Behind the Iron Curtain (Bulgaria and Romania)

When I told my Swiss friend Vombi that Sheer and I were going to Bulgaria and Romania after Istanbul, he responded with a very disapproving, "Why?" I said that we wanted to go for the experience and that it would be a good contrast with the other cultures that we were coming from on this trip. Yeah; experience, culture, and variety; much more important and real than beaches, pina coladas, and wonderfully delicious seafood... right???

Well, we ended up staying just two nights between the two countries (one in each). It turned out that we were very ready for beaches, sunshine, and the developed world.

Bulgarians use the Cyrillic alphabet (which looks like the Latin alphabet on crack) and most people are completely oblivious to the most basic English words (like "water" or "food") so it was a challenge to communicate. I think that of all the places we've visited on this trip, Bulgarians in general knew the least English.

It was interesting to compare the general attitude and competency of different cultures regarding the English language. For example, if you ask someone if they speak English in Israel they say "of course" and they speak it fluently, in Ethiopia they say "Yes!" but they speak it poorly, in France they say "NO!" but they speak it fluently, and in Bulgaria they say "no" or "little" and they speak it "no" or "little."

I first made these observations when we arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria before dawn and after an overnight bus from Istanbul. Sheer sat down on a bench and watched our bags while I went out in search of an open place to buy bus tickets to Veliko Tarnovo. Sheer was so tired I don't think she would have noticed and/or reacted if someone just casually walked by, picked up our bags and walked away with them. She probably would have said, "Thank you mister" and fallen asleep. So I found a place and bought two tickets to Veliko Tarnovo which in Bulgarian sounds something like "beliko torpedo" and looks something like "Велико Търново." The price description at the bottom of the ticket said "literally, all and all" instead of "total."

After being mistaken for locals a few times, we caught our bus for Veliko Torpedo (as it became known to us). On the bus, Sheer pointed out to me that although the bus had unassigned seating and was at less than 1/3 of its seating capacity, the first five rows of seats were entirely full leaving the back seats empty. So when someone new came on the bus looking for a seat he didn't take a seat in the middle or back of the bus where he could have a row to himself, he sat right next to some stranger up front. My response to this was, "communists..."

So we arrived in Veliko Torpedo checked in, got a beer at a pub, and did a little walking around.

Here are some pictures of the scene in Veliko Torpedo.

Communist dog, communist car, and communist weather

Communist cat

Crazy talk

So that night we talked about how the dismal weather and mood of Eastern Europe was not really appealing to us, and neither were the hippies in our hostel. We only had five more weeks ahead of us and we were going to split it up 50/50 between Eastern and Western Europe, but all we could think about was the sun shining in Spain. So we decided to scrap our Count Dracula tour to add more days to France and Spain.

The next morning we left for Bucharest, Romania and arrived in the afternoon.

On the bus crossing the Danube River from Bulgaria to Romania

Bucharest's "bus stop"

The Lonely Planet gave an intimidating account of Bucharest. It said that many travelers "leave shell-shocked." We, however, thought the city was a breeze. It was clean and safe. Sometimes it kind of felt like some places in Berlin. Of course, we may have been hardened by our experience in Addis Ababa. One thing truly was bad though: the traffic.

Bad traffic in Bucharest

That night we ate, had a couple beers at a really cool jazz bar, and headed to bed early. Speaking of eating, the Bulgarian and Romanian cuisines aren't exactly light or refined... They are more geared toward heart-attacks.

Bulgarian heart-attack meal

Romanian heart-attack meal

Not to worry though, if the local cuisine isn't your thing, many restaurants serve foreign food.

Read the translation of the title in the picture below in an Eastern European accent
(think Commander Pavel Chekov, if you're having trouble with the accent)

Dishes from the neighbors (Bulgarian attempt at cheese fries)

The next morning we caught our flight for Milan, Italy. We didn't give Eastern Europe much of a shot but we knew that, even though we were leaving behind so much that was so close, it was what we both wanted.

accent please: We go to where none of the mans have gone before, to the neighbors!