Blink and you missed it

Written 30th May

So there you go.  Bulgaria in less than a week.  Quicker than we expected and a new record for us.

Of course we haven't been everywhere, but we've seen everything we wanted to see, and not rushed anything and we' still done.

We haven't of course been to the Black Sea, but we don't need a 400km detour for a beach, done those recently in greece - although having swum in 'bodies of water beginning with A' (Atlantic, Adriatic, Agean), it would have been good to move onto the B's so Baltic it is then... - and we missed out Sofia - nothing grabbed at us from the LP description.  The only other thing which might have been good was Belogradchik, a fortress and fabulous rock formation in far northwest bulgaria again 400km round trip in the wro direction (found on one website 'you don't go here in passing, beyond here there is no more Bulgaria') which looks amazing but a bit like Meteora so I am not desperately upset - we can't go everywhere.

So, here we are leaving.  It has been unexpectedly pleasant, a nice green interlude between Greece and the North, but nothing especially wow - it is no Slovenia!    but there is nothing not to like.  Once you are past the mountains in the south, the landscape is a bit somerset/west country/rolling green fields and meadows, graduating to east anglia/endless cornfields stretching to the horizon but it is nice.  and sunny.  The people are friendly, the roads are good and usually signed in both roman and cyrillic - so we have been less lost than greece! - and a lot of the basic words you need to survive are similar to others - either english or slovenian/croatian - once you have worked out the language.  Which also isn't that hard if you have just spent two weeks in greece!

The only thing I am still struggling with is the nod for 'no', headshake for 'yes'.  Especially when trying to order coffee.  Me: "dva kafe molya" Waitress: polite headshake, still standing there.  Me: "dva kafe?" holding up two fingers.  Waitress: polite headshake, still standing there. Me: "ummm" . Waitress goes away, brings back coffee, it becomes apparent that headshake wasn't incomprehension or denial of coffee, it was "yes, would you like anything with that?"  got me three times!  Although it is more a flattened figure of eight with you chin than headshake as such but still.

Anyway.  time to move on.  Next stop, Bucharest

x x