Bulgaria!

For some unknown reason, I have always pictured Bulgaria and its people in an unflattering way - oppressive; big, burly, and thuggish; primitive; and a little frightening.  With one exception, nothing I saw yesterday was like that.  The part that I saw was charming, the people were friendly, and (my benchmark standard), the restrooms were all modern and pristine. 

The one exception was the border crossing. Oh, there were no menacing soldiers, dressed in black and carrying automatic weapons (like Israel), but the border between Romania and Bulgaria isn’t open like most European borders are.  The first clue are the trucks trying to cross. They are lined up for miles on both sides, just parked. They have to be weighed, inspected, and all documents thoroughly checked and they are sometimes waiting for days or even weeks to cross. Our small tourist bus sat at the border, both ways, for 5 - 10 minutes while our  passports were examined. 

Ironically, the bridge over the Danube, which is the border, is named the Friendship Bridge and was built primarily by the KGB so tanks could cross. 

 After the fall of communism (when most people could not own homes), everyone wanted to buy a house. Now 80% of Romanians and 92% of Bulgarians own their homes. What fascinates me, because I don’t get it, is that most homes in Bulgaria have televisions but not refrigerators.

Our first stop on a 13 hour Bulgarian

tour, was a monastery built into a rock. It was very pretty, but the experience was memorable because the fellow sitting in front of me became so sick that his panicked wife and I both thought he was dying. She was pleading in rapid fire Arabic as she tried to rouse him from what looked like a diabetic coma onset. Brian turned on his Google translate and we learned that she was beseeching Allah and at the same time blaming her husband for eating too much sugar and smoking.

An ambulance was called and the attendants both had that burly build I had expected of Bulgarians, but were so kind and gentle that my imagined stereotypes were instantly shattered. They took him to the ambulance and no one was sure what they did to him, but he emerged awake and mobile and was able to continue the tour.  

Pictures are of the monastery, the fortress which protected the medieval town of Veliko Tarnova, and us taking a break in a garden restaurant.

For our last two days in Romania, we are renting a car and will be exploring Transylvania  and Dracula country.  Cue the menacing organ music. Bwahahaha!