The trip there was an adventure in itself. I like Istanbul a lot, but it isn't well connected to the rest of Europe by budget airlines like RyanAir and WizzAir (slowly changing!). Compounded with the fact that all plane tickets are either sold out or prohibitively expensive around Kurban Bayram (possibly the biggest holiday of the year), this meant that I'd have to get creative with my transportation. Bulgaria, interestingly enough, is well served by the budget airlines. I decided that this was my best shot, and booked some flights to and from Bulgarian cities (Plovdiv for outbound, Varna for inbound) and some bus tickets to get there.
My bus to Plovdiv left at 11pm and would take approximately 7-8 hours to get there. The actual driving time is much shorter, but the border can (and did) take several hours to cross. Since I have trouble sleeping on buses, I decided to drug myself with some Benadryl to get some rest. This would have been a great idea, if not for the border crossing being right in the middle of the trip. While I was pretty unconscious by 1am, I had to be more or less awake from 2-4am while doing all the passport and visa crap to leave the country. I was pretty miserable and out of it during this time.
We arrived in Plovdiv at 7:30am, later than the time I had been quoted. This left me just 2 hours before my train to the airport. I found the train station first, and had a horrendous time trying to figure out what to do. I couldn't find a single person who spoke English. Everything was in Cyrillic, which I can only read with great difficulty. Fun fact: head gestures are totally reversed in Bulgaria! I didn't realize this until 2 hours into my stay there. I was so confused why everyone would nod to my "Angliyski?" and then give me a blank stare. Apparently Sri Lanka is the only other country with this backwards rule. Needless to say, I had a difficult time getting around. Also, most people seemed totally unaware that there is an airport nearby, probably because there's only a few flights a week. I managed to purchase a train ticket and drop my bag off, then set off to explore the city a bit.
Plovdiv was...well, very Eastern European. Like, exactly the stereotypical scene in my mind when I think of Russia. It has the appearance of something that was once beautiful, but has gone through hard times and possibly nuclear fall-out.
It had a very distinct atmosphere. I wouldn't really say it seemed dangerous- there were plenty of happy young people walking around everywhere, and I never felt threatened. It was a very interesting place to walk around, and I wish I had taken more pictures. My main goal for my short stay in Plovdiv was to find some of the ancient ruins in their city center. After a long bit of walking aimlessly and getting many confusing head-nods, I found myself looking at this:
It's difficult to see, but if you look above the tunnel you can see the remains of a theater, with ancient Roman columns sticking up. They actually worked the remains into an actual theater, where plays are still held. I thought this was pretty hip, though unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of it close up. Finding the theater meant that I was very near the city center, so I kept walking and found myself in a quaint pedestrian-only downtown area.
I grabbed a cheap and delicious pastry for breakfast and unfortunately had to head back to the train station very soon after. After even more confusion and language barriers, I boarded my train and sat next to a college-aged girl. I was in luck- she had some English worksheets in her lap. I stroke up a conversation with her, and she explained the best way to get to the airport. There were two stops I could get off at- one was Krumovo, a very small town nearby from which I may be able to catch a taxi the rest of the way, and the other was much closer to the airport, but more or less in the middle of nowhere. She insisted on the second one, since you can see the airport as soon as you exit the train and it isn't a very long walk. I regret this decision. This was actually some sort of military zone, so when I got off the train, some military guys came over, very perplexed, and asked me where I was going. I pointed to the airport in the distance, and they laughed and shook their heads in amusement. An English-speaking man told me that I'd have to walk a few miles down a road, then turn towards the airport and walk another few miles. The airport itself was very close, but a large cornfield separated me from it:
What followed was a 45-minute trek, with baggage, in the hot sun, to that little airport. I swore out loud at RyanAir for flying out of such a ridiculously remote airport. I eventually got there, angry and tired. Mine was the only flight that day. I got through check-in and security just fine, and came to the passport control booth. The Bulgarian border guard stared at my passport with confusion, flipping through my visa pages. He called over another officer, who reacted similarly. They chatted away in rapid Bulgarian, while I stood there, clueless. Eventually a third man came over and told me I'd have to go with him to a separate area for questioning. They sat me down in a small room, and a woman informed me that they'd just have to ask me a couple questions before I could go. There wasn't much questioning, though- mostly it was just four border officers (of the six in the entire airport) staring at my passport and looking things up on their computer, all while chatting away. No one told me what was happening, or why I had been stopped. They finally asked me about my travel plans, and I don't think they liked my answers:
-So you are American?
-Yes
-And where are you living now?
-America, technically, but I'm spending some time in Turkey
-Why are you in Bulgaria?
-I wanted to fly to England.
-Why are you going to England?
-I'm on vacation.
-Will you be alone?
-No, I'll be meeting my brother.
-So your brother lives in England?
-No, he lives in America.
The woman laughed and shook her head (in retrospect, I guess this was a nod of acknowledgment?) at the ridiculousness of my travel plans. You know your life is complicated when four border officers can't make sense of it. The eventually handed me a sheet of paper to sign, mostly in Bulgarian, that stated that I understood why I had been detained. I didn't actually understand, so I suppose I probably shouldn't have signed, but I had a flight to catch.
The flight itself was pretty uneventful. People complain a lot about how horrible RyanAir is, but it really doesn't matter when you're on a relatively short flight (yes, 3 hours is now a short travel by my standards). I arrived at Stansted a bit early, and had no trouble catching a bus to the city center. The England countryside looked just like I had imagined: foggy and beautiful.
I will end here. Tomorrow: finding platform 9 3/4, traveling to Paris, and getting ripped off by a cabbie.
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