The only reason that I wanted to stay in Bucharest was because it seemed, given all my research, to be a good point of crossing to get to Sozopol on the Bulgarian black sea, which I was most looking forward to on this trip.
I had been warned that Bucharest was not particularly exciting, and that if I really wanted to see some Romanian beauty I really needed to get out into the countryside. I get that, and I believe it, but as beautiful as the countryside looks in pictures to me, I’ve come to discover about myself that I really don’t like being in places that are remote. I’m a city mouse. If I drove a car in Europe, which I’m petrified to do, maybe would be a different story. I could come and go, drive to wherever I needed to go, and not feel trapped by nature.
So I told myself that I would have more fun in Bucharest than anybody could ever have in Bucharest. I was there for three nights, and I had to decide whether I want to spend a fourth night there, or go to Varna in Bulgaria for a night because it’s a halfway point to Sozopol.
I quickly realized that the Airbnb that I booked in Bucharest was pretty far outside the main center. I did this on purpose because usually old towns are really touristy and really obnoxious and I like to stay outside of them, but it turns out that I’m Bucharest, the old town isn’t that old, that’s where everything is. So I was a good half an hour cab ride outside of anything that I wanted to do, and even though cabs are Stupidly cheap in Bucharest $4-6 for a half hour ride, and on Uber which is super convenient), it was still kind of annoying to me. I decided on the first night that I was going to go to Varna On the fourth night.
I really enjoyed Bucharest actually. It’s not particularly exciting, and the food is kind of boring. Typical Eastern European/Jewish fare. Although I did have some of the best stuffed cabbage I’ve ever had, And I do love a good bowl of beets with horseradish, It got old pretty fast. Bucharest has some really beautiful parks and I walked all over the place the whole time I was there, and the weather was unseasonably not hot as fuck (80s versus the usual 90s). There is an incredible, large restoration village in a huge park in the north of Bucharest where all of these old folk houses From the 19 century were shipped to. Everybody was really nice in Romania. Everybody speaks English I Bucharest and everybody wanted to hear How much I was enjoying my time there. All the cabbies Seems really proud of Romania, and wanted me to be too. And all of them, I mean all of them we’re listening to Spanish pop. Felt a little bit like home.
Went to a super traditional very popular Romanian restaurant in the center of town. Food was overrated, but I happen to have a seat next to the Space in the restaurant where every 10 minutes or so, dancers came out and danced whatever folk situation Romanians do, And then would go out into the restaurant and asked for peoples hands to dance with them. At some point couples came out in some Latin costume and started doing some kind of Latin dancing. I’m not entirely sure what count they were dancing on, but I asked the guy to dance with me. Classic Latin ballroom posture, stiff and uptight, and I still couldn’t figure out what count he was on, but I followed him anyway, much to the delight of the table next to me. You take what you can get.
The information I found said Varna Was a four hour bus ride from Bucharest. And it was, but what I didn’t know is that there four hour ride was going to take place at 9:45 at night arriving at 3 AM. Who the fuck wants to arrive anywhere at 3 AM? That felt like my only choice, Unless I wanted to spend another day in Romania which I did not. Always leave on a high note. Worst case scenario? I fall asleep at the bus station for a couple of hours when I get to Varna. I booked something Called a self-service hostel, Very much like a capsule hotel in Japan, you enter some data in on a computer and then you check yourself into your room. Online reviews said some people showed up at 4 AM which made me think I could do the same. I sent a request for early check in letting them know that I’d be arriving at 4 AM, but I didn’t hear back from them. I still had high hopes!
The nervous Nellie that I am leaves my Airbnb at about 6pm, and finds a restaurant walking distance from the bus station. I don’t remember the real name, but it translates to “red rooster” and it’s some farm to table place. This is a Friday night... the place is huge and all of the tables on the outside patio seat 6-8 people. Pretty sure there was an engagement party going on there at the time, looking at a beautifully done up woman in a way too dressy white dress. I’ve got no reservation, I’m wearing a tank top and cutoffs, and the guy takes one look at me with my backpack and my suitcase, and, without a nasty look or complaint, puts me in the huge back room where there is nobody. It’s like I was eating with the help. I didn’t care... then I could sit there forever and no one would bother me. On the opposite side of a pillar I was sitting next to was a family of 4... I wonder what they did wrong for them to warrant the same punishment.
