Back in Europe

To be completely honest, we don't really know anything about Bulgaria except that they nod their heads when they mean no and shake them when they mean yes - no confusion there then.

We had elected to get the sleeper overnight from Istanbul to Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second city. We had had a quick scan through our slowly disintegrating Rough Guide and thought it looked like an interesting first stop.

The train journey was broken up with the two border controls - leaving Turkey and arriving in Bulgaria. Every other time we have crossed a border on a train, the officials get on and walk through the compartment checking your passport there, but Turkey was different. The train stopped at what looked like an abandoned cargo station at 3 in the morning. We then were herded into a railway underpass where we waited. Did I mention it was raining? After 20 minutes, we were then directed to a passport office where we were duly stamped out of Turkey. Back to the train and we waited there whilst an immigration officer went through the train and double-checked that our papers were in order. We didn't want to take our shoes off and get back into our bunks in case it was the same story again on the Bulgarian side. Fortunately our conductor came and put us out of our misery and assured us that the Bulgarian Immigration officer would stamp us in on the train. They were true to his word and we were able to enter Bulgaria by just sleepily smiling at the officer from the comfort of our bunk beds.

We then slept comfortably until we were on the outskirts of Plovdiv. On arrival, the bikes and us were unloaded swiftly and the train continued on to Sophia. Our first stop was the local cafe for some breakfast. Not just any breakfast, as we were looking forward to our first sausages since August. Unfortunately, they were out but we made do with the next best thing in pork rissoles. We passed the meal in the hope that the cyrillic alphabet will become easier to decipher as we go along. Some serious study is required.

After breakfast I guarded the bikes while Banz went searching for some accommodation. During his fruitless trawl along Plovdiv's main drag, I was asked the time by Diane, a student. We got chatting and she asked me with a look of concern, "Why do you come to Bulgaria?" and when I answered for tourism, she guffawed and said, "this is my home, I was born here, but I do not love it here, my dream is to go to America". I questioned her further on this and she explained that she is going to Ohio, but has no friends or family or a job there. I told her that I had been to Cleveland seven years ago and she was very interested and was asking me all sorts of questions about what it was like, was it better than here? For the first question, I didn't want to tell her that I only went for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (which was undeniably the highlight of all the museums I went to in the States), so I just hedged my bets and said it seemed nice and that the people were friendly. For the second, I didn't feel that I was in a position to answer the question since I'd only been in Plovdiv for all of 45 minutes and had been mainly based in and around the train station for the majority of that. I was rescued by the arrival of her friends from Uni and we said our goodbyes.

Banz returned and since he'd done the talking in the cafe, it was my turn to ring a number in our Rough Guide which was an agency for rooms. Armed with our Eastern European Phrasebook I hunted down a phone and made a call. My attempt in Bulgarian was cut short with a "Je parle francais" which I countered with a "Do you speak English?" which again was returned with a "Je parle francais". I did my best "mon mari parles francais" and hung up for Banz to attempt to rescue the point. He returned as the conquering lingua franca hero - complete with prices and directions to the agency. I guess we need to get to South America or Japan before my limited language skills can be of use again whereas Banz's french has come in handy in Italy and now Bulgaria as well as the villages of France. Within 20 minutes, we were ensconced in our bedroom (with spare room on the side for the bikes) with the telly on (with lots of english channels). Today we were pleasantly surprised to see Boro's game from Sunday being replayed on Bulgarian tv at 3 in the afternoon. Well, it was pleasant until we saw Bolton's blatant time-wasting methods firsthand. Ahh, the joys of foreign tv.

Despite the skepticism of the youth of Plovdiv (our waiter from our first evening also looked incredulous when we told him we'd come to Bulgaria for tourism in winter), we like what we've seen of Bulgaria so far. The people are friendly (and really well-dressed - they would look at home in London) and the food is cheap.

All looks good for country number 9 of The Big Trip.

You can always start!

Yesterday we were having a wander around a smaller bazaar near our hotel. In the bazaar is a fantastic pipe shop with pipes of all shapes and sizes (our particular favourite being a pipe with Sherlock Holmes smoking a pipe on the bowl).

As we walked past we had the following exchange with the salesman -

Pipe Salesman - Do you want a pipe?
Banz and Vic - No thanks, we don't smoke.
Pipe Salesman - Well, you can always start!