Birthdays and Holidays
On Saturday I reached a milestone that women agonize over for most of their 20’s and guys don’t think about until the day before – and even then only during the commercial break of whatever sports game they’re watching. This event is turning 30. I celebrated with an all-night bash that culminated a week of touring Bulgaria with my sister and her fiancé, Jeff.
Within hours of Jen and Jeff arriving in Bulgaria last Saturday (July 8th) I carted them to the AmCham (American Chamber of Commerce) 4th of July party (held on the 8th of July to fall on a weekend). This gave them a “soft landing” to Bulgaria by carting them to an event full of Americans. We soon got right into the heart of Bulgaria. I rented a VW Polo for the week so we could drive around and see some of the country. VW Polo’s are great cars for driving on mountain roads. They are small, agile, and almost guaranteed to get the backseat driver sick when driven properly (like a rally car). In fact, I earned the name “Rally Car Ryan” for the week due to my very professional driving skills …. err something like that.
The first order of business was to borrow camping equipment from my boss because our trip included a couple nights camping. However, this required a swap mid-country since my boss was on his was back from the sea when we were heading out into the country. We managed to coordinate the changeover near Stara Zagora (where we also stopped for lunch) then headed north to Veliko Turnovo (henceforth known at VT).
Our way to VT took us through Shipka Pass where a large monument stands with incredible views over the surrounding countryside. The monument was erected to honor those who died defending the pass during the Russo-Turkish War in 1877-1878. The Russians took the pass with the help of Bulgarian volunteers and proceeded to defend the pass from 30,000 Turkish soldiers despite being outnumbered 5 to 1. After a bit of picture taking at Shipka we continued on to VT.
I’ve already written about VT in one of my previous blogs so I won’t rehash old information. The only difference is that we stayed in a hostel (aptly named Low Costel Hostel) in the middle of town. The hostel was recently opened by a British guy. The hostel was small, but nice. We had the 6 bed bunk room to ourselves which was nice. The top floor of the hostel was a cool open area with a full kitchen and sitting pillows where we were able to relax and play some cards with the owner for a couple hours.
The next day we took another road back through the mountains (where I was again able to practice my rally car skills) and headed to Sozopol. Again, you can read about Sozopol in one of my previous posts. Instead of staying in Sozopol, we stayed at a campsite a couple km south of Sozopol called Kavatsite. The whole region was pounded with rain and floods only a week or so before we arrived and the beaches at the campsite fared better than the beaches in Sozopol so we chose correctly. We spent two nights at the campground. The camping experience is a little different from the US camping experience. There are no fires, but the campsites have electrical outlets you can plug into. So, instead of playing cards by the light of the campfire, we played cards by the light of a lightbulb (and a bright one at that). Wednesday was “Vitamin D” day (also called “Skin Cancer Day”) where we spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun and swimming in the (quite warm) Black Sea.
On Thursday morning we packed up and headed back inland – to Plovdiv. I had been to Plovdiv before, but I had never driven so I wasn’t sure exactly how to get to the old town. We drover around lost for a few minutes before I decided we could just walk to the top of the hill with the Russian soldier monument and see where the old town was. This plan worked (well, basically, we still had to make one stop to ask a policeman). We spent the afternoon walking around the old town part of Plovdiv while Jeff took dozens of pictures of crappy, falling apart buildings.
On Friday we drove down to Rila Monastery. Another great thing about the Polo is the great gas mileage. I was able to drive down to Rila and back (1 hr. 45 min. of driving each way) and still have the gas tank needle read “Full” meaning I could in good conscious return the rental car with the required full tank.
Friday night I had a surprise birthday dinner at Motto. Joel made the extra effort of walking over 10 blocks with an unboxed birthday cake (the cake company didn’t have boxes big enough for it) to the restaurant. The cake was Viennese chocolate and was pretty darn good.
Saturday afternoon involved a lot of souvenir shopping (or crap shopping, as I prefer to call it). Jen bought a nice load of crap to bring back with her to America. After a mid-afternoon nap we headed off to dinner then to the first of two parties. Party number one was a house party unrelated to my birthday hosted by one of the Hash House Harriers. We only stayed for a short while there. The next stop was the club Alcohol. Here we stayed until the wee hours of the morning before returning to collect Jen and Jeff’s bags and send them off to the airport – without any sleep (hey, they can sleep on the plane, right?).
All-in-all an excellent week and a great birthday. Pictures will be posted soon, but they’re spread over several cameras which are now located in different countries so it may take me a few days to consolidate them.