Waiter’s English wasn’t great, but he asked me where I was from, and teared up when I said I was from New York. He tried to explain that one of his loved ones is there for 16 years. Couldn’t quite tell if it was his daughter or his wife, but either way he got so emotional. Also wanted to know how I liked Bucharest. I liked it a fuck Ton after he served me an amazing meat and cheese platter, clearly meant for 2, that cost about $7. That’s right. 7 fucking dollars.
I left early, paranoid that maybe for some reason I wouldn’t find the bus stop. I find it with no problem, but there’s no one there to give any information. I overhear a guy from Copenhagen asking around for info... and it turns out that the bus is going to be at least an hour late and is on the opposite side of the station. This is why I get to places early. No info posted and I would have had no idea. The bus company, FlixBus, which I’ve used many times, decided that they were going to use a minibus instead of regular bus, no bathroom on the bus, and all the luggage was going in a trailer affixed to the back of the bus. I had some image of all of my luggage flying off with the trailer somewhere in Romania, so I rearranged things so that the most important stuff was in my backpack on my person (and by that I mean medicine, my passport, my knitting, a book, and all of my new shoes... priorities) and the suitcase went to the trailer.
The driver was instructed not to leave until the late bus from wherever else showed up with our missing passengers. He was pissed. Even more pissed, though, was the guy from Copenhagen who decided to tell me that he had a date waiting for him in Varna... he had to go there because her visa didn’t allow her into Romania...and was really upset enough to decide that I was the person to complain too for the 2.25 hours it was late. Did he want me to drive the bus? What the fuck did he think I was going to do about it?
I tell the driver I have to pee, and “don’t leave without me!” He cracks up, knowing I know if he ain’t leaving these fools on the other bus behind, he’s not leaving me there, either. The bathroom has an Asian style hole in the ground squatting situation. I am surprised by this. Even Cuba didn’t seem to have these things. I have my huge backpack on my back, and I realize mid-squat that my center of gravity is off, and I hope for the best.
I’m definitely annoyed as well at this delay, and really tired, as for whatever reason I have hardly had one good night of sleep since I arrived in Europe. I was actually really excited to just pass out on the bus and wake up in another country. But I figured the delay was better for me anyway because instead of arriving at three in the morning I’ll be arriving at five in the morning which seemed safer.
I decide to take a seat all the way in the back (a row of 5) near the window so that my new friend from Copenhagen would get the hint and not sit near me, and I quickly realize that there is absolutely no place for this backpack. There is no room between my legs under the seat in front of me, there’s no room overhead. This is the smallest and tightest method of transportation I’ve ever been on. The other bus arrives and four Bulgarian dudes sit in the four seats next to me and all of a sudden I feel so claustrophobic, between them, their incessant talking, and the huge backpack on my legs. I blast my music and try to relax, but I don’t sleep at all.. And I can’t drink any water because there’s no bathroom on this bus, even though at this point me and the driver are best friends and I trust he won’t leave me.
We get to Varna, I’m exhausted. There are no cabs. I don’t have any local currency. I don’t see any ATM machine to get any either, and the woman working at the 24 hour Store doesn’t seem to understand the word “money” or “ATM.” For some other reason, my international roaming takes 20 minutes to get going. Some random guy walks up to me asked me if I need a ride. I guess he’s a cabbie? Maybe he’s a cabbie? I really don’t know but I’m the only one left at the station. I say “I don’t have any money “he says “maybe we can find some.” Fuck no I’m not going with this guy. I decide to walk 35 minutes to my destinations with all of my shit. I hate dealing with shady eastern European Cabbies, and I would have hated it much more if the guy didn’t even turn out to be a cabbie, so that at 5 o’clock in the morning I’m willing to walk all the way into town. At least the sun started coming up.
