Plovdiv...Oh yeah

Wow. What a wonderful weekend (alliteration win)!

The eastern gate of the
acropolis of Philippopolis

Where to even start? The beginning, I suppose, is a natural choice when it comes to narratives. On Friday, I got up and started packing and getting ready for the trip. The plan was to go get lunch and run a few errands at noon, then catch the 2:30 bus to Plovdiv. But one of my suitemates is from Plovdiv and has thus obviously taken the bus there before, and she recommended that we get there early to buy tickets. Since Friday is a popular travel day, there was a chance that the bus would fill up and it was the last one that left that day.

The view from our hostel window. Literally.

So we decided to send an advance guard to buy the tickets while the rest came later. So Abby and I took a cab from campus to the bus station, where we attempted to buy tickets. Communication was a problem (not surprisingly), so we flagged down another traveler and she helped us with the transaction. The rest of our group (my American bffs, Chelsea, Kyle, Kerri, and Max) showed up later and we managed to get a nice little enclave for ourselves near the back of the bus. It was about a four hour ride to Plovdiv, part of which was really scenic. Stunning mountain views and snowy forests. We were all pretty excited, so it seemed like a long ride, but it wasn't too bad. We got to the bus station, and tried to get ourselves organized. The main source of stress is that we had to split into two cabs from the bus station to our hostel, which meant that one group would be pretty much flying blind, since I'm the only person of the six of us who can understand Bulgarian (I'm using the word "understand" here in its loosest sense). But luckily, while we were gathering our wits, a good Samaritan named Kristina (actually a fellow AUBG student who had been on our bus) offered to call cabs for us. So we just had to give the cab drivers our address and everything was fine.

A street in the Old Town

Our hostel was really cozy. It was in the Old Town, which is just beautiful. It's all cobblestones and revival architecture. The hostel was relatively small; there was one dorm-style room with 4 sets of bunk beds, a little room with two beds, and a loft with two additional beds. There was one British guy staying there when we got there, but other than that it was just us, so it sort of felt like it was a slumber party or summer camp. The guy working the front desk gave us some maps and recommended a restaurant or two, so we set out to find food. We actually went to a restaurant called Diana (which I obviously supported). The food was really good, as usual. That's almost a given at this point. I don't think that I've had a single bad meal since I've been here.

Afterwards we went back to the hostel and planned to go to bed early so that we could get an early start with the sightseeing. Plus, basically everyone in our group except for Kyle and I was feeling pretty sick. Some sort of head/chest cold was ravaging the troops, and everyone was swapping dayquil, nyquil, and robitussin to try to keep the symptoms at bay. One by one each of the sick kids went up to the bunk beds until it was just Kyle, me, and a heavily medicated Abby hanging out downstairs. We played this music trivia game where the questions were all based on UK music charts (it was like identify the artist based on the lyrics, etc). Sonya, the nighttime desk employee at the hostel, joined in and started asking the questions. She thought we were hilarious with all of our singing, but she also thought that we were terrible at the game. She would say, "Ok, easy question," and then read it and we would literally have no idea. She kept going "Come on, you guys know this..." and we would make terrible guesses and her response was always "No. Wrong." It was pretty entertaining from our perspective, and I think she had fun, but for the rest of the time we were there she played music from the computer at the front desk loudly enough for us to hear, apparently in some sort of attempt to raise us up from our music ignorance.

Old Town in the snow

We got up early the next morning (after a long night of talking in our sleep, according to one member of our party). The first order of business was heading to a pharmacy so that we could continue with the substantial medication of several individuals on the expedition. Sonya helped us find one on the map and we managed to take care of that without any difficulty. While the meds kicked in, we walked to Djumaya mosque, which was really beautiful. I've never been inside a mosque before, and it had these intricately designed paintings on the ceiling. I do always feel sort of weird going into places of worship as a tourist and knowing that other people go there to pray. We were the only tourists there, though. A man by the door motioned for us to take our shoes off and had the girls put our scarves over our heads (or in my case, Kyle's scarf over my head since I wasn't wearing one).

The Roman amphitheater 

Next, we headed to the site of the most impressive ancient ruins in the city, the Roman amphitheater. We first approached it from the wrong side, so we had to sort of circle back to get to the entrance, but it was worth the additional walking. The view was amazing. For a lev, we got to go in and explore, which was really cool because in addition to seeing where the audience (like 7,000 people) could sit, you could also go on the stage area and back behind it and explore a lot. Since it's the winter, we were the only tourists there, which was neat because we got to scamper around and whatnot. Plus, to echo every American tourist who goes to Europe, it's incredible to see sights from antiquity and see this visual reminder of the relative brevity of American history in comparison to that of other countries.

Me in the amphitheater

After the amphitheater, we checked out some other Roman ruins, including part of a stadium and the ancient forum/odeon. Although not as intact as the amphitheater, they were also neat to see (and explore). By the time we were finishing up with the forum, we were starting to grow weary and found a restaurant near the main pedestrian thoroughfare (Tsar Boris the 3rd street). After lunch, we decided to split into two groups for shopping (mainly just because shopping with six people is doomed to fail). Max,  Kerri, and Chelsea headed to grab a coffee before shopping and I went with Abby and Kyle. We walked down the pedestrian walkway, which was full of neat stores. We looked at shoes and clothes for a little bit without buying anything, then veered off into the zig-zagging side streets.

