Comment about day in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

We are now in Sozopol, but I wanted to write about a day we spent in Veliko Tarnovo. We woke up to our standard hostel breakfast....not bad....coffee, tea, bread, jam, assorted meats, and cheese. Off we went to the old fortress. Now when I say old fortress, I'm talking earliest remains are 500 something BC, and most of the rebuilt structure is 11-12th century AD. Very interesting, but hard to fully absorb. We walked around the entire complex, avoiding the many apparently bottomless dark holes and sudden drop-offs. No safety ropes or warnings signs in this place (a risk managers nightmare). My favorite was the rock point (many hundreds of feet high) at the far end of the fortress where unlucky souls were pushed from if they happened to do something that upset the king. Yikes! I could barely walk near it.

After the fortress, we walked to the university to eat lunch. Ate the fixings we bought earlier at the market, and then checked out some of the university buildings. In the main building, I'm not sure, but it seems like they aren't used to "outsiders" walking around checking things out. I'm used to the states where anyone can walking into a university building, but here we had a guy follow us everywhere. He kept trying to talk to us in Bulgarian, and of course we couldn't understand a thing.

We then headed back to our hostel, but on the way stopped in at the international train ticketing office. There, we met the father of a family of 4 (the youngest being 4 years old) who have been travelling the world for 8 months. Wow! We chatted a bit and then went our separate ways. But, later that night at dinner, we met him again (this time with the whole family). Absolutely amazing and crazy to contemplate doing what we are doing, but with 4 kids to worry about the whole time. It seems we aren't the only ones who think what they are doing is mind boggling. They were on the Oprah Winfrey Show recently because of it.

It was getting late, so we hurried back to our hostel in the hopes of catching the famous "light show" that is supposed to take place on Friday nights. This was incredible! The fortress we were at earlier that day is completed covered with high intensity lights of different colors. I'm talking hundreds of huge lights, red, blue, green, and yellow. The entire fortress lights up and changes colors to music. Incredible. A great way to end a great day.

Ohh, one last thing.....here in Bulgaria, nodding your head for yes and shaking your head for no is completely backwards! No choke. If someone is saying yes to you, they may just shake their head, which of course looks like no, but what they really mean is yes! Confusing.

Off to Sozopol

I just wanted to take a few seconds to thank everyone who has been reading and making comments on our blog. Its really great to hear your thoughts and encouragements.

Well, this morning we leave for the coast of Bulgaria to a town called Sozopol. Its on the Black Sea on the eastern coast. From the sounds of it, it is a beach town that is smaller, and less touristy. The four day break here in Veliko Tarnovo was awesome. Not only were we able to relax and spend some time getting ourselves together (laundry, internet, pictures) but also visited an amazing fortress yesterday. (Brent will write more about that later). This morning waking up early (to catch the train) the view from our hostel is calming and so beautiful. I need to remember to take time to enjoy those moments to their fullest.
We posted our most recent pics yesterday.
Put Veliko Tarnovo on your list of places to go in Bulgaria!

Bulgaria!

After 3 days of backpacking, we went to the train ticket office and bought tickets to Bucharest, where we could get into Bulgaria the most efficiently. So, the evening before we jumped on our train scheduled for12:30 am, we stopped into a bar and tried to get something to eat and to kill time. When the owner saw us come in with our backpacks, (and looking and smelling like we did)he immediately came over to us and asked us if we had been to Retezat NP. When we said "yes", he asked where we were from. For some reason (and for the first time), Brent decided to say "Canada" (It IS usually an easier place to claim- who hates CANADA?) and so for the rest of the night, we had to talk about life in Vancouver, BC. While we did so, he prceeded to treat us to every possible distinctly Romanian delicacy- and drink...wine, plum whiskey, beer,..you name it "on him!" Needless to say we felt the highest level of welcome and hospitality, much like we had felt from SO many Romanians up to that point. At the same time we met a really intelligent and multiligual Romanian guy who helped us with the translation. He walked us to the train platform, and decifered the correct platform for us (since Romania has no signage) and let us know of the 30 minute delay (hard to recognize if you dont know Romanian)

So that night we traveled through the night to Bucharest, where we encountered the other side of the Romanian experience,- with the absolute rudest ticket agents I have ever encountered. And I thought Baltimore was bad;-) these women had bad attitudes before a word ever escaped our lips...really almost comical. We had to laugh, really. I kept thinking it was a joke and we were on candid camera or something..just laughably RUDE. Despite that we bought a ticket to Veliko Turnovo, a college town in Bulgaria, and said to be one of the most beautiful in Eastern Europe...and they werent just saying that. Its breathtaking. The owner of a hikers hostel was at the train station offering a room, and a free ride, so we took it. An amazing view and so many things to do...we may just rest here for a while. Who knows? We'll upload some pics tomorrow.

