shake for yes, nod for no ...

Ok, settle in ... got a feeling this is gonna be a long one. I've got some "Oooh, look at the pretty stuff!" to get through, as well as some tales of travel dysfunction, and I've decided to do it all in one. So let's get the ball and chain rolling, and see if we can't crumble all our cookies into a wide selection of baskets ...

1: An Ambush of Frankfurts /  A Glean of Shakes*

I’m absolutely starving, and I need to order something from the in-flight menu. Normally having to order and pay for food on an aeroplane is something that vaguely irritates me about the so-called ‘budget’ airlines, and I refuse on principle. But on this occasion, I simply have no choice.

See, getting out of Frankfurt wasn’t as easy as anticipated … in fact, for a while I really thought I might miss my flight. The problem was that, not only is there more than one place in Germany called Frankfurt, but more than one of the Frankfurts have an airport. Whoever would've anticipated that?

(The answer is "anyone who bothered to look closely at their ticket, thereupon noticing that they were flying out from Frankfurt Hahn, not from Frankfurt Main". But then, this is assuming that the ticket – printed in a travel agency in Kazakhstan – had the words "Frankfurt" and "Hahn" written in at least mildly proximal parts of the page. Which it didn't.)

The upshot: after a mad rush across the centre of the country, from Frankfurt to Frankfurt, I barely made it on-board, and I certainly didn’t end up with enough time to stop and buy dinner/snacks along the way. I’ll be landing at 11pm, with no idea of whether or not anything will be open then. So a bought-on-board dinner it has to be.

I’m in the aisle seat, and there’s a middle-aged woman sitting in the window seat. I notice that she’s been browsing through the menu as well, but I don’t speak her language, so when the flight attendant arrives behind her cart, I make a “Would you like to order?” gesture. The woman shakes her head.

I cleverly deduce from this that she must have changed her mind, and proceed to order. Then, after I’ve finished, Window Woman addresses the flight attendant, ordering a coffee.

A moment later I realise what's just happened. Two thoughts travel simultaneously in opposite directions through my brain. One is “Idiot! You haven’t even landed in the country yet, and you’ve already screwed that up – and been rude to a nice lady in the process!” The other thought is “Wow … so it’s really true, then. Amazing!”

And that was basically how my adventure in Bulgaria – often said to be the only country on Earth where people shake their heads for "yes" and nod for "no" – kicked off.


2: A Ponder of Public Spaces **

Er ... you know up above, when I said "Right now I'm starving"? Well, the "right now" part was kind of a lie. I mean, it was true when I wrote it, but some time has passed since then.
 
I’ve actually been in Bulgaria for six days now. It's been really fun to be in a 'new' Slavic country (I mean new for me), and Bulgaria is an especially beautiful and cool one, with truly breathtaking landscapes and people who really couldn't be much nicer. (More about these things a bit later. Much more, in fact.)

I've made some beginner-level progress with the language, 'cause there are lots of links to Russian (and Ukrainian), so you can often work things out by comparing and contrasting. I've got greetings, some everyday objects, and simple question forms figured out, and have even learned some adjectives and exclamations. (Every time I say "Mnogo yako!", which means "Cool!", Bulgarians give me an impressed eyebrow-raise. They're very kind :-) So I'm feeling rather pleased with myself about that.

In stark contrast to my beginner-level Bulgarian, though, my attempts to master the nodding/shaking thing have fallen flat. Haven’t come anywhere near being able to train my head to go sideways when I want something and up and down when I don't. And honestly, if I stayed for a year, I still don’t think I'd get it. It’s just too damn counter-intuitive!

Anyway, at some point I guess I should stop rambling about this silly stuff and tell you where I've actually been.

My journey began in the capital Sofiya, which has a pleasant, very faintly Bohemian atmosphere, and is rather beautiful in a disorganised kind of way. The first day I was there I took things very slowly, not venturing out into the city until mid-afternoon. When I finally did so, I found myself on one of the semi-pedestrianised main streets, where I saw a group of young people playing violin and dancing to their own tunes in the middle of the road, as trams and pedestrians wove around them.

