Bulgaria was pretty much the first country I had no idea what to expect
from on the trip. I had heard some very,
very mixed things. It being Eastern
Europe, I expected some poverty, beggars, ugly grey communist buildings and
terrifying bureaucracy. It took a while
to realize it, but I was very wrong.
DAY ONE
I was still in Greece when I last left off, and still in Greece is where
we begin. The bus ride was really
pleasant. I had a go at sleeping (nope,
impossible) and watched a bit of the low-res films they were showing (recent
films, which was surprising – Life of Pi
and The Hobbit were playing). They also offered food, which was nice – a
stale croissant with chocolate cream centre for breakfast (accompanied by lemon
Fanta) and a packet of pizza-flavoured biscuits for lunch (accompanied by
Sprite).
My first experience of Bulgaria was a little off-putting. Previous border crossings had consisted
mainly of the following: crossing the border.
No checks, no security, no nothing.
Well, Bulgaria is a bit different since it isn’t part of the Schengen
agreement. The bus stopped and a border
security officer got on board. People
took out their ID cards and passports to show him. He seemed to be just glancing at them and
then handing them straight back until he got to the guy in front of me. He looked at the ID, looked at the guy, said
something in Bulgarian, looked at the ID again, and pocketed the ID before
approaching me.
I handed him my passport. He gave
it a once over, looked at me, looked carefully at the passport and took it with
him. Oh.
For a good five minute period the bus just kind of sat there, the border
security guy doing something with the ID cards and passports he had collected
in his office. I started imagining the
kinds of horrible tortures they would put some silly UK backpacker through (I
was travelling on my UK passport of course) and had just decided I could
probably survive without my toes when the bus conductor got back on the bus and
gave us all back our passports before the bus started up again and crossed the
border.
Immediately after crossing into Bulgaria we pulled into a rest stop with
a toilet (thank God) and restaurant. We
were greeted, upon stepping down from the bus, but a bunch of eager stray dogs.
“Hmm, they don’t look too bad,” I thought to myself just before one of
them started barking insanely, grabbed another by the throat and tried to
murder it in front of me.
It survived, I went to the loo, and we kind of all stood around the bus
for a bit. Two of the stray dogs came
over to me. They were looking a bit
calmer now, so I just stood where I was.
Well… they were basically just looking for someone to hook up
behind. I turned around to see the big
one humping the other about thirty centimetres from my leg. I moved away surreptitiously, but they
stopped as soon as I had moved. I’m not
entirely sure what relevance my presence had to their horniness, but whatever.
I was kind of glad to get back on the bus, and we headed through some
fairly dismal, flat grasslands and cities before arriving in Sofia. Which looked a bit like what Logan would look
like if it were a factory town. Not the
most pleasant city I have ever passed through.
I kind of decided at that point it might be a good idea to cut down on
the time spent there.
(At the point of writing I haven’t actually properly visited Sofia yet,
so you’ll get a more clear indication of what the city centre and such is like
once I’ve done that visit. As learned in
Naples, the centre of public transport isn’t always the best indication of the
value of a place).
My first impression of Plovdiv was a little similar to that of Sofia –
it was quite industrial rundown and dull.
The bus stop that we arrived at didn’t help my impressions.
I was expecting to arrive at the South Bus Station (Yug), and had
written down the instruction from here.
Well, I arrived… somewhere and thought it must be the right bus station
and followed a path that seemed to be the direction I had seen in google
maps. I was kind of wrong about
that. When I suddenly came across the
train lines, which was supposed to be on the other side of the direction I was
going, I started to worry. Looking at
the sun, I was fairly certain I was going north, but if the train tracks were
anything to go by, and if I had indeed been dropped at the bus station I
thought I had, then I was in fact going south.
Fortunately, it turned out I had been dropped at a different bus station
to the one I thought I had been dropped off at, one which was a little further
south (which begs the question, why call a station the SOUTH bus station if
it’s not the MOST SOUTH BUS STATION).
I was still a bit uncertain about where the hell I was, but followed a
random street anyway that seemed to head in the right direction. Along the way I changed some money into
Bulgarian lev (exchange rate 1:1.95). I
pretty heavily overestimated how much I would need (and I thought I was
underestimating…) The street headed to a large, open square that had a tourist
information centre.
The tourist information peoples’ eyes nearly burst from their sockets
when they saw me waltz in. I went to the
desk and said I was just looking for a map.
