Bulgaria & Romania

Salut,

Just two countries this time, which is hopefully more palatable. I arrived in Sofia mid-morning on the 12th and met couchsurfer Bogidar. From the profile picture I had expected a woman, so when my very male host turned up I tactlessly asked if he was "a friend of hers". The confusion continued as he nodded, and when I started to tell him about my trip he kept shaking his head at me. I was later told that this is because the gestures are opposite in Bulgaria – nodding means 'no' while shaking your head means 'yes'. I left his confusing household in the afternoon to explore the capital city and saw most of the unremarkable sites in a couple of hours. Consequently I spent the following day hiking on nearby Mt. Vitosha. After about half an hour I noticed I was being accompanied by a cute little puppy, who followed me for the next few hours all the way to the top and back down. Hermann and I became firm friends, though I started to wonder what I'd do with him when we got back to civilisation. Luckily we came across a couple walking their own dogs, and while Hermann was busy sticking his nose in their behinds I legged it down the hill, leaving the baffled couple with a new Germanic furry friend. In the evening I caught a train to Plovdiv, which I'd heard was much nicer than Sofia. I ran into trouble with a dog again; while I was waiting to meet couchsurfer Ivan I wandered into some nearby shrubbery to relieve myself, when an Alsatian came tearing towards me out of nowhere. Interestingly, although I was quite scared – due to my currently vulnerable stance – the flow just kept coming. The dog began to jump up at me so I was dodging from side to side, urine darting all over the place. But my embarrassment became my saviour as the dog retreated from my newly-declared territory. When Ivan finally arrived he very kindly didn't question why I smelt of piss and dog.

Plovdiv was indeed nicer than Sofia; I spent two days visiting the churches and museums of the Old Town, shopping for upcoming-birthday presents, eating lunch in an unusual restaurant (day one was 'lamb's head'; day two was 'smoked buttocks' – I never discovered whose) and climbing the Hill of the Liberators, home to a huge statue of a Russian soldier and some nice views of the city and its surrounding mountains. I also helped a woman put up a few 'death posters' – obituaries for the recently deceased that are plastered on all available wall spaces (including, rather heartlessly, over rival death posters). On Saturday evening I headed to Veliko Turnova, the ancient capital of Bulgaria. The city is absolutely stunning; from the ancient cobblestoned Gurko Street to the bustling central square to the huge Asanevs monument. The highlight however is Tsaravets Fortress, with amazing views over the town below and home to the ruins of over four hundred houses, eighteen churches and a Royal Palace, all built between the 5th and 18th centuries. It also houses watchtowers, an 'execution rock' and the amazing Patriarch's Complex – a renovated church containing gothic murals painted in the 1980s. It is one of the most interesting and unique churches I have ever seen. I stayed with five student girls in Veliko so on Sunday evening, after I had wasted three disposable razors getting rid of my beard and slicing into my cheeks, we went out to a trance club. It was an interesting experience (especially the dancers, male and female, who wore nothing but a light wrapping of clingfilm) but a very long one; we entered the club at 1am and emerged in the sunlight. Incidentally trance music is everywhere in Veliko – it plays in shops, cafés and can even be heard in the backrooms of churches! When we arrived home one of the girls paid me a compliment by saying I had "nice eyes", though immediately undermined it by adding "with really big pupils"...apparently I look like a Japanese cartoon. I was also berated for not shaving my armpits like Bulgarian men. On Monday afternoon, after a few hours sleep, Milena (the actual couchsurfer) and a couple of her friends took me to nearby Arbanasi, with a great view over Tsaravets. One of her friends was trying to become a prostitute and was currently "practicing" her trade by sleeping with anybody who'd have her. Though I was initially appalled, the more I spoke to her the clearer it became that this was not a choice forced upon her by another person, or by difficult circumstances, but was rather a considered adult decision. Prostitution is actually a common choice for women in Bulgaria and girls often enter the industry straight from school...I couldn’t help but imagine the meeting with the Careers Guidance Counsellor. In the evening I experienced a traditional Bulgarian meal of sausage and baked beans in a clay pot – they were flabbergasted to learn that the same dish was a student favourite in the UK – and at midnight I caught a train bound for Romania. On her profile I noticed that Milena’s next couchsurfer is an Italian called Francesco Pasta.

I arrived in Bucharest at 6am on Tuesday morning and caught the metro to Frank and Tia's place. He is an Irish writer and she's a Bulgarian musician (they both do web design to make ends meet) and they've been living together in Bucharest for four years. We spent the morning chatting about art and literature over a cultured coffee then I went off to explore the city. The most interesting sight is the Palace of the Parliament, supposedly the second-largest building in the world (after the Pentagon) and at least the second ugliest. It was built by Ceauşescu as a typical, grey and imposing Communist building, but with badly-executed attempts at continental flourishes along the balcony and roof edges. It is absolutely massive (though was never completed) and still half empty, despite housing both chambers of the Romanian Parliament, a massive array of conference halls, a fantastic four-floor Contemporary Art Museum and much more. Bucharest also has a couple of nice parks, churches and the Museum of the Romanian Peasant, voted Europe's best exhibition in 1996. It is essentially just an indoor ethnographic museum but with well displayed exhibits, whole themed rooms and even entire peasant houses and chapels within its walls.