"Hmmm ... dancing and violin playing on the road? I think I'm gonna like this place!", I thought.

Wandering around the city, the image I repeatedly saw in my mind's eye was of a gigantic child wandering through the Balkan hills and mountains, holding a vast suitcase full of toys. All the toys in the case were houses and other buildings in a random assortment of styles. Just at the moment when the child stepped over Vitosha (the mountain which overlooks Sofiya), his suitcase unlatched and fell open, and the toy buildings tumbled out, falling earthwards and landing in no particular order. And thus the city of Sofiya was born.

If it sounds unpleasant, it isn't (though some locals disagree). The lack of a dominant, coherent style in the city somehow works, as though everything just happened to fall fairly well in a kind of 'eclectic ensemble' . As you walk around, you catch regular glimpses of elaborately-sculpted rooftops and grand public buildings, from mosques to markets, and even a Russian Orthodox church with Indian-inspired frescoes over the doorway and a roof inspired by Scandinavian design. And in the underpasses, you see occasional fragments of the Roman city, buried over time as Sofiya re-invented herself under various regimes as a multi-faith metropolis. (There's also a hotel with a glass lobby floor, under which the remains of the city's Roman Colosseum are visible. Really cool!)

One more thing before I move on: Sofiya is also a rather green city, with lots of parks to break up the urban clutter – some of them quite extensive. In one of the smaller ones, surrounded by gardens, street musicians, artists selling their paintings, locals enjoying the sunshine, and couples meeting up for coffee and other things that couples meet up for, stands the beautiful national theatre, dedicated to Bulgaria's national poet, Ivan Vazov.

As I was admiring this little corner of the Bulgarian capital, I started thinking about why so many people from 'young' English-speaking countries like Australia and the US are seduced by the charm of Europe, and my thoughts were cast back to a lecture I saw a while ago on ted.com*** The speaker was James H Kunstler, an outspoken critic of urban development in the US, and he spoke angrily and passionately about how America has designed most of its public space in a way that "generates despair" and "prevents us from living in hope".

Two of the other phrases that Kunstler kept coming back to were "places that aren't worth caring about" and "places that nobody wants to be in" . And superimposing my own views onto his, it seems to me that these criticisms could be applied elsewhere as well, especially in young countries like Australia. Going further, I think this has happened partly because, in some parts of the world, the person has been replaced by the family car as the basic unit of public life. 

In fairness, English-speaking countries (young and old) do have plenty of pleasant public spaces; I mean, if you're from the US, the UK or Aust, you can probably think of locations in your home town which fit the 'despair' description, but also of others that don't at all. (Tip: for the despair places, start with shopping centres.) And it also has to be said that most old European cities I've visited contain some pretty unappealing suburban cultural wastelands.

The point is, though, at one end of the spectrum are horrible, car-focussed suburban sprawls, while at the other end lies the square and gardens around this theatre in Sofiya ... along with hundreds upon hundreds of other places like it all over Europe, where urban planners have designed environments with people, not parking, in mind.  

It's evidently a skill which takes centuries to acquire, 'cause if you compare the Ivan Vazov Theatre gardens with, say, Pitt St Mall in Sydney (or Martin Place for that matter), they're almost poles apart. Pitt St Mall, right in Sydney's centre, actually reflects the 'original' concept of a mall in Australia, which was not a shopping centre but an outdoor pedestrian zone ... though not a very pleasant one. It's basically a big concrete rectangle separating rows of department stores, and at lunch time there can be literally thousands of people there, but there are only about eight seats. The implication being "We'll let you walk outside if you want, and even keep the traffic away ... but in the end, if you want to have a nice time, you have to go inside to where the shops are". Appalling.

