Varna, Bulgaria Day 3

Varna, Bulgaria Day 3

Oh no. I can not write a post like before. That took me too long to write a poor post. If I keep that up, I will not have time to enjoy the events. As I write this, we are leaving Varna on a train for Bucharest, Romania. It's a slow train and we have some good friends.

First of all, to get the tickets was an endeavor. We took directions from the hostel guy and headed off to the location. The process took forever since international tickets had to be purchased in a certain location in the city of Varna. Trains only run on certain days and connections are not easy. So now, we are on a train to the border, and then we get off, wait...., and then get on another to cross the border and pipe it into Romania. We have no idea how it will work with the border crossing and passport stamping. But we are sure of one thing, it will be a long wait. We plan to stay at the border for a few hours and then head to Bucharest.

Today was pretty simple: eat, get train tickets, see the beach, meet our friend Nick for lunch, pack up and get on the train. We have a train compartment with a friend Ed, from Brazil. We first met him in Sophia, departed, then met up as we were leaving Varna. Funny how things work. After that time we meet back up on the train. Must be meant to be. We have hit it off great with him. He is a Brazilian that has spent is college years at UC Davis. We have a lot to talk about. But, as we were chilling, a girl was hanging around outside our compartment. After much observation, I thought she might be listening to our loud ongoing conversation. Enhanced with evening celebratory drink, we were loud and I had the motivation to ask her if she wanted to partake and join us. Of course she did. We were the freek shows around here. Her name is Stefka and a native born Bulgarian. It was amazing to talk with her and carry on and listen to her English. She said she speaks poor English, but it was fine to converse with bucket heads like ourselves. Stefka is only 17 and never been out of the country. It was interesting to hear her views on different cities, culture, and music. At her stop, we could see the city where she lived. It looked pretty large off in the distance and she assured us that it was only a few thousand and she knew a lot of them personally. Right after getting to know her, she flew off the train waving goodbye and we pressed on to our station of Rouse at the border.

Rouse was a little different than most station stops. We had to get off the train and wait in the station in this small town. With Ed, we went out the front of the building to check the area. There were a few cab drivers that wanted to drive us across the border. This would not be a good idea with border crossings and our history with cabs in the past. But then we saw the bums and crazy people. Right in front of us was a man stumbling and walking in a drunken manner. Then all of a sudden he slams to the ground and talks to the sky and twitches his hands. We thought this could probably be a show to get money or a distraction for others to move in. So, we just casually went back inside. The guard came and checked him out. Later in the station waiting till the 3:55am train came, we sat with the crazy people and he was one of them. He made rounds circling all the benches and we thought maybe we were in his seat probably driving him crazy. This made for a guarded night with eyes watching gear all the time. There were others that came in as well with gypsie like features that we had been told about. Little scary.

After the long wait in the station, we boarded the train that would take us to Bucharest. The train was a Russian train headed to Moscow. It was very long, made up almost entirely of sleeper cars. Only the first two cars, which were so vandalized and dilapidated that they looked like something out of 1980s Harlem, had regular seats. We were the only four passengers in our car, which worried us. Let me tell you, it wasn't any departure time that I was used to. We sat there for an hour as they searched the train for smuggling and had to stamp our passports to leave the country of Bulgaria. Wonderful. Just as we thought the train was rolling and we were off, there was another stop to have the Romanians board and stamp our passports entering the country. This was not the smoothest process ever, for sure. They were really interested this time in Ed's Brazilian passport. They were taken and then returned a short while later. We slept on and off to Bucharest and got in about 8:20am. We said goodbye to Ed and saw on the board a train to Brasov leaving at 8:45. Wham bam! We ran to the window, got tickets, and boarded the train. The train is a little different than the last ones and I will follow up in the next post.