Plovdiv: Day 2 1/2

I suppose this is technically my third day in Plovdiv, given that I've paid for two beds so far. I've only slept in one of them, however, as last night I got to drinking with the two other guests here and the girl that runs the place. We were still going by 6am, and since I had to be on the internet at 8am so that I could kick my buddies' asses in our annual hockey draft, I decided to just stay up and push right through.

My host, Nailie (sp?), offered to let me nap for an hour while she made breakfast and coffee, so I did fall asleep briefly from 6:30 to 7:30, but I never took my pants or shirt off, so it counts as a nap rather than a sleep.

Today was a bit of a blur of more naps, a HUGE tasty lunch, the draft itself and a little more hazy wandering. It's about 6:30 now and I expect we'll be organizing a dinner outing pretty soon. I'm writing this posting up as I transfer another batch of photos from my camera onto the iPod. Not sure how many pics I've got so far, but it's a LOT. I mean, a ~L~O~T~. I'm going to have 3 days of editing to do when I get home!

So what else has gone on here? Well, after the evening that I described in the last posting, I spent an entire day going for a long walk through town. The highlight was a crazy huge concrete communist monument that was just way too cool/weird. Although the gates were locked, I was able to climb up one angled face and then down another into the middle of this structure. From there I snapped some way cool pictures of the full-on soviet-style statues that lined the interior of this place. I'm not going to do a full picture post here, but check this place out:



After that monument/hall, I kept wandering through a huge urban park, coming out (finally) at the canal that I had read about. It's a 2.5km long stretch of river that basically goes nowhere. God only knows what they were intending to use it for, but it's been turned into a rowing course, with a big stadium set up at one end to witness the finishes. Of course it's all fairly decrepit, but still cool. Evidently this canal was the last major communist make-work project in Bulgaria, so that was kind of cool to see. It really was quite immense, and must've been a huge undertaking.

Otherwise I've been chilling with Jann and Stephen, a french guy and american expat (now living in Buenos Aries). They're two real characters with a million and one stories to tell, so it's been pretty much nonstop since I sat down last night to hang out.

OK, go Bloody Knuckles! -my hockey pool team
and go Canucks! -my NHL team

Looking forward to coming home to watch some hockey. I got both Sedins in my pool this year, so here's hoping they take another step up. Wouldn't it be sweet if they both cracked 100 points! (that's sure to get a few comments from my buddies who read this!)

cheers,
bms

...the most bizarre things

Sometimes, on the road, you just find yourself in situations where, if you step back and ~really~ look around, you can only shake your head at the absurdity of it.

Last night, after my somewhat down-and-out posting, I did go wander around. I discovered that the throngs of people are here for Plovdiv's annual art and history festival. All of the galleries and museums are open late and for free, everyone had a drink in hand (although I'll be damned if I could find anyone selling or giving away the stuff!!!) and so I just wandered around checking out different art galleries and street displays. There were some really, really great paintings on display. One, in particular, was just excellent. It was of Daedalus (sp?) falling from the sky with his burned-out wings. Amazing.

What was so weird about this, you ask? Well, there's a local historic manor house that has ethnographic displays of clothing, tools, etc etc, including some armour and weapons from the medieval and later eras. Outside of this place, however, was the bizarre scene that was so funny I was actually getting a lot of funny looks myself because I kept laughing out loud.

On a balcony overlooking a large garden there was a band, decked out in medieval knight, monk and priest's outfits (except the drummer, who looked like George Carlin stripped naked to the waist with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth). This band also happened to be playing bad Zeppelin covers, sung in English despite the fact that the singer didn't know all the words. There were five people on stage, but it was a three piece band. The other two were conducting bad mock battles: knight vs monk, two daggers vs short poleaxe.

So there I am, wandering into this courtyard because I can hear Whole Lotta Love starting up somewhere, and I end up watching this scene unfold. It was absolutely hilarious.