So yeah ... all in all, I can't say that Sofiya is the most attractive capital I've ever seen, but it definitely has its appeal, and I'll be glad to see it again in a few days' time )))

3: A Richesse of Scenery**

The day after my introduction to Sofiya, I found myself on Mount Vitosha (courtesy of two local guys with a car). This is where I got my first little taste of Bulgaria's natural environment, which has left me rather awe-struck at several points over the last six days.

As we stood next to the impressive 'River of Stones' that runs down one side of Vitosha (formerly just a normal river, but for some odd geological reason, now more full of boulders than of water), I took in for the first time the stunning autumnal yellows and oranges of the Bulgarian forest.

As it's turned out, this "Gosh, what a forest!" thing would become something of a leitmotif over the following days. Without wishing to boast, I think it's fair to say that I've wandered through a pretty decent number of forests in my time, and Bulgaria's would have to be among the prettiest I've seen anywhere. The combination of evergreen and decidious trees makes for a wild autumnal palette, as fiery reds, rich oranges and festive yellows mix with deep greens in a colourmash that's quite stunning – especially when you stick it onto the sides of mountains, of which Bulgaria is in no short supply.

However, if I had to name the high-points of my travels so far, I'd need to look further afield than Sofiya and Vitosha. I'd probably start with the Old Town of Plovdiv, from where I'm writing this entry.

When I first arrived here, it seemed a fairly unappealing grid of grimy tower blocks and industrial smokestacks. My first contact with the Old Town improved things, and I was particularly happy to discover that it's a regular haunt for hundreds (maybe thousands) of cats. It made such a nice change from the former Soviet cities I've been living in, where cats are rarely seen on the streets, whereas stray dogs (eeuugghhh!!!) are a constant presence and an occasional hazard. But Plovdiv's Old Town is divided into upper and lower parts, and I was staying in the lower section, which doesn't compare to other medieval Old Towns I've seen. (As a former resident of the fairytale city of Tallinn, my standards are pretty damn high!)

However, when I finally found the upper part – not as easy as you might imagine – I definitely had a few 'Tallinn moments'. Those are the moments when you just let yourself immerse completely in the tasty medieval goodness, occasionally uttering silent exclamations like "Wow, this is just freakin' great!".

Incidentally, I found Plovdiv's Upper Old Town quite by accident, because one of the entrances to it is directly above the (get this) still-functioning Roman theatre. Yeah, I know ... not lacking in coolness at all :-)

Obviously if you go to Italy, you expect to see this sort of thing, but in Bulgaria it comes as kind of a bonus. So I was just delighted to wander through well-preserved ruins, taking loads of photos, and sharing the space with no more than four or five polite German tourists and a couple of stray cats. I sat in the stalls for a while, wondering what it must have been like to be here 1,900-odd years ago ... and especially how the crowds would have reacted to a performance they didn't like back then.

Oh, and I found mushrooms growing among the remnants of Greek-inscribed columns. Don't know if they were magic ones, but again ... cool!

My camera well-and-truly full of Roman theatre pics, I then wandered out through the entrance gate (which, charmingly enough, lacked any kind of ticket office or counter, guarded instead by an old guy in a red cardigan and a sleeping kitty), and I noticed an intriguing alleyway on my right. Turning into the alleyway for no other reason than that I was a tourist, and tourists have time to wander into intriguing alleyways with no particular aim in mind, I suddenly found myself in a rather beautiful place.

At the top of a hill that marks the highest point of the Upper Old Town, there's an extensive ruin of a fortress that used to protect Plovdiv. Here tourists come during the day to admire the view, while at night it's a favoured spot for local teens to gather and snog each other in the moonlight, or just to drink beer. I lingered among the ruins for a while (despite my lack of beer or a snogging partner), just enjoying the sunset ... as one so often does when perched atop a hill among the huge stones of a ruined fortress.

