Goodbye Bulgaria, Hello Istanbul!
With the arrival of October our time in Voditsa, and our projects at St. James’ Park, were coming to an end. After six weeks of intermittent work, the grey-water system came together with dizzying speed as we both hammered, drilled, and schlepped rubble like crazy. Here are pictures of the final project as we left it.
From a field of weeds we designed and executed the strong skeleton of a grey-water fed raised bed greenhouse. The plumbing is in and covered, the rafters are aloft and the door is hung, all that’s left for Kathy to do is put up the plastic roofing and sides. Kathy was very pleased with the results.
Soon it was time to say goodbye to our village life in Voditsa and get ready for new adventures. We had a little time before we needed to get to Istanbul to catch our flight to India, and we’d been contacted by Desi and Philip (our original couchsurf hosts in Sofia) to see if we were still interested in returning to the larger city of Veliko Turnovo to help Desi’s parents with some gardening projects they were doing on their retirement home in the nearby village. Eager for a last change in scenery, and learning that we could catch a train to Istanbul instead of a bus, we gladly accepted and wrapped things up in Voditsa to head out to Veliko Turnovo.
But first we’d made many friends in Voditsa and took some time to say goodbye to all of them: Jorge the neighbor with his wife Basilca and son Drago who all came out for hugs. Ivan and Penka whom we drank 40 year old Rakia with while toasting to “Barrrrrak Ooobamaaaaa”. We waved to the milk lady and the post office lady and many people whom we didn’t know but who knew us. On the eve of our departure, Kathy, Ed, Jess, and Kathy’s real estate partner, Jordan threw us a great Bulgarian feast complete with a delicious cake from the shop in Popovo – we drank rakia and played charades before wishing everyone a lekker nosht. Before leaving, Kathy made a great video featuring Christine doing a St. James’ Park sales pitch and showing off our greywater greenhouse. Here we are saying goodbye to Kathy in her garden.
We walked down to the center of the village with our big packs on to wait for the bus which, inexplicably, came an hour and a half after we thought it would. I suppose we could have caught a ride with these fine folks but we waited for the bus instead:
When the bus finally did come it was the nicest bus we’ve ever seen in Bulgaria so we forgave the wait. We took the bus to Popovo, then caught another to Veliko Turnovo, arrived in VT and took a nice hike up the slopes of the city to Desi’s parents apartment. We knew we’d be getting there before Desi and Philip and – though we’d met her parents before – there’s a language barrier there that we were hoping to breach with the five Bulgarian words we’d learned in Voditsa. We arrived at their apartment and were heartily greeted and, before we knew it, we were seated at their table and presented with two kinds of bean soup, cucumber, salami & ham, bread, cheese, and marvelous stuffed eggplant. Then a dessert of ginger cookies and wonderful homemade grape juice was brought out. How grateful we were to such beautiful people and their heart-warming generosity! It was painfully frustrating to not have the words to adequately express our gratitude, and both of us saying “blago dariya” over and over and over again got a bit ridiculous. It didn’t come close to expressing to her what a relief and what a comfort home cooking and a quiet place to rest is after a long day of traveling.
from Jonathan’s journal:
Oct. 16 – While staying with Desi and her family we ate very well and enjoyed the physical work, digging the rich soil for flower bulbs and other plantings. In addition to treating us to a fabulous dinner in Arbanassi, where he told us stories from the communist past, Desi’s father also bought our Euros, enough to cover our train fare, which Desi bought for us at the train office. She also gave us a ride to the station on our last night in Bulgaria. To top off all this generosity, she also gave us potatoes, fried paneer and a jar of peppers she’d just made with her mother. This was a most welcome addition to our dinner on the train.
Shown in the picture are (L to R) Desi’s mom, Philip, Desi, Jon and Christine as we say goodbye to their lovely country home after three great days of digging earth and delicious food. It was an excellent way to say goodbye to Bulgaria!
We’d debated some time about whether to take the train or the bus to Istanbul. They were roughly the same cost and, while the bus would take less time by four hours, the train would end up in the center of Istanbul instead of a ways out like the bus would. We learned that the train compartments sleep 6 people and that the train company, based in Turkey, has only a few compartments that can be sold in Bulgaria saving the rest for Turkish customers that rarely book. Consequently many many people will be stacked like sardines into a few compartments while several others remain empty in the same car. We’d also heard that for a small gratuity (read: bribe) porters would “upgrade” you to a private compartment. Desi and Philip drove us to the station, waited with us until the train arrived and sent us off with waves and smiles. Once on the train everything happened just like we’d been told: six people crammed into the first compartment, four already crammed into the second one with the two of us next in line and being directed by the porter to squeeze in as well. Christine said “is there any extra room?”, the porter said “extra room mean extra money” and Christine smiled and said, “no problem!”. He lead us two doors down, opened the compartment door and said, “20 euros”. Christine said “we only have 20 leva” (equivalent to 10 euros). “20 euros“. “20 leva“. “okay”. We smiled as he let us into our own blessedly private compartment for the 14 hour ride to Istanbul.
The train ride was lovely and we visited with an American couple in the next compartment who were on their way to teach English in Korea. The bulk of traveling was done at night, so we took some time to eat the food Desi had sent us off with and we drank a little rum and coke we’d brought with us to help lull us to sleep. We’d barely gotten to sleep when it came time for the border crossing check. We arrived at the border at 3am and the passport/visa paperwork circus lasted straight through until 5am by which time we were holding our eyes open and mumbling incoherently. After the fifth awakening, the porter cheerfully informed us that this was the last check and that we would have 5 hours sleep until Istanbul. Horray! We caught as much shuteye as possible until the morning sun roused us from bed. The countryside was rolling along with occasional villages
until it was abruptly ended by huge subdivisions like this one.
Istanbul is a big city and we watched subdivisions turn into denser apartments and then swanky restaurants by the Marmara Sea, followed by ancient fortified walls as we cruised along into central Istanbul’s Sirecki Station.
Now that we had arrived safely in Istanbul, our excitement overtook our exhaustion as we set out to make the most of our next three days…
Tags: Oct 2008, What's New, Tag Index
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These Feet Can Take Us Anywhere » Blog Archive » Goodbye Bulgaria, Hello Istanbul!
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