's packing themselves into smoky (no smoking ban yet) bars. I really, really, really needed this getaway into the greenery. I wouldn't call our afternoon at the beergarden a NATURAL experience per se, but it was just what the doctor ordered in terms of grass, fresh air, quiet conversation and cheap beer. By the end of the day we were all so exhausted from lack of sleep and walking around that we all fell asleep at 9pm after having a gigantic meal of pork, chicken, hearty veggies and yes, fried cheese. YUM.

Easter Sunday started off with a giant breakfast of bacon, toast and homemade jam provided by our hostel. My friend Kait and I decided to set up an Easter egg hunt around the hostel for Ben and Beth while the two of them ate breakfast. Poor planning on my part caused 2 of the chocolates to melt as I had placed them directly into the sun, but nevertheless the two enjoyed the surprise hunt and Easter sunday started off with a success.

We took a bus to Bachkovo Monastery which is situated in the Rhodope Mountains. The monastery is one of the oldest Eastern Orthodox churches in Europe and has been around since 1083. As it was Easter sunday, and in Bulgaria Easter is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge deal, there were hoards of visitors visiting the monastery. There were monks in long red robes and fun party hats - eek, kidding, symbolic Easter headwear; 3 sacrificial lambs (I think) tied to a small fence outside of the church and tons of churchgoers waiting in line to partake in the ceremonies. The inside of the church was unbelievable as it was decorated with giant frescoes and solid gold crown-molding EVERYWHERE. I had forgotten how ornate Eastern Orthodox Churches were until I was greeted by a herd of giant angel babies sitting on top of clouds at the entrance to the church. Yesssssss....that's right.....leave no space...

After visiting the church/the monastery's courtyards, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon hiking and looking for a good picnic spot in the surrounding hills. We ended up finding a little waterfall about 30 minutes away from the monastery that had a perfect meadow to plop down, eat and just chill out for a couple of hours. On our walk back to the bus station we passed by a line of vendors selling local Bulgarian honey and jams to everyone passing through the Monastery. I bought a jar of wild "sroberry" jam as well as blackberry and they were SO GOOD. I'm ashamed to admit this, but after two weeks both jars are almost gone. It's disgusting to think about how much of it I've eaten but I just haven't been able to contain myself!

That night we went to our last and final stop before boarding the bus back to the Bull. We went to a microbrewery, which I'm forgetting the name of, but the food is cheap and each table has their own beertap. Genius! Not to mention it was some of the best beer that I've ever tasted. On top of that our meal, consisting of pork medallions, sausages, traditional Bulgarian salad, some veggie dish baked in a clay pot and homemade nacho chips/salsa, was unbelievable and the whole thing set us back 59 Bulgarian Leva which is $40. So cheap!

Before I go, one last important issue I should address is the Bulgarian hair. Honestly guys, I don't know what it is about this part of the world but there must be something in the water. As we've discussed, the Turkish men have the whole gel situation that for comfort-level issues we don't need to discuss again. Now, as much pain as it brings me to merely type this word, I have to because you all must know this. Bulgarian women...crimp their hair ISWEARTOGOD. What's even worse (I think?) is that it's only at the roots... We did a crimp count and I'd say 1 in 3 Bulgarian women crimp their roots. UNREAL.

XOXO

K