I've got a few pictures from the evening, but I don't think any of them will really do it justice. I did take a short video of the band, but I think the microphone on my camera is screwed up, because I don't think it captured any of the sound. Oh well, I can show you the band later, at least.

I'm going to head out and hike up some of the hills here in Plovdiv. They're quite odd, actually, because this city is built on a massive plain. There just happens to be six distinct hills that jut up out of nothing around here. There used to be 7, but the communists dismantled one of them for materials to make cobblestones. You can now visit the "7th hill memorial site" if you want. I'll probably check it out. Maybe I'll take a picture of nothing to show you all. ;)

cheers,
Mike

PS: that bed last night was the *worst* one of the trip, and I may have to sleep in it again tonight. I got up halfway through the night and put down about 3 inches of heavy blankets to sleep on top of. I'll add a couple more inches of blankets tonight, I think.

PPS: I forgot to add that I finally figured out (in the daylight) why i was SO confused by the layout of this city. It turns out that the main street goes through a tunnel underneath the old town, which is built on a long narrow hill. That explains why I would periodically find myself on the other side of this road, despite never crossing it. Man that had me screwed up last night!

a little disappointed, really

I'm now in Plovdiv, and to be honest I'm a little disappointed. There's some kind of festival going on here and the city is PACKED with people. I couldn't get a bed at the hostel that I wanted to stay at, and although I did sort one out, it's at a place that's quite small and has no common room or any sort of 'meet people' kind of feel to it. On top of that, the bed is horridly hard and lumpy.

On the plus side, the lady that runs it, Svetla, is doing a load of laundry for me for free. That'll be nice, as it was getting pretty ripe. Actually, I wish I could wash my shoes. God they stink!

I suppose I should calm down a little and try not to pass judgement on this place until tomorrow. It was dark by the time I got checked in and showered, so again I'm allowing my tired, alone, hungry, lost in a dark city attitude to get the best of me. I'll just wait until tomorrow before I decide how long I'm actually going to stay in town.

Ha, I just realized that this post starts with "I'm a little disappointed. There's some kind of festival going on here". Clearly I HAVE taken on the wrong attitude! OK, it must be time to turn that around. I think it's just after 9pm right now, so I'll wander down to the newer part of town, where it's easier to keep your bearings and where I saw them setting up a big outdoor stage on my walk into town. Must be something interesting going on there. I could use another piece of pizza, or maybe some other kind of street food to fill the stomach.

As a side note, if I do decide to stay here tomorrow night, then I'll be committed to doing the hockey draft from this city. Might even be this internet joint, if it's open early enough. I'll have to ask the guys before I leave when they open this shop up. This part of the world really doesn't seem to start until 10 or 11am in most cases, although everything IS open quite late.

Finally, I've just setup a skype account, and next time I come over I'll maybe add a little credit to it. If you have Skype, you can find me by searching for Mike Schmitz, or my "bms" shaw email address. I can call normal phones for 2 euro cents per minute using it, so maybe that's how I'll start making calls home. It's much easier to find a computer with headset/mike than a phone these days!

that's it for now. later!
bms

Sofia, Bulgaria

Again, I want to get outside and explore Sofia instead of sitting inside on the computer, so this is short. Dave and I will be parting ways here, and I'll go on to Plovdiv while he goes direct to Istanbul.

Skopje was a great city, really glad I detoured through Macedonia. I'll update you all tomorrow from Plovdiv!

cheers,
bms

no time

Hi everyone. i'm in Skopje and enjoying it, but I have no time to post a long update. Suffice it to say that it's ironic that I put up the food rant before getting here, because this is easily the best eating of the trip so far.

Amazing how Greek Salad is so good once you get to Greece (ok, Macedonia is not greece, although the two of them are fighting over that fact right now, so it's close enough)

bms

Random update

Just waiting to go back to the Macedonian embassy to get my passport with its shiny new entry visa. I'll be traveling with a fellow Canadian named Dave, who unfortunately thought he could get a visa at the border. you can't, so he had to taxi back to Pristina in order to wait around at the embassy. We met outside the gates. He had north american style sunglasses on so I wasn't surprised when he spoke English. he's from TO.