As I was leaving, I ran into an American guy who I'd met at the hostel in Sofiya. He was with his Bulgarian girlfriend, who grew up here. She told me regretfully that, when she was a teenager, she lived in a nearby house with a view of the ruins ... which meant that she could never come here and drink/snog with the others, in case her mum and dad looked out of their living room window and caught her!

Poor girl.

So that was highlight number one. Number two was the journey from Plovdiv to Smolyan, a medium-sized town in the country's deep south which abutts the Greek border. I closed my eyes as the bus was leaving Plovdiv, and opened them about half an hour later to find myself in the middle of a Euro forest wonderland.

Honestly, the scenery here was just mouth-watering. The road wound along beside a small river, which periodically did crazy 180 turns and reversed its course. Cliffs towered impressively on either side – sometimes sheer and bare, but more often thickly blanketed in the colourful autumn foliage which seems to predominate in much of Bulgaria. Sadly, due to being on a bus with bad suspension, every time I tried to photograph said landscape it turned out like the shot here on the right (or worse).

Oh well ... more important to have seen it than to have photographed it, right?

4: An Obstinacy of Closures**

Having mentioned the highlights, I guess I should also say something about the low-points (insofar as there have been any). Probably the lowest was my taxi ride and subsequent hike to the Ukhlovitsa cave near Smolyan ... or at least the outcome of said journey.

See, I'd come down south specifically to go and check out some caves, and knowing how unreliable these things can be, I'd asked the woman at my hotel to call the 'cave people' the night before. They assured her that everything would be open when I got there, and guess what: they lied. But of course, to find this out, I had to get a 70 leva (36-37 Euro) taxi ride into the countryside, and then walk up the side of an enormous cliff face for almost an hour.

Having arrived at the mouth of the cave, a little exhausted from the climb, the following facts became more-or-less instantly clear: I could peer inside all I wanted, holding the bars and trying to spot bats on the roof, but regardless of how many times I knocked on the door of the 'office' (a tiny, precariously balanced cottage on the cliff's edge), I wasn't going to get a response. So I sat down, had a cigarette and cursed the cave people for a while, before descending the mountain and walking back to the taxi.

My driver speculated, as we tore along the winding roads back to Smolyan, that the cave may have been closed due to an Islamic holiday ... which is fine, but why didn't they tell me that? Grrrr.

Still, I was philosophical. I mean, when you travel you sometimes get the bonuses, when you come across really cool stuff that you totally didn't anticipate, and then you get the other times when the things you did anticipate just don't happen. So, y'know, it all balances out in the end.

Besides, there was a lot of incidental stuff to enjoy about the experience, if you ignored the actual point of it. For a start, any day when you climb a mountain is a good day, is it not? And the scenery at the top was fairly awesome ... something I've almost come to expect in this country. Plus, on the way to Ukhlovitsa, my driver and I got warned off by border guards when we almost crossed into Greece by mistake ... so, all in all, quite the little mini-adventure )))

Now I'm on a train heading to Veliko Turnovo, a high-altitude town in Bulgaria's central mountain range, which many travellers and locals place at the top of their 'must-see' list. I've been told numerous horror stories about the trains here: that they catch fire, that they're catastrophically late, that they suddenly halt on top of a mountain and the passengers are told they can't go any further and they have to get off, etc etc. So we'll see whether or not I actually reach the chosen destination today. Either way, it will be interesting ...

See you!

* I stole both of these collective nouns from a website called "tiny online". The first one is normally used for tigers (also rather wonderfully known as "a streak of tigers"), and the second is for herring. I love little-known collective nouns! (Feel free to shake head and roll eyes now.)

** Also from 'tiny', which lists the phrases "a richesse of martens", "an obstinacy of buffalo" and "a ponder of philosophers". Not sure if the last one is genuine or made-up, but either way I like it.

*** A truly brilliant website which collects together public talks on many topics by experts in a huge variety of fields. It's one of those things you find by accident now and again, which make you think "It's so great that this exists!" So, er ... check it out if you've a mind to. It's especially useful if you happen to teach IELTS )))