I get to the hostel. I’ve got my own room, and it’s more of a Japanese style capsule hotel, without the capsule. There’s a self-service machine at the door that, when I enter my check in code, says I can’t check in till 10. That’s 3 1/2 hours away. There’s some “press for emergency” button. I press it. The guy says I cant check in. I have no idea if this guy is actually inside, or if he’s somewhere else and this is just some remote call box. So I say thank you and decide not to press further, cause I’m too tired to deal with it. The outside is clean concrete, in a covered atrium shared by a apartment building. I lay my shit down and I sleep for almost two hours, Except for the twice I was interrupted by neighbors. One who just said to me that I should watch my phone that was lying next to me, and another who said excuse me as he walked by with his entire family. Nobody seem to be bothered that there was a girl lying on the ground next to their Apartment. Maybe this is a usual occurrence. The third guy wakes me up and apologizes to me profusely in broken French saying that he if you knew that I was lying outside like that he would have let me in. I was so tired, I really didn’t even care, and I said thank you it’s OK it’s really fine in my broken French. I was happy to lie out there! He let me in, still apologizing, and I passed back out on the lounge couch.
10 AM, I go to check in, and the machine spits out a key for room 24. I go to room 24, open the door, and two guys’ stuff is all inside the room. They have not checked out. I was confused, and just started laughing. I could’ve robbed them blind! But instead went back to the emergency box. On the way there, one of the other guys at the hostel asked what happened and when I told him, he said “that’s impossible!” I assured him it in fact was. He told me he was leaving the hostel, and even though the room wasn’t clean yet I could sleep in there...the sheets weren’t made but at least there’s a bed to lie in. Everybody in this country has been so nice and so helpful. I go back to the call box and tell the guy what happened. He says that’s impossible! Once again I promised it was in fact the case. Through the ether, he issued another key through the magic key box and this time it was an immaculate room with a perfectly made bed, only a bed, and about 8 ft.² of space. It was all I needed. I did wonder what would happen when someone else got a key with my number on it by accident.
Went to the beach. Not terribly impressive, not like my memory of Sozopol, but fine, walked around a bit. At some point, I walked the 35 minutes back to the bus station to go to the big mall across the street to get a long sleeve shirt to wear on cold busses and planes,replacing the one that I lost somewhere in Portugal. Walked by a luggage store and decided that it was about time I got an even tinier European size carry-on. European carry-ons are a little bit smaller than ours, and their carry-on limits are really restricted. I got charged €45 for what would’ve been a carry-on in the US flying from France to Romania. I look at czech airlines’ (next leg) Carry-on policy and do a measure of the bag. Looks great. I figure I’ll put it in my bigger bag get rid of some shit that I don’t really need and then get rid of the bag that I brought with me. I get back to the Hostel, bags are almost exactly the same size. Maybe an inch and a half off, maybe a half kg lighter. You think all these years teaching Mathematics, I’d have some sense of volume but still, no. Anyway I like it better because it has no expansion pocket so next time I just won’t be tempted to bring as much shit. And when you’re only allowed 8kg of carry on, every inch or so counts. As little as I packed, I still packed more than I needed.
Got up bright and early to go to Sozopol... Still saw no taxis ...At this point I’m so used to the 35 minute track back-and-forth to the bus station I decide when to walk it anyway, it’s pretty flat. And anything that makes me walk for a good half hour I’m thinking will counteract all of the pasta I’m going to cram in my body when I get to Italy so I don’t mind the walk, even with all my stuff. I get on the bus without incident. Still a minibus to Burgas, the connection point to the southern Black Sea coast, but less populated. And this time I’m smart enough to get a single seat and to leave my backpack in the back. They’re super helpful at the Burgus bus station, despite very little English being spoken, and despite wrong instructions, I get another bus to Sozopol. I go to the 5-seat back, and take up two seats while some lady sits on the far side... and then seeing that I’m trying to sleep, motions to me that She’s going to move to the next row so that I should lay out on all five, I said no but she insisted. People have been really really nice to me here, really for no good reason.
