BasBasBas.com

Tag: Tsvety

  • Black Sea Coast: Sozopol

    As I arrived in Sofia by bus from Macedonia around 8 in the morning, I was seriously considering skipping Sofia and just heading into the first bus to the Black Sea coast. I had told my girlfriend I’d be back in Sofia though and when I realized I’m too sweet to be a total dick, I let the idea of going straight to the coast go. I checked into the Art Hostel in Sofia and met up with Tsvety, my girlfriend, later that day. I think I must have told her about 20 times that she should come to the coast to me and she told me she’d have to see how her parents felt about it an equal amount of times. After all, she’d be coming with me to Holland for one month in just one and a half week time.

    The next day I got the news… Yes, we were going to the coast together. That evening we met up at the central bus station in Sofia to take a bus to… Sozopol.


    View Larger Map

    We did some basic planning and online orientation to see what hotels would be good there. Tsvety printed a map and marked the hotels on it. This was only to be used in worst case scenario, because generally Bulgarian old men and women offer quarters (kvartiri) to travellers for really good prices. As soon as we arrived 3 or 4 elderly Bulgarians gathered around my girlfriend and I and started promoting their place and telling each other to shut up. This was all happening in Bulgarian and since I had just fallen asleep at the end of the busride, after 4 or 5 hours of restlessness, I was in a very confused mindstate. One of them won, apparently, and I followed my girlfriend and him up a hill. He presented our room which was very clean and we crashed and slept ’til noon(ish).

    The next day we went to the beach at the new part of town, since that was closest to our place. Sozopol is split into two parts, the old and the new. The best about the old part is all the old buildings (plus the only place with WiFi I could find was there (the bar’s called Lipstick)), the best about the new part is the strip with bars and restaurants along the beach.

    We spent the first day exploring the new part of town and looking for wireless internet in the new and old part, since I had a conference website to do some work for. It took hours (literally) to find a place with wireless internet and once there I got to work. Tsvety walked around a while and took some more pictures. After that we went back to the hotel to change clothes and head out to the beach. Finally! However I’m more of an eater than a beach person, so we soon repositioned our asses from beach to restaurant.

    The next day I got back to work at the bar. At the end of the day we walked around past Sozopol’s port and had dinner at a sea food restaurant. For the first time since becoming a vegetarian last November, I ate an animal. Mussels, to be exact. Only a few, since Bulgarian mussels don’t come close to Dutch/Belgian ones 😉 Never decided to completely stop eating fish though, it just turned out that way. That night Tsvety got rather sick from the chicken she ate (or maybe the mussels) and we spent the night at home.

    See the whole album on Picasa…

    We stayed one more day in Sozopol and then we took the bus north to Nesebar, for some more Black Sea coast time! More about this soon.

    If you wish to stay up to date about my travels, you can subscribe by RSS or email.

  • Flying back from Sofia…

    So I am waiting at the baggage control, trying desperately (but in vain) not to let impatient travelers cut in front. It is like Bulgarians have a strongly developed moral system when it comes to queuing composed of social Darwinism and survival of the fittest. After my luggage has (barely) been checked by customs and/or security, I proceed to the boarding, which is an absolute mess of people forming queues in masses. Boarding service employees are letting people through one by one, but the queue is about 50 people long and an equal number of people wide.

    After this queue, we’re shoved into the type of bus only used by airports, which will eventually take us to our plane. Bulgarians, Germans, Dutchmen and other nationalities are herded into the bus like cattle, until it’s absolutely packed. I could swear I was vaguely (but distinctly) hearing sheep noises. “Baaahhh”. After the 1 minute and 20 seconds ride to the airplane, we all get off the bus and continue our previous activities of trying to be the first in queue, this time to go up the stairs into the plane. Roughly 49 people fail out of 50 people fail.

    It’s not all bad however. As the airplane was taking off, it was immediately headed into the clouds. There were quite a lot of them, but they weren’t packed very densely, so as the plane was ascending, you saw clouds floating by underneath and around you and we were all treated to a delightful miniature view of Sofia. From high above, this intense city seems quite calm and peaceful.

    Then the clouds get denser and turbulence hits the plane. This is also the moment when the seatbelt lights go off and people start stumbling down the pathway to the toilet. “Baaahhh”. At this point the group of young Dutchmen behind me, who seemed to have been in Sofia purely for partying, start to shut up. Finally. Something about young, sexually primitive human beings complaining about the only way to pick up girls in a particular city/country being with utilising money really makes me want to drive toenailclippers down my ears, or theirs for that matter. Of course, like dangerous liquids such as water, they are forbidden on board passenger flights. Tough luck.