They had great big tearaway maps that I could just take, so I took one. Having figured out my bearings, I realized
that I was not as far off track as I thought I was, and off I went once more
into the old town.
Plovdiv’s old town isn’t quite as old as some of the other old towns I
have seen, which is a shame because Plovdiv is one of the oldest settlements in
Europe. Old Town itself, though, is a
nicely preserved chunk of 18th-19th century architecture
from the Bulgarian Revival period. I’ll
give you a bit of a rundown on Bulgarian history (what little of it I could figure
out, anyway) later on. Anyway, the
houses are very cute and colourful, the pavements are very cobbly, and the area
is just really rather pleasant to walk through.
I was on a mission, though, seeking out my hostel, which was called
Hostel Old Plovdiv. Actually, the sign
outside the hostel read ‘Guest House Old Plovdiv’ and this was probably more
accurate.
I have become accustomed to a certain level of comfort offered at a ten
euro per night price range. That level
is probably best described as, ‘Just enough.’
Well, Hostel Old Plovdiv is a whole other thing. It’s housed inside a refurbished 19th
century house, complete with creaky wooden floors and gorgeous interior design
and spaces. I was housed in a two-bed
room. That is, I shared with one other
person (and it almost looked like I would have the room to myself at the
start!) I was greeted with a little
welcome sign on the chalkboard (“WELCOME ANDREW COUZENS” it read) and the
receptionist referred to me by name the moment I walked in. The owner, Hristo, came out of his office to
greet me and offered me a Bulgarian herbal tea as a welcome. Now, in most hostels they have some kind of
free tea/coffee available. Here they
make you your tea and serve it to you in your room.
I was looking forward to a sleep in a bed at that point, so I didn’t go
out for dinner or anything like that. I
just stayed in, collapsed, and was asleep by 8pm.
DAY TWO
My first proper day in Plovdiv began at around 4am, when my roommate
arrived. I didn’t actually meet him that
morning, since he went straight to bed and didn’t rise again for quite some
time (I don’t blame him – I later found out he had arrived at 3am on a bus from
Istanbul).
I got a bit excited when I went into the dining room for breakfast and
discovered that the remains of a Roman wall kind of just sat in the middle of
the room, with the plaster walls built around it to accommodate it.
After breakfast (which consisted of what seemed like half a loaf of
bread and some cucumber, tomato, Bulgarian white cheese, ham, bee honey and
jam) I started to come up with a plan of action. What I wanted was a bit of a briefer on
Bulgarian and Plovdiv history. I knew a
bit, for example that Plovdiv was old and had been settled by Thracians,
Romans, and Ottomans at some point, but I didn’t really know what that meant,
or how it fit together. There was a free
tour at 2pm that I planned to join, hoping it would provide a bit of
background, but before that I decided that the most ideal course of action
would be to visit the Plovdiv Archaeology Museum, followed by the Museum of
Modern History next door. (The latter
was part of a set of regional museums that detailed the history of Plovdiv in
different eras that were spread all across the city).
Off I headed, and almost immediately found myself at the rather sad
river that runs through Plovdiv. I
watched a guy fishing for a while before continuing on.
Passing some kind of public building, I noticed one of those “NO ______”
signs, the ones with a big red circle and line that covers things like smoking
cigarettes or cameras or whatever. This
one indicated that handguns were not allowed in the building. I was a bit surprised that… you know… they
actually had to spell that fact out.
The Archaeology Museum takes you through a series of rooms containing
various bits and pieces covering discoveries around Plovdiv dating from 5000BC
up to the 14th century AD.
That is, it covers the Thracians, the Romans, and the Ottomans. It also had a bit of information on the
museum’s history. Actually, the thing
that stuck out the most to me was a small sign explaining that there used to be
an important death mask displayed there, but it was stolen in 1995 or
thereabouts by masked gunmen. They were
clearly into their ancient history.
Reading everything that was on offer (as I always do in museums) I got
through the entire museum in an hour and a half. That is to say, it was small. It had some impressive things in it, to be
sure, and it did give me a bit of background, but not as much as I was hoping
for.