On Thursday morning I caught a train to Braşov, right in the heart of Transylvania, where I stayed with couchsurfer Dan. He is an unemployed musician (and occasional DJ) so his flat was suitably squallid. We spent the morning erecting a box from a flat piece of cardboard (one of those 2D cross-shaped things you do in primary school) so we could send my presents home, but when we got to the post office our effort was pooh-poohed and I was forced to buy a ready-made package. We spent the rest of the day trying to find a new pair of trainers for my ridiculous flapping clown feet. Asking for European size fifty in every shop warranted a roar of laughter and a hasty exit, but the assistant in the last shop replied "of course", as though we'd asked if the shop contained oxygen, and produced shoes in size fifty-four! On Friday morning I fulfilled my sightseeing duties in the pretty town centre then went to meet Dan and his friend Reuben on Mt. Tampa to play bongos; the rarefied atmosphere makes the tone very clear (plus the neighbours were complaining the night before). On Saturday I took a trip to Bran – home of Dracula's castle and the reason I’d been reading Bram Stoker's torturous novel for the last week – and was thoroughly disappointed. The castle looks more like a country retreat and the inside is whitewashed with nothing related to the legend. The whole thing was quite dull; if it wasn’t for all the Dracula/Vlad the Impaler themed tack being sold in the market outside, you might as well be in Belgium. I stopped at the much more impressive Râşnov castle on the way back to the flat, where I was greeted by two French couchsurfers. We went out to a 'Traditional Scottish Pub' in the evening, decked out with bagpipes, kilts, postcards and flags (just like the real thing). Also, everything sold was English not Scottish – Newcastle Brown and Old Peculiar ale (chilled!), steak and kidney pie, fish and chips, hotpot and the Traditional English Breakfast. Punters also had the choice of Irish Coffee or Scotch Coffee - the former made with Jack Daniel's and the latter with Jim Beam.

On Sunday, after spending the morning hiking on Mt. Tampa, I caught a train to Cluj-Napoca in the north of Romania. I arrived at couchsurfer Solene's about 9pm amid a very French dinner party involving red wine, chocolate and a selection of cheeses. There were about ten people there, eight Frenchies, one Austrian and a bonafide Romanian, all of whom conversed in English. It was a fun evening though the 'elephant in the room' was that I clearly hadn't changed my socks for several days. Monday morning was spent exploring the town, including the pleasant botanical gardens and a huge hillside Hungarian cemetery. I met Solene for a traditional lunch of sarmale (meat and cabbage rolls with yoghurt) then went for a coffee to meet the Romanian girl. She is a journalist and is doing an article on couchsurfing so we spent the next couple of hours being interviewed on screen, filmed 'seeing the sights' around town and chatting in Solene's house. I discovered that my host has spent the last six years living and working in Greece, Macedonia and Romania. In the evening we went out on the town in a big group and, for some reason, ended up drinking more English ale.

Tuesday was pretty uneventful. I had planned to visit a salt mine in the nearby (unfortunately named) town of Turda, but sometime in the morning became spontaneously inspired, so spent the day writing Britain's next great sitcom instead. In the evening Solene took me to see a theatre production in French, where we foolishly sat in the front row. It turned out to be audience participation and I was inevitably picked on, though didn't understand a word the guy was saying. My baffled reaction got a good response from the crowd so the guy kept coming back to me throughout the show and at the end he dragged me on stage and spent ten minutes talking to me in French while I fixed my expression somewhere between confusion and encouragement. Finally he conceded "tu comprends pas" and let me sit back down. It was actually quite enjoyable and not overly embarrassing – probably as I was catching a train immediately afterwards to the Eastern city of Iaşi.

I spent a day and a half in Romania’s second-largest city with Iulian and Oana, a young married couple. There are some interesting sights including a beautiful Orthodox church and a palace which is part-Gothic, part-Imperial and part-Disney. On Wednesday evening I was forced to watch Romania vs. Russia in the pub while knowing England were taking on France – though it sounds like I got the better match. On Thursday morning we went to see some monasteries on the outskirts of the city and in the afternoon I caught a bus to Moldova, though that can wait for the next post. I am hoping to make it all the way to Germany with couchsurfing, and to keep my hosts as varied as possible. As I know I'm only spending a short amount of time in each place I have made a concerted effort to meet people who seem very different from myself and from previous hosts. This obviously backfired in Kosovo, but since arriving in Bulgaria I’ve stayed in seven places with a mixture of locals and resident foreigners; with an unemployed film buff, a young computer professional, five rowdy student girls, a cultured middle-aged couple, an aspiring musician and DJ, a French woman who has lived all over the Balkans and a young newly-married couple. I’ve also learned (whether good or bad) to become comfortable somewhere very quickly – I could not imagine seven months ago turning up in a stranger's house and be happily digging into the cookie jar within the hour. I have a lot of readjusting to do when I get home.

Anyway, that'll do. Hope you're all well!

Joe x

PS. Milena is considered to have a speech impediment in Bulgarian as she cannot roll her Rs. As her English sounds perfectly fine, it made me realise that problems with pronunciation are purely cultural; if I was born in Spain my lisp may have been an asset!

PPS. Click here to see a now infamous clip from Bulgarian Idol.