Hiking in the Transylvanian Alps (Retezat NP)

So, we got to Petrosani and found a hotel with a english speaking host named Leveu. Wow, was he helpful and good to us. The hotel had a resturant and he went to the trouble of explaining every single thing on the menu. One of the best meals we'd had in a while. The next day, we wanted to prepare for our hiking trip but without any knowledge of where things were in town. Leveu showed us around the town a bit. Tried to help us find a map of the mountains were we wanted to hike (to no avail), and directed us to a good grocery store to stock up on food.

The next day we took off on a bus towards the mountains. We didn't have a good map, so we were really sure where the trailhead even was. We got dropped off at the end of the bus route and the bus driver pointed toward a dirt road and said "Retezat". So, we walked down the road a ways and came to a house where a man came out and started talking to us (in Romainian of course). After a long back and forth with this man, including lots of body languange involved, we concluded that the cabana (Cabana Buta) we hoped to stay at up in the mountains had 1 meter of snow at it. We decided to go ahead anyway and just go as far as we could until the snow made us stop and camp. We take off on what we think is the beginning of the trail and, wow was it the wrong trailhead! We spend the next 2 hours hiking up this steep rock bluff on a trail that does eventually connect with the right trail, but didn't realize this until way too late. We made it a couple more hours before we got tired and decided to make camp. We only brought a tarp on this trip for camping (conserve space and weight) so we made bedding out of pine needles and branches. We did try to buy foam pads back in Petrosani the previous day, but like everything else in that town, it was unavailable. Dinner time was my opportunity to try out my homemade camp stove. Pretty cool little thing made out of a Pepsi can (see blog photo). The fuel is some methyl alcohol we bought in a pharmacy (it took about half a day to find that in town). Worked pretty good. Later that night, while preparing my sleeping bag, I was bit by spider. Pretty scary considering we had no idea how it would affect me. There we were in the middle of nowhere, in the darkness, and my hand was feeling numb. Leah, immediately captured the spider in case we needed to show it to someone later. We laid there under our tarp, on the bed of pine needles for the next couple hours waiting to see what my hand was going to do. Turns out, everything was fine. My hand felt ok a couple hours later, and we got some sleep. Ohh, I almost forgot the best part about the night. Around 4am a couple Romanians with guns walked through our camp. They shined there flashlights at us and walked on by. That got our attention.
The next morning we decided to keep going up and try to get to Cabana Buta. An hour later we were there. There was a little snow here and there, but not too much. It was so nice to not sleep on the ground that night. That was last night. This morning we hiked down to civilization and took the bus back to Petrosani. We plan to take a midnight train to Bucharest and then a morning train to Bulgaria. We hope to be on the Black Sea coast in a roughly 3 days.

Romania!

After a few nights in Oradea, we decided to head closer to where we could take off hiking/backpacking, so we took a bus from Oradea to Deva via Arad on the western side of Romania, and found ourselves arriving in Deva around 5:30pm with no idea where we would stay the night. We found an internet cafe, and searched, and called...to no avail. We heard another English speaker there in the cafe, and asked her where she was staying. She was from Romania, but had been living South Africa, and was here to visit her family. After asking her mother where a good place to stay may be, her mother and her boyfriend insisted on leading us there. After 2 hours of walking around Deva, and finding all the hotels, motels, pensions and hostels full (due to a grand prix tournament going on), we were soaking wet (rain), dirty and tired. It was unbelievable how generous and hospitable they were to walk all over town with us to look for a place...