Actually, the period I was most interested in was the more modern times,
so I was eager to head to the Museum of Modern History next door. Well… I kind of walked in and there was a
group of Bulgarians already inside who seemed to be friends of the curator of
the museum or something… They looked official anyway. I sort of stood around, hoping someone would
explain what I was supposed to do to enter the museum, but was ignored and
ended up losing my nerve and leaving. So
don’t ask me about recent Bulgarian history (or ancient Bulgarian history for
that matter…)
My path took me down a major shopping street, where someone seemed to
try and persuade me to enter a McDonalds.
Admittedly, it was a bit of a novelty being heckled to enter a McDonalds,
but… it’s McDonalds. So no. I got a bit of pizza instead. Fast food seems to be a really popular
Bulgarian lunch, as there are stalls selling pizza and kebabs literally
everywhere.
The pizza shops tend to just be windows with a guy inside a booth. When you approach they slide open the
window. I went up to a random one along
the street and pointed at the pizza I wanted.
He shook his head. I was a bit
confused as to why he wouldn’t give me a pizza, but he told me I had to go to
another window beside this one, pay the lady there, get a receipt, bring him
the receipt, and collect my pizza. So I
did. I can only assume that this is some
bizarre hangover from the communist era or something.
Anyway, they were all very helpful so it wasn’t long before I, like the
many others wandering the streets at that time, had my delicious slice of
cheap, greasy pizza.
I still had quite a bit of time to kill at this point, and just walked
around. Somehow I must have looked like
a total tourist (I’m pretty sure it’s the hat) and it wasn’t long before a
middle-aged man came up to me.
I should mention, at this point, that other than Switzerland, Plovdiv
has had the least hassle of anywhere on my trip. There appeared to be no beggars on the
streets, no-one tried to drag me into their restaurant, people would speak to
me in Bulgarian with a big smile on their face, then look a little disappointed
when I indicated I was English only.
People seemed to just want to strike up a conversation.
This guy launched into English immediately, asking where I was from and
saying he loved Australians. He pointed
at a side street and told me there were some great Roman ruins down there, or
something.
“Come, come, I’ll show you. Only
one minute.”
Here’s the thing. People don’t
randomly offer to take some person on the street to see Roman ruins. And Roman ruins don’t take one minute. Something was most definitely up.
I told him I knew about the ruins and that I was going to go and see
them later, but really had to head off now to meet people.
“Ah, very good.” He kind of stood
there a moment, then said, “I have two big boys.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Two big boys.” He held his palm
to the ground at his waist. I thought he
must be talking about his balls, so got seriously worried at that point.
“Five and one!”
Oh, he’d gotten big and small mixed up.
Then he pulled the neck of his jacket open and showed me a necklace with
a crucifix on it.
“Catholic,” he said, indicating himself.
“Oh. That’s nice.”
He gestured with his hand. “Come,
I show you the ruins.”
“No really, I have to go, but I will see them later.”
He tried one last time before asking me to wait and pulling out a
laminated sheet from a bag, which he handed to me. On it, the sheet explained that he was a
builder who had been in an accident and now couldn’t work. He needed money for rent to support his family
including the two small boys blah blah blah.
I told him I didn’t have any money.
“Please,” he said beseechingly.
His face had lost the smile and now just looked sad. Really sad.
As in, ready to cry sad.
I stuck firm, though I have to admit my heartstrings were tugged. He really did seem genuine, and there were
legitimate tears in his eyes.
Once he had ascertained that I was a cold, heartless bastard he nodded,
biting his lip, took my hand in a rather friendly handshake and walked off.
I blame that experience for the next part of the story. See, I had been worn down, my defences were
shredded, and so when I stumbled across the ancient Roman theatre, the devious
old woman selling trinkets on the other side of the street set her eyes on me.
Once the two young German sightseers vanished, the lady approached and
spoke in Bulgarian.
“Sorry.”
“Ah, English?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t speak English particularly well, but indicated that she was
an academic from the Ethnographic Museum, and that I should visit it (I fully
intended to, actually, and did so the very next day). Anyway, she managed to drag me over to her
stall, mumbling things that I barely understood and showing me some pretty
drawings.
“They’re nice,” I nod.
Then she grabs a little piece of red and white rope and shows it to me.
“Oh. Nice.”
She starts wrapping it up in paper.
“Wait… how much is it?”
“One lev.”
And that’s the story of how I ended up paying 0,50 euro for a piece of
string. I mean, I knew it was a bit of a
scam at the time, but I just found it really hard to be firm with such a nice,
wrinkly old lady.