I was expecting the trip to take about three hours, it took four. Google maps tells me that the 12 minute walk to the Airbnb is mostly flat, Google lied. More pasta later, and more phyllo stuffed crap, I tell myself. I arrive at the Airbnb and the woman really doesn’t speak any English and sort of motions to me as to where I should go. She looks really stressed out, and says “husband sleeping” like she can’t handle checking me in without him and she’s a little pissed off that he decided to take a nap.
We get upstairs, it’s perfect. Double bed, a Terrace (seriously...my kingdom for a terrace!), air-conditioning, Wi-Fi, everything clean, a little fridge. she looks still a bit upset. She pulls up the booking on her phone and points to where it says that they were supposed to be two people staying. I shake my head no, and tell her only one person, holding one finger up in the air. I forgot that I had originally put two people down, because there was no change in price for one vs. two, and there was a chance that Justin or my friend Lauren from work was going to join me. I said no, only one. She looked really upset. She patted me on the shoulder and looked really concerned. I finally get what she means.I take out my Google translator app and type in “I made a mistake it’s OK!! No problem!” She left and patted me on the shoulder again. Pretty sure she presumed I got dumped somewhere along the trip and here I was all by myself at the beach. I’m sure that shit happens a lot. How adorable. Then she starts trying to show me some shit and she’s failing miserably even though I totally understand what she’s saying: there are some glasses and silverware here you can take, please try to be quiet because there are some couples with babies upstairs. And she says something about her husband So I type into Google “it’s OK I’ve been to Sozopol before, I know my way around here.” Google doesn’t know a flat surface from a steep one, but it made this lady feel better. That seemed to really relieve her. She managed to you eek out a “have a good holiday!” Before she smiled and said thank you and went along her way.
Sozopol is exactly how I Remembered it. There is an old town up a hill, there’s the new town that I’m in, and there’s three big beaches between them. Maybe a 30 minute walk to go from one side to the other. I walked along the cliff from the new town to the old town, And sat down at a restaurant overlooking the sea. Big benefit of skipping lunch on Sunday afternoon in a popular resort town means when you show up for dinner at 5 PM, you don’t have to make a reservation and you can sit wherever you like. I order the marinated fish platter, Which I was expecting to be something like anchovies and sardines, acidic like Spanish conservas, but turned out to be Taramosalata, a bunch of oily fishes like bluefish, mackerel, herring...stuff I generally don’t like... but It came with little toast that compound butter (tarragon?) on it, and what doesn’t taste great with compound butter, so I squeeze some lemon on it and hope for the best. It’s delicious! I don’t know what got into me, but I also ordered a burrata salad (My friend Amy always gets burrata when I’m with her and I don’t get it... it’s like cold milk in a ball shape) and forgot to tell the waiter that I hate raspberry vinaigrette and to leave it off... I decide to suck it up. The vinaigrette was hot pink. I’m not really sure how. I pretended it was strawberry instead and went along with it. Cindy on vacation is a lot less of a control freak than normal.
On the way home, I stop by the beach to watch the sunset and there’s nobody on it. Everybody’s eating dinner. I walk back, and is some form of symbiotic payback, I go to the fish spa and let little fish graze on my feet. Tit for tat after what I had done to their friends this evening.
I make my way back, and buy a bathing suit bottom that covers my ass somewhere in between the “practically a thong” and “full skirt coverage” two bottoms I had already brought with me. Because I guess a lot of people shot up to the beach without appropriate clothing. I might do this next time... Bulgaria is cheap as fuck... tomorrow I’m already thinking about whether I need a giant unicorn or a giant pineapple to float in the sea on. some guy with his friends run up to me and tap me on the back, turns out all my money dropped out of my bag and he chased me down to get it back to me. I smiled gave them a hug, thanked him, and the rest of the way home I wondered what I can do to convince everybody I know to come back to this paradise with me next year.
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