We ended up taking a bus late that night to a village down the road a ways and found a place to stay. Leah had talk to the hostess, a Romanian woman, on the phone who rents out rooms at her home and she agreed to pick us up from the "bus stop" once we got into town. Now, this was no bus stop in the normal sense....just a turn out on the side of the road. We were supposed to call her when we arrived at the bus stop and she would pick us up. Well, as usual, these conversation are composed of one word here and one word there (neither of us speak any of the other person's language). So, we get dropped off at the bus stop in complete darkness and begin looking for a phone. We immediately don't see one and decide to run after these kids that had just gotten off the bus too to ask about a phone. It turns out there was one nearby. We call our hostess, and while Leah is trying to tell her we have arrived, the phone card runs out of minutes (or so she thought). Wow, we really thought we were in a fix. Well, it turns out the phone card was not out, we called the woman again, and she came and picked us up. What a night!

The next day our hostess made us breakfast, and after we took the train to Deva and then on to Petrosani. It was a interesting train ride. We sat next to a very nice old Romanian woman, tried to have a conversation, and enjoyed the views from the window.

Relaxing in Eger

This sweet old lady pulled on Leah's arm at the train station just as we arrived and offered us a room in her home. We accepted, and are enjoying this interesting and pretty town. Yesterday, we went to "the valley of beautiful woman" which is this area full of caves tucked into hillsides full of huge barrels of wine! We are talking so much wine that it was literally flowing in the streets (must have been a bad batch I guess). The insides of these caves are completely covered, and i mean covered a couple inches thick, with mold. They say this mold everywhere makes their sweet wines some of the best in the world. No argument here.....they were really good. Needless to say, we got a little tipsy. Ohh, and bought a couple liters for 600 forint (couple dollars).

Our next plan is to head towards Bukk National Park in northeastern Hungary. We want to do some backpacking for a few days.

In Budapest!

We got here last night on a bus from Balatonfűred. We had been in Balatonfűred for a few days checking out Tihany and the surrounding area. We are staying here in Budapest at an old student dormitory- with cheap restaraunts, cafes, etc. surrounding it. Its nothing fancy, but it works. We have been taking in the sights today, and have a few minutes to update you all. This morning we went to St Stephens Basilica, walked up Adrassy Ut. to the main park, and then went and found a small english used bookstore that happened to have a Hungarian phrasebook-what luck! Finally found an internet cafe! (theyre not as pletiful as we had hoped) Having a good time in Hungary.

We will try to upload some pictures tomorrow.

Arrived in Hungary!

I laugh as I write this since this computer keyboard ( as well as many other things) are totally foreign.

Brent and I started our trip flying out of Medford, OR on April 2nd, visited my brother that evening in LA (He lives in Long Beach) We got a chance to see where he lives and how close he is to the ocean- a really great area. It was good to see him.

The next morning, after two hours of sleep in the rental car, we flew out of LA to Newark, NJ, where my parents and sister, brother in law and nieces were waiting to have dinner and hang out with us. We had a pleasant dinner and looked at pictures of all of my family. My parents told us that my brother Ti flew to Iraq the same day we were flying out-we think. Hoping and praying for his safety there as well.

We departed Newark around 9pm, and flew to Belfast, N Ireland, where we had a three hour layover and climbed on another flight to London, England. We arrived in London Stansted around 3pm, and our flight to Hungary did not leave until 10 am the following morning. The least expensive transit to downtown London was more than we were willing to pay, so we got to know the airport really well for the next 19 hours. We owned that place. We quickly staked out a sleeping area, and found a cheap(er) place to eat, and dug our heels in and just waited...and waited, and slept a little and waited, and tossed and turned and got out the earplugs and eye mask and all the pillows and soft articles we could find, and waited.
The next morning, waking at 4:30am London time, and not able to stand one more minute of airport "sleep", we had breakfast, and before we knew it, we were on our flight to Hungary.

Brent started talking to a guy named Scaba (pronounced Chaba) who offered us a ride to Keszthely (pronounced kest-hay) near Lake Balaton. It was extremely nice of him and his father to go out of their way, and would not accept any payment. We have had a good experience with that sort of Hungarian hospitality so far.

We found a hostel at the north end of town, very new and clean, and then went out and got dinner, so now we are well-fed and semi-rested, looking forward to the first normal night of sleep we have had in 4 days.

Jason and Kelli sent us a photo of Huck in his new temporary home. It is nice to know he is being loved and well taken care of. Thanks again Jason and Kelli!

More photos of where we are to come....