Anyway, I should be on the 2:30 bus to Skopje without any trouble. Time to go get some lunch here soon, hit the embassy, kill another hour and then make our way to the bus station.

cheers,
bms

Theme: Food

(there's a new post below this with more pics!)

Traveling and food experiences go together like peanut butter and jam. Like bees and honey. Like stink and shit. There are so many aspects of eating that you take for granted at home that become mountains of anxiety or inconvenience on the road.

Sometimes food is a highlight. I still count my meals at the One Love Juicy Jerk hut in Negril, Jamaica as possibly the best I've ever eaten. Contrasting that, the breakfast I had in Port Antonio was one of the worst. Here in the Balkans, the food is not quite so distinct, but there have still been some experiences.

In Sarajevo I had an AMAZING shrimp and rice risotto that literally knocked my socks off. It was excellent.

On the bus to Novi Pazar, I considered myself rather clever for managing to not starve to death. I took a three hour trip to Podgorica at 9am, before which I had a light breakfast. I expected to have lunch in Podgorica, but found out upon arrival that my best connection left in exactly 1 minute. I had to beg the driver to let me visit the toilet before pulling out! Some quick thinking on my part saved the day, however: I had a bag of honey-flavoured cereal in my backpack which I pulled out just before they loaded it into the cargo hold. Mmmmmboy, that stuff was good! I had dry cereal and water to hold me over, but it did the job. (btw, that cereal would go over great at home. It was a honey flavoured combo of Harvest Crunch and puffed wheat).

Other times you're wandering around, getting hungry, but you have to weigh your desire to eat immediately against your need to find a place that actually has a toilet. That can be a bit interesting in some of the slummier areas that you visit, where the 'restaurants' are just street vendors moved into concrete block shacks. When was the last time you chose your restaurant based on the criteria that it must have at least a squat toilet in back?

These considerations are balanced, however, by the joy you get in biting into something totally foreign and being delighted by it. The food is not overly exotic here, but a staple on the street, called burek, is pretty good: potatoe, cheese or beef in filo pastry. They do it in long cords and then coil them up like ropes on old sailing ships to cook. They come out like a coiled snake from the oven, and sometimes you get a slice like a pizza. That allows you to pull off ridges of the stuff and eat it with your fingers. Yum!

Another plus is the price. Today I had a hamburger for 1 euro (about 1.50) that was loaded with cucumbers, tomatos and cabbage, plus ketchup, mayo and spices. It also came on one of the best kaiser-style buns I've had in a long time. All the baked goods around here are always fresh, and always excellent.

Finally, as I mentioned to many of you before I left, you need to make sure that you have something normal to start your day. I've gotten into the habit of having muesli or dry cereal on me at all times, and I always buy a medium-sized container of yogurt to keep on hand in the communal fridge of the places I stay. This has worked out really, really well so far. It was also the reason I had that cereal that saved my life on the bus trip. The upside of yogurt is that it's basically the same everywhere, and I trust it more than milk. (I drink skim milk: try finding that anywhere outside the western world). It also keeps better and travels better. The downside is that it's ~almost~ the same everywhere, which implies that there are differences. Sometimes you buy a container and open it up to find that it's almost solid! Crazy! It still tastes fine and does the job, but its weird when your cereal just sits on top of your dairy product of choice, and requires some solid mashing to submerge. ha!

Finally, there's the joy of coffee. One of my favourite memories of Tunisia was the capucins, which Craig later explained to me are similar to the proper european macchiato. I don't know my coffee terminology, but they're basically a shot of espresso topped with some very thick milk froth. And they are meant to be LOADED with sugar. You don't think of these as coffees, you think of them as a sugary treat that will just happen to give you a caffeine buzz. Well, they're back again, but under the proper 'macchiato' name. I grin every time I drink one.

OK, that's it for my food rant. cya!

bms