    Stewardesses start handing out menu cards with overpriced products for the budget airline traveler. Besides a small smile upon entering and exiting the airplane, I manage to ignore the stewardesses completely – which is a first, but it was also the first time that every single one of the stewardesses was ugly. Correlation? Who knows. From Bulgaria to Germany we fly above plains of clouds (cloudscapes) while the sun rises, but that particular phenomenon was hidden from my sight at the other side of the plane. However, this did mean that there was no gigantic ball of fusion shining into my window and touching my face without the protection of some atmospheric layers, so I managed to catch some sleep. About 2 seconds every time to be exact; then my contracted muscles would relax and I would once again wake up to be reminded how uncomfortable these budget airlines’ chairs really are. However I think that with this method, I managed to catch about 10 minutes of sleep over the hour, in my favourite mode of sleep: ‘snoozing’. I have now discovered though, that snoozing is best after a long, deep sleep, combined with the fact that I should actually be doing some horribly boring activity instead of snoozing. Although sitting in the airplane was indeed horribly boring, I wouldn’t call it an activity, so due to its similarity to the desirable, but actually being something extremely aggravating, I would say it’s the complete opposite of the best way to snooze.

    That’s right. Trying to sleep on a flight of the Hungarian airline company Wizz Air, is officially the worst way to snooze! The snooze of DOOM!

    The arrival went smooth though. Not! Everyone exiting the plane through just one exit. Only 2 people working the passport control. Me being in the line of the passport fascist (a.k.a. the wrong line), which is of course taking 5 times as long as the other. The busride to the central station (or Hauptbahnhof) being completely packed with people and luggage, taking half an hour, and costing more than 5 euro’s. Getting on the wrong train to catch my connecting train. Finding out I was actually on the right train and the guy in front of me had misinformed me when I asked if the train was going to my destination of choice. Then having to wait 2 more hours for the train to Holland. Yet, for some reason, I still like traveling. Actually, I even like this particular trip – besides the fact that it’s creating thousands of kilometres distance between my girlfriend Tsvety and I.

    Oh, and the Starbucks in which I am typing this apparently charges 8 euro’s an hour to use their wireless internet. I sincerely hope that the people who actually pay for it manage to download actual diamonds and nuggets of gold through the internet connection. I decided I’d just type up a little something (you’re reading it now) to put online as soon as I get home. After, what I expect, just a little bit more frustration with public transport. Here we go. Let’s aide.

  • Bulgaria – the first 3 days

    Wow! It’s good to be back in Bulgaria.

    The weather, apart for the rainy Sunday, is just great! Very sunny, rather warm.

    Day 1 – Saturday

    This day started with me getting up at 2.45 in the morning. Awesome. My dad drove me to the airport in Dortmund, I boarded a plane that looked great from the outside, but it was like the 80’s on the inside (and it’s the inside that counts). Oh, and it was looaaaded with Bulgarians. As soon as we departed we hit the clouds and after a few minutes it was just the plane and the sun. Wow! 🙂

    I arrived at Sofia airport around noon and met up with Tsvety, my girlfriend. For the first few minutes we couldn’t stop hugging. We tried, but within a few seconds the clutch of our arms returned and we stood there for another few moments. After getting some cash from an ATM we took a taxi into the city and waited in a coffee bar for the lady who would show us our apartment for the next 10 days. The first Bulgarian coffee was a bit strong (especially compared to the water-with-coffee-taste I drank at the German airport), but I’m getting used to it again. We got a call from the lady. Were shown our apartment and stayed in the whole day, because I was dead tired.

    A friend of mine would be DJ’ing at a party in the center that evening and somewhere deep down, I knew I couldn’t miss that party. He didn’t know I was in Bulgaria and it would be a great surprise for him if I suddenly showed up. Especially considering the fact that he simply ‘knew’ that there’s three thousand kilometers between us.

    Soooo, we dragged ourselves out of the apartment, without having slept and went into the center. As I entered the club I immediately saw my friend, with his back turned to me. I walked over to him and then looped around him so that I was standing in front of him. I looked at him with my “hello!” face, but without saying anything… He gave me a blank stare for a second (my hair is longer and I have a beard thing going on now) and then out of this blank stare came an intense expression of enthusiasm! “Bas!” He grabbed my hand to shake it and hugged me. Simultaneously. He was very glad to see me. The extra sleep deprivation was definitely worth it. I saw his set (good job, mate!) and stayed around for another an hour or so, but then around 3 o’ clock I decided that it was really time to go home and catch some sleep.

    Great day.

    Day 2 – Sunday

    It was rainy. We stayed in. Watched a film together. Good times. 😎

    Day 3 – Monday

    Then today we went outside and I saw Sofia again as I saw it in the summer, but a bit colder. Very sunny day, nice and warm. We sat in the park for a while, took pictures, walked around some more and had lunch. Sat around some more in the sun. Just enjoying each other’s presence. Then Tsvety headed home to see her parents for a while and I gave a call to a couple of friends, Miro and Vassy, and made appointments to have dinner with them very soon. As I was walking home I got into the same mood I had when I first came to Bulgaria: don’t sit inside the apartment. Soooo, I grabbed my laptop and a book, went to a coffee bar around the corner, wrote a blog post, and pressed “Publish”.

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin