Back in Bulgaria

After my short trip back to Albania, I returned to Bulgaria. Last year when I went to Istanbul and Romania, I went straight across Bulgaria three times and only stopped for a few minutes in the Sofia bus station, so I don't think you could say that I had "been to" Bulgaria. I had honestly heard mixed things about the country, but after my few days with the PCVs for the fourth, I knew I wanted to spend some good time there. When I arrived in Sofia, I got on the first possible train to Plovdiv, a sweet town in the central part of the country. Plovdiv has it all for an Eastern European city: Roman ruins, old mosques and churches, ottoman buildings, a pedestrian shopping district with street musicians filling the air with ambient music. Plovdiv was my first real stop without Alexi and I stayed in a hostel on my own for the first time. I will probably write a whole post later on hostels and "hostel culture," but for the moment I'll just say that traveling alone a different experience from traveling with someone or a group. I had to readjust to being by myself a lot and I had to start being brave and talking to strangers. I went to dinner with three British girls and wandered around the city by myself. When I am alone, I am less motivated to go to museums or things like that and more inclined just to wander the streets or sit and people watch.

After Plovdiv, I took the train to the Black Sea coast city of Burgas. I decided last minute to head to Burgas and I sent out a few last minute requests to PCVs that I had found online. I got a last minute response from Tyler, an RPCV living with his HCN (Host Country National) wife. It is not uncommon to find PCVs in relationships with and eventually married to HCNs. Tyler and his wife Stella were great. Even though it rained, preventing me from going to the beach (again!) we had a great time. They were super helpful with getting me a train ticket to my next stop, made me dinner and took me to watch a world cup match at a local bar. The day that I left, the sun finally came out and Tyler and I went for a walk on the beach.

My last stop in Bulgaria was the town of Veliko Turnivo. This town may be one of my favorite stops in the whole trip. First, I stayed in a great hostel. It was the perfect size- big enough to have a lot of people, but small enough to feel homey. Second, I met some really great people- particularly three girls (two Aussies and a Kiwi). And third, we went on the most random, fantastic tour.
When I arrived at the hostel I met Andy, another Kiwi who had come on vacation to Bulgaria a few summers ago and had been coming back ever since to work in the hostel in the high season. His job required him to be on call at night and take tourists out on tours to interesting places in the surrounding areas during the day. In return he got room and board for the summer. The tour was very unique. About an hours drive away from town is an abandoned Communist monument nicknamed "the UFO" called Buzludzha. This meeting hall/monument was built high on a hill in the early 80s. After the fall of communism in Bulgaria, it fell into disrepair and now is closed up and falling apart. The building is just a drab concrete circle from the outside, with a flying saucer like shape (hence the nickname). But inside, the meeting hall is filled with magnificent mosaics in the communist realism style, glorifying the worker and the communist party leadership. You can tell that when this building was built, it was fantastic. As it is now, it is a bit surreal. The surreal aspects were increased by the cloudy, foggy, creepy weather (which turned into a downpour) and the herd of wild horses hanging out outside the building. The crumbling roof didn't do much to keep out the rain and after a little while inside we were all soaked and freezing. As the rain let up, we walked outside into the dreamlike fog and the horses galloping by. On the front of the building someone had written in large red letters "FORGET YOUR PAST" in between the poems extolling the virtues of work and nationalism. Many Bulgarians of the right age (late 20s) will tell you that they remember going to this site when they were school children, but many others now don't even know that it exists and now only foreign tourists with a desire for something unusual come to visit. For many people in this part of the world, remembering the past is still very painful and I guess I don't blame them for trying to forget. The only problem with that is that when you truly forget your past, you are only doomed to repeat it.