From the Black Sea to the Serbian Border

This week has seen a lot of me sitting on trains and trying to fenagal my way around strange places that are thronged with tourists to the point they are almost unmanagable.

On Sunday I was sitting somewhat bored in my apartment and decided to take a trip to the Black Sea for the first time. I didn't think I could handle Burgas yet, as it is a pretty big city and is absolutely packed to the gills with tourists right now. So in my Lonely Planet guide I read about this ancient port town a little north of Burgas called Nesebur. The guide siad it had a lot of tourists in the summer, but nothing, no words, could have prepared me for what I encountered when I stepped off the bus from Burgas.

There are two parts of town, "New Town," which is entirely made up of hotels and resorts, and "Old Town," which was founded thousands and thousands of years ago by the Thracians and is actually on a small island next to new town, only accessible by this rather narrow bridge.

When I crossed the bridge, I thought I was entering a refugee camp. Hundreds, literally hundreds, of people were swarming the bus as they walked over the bridge. They had huge beach bags, sun hats, bottles of sunscreen, innertubes, beach balls, and everything else you would take to the beach. When I got off the bus at the ancient gates to the town, I realized that almost everyone was speaking English. As I had not heard English in several days at that point, my ears went into shock and I almost didn't understand my native language.

The streets of the town are serval thousand years old and very narrow, but every crevace, every doorway in the place was absolutely packed with people. Everyone had to move in sync along the cobblestones lest they fall and be trampled. People were yelling at one another over the heads of strangers, little kids were getting separated from their folks, truly inconsiderate people stopped in the middle of the street to check maps or hold conversations and got knocked over by other inconsiderate people. It was a MADHOUSE (or as we say in Bulgaria, LUDNITSA). By noon, I had had enough and began the trek back home.

But the refugee-like adventure was not over yet, oh no. I took the bus back to Burgas, and by that point the sun was at its most intense. I managed to find a train that would stop in Straldja, and boarded. I did not, however, remember to buy a reserved seat. And, as would make sense on a Saturday at the end of July, the train was packed. I mean, for those who are familiar with London public transport, Central line of the tube at 6 p.m. on a Friday between Bank and Liverpool St. We were hanging out of windows for fresh air, circulating who got to stand on the sides and who had to stand in the middle of the mass not really holding onto anything except the mass itself.

But it was only 2 hours, and I ultimately survived (and kissed the door to my flat when I got home, if I remember correctly.)

My second trip started yesterday with a 7-hour train ride from Straldja to Sofia for a med check-up. I think I took the least efficient route here (all the way down through Plovidv and the area where I lived during training and then all the way back up the other side), and I will do a bit of research when I return to that side of the country. But I somehow made it, somehow managed to find the Peace Corps office on my own, which is a feat considering it is actually in a small village next to the capital, and had my appointment. In the evening I went to one of the Peace Corps recommended hostels to spend the night. Everyone there spoke English, so it was a pretty fun night. In one way I feel sorry for those travelers who have been in Eastern Europe for a month or so and only visit the major capitals of the countries in the area. THey really don't experience the place at all...Though I know it must be terribly difficult to travel around small towns here not speaking the local language. More and more I appreciate the way I am traveling...town by town with a home base to go back to. I understand the culture pretty well now, I speak enough Bulgarian to carry conversation with a "sympathetic listener" and I feel like I am actually betting to know the place, not just see it.