Fortunately getting ripped off in Bulgaria is not really an issue. I mean… 50 cents. Come on.
It was, by now, time for me to seek out the tour. It’s run by a voluntary organization based in
Sofia called FreeSofiaTours, and they have spread to Varna and Plovdiv. The route took me through a large park (well…
not that large, and it’s only a park in the sense that it has a few drab
looking trees, though I was assured it is much nicer in summer). I was distracted for a few minutes here by
something that looked a bit like a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit,
though I suspect it was just an East European squirrel. It kind of darted back and forth nervously
through the grass. An old guy, seeing
that I was interested in it, said something to me, but gave up when he realized
I didn’t understand.
Ok, the tour. It was a very small
tour, consisting of myself and one other guy who was from Sofia and was
visiting Plovdiv on business. He was
very interested in Plovdiv, asking plenty of questions about the buildings and
history, many of which the guide struggled to answer.
The guide was basically a local student named Ali, who had an interest
in showing people around the city – and for free, who needs more than
that? We went through the communistic
building that now houses the Post Office and not much else, leaving Ali to
complain that they were left with a big, ugly, grey building that wasn’t used
for anything.
I got a bit of a better idea of Bulgarian history during the tour. The Ottoman Empire basically occupied
Bulgaria from about the 14th century until the Russians came and
booted them out. Why the Russians? Apparently the official answer is that the
Russians like the Bulgarians (they share the orthodox religious beliefs and
have Slavic roots) and the Bulgarians like the Russians back for that, though
there is some recent controversy that suggests that actually the Russians
wanted to establish a trade route through the Black Sea.
I also got a couple of details about the communist era, though this
mostly consisted of anecdotes. One that
struck me in particular was about a violinist/entertainer, a very popular one,
from Plovdiv. He had a habit of making
jabs at his audience. Once he was
performing at a dinner attended by a high-ranking Party official, and was
playing at the official’s table. The
official, irritated by the music (because clearly communists hate music or
something) asked him when he was going to leave. The entertainer replied: “I’ll be leaving
soon, but the question is, when will you be leaving?”
He was sent to a concentration camp where he died after eleven
days. And that, boys and girls, is why
you don’t make fun of an oppressive regime in front of the people who enforce
said oppressive regime.
The tour finished in quite heavy rain on the top of the hill in Old
Town. Plovdiv is sometimes referred to
as the town of the seven hills, because it has seven hills. Only it doesn’t. It has six (in fact, I could only find four,
and you’d think a hill would be pretty easy to spot). The reason there are six is because one of
the seven was dismantled in order to make pavement in Germany.
Luckily, this hill was about twenty metres up the street from my hostel,
so I just went straight back out of the rain, where Hristo showed me where the
umbrellas were and offered me a cup of tea.
It was around 4:30pm by this point, and I didn’t really see the point of
going out again. I did some
housekeeping, like figuring out my hostels for Sofia and Bucharest, and doing a
bit of research into how I was going to get to each of them. Unfortunately the Bulgarian train timetables
online aren’t all that helpful, what with them being incorrect (even the German
Bahn website failed me this time, and that so very, very rarely happens).
I decided to go and reserve my ticket at the train station first thing
the next day. My roommate turned up
around this time, a nice Italian (though he lived in London) who, as I
mentioned before, had been on holiday in Turkey and decided he wanted to pop in
somewhere else on his way back.
My mind was starting to ponder on dinner by that point, and I had been a
bit worried that I would end up going out to eat alone, which is something I
try and avoid. Particularly in countries
where I can’t even pronounce the menu. I
was relieved, then, when Antonio (I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his name, but
it’s Italian-sounding) mentioned that he had seen a pizza restaurant on his way
to the hostel that looked pretty good and had wait staff in traditional folk
outfits. He’d asked at the desk if they
knew where it was, and we were directed to head down the street and ask the
guard at the entrance to the old town where the ‘big glass pizza restaurant’
was.
Well… we got down there and asked, and the guard kind of gestured with
his thumb vaguely over his shoulder. We
were near the main pedestrian shopping street now, and, following the guard’s
directions, ended up at a dead end.
There was a young guy smoking on the corner, and Antonio went and asked
him about the restaurant. The guy
enthusiastically took us just down the street and pointed out a little corridor
leading to a doorway, promising that it was a great place. It wasn’t the place Antonio had been looking
for, but we were pretty much over searching by that point so went in.
