We got up early. Too early. It wasn’t an early night, though not a particularly late one, and I figured we could easily make the 8:30 train. We would have, too, after a refreshing jog through the metro station, but it transpired that the 8:30 train was 100 minutes late. This made the 10:00 train earlier, so we acquired our tickets and proceeded to kill 90 minutes over breakfast and wanderings about the train station.

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So begins my Romanian country visit. I’m not settled into a cozy two-room house at the edge of a “small” village (~1000) people in the middle of the Romanian plain. It’s clay and vine walls, and holds the heat from the wood heater amazingly well. Not without its inconveniences (no running water, the door to the heater is outside, so stoking the fire means being cold, no heat in the kitchen) it is nonetheless most charming. It will be a happy few weeks. Continue reading →

I don’t want to put too much stock in first impressions, but the hostel that serves as the gateway to my volunteer experience in a small village in Romania certainly distinguishes itself in this regard. Continue reading →

I don’t remember what they’re called, even though I’ve heard the name several times. It’s a kind of layered puff pastry rectangle full of feta cheese. You can buy them everywhere, and I found a great tiny little storefront/bakery in Plovdiv where I managed to get them fresh twice. Unreasonably good. crispy and soft and hot and just a little gooey. And cheap. So cheap. My new Bulgarian home, Valiko Tarnovo, is nice, but the lack of these pastry things is a huge mark against it. It’s Sunday, so maybe there’ll be some to be had tomorrow. God I hope so. Continue reading →

I play too many video games. Everyone needs a vice, right? But I notice it creeping in sometimes. The first time I saw a big cathedral, all I could think of was going Assassin’s Creed all up on it. Continue reading →

Do you remember dessert pizzas? Continue reading →

A few years ago, my mother discovered that she hugely enjoyed caves. I don’t recall exactly which cave cemented this opinion in her mind, but it now sits quite firmly, and it’s something she seems to think of whenever she thinks of going anywhere. I believe I feel the same way about hills. I may have mentioned the hills of bath, of which I climbed as many as I could. I’ve never been sorry to climb a hill, even if, sticky and lugging my jacket I reach the top only to find the view mostly obscured by buildings, or really not that good anyway, or that it’s not so much a hill as a rise, or that there was a free tram that I could have taken, or any number of other potentially disappointing things, it’s always worthwhile.And this trip has shown me that the nations of Europe and it’s surrounds have a significant edge over Canada in this regard. At home, hills within cities are very often mostly colonized by wealthy people, who build upon them flashy modern homes composed mostly of glass. There are many exceptions of course, but these are almost universally parks, which often have good views, but are basically just grass and some trees. Pleasant, but not inspiring.

But here.

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Real cold, the kind that means you need to cover skin after a few minutes lest you feel the sting, and which makes buying proper mitts today’s priority. Thick fog everywhere. A friendly taxi driver, who’d lived in Denver for years, until his lack of greencard sent him home to Plovdiv. Cobble streets, all in darkness, streetlights few and far between. Searching for the light of a café. Crunch of ice patch. Church by the main street, bathed in artificial orange and wrapped in the mist. Found a yet-to-open café, hollered ‘til someone came and motioned me to sit. Spent two hours drinking a coffee and mouthing Bulgarian to myself, owners nowhere to be seen save two trips to buy ingredients. Their warm goodbye makes me think they only let me in because I was cold, not expecting to sell me a breakfast which didn’t seem to exist. Grey light of morning finds me warm in a solid bunk beside a heater, and falling into a doze despite the caffeine.