Some of the cool National Revival
 architecture in the Old Town

Plovdiv (especially the Old Town) is pretty hilly and full of the aforementioned cobblestones, so wandering around is a pretty active endeavor. We checked out a few souvenir stores and antique stores. I found this really cool antique pin that has Crocodile Gena (from the Cheburashka series, this Soviet-era cartoon that we watched in my Russian class last semester). So I bought that, and Abby bought this really interesting 1950's atlas in Bulgarian. We were pretty close to the hostel (like I said, it was right in the Old Town), so we dropped our stuff off and then just wandered for awhile. I found this art gallery that had an Eastern Orthodox icon  display, so we looked at that. The icons were gorgeous and they had English translations of the descriptions of them. The building didn't have heat, though, and it was really cold, so we didn't stay for too long. We found a cafe and had some cappuccinos until it was time to reunite with the other half of our entourage.

More of the Old Town

When we got back to the hostel, we learned that there had been an influx of arrivals during our absence. A couple from New Zealand that had been biking from China had just gotten there, along with a German girl who was halfway through a job working in northern Bulgaria for six months. Her name was Paula and she accompanied the six of us out to dinner. We all ordered different things from the same section of the menu that featured dishes cooked in earthenware pots and they were glorious. Mine was some heavenly combination of chicken and cheese and peppers and egg. Add that to the list of things that I need to learn how to cook for when I go back to the states. I'm going to try to find an English-language Bulgarian cookbook before I leave.

Max with his new friend from the bar

After our dinner, the invalids (at this point, Max had convalesced, but Kerri, Chelsea, and Abby were pretty beat from an intense day of sight-seeing) prepared themselves for bed (or at least rest). But Kyle and Max and I decided to go out for a beer or two and we identified a bar from the tour book that sounded cool. It was this dive bar called Nailona that the tour book described as having leaky ceilings and a lot of character. When we got there, it was pretty early (only like 10 pm) and it was a bunch of old men. But the atmosphere was really cool- classic rock, crumbly wood furniture, and old brass instruments hanging from the ceiling. We picked a discreet table in the corner, but maintaining a low profile was pretty impossible due to our overt American-ness. This really old drunk man came over to Max and asked "Do you like honey?" Max was confused by the question and he sort of shrugged and nodded. Once he figured out that the man was asking about "harley," he started talking to him about motorcycles. The man didn't really speak much English, but his favorite phrase was "Ohhhhh yeah," which he shouted numerous times throughout the night. At one point, he said to me "You're so beautiful," then to Max "You're so smart" then to Kyle "You're so......." He ended with "You're smart too," but the damage was done and by that point we were all laughing pretty hard at Kyle's expense.

Bathroom.....

We made friends with three younger Bulgarian guys who helped to translate some of the drunk man's slurred compliments and we moved our table together with theirs to talk to them for awhile. They also helped me to translate the label of a bottle of local beer (I am a perpetual nerd). The bathroom at the bar was an adventure. Max had gone earlier in the night and gravely warned me not to go, but finally I had to. It was just a squat toilet, like a hole in the ground with two little places for your feet on either side of the whole. It was not exactly a glamorous experience, but I managed to survive. Throughout the rest of the night, the drunk aging biker would continually wander back over to us and talk some more, but we couldn't really understand what he was saying in Bulgarian, so Max just smiled and nodded, Kyle repeated "Da" over and over again, and I just sort of shrugged my shoulders apologetically and said "Ne razbiram," (it means "I don't understand"). But he was funny and he wrote down his facebook info for us (mainly for Max) so that the friendship could continue to blossom.

The girls

We headed back to the hostel after that, although we stopped at a convenience store to get some chocolate for the womenfolk. We went to bed shortly thereafter and woke up early again for another half day of sight-seeing. Our hostel didn't have a check-out time, so we left our stuff there. We climbed to the top of Nebet Tepe, a hill by our hostel that had a cool view of the city. Afterwards we went out of the Old Town to the Hill of the Liberators (in Bulgarian it's Bunardjik Hill). "Hill" is a bit of an understatement; it was a strenuous hike to get to the top. At the top there's a monument to Soviet Army, who helped liberate Bulgaria from the Nazis. On our way down the mountain, we passed this old (possibly Communist-era) playground, complete with concrete slides (Max tried to slide down and now he has two holes in his pants).

Cement slides in the park

We stopped at the McDonald's on the main street on our walk back to the hostel, just out of curiosity. The fries were ok, but it wasn't as good as I expected. I was anticipating some sort of tremendous nostalgia for the states (since it was the first "American" food that I've had since I got here), but it wasn't really great. I prefer Bulgarian food for sure. Afterwards we checked out of the hostel and took two cabs to the bus station. We caught a 1pm bus back to Blagoevgrad and arrived here a little before 5pm. Taking a nice long shower and then having a sandwich was just what I needed before settling down with some of the history and philosophy reading I'd neglected all weekend. Now I have some Environmental Science to do before tomorrow's class, but overall I'm not too behind on schoolwork.

Me with my lovely travel companions
in front of the Soviet Army monument

Plovdiv was amazing. I commented to someone recently, "If I'm anywhere with cobblestones and slavic languages, I'm happy. " And it's true. I loved just wandering around the Old Town in Plovdiv and looking at the old churches and houses. I bet that it would be just beautiful in the summer. Hopefully I'll be back someday to see...

Me with the Soviet Army monument

P.S. Luckily I still haven't caught the head cold of my compatriots...knock on wood.