The place was empty except for two fifty year old Bulgarian men drinking
in the corner. The décor was quite nice
though, and the owner/waiter showed us through to an adjoining room where he
lit a massive fireplace in a stone bowl in the middle of the room.
Looking at the menu, Antonio said, “Mmmm… Well, the menu looks ok.” I think he was worried by the fact that the
place was practically empty. They did
have traditional Bulgarian menu items (and, having done some research that
afternoon, I knew that they were at least legitimate sounding). I ordered a Shepherd’s Salad and some kind of
cheese and sausage hot pot (and a large beer of course) and Antonio got some
kind of aubergine salad and a chicken skwarma (like a stew).
The salads came first. Mine was a
fantastic pile of chopped up salad vegetables, mostly consisting of tomato and
cucumber, mixed with egg, white Belgian cheese (a creamy kind of feta) and
yellow Belgian cheese, which has a texture a bit like a smooth mozzarella but
has a bit more tang.
We were halfway through the salad when they brought out our mains. See, in Bulgaria, courses aren’t quite as
sequential as you’d expect. They
overlap, with food being brought out when it’s ready. This doesn’t really matter with a salad,
though.
The stews were served in these cute little earthenware pots. I found mine very tasty, though I have to say
I was a little cheesed out by the end, what with there being white cheese in
both the stew and the salad.
All in all this cost about fourteen lev, which is the equivalent of
seven euro (I’m talking about my food and drink only, not Antonio’s – total
bill was 27 lev). Yeah, it was a pretty
expensive place.
I think Antonio was a tad disappointed at not having found the pizza
place, but I was pretty satisfied by the meal.
On arrival back at the hostel we were greeted by the guy at the
reception desk coming down to open the door for us (he had seen us coming on
the security cameras – I should mention here that we had a key for the front
door, so this gesture was entirely unnecessary) and asking whether we had found
the place. He seemed fairly hopeful that
it would be found on the following day.
DAY THREE
The first task of the day was to head just up the road to the top of the
hill that I had gone up on the free tour.
The reason? The day before it had
been foggy and raining, and the view hadn’t been all that good. This time was a vast improvement, though I
was a little disappointed to realize that the hill opposite was far taller and
would probably offer the best view. I
quickly resolved to scale it after getting my train reservation.
The next place I went to was about ten metres down the street from the
hilltop – the Ethnographic Museum. It is
housed in a beautiful wooden building and has exhibits detailing the lives of
the people living in Plovdiv. It only
cost 2 lv entry, but they had an extra fee for taking video – 10 lv. I briefly entertained the notion of
pretending I was taking photos (5 lv), but then realized that I was paying so
little to enter anyway I may as well just give them the lot.
Well, I made damn sure I got my money’s worth, anyway, taking video of
all the exhibits and rooms (the interior of the house – all original – was
absolutely gorgeous). There wasn’t a
huge amount of content (it wasn’t a very big house) but they did have some
interesting stuff, including traditional Bulgarian peasant outfits and rooms
lavishly decked out with authentic antique furniture. I also found out that Bulgarians are famous
for their honey, which explained why the little packets of honey I had been
having for breakfast had been so good (for some reason they always called it
‘bee honey’ though – I wasn’t aware there was another kind?)
I took the opportunity while I was at the museum to use the toilet. The toilets in Plovdiv have to be paid for,
and what with the cold and me starting to get a bit sick (and having a weak
bladder anyway) I was quickly running out of 50 stotchky pieces. Well… I guess you get what you pay for. Which is a nice way of saying this toilet had
no toilet paper. Unfortunately I only
discovered this once past the point of no return.
I did, however, notice a small bin near the toilet. Well, I reasoned, all I need is a bit of
paper or something that isn’t too grubby.
Leaving it was simply not an option (I blame all the vegetable fibers
from the previous night’s salad) and so I opened the bin and sifted through the
spongy tissues within. They were all a
bit damp, which weirded me out, and some of them had strange brown stains
(dirt, not poo) but I did eventually find one that wasn’t too bad, and as it
was heading somewhere dirtier anyway I think I ended up slightly cleaner for
the effort.
With that out of the way, it was time to go to the train station.
The Wikipedia page for Plovdiv train station proudly announces that it
“has eleven tracks!” (exclamation mark included). So… it’s basically a small, regional train
station. I had a look at the board and
was pleased to see that a) it listed the Latin name alongside the Cyrillic, and
b) that there were a number of trains to choose from to get me to Sofia (though
they were all at different times to the ones I had seen online…)
I went to the desk to ask for a reservation for the midday train, which
I reasoned was late enough that I could be a bit slow in the morning, but would
get me to Sofia at a time when I could still do stuff.
The lady at the desk didn’t speak a huge amount of English, but I didn’t
(and still don’t) speak a word of Bulgarian, so who am I to judge? We worked things out eventually, which is to
say, she managed to indicate that I didn’t actually need a reservation for that
train anyway.
On my way out I grabbed a chicken gyros (actually pretty good, even
after coming from Athens) and made my way to the big hill. The big hill had a statue on top dedicated to
the Russian soldiers that had helped liberate Bulgaria, which made it very easy
to spot. It’s kind of difficult to get
lost in Plovdiv anyway – it’s so small that you’ll eventually come across
something you recognize just by walking around.
The hill was a decent climb, though it would have been a lot easier had
I realized there was a nice, easy, paved ramp that circled up it. As it was, I made my way up vague steps and
abandoned, crumbling pathways that were probably quite dangerous (I think a man
at the top was trying to tell me that I was an idiot for walking up a crumbling
cliff face, but he spoke Bulgarian so maybe he was saying something else).
The view was good. I looked at it
for a bit then went back down along the ramp.
I mean, there’s really only so much view you can view.
On my way back I went to get a closer look at the remains of the Roman
Stadium. It was kind of just open for
anyone to walk in. The ruins are under
the main shopping street, making excavation, I would imagine, fairly
difficult. As you go down the street
some of the buildings are marked as having bits of the stadium visible in their
basement.
I bummed around the hostel for a bit after that before Antonio showed up
and we decided to have one more go at finding the restaurant. We were given instructions on the map, but
Antonio was certain that the instructions were incorrect and wanted to go by
instinct. So we did. And we found it.
It basically just looked like a decent family restaurant to me, though
it did happen to have a proper pizza oven.
The ‘traditional clothes’ Antonio had mentioned the day before turned
out to just be chef outfits – you know, the funny hats and whatnot. Around the brim of the hats was the Bulgarian
flag, which was interesting as it was the same colours as the Italian flag, so
actually the chefs looked like Italian pizza makers.
We didn’t end up getting pizza anyway.
We both had a pork steak (they were pretty large…) and I had a Shopska
Salad, which is apparently a Bulgarian salad variety, though I thought it was
pretty similar to the one I had had the previous night except without the
yellow cheese.
This time I made sure to order a Bulgarian beer, though I’m afraid I
don’t remember the brand. It was
surprisingly good, with a very rich, organic taste. Not that I’m a beer expert or anything, but
normally I don’t really like beer that much and I liked this one.
Antonio was taking a taxi to the airport the next day and needed to get
some cash out for that. We went looking
for an ATM and, after searching the area for some time, began to migrate toward
the city centre. We ran dangerously
across a major dual lane road in order to avoid a late night walk through the
underpass and turned around to discover we had just walked to the opposite side
of the street to the nearest ATM. We
were so close to the city centre by this point, though, that we just kept on.
Antonio found himself an ATM and got some money out, but ended up having
to take out more than he intended. Since
lev is pretty worthless in the UK, he suggested going to a bar to try to use
some of it up.
This was a Friday night, so we expected to see some lively places
somewhere. The streets were dead. I should mention that Plovdiv has a
university, so it’s not like there’s no Friday-night demographic in the
city. We were about to give up when we
found a small street with a bunch of listless smokers hanging out outside a
bar. So we entered the bar.
It was a pretty nice place. I was
a little surprised by the fact that it was table service for drinks. Antonio, wanting to rid himself of the
unwanted cash, paid for two cosmopolitans.
I have to say, cosmopolitans are considerably less classic tasting than
I imagined – it was like alcoholic apple and blackcurrant juice.
They were singing karaoke in an adjoining room, and as we left the dance
floor downstairs was beginning to heat up, but as we were both leaving the next
day we decided we needed some rest.
The hostel staff were eager to know if we’d found the right restaurant
this time, and were happy to hear we had (we tactfully left out the fact that
it was a different restaurant to the one they had pointed out). And then I went to bed.
The next day I would be on my way to Sofia, so I think I will leave this
story
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