travelling

I am leaving to Frankfurt!

My train leaves at 17:05 o'clock from Amsterdam Central Station so I'll go home now. I am really looking forward to the train trip and the weekend.

My suitcase is ready, and I took a magazine, a book and my coffee thing, so I'm fully prepared. I'll be in Frankfurt around 21:00 o'clock.

I'm going to visit David & Milena and I'll stay in their place. Saturday evening Milena will celebrate her birthday in a bar in Frankfurt.

Ha! Finally home.

This morning around 10:30 o'clock I arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, and Sasha arrived yesterday according to schedule in Washington.

It was quite a journey! Like I wrote yesterday the connection that I was scheduled to get caused Sasha a day delay a few months ago. And yes: yesterday the same happened to me. From Sofia there was a plane to Budapest, from where a connecting flight would bring me to Amsterdam to arrive yesterday evening. This went spectacularly wrong. The Malev plane had "technical difficulties", and after a long time Malev decided to get a new plane from Budapest to Sofia to pick us up. We spent around seven (!) hours waiting in the departure hall in Sofia.

Actually, the delay didn't really bother me too much; in fact I enjoyed it. I was just hoping that the flight wouldn't be cancelled. If that would happen we would have to go back to get our luggage, arrange a new ticket again, probably again in Bulgarian-style 'line'. But we were lucky: around 22:30 o'clock a new plane did indeed arrive.

I met a few fellow travelers, which made the waiting pleasant. Penga, a lady living in Norwegian and her mother were traveling to Bergen, and Vesi, a Bulgarian girl studying in Arnhem (in Holland) was going to Amsterdam. Without their company the waiting and the flights would have been a lot less fun.

We arrived in Budapest around 23:00 o'clock local time, and we were brought to a hotel. The passengers were mainly Bulgarian, with a number of Germans. It was nice to observe the typical Bulgarian behavior of some passengers. When we had to wait in the bus for the rest of the group to arrive, I heard a Bulgarian woman complaining: "...mrmmmr.... Bai Ganio... mrmrmr...".

I fell asleep around 01:30 but the wake-up call was for 04:00 in the morning, to make sure I could catch the bus to the airport. Checking in went smooth; the airport of Budapest is well organized. We had some coffee, and we took a plane at 07:10 o'clock. This also had a small delay, but that was okay -- we were very experienced already ;)

I'm glad Chess (my employer) was so flexible, and must say I'm very happy I didn't have important appointments Tuesday or today.

The first days of the New Year were very relaxed. We stayed in Perushtitsa, where we celebrated New Year with Milan and Nadia. The next days friends and family came visiting us, and we visited Sasha's aunt and uncle.

Saturday we were in Plovdiv to do some shopping.

We packed our luggage Sunday evening, and Milan and Nadia brought us to Plovdiv Monday morning. We traveled by bus to Sofia, and took a cab to the airport. We had of course a huge amount of luggage. This will not surprise people who know our traveling habits; I think the total weight of our luggage was around 70 kg.

The journey to the airport went well. It was snowing a lot in Plovdiv but the road was clean and it was sunny in Sofia. Sasha's plane was scheduled for today, and mine was to leave around 18:15 o'clock.

Flight canceled
Unfortunately the weather in Vienna was very bad (snow) and my flight was canceled. As this was the last flight to Vienna for that day, it meant an unexpected prolongation of my stay in Bulgaria. I was already through passport control, and Sasha and I had said goodbye. Just when I put my Bulgarian money away, the cancellation was announced. We were told to get back into the terminal, get our luggage and check with our airline (Austrian) what to do next.

The airport personel was very friendly and let me use their mobile phone to call Joana (Sasha was staying with her).

It took a long time to arrange everything at the airport. First I stood in line for 45 minutes to get my luggage, and then there was a huge chaos in front of the two booths of Lufthansa and Austrian airlines. Chaos -- I wouldn't dare to call it a line :) It literally took hours before it was my turn. Luckily Sasha came to the airport around 20:00 o'clock, so at least we stood in 'line' together.

Getting angry
At the end I got angry with the girls in the booth. They said I had stood in the wrong line, because they were working for Lufthansa and my plane to Vienna was carried by Austrian.

I don't usually get angry, but I figured it was worth a try. The alternative would have been to fight my way into the crowd in front of Austrian, and it was getting really late. And it worked! After angrily demanding a few times to speak with the supervisors, somebody said: "all right, all right, give me a few minutes" and arranged my ticket within ten minutes. Later I felt a bit guilty and apologized for yelling, but my Bulgarian advisors later told me that it was exactly the right thing to do in such a situation.

Staying at Joana's

We were done around 23:30 o'clock and my new ticket for today was printed. They offered me a place to stay in a hotel (the Hilton!), but I had a better place alternative. Joana immediately said that we both could stay in her plane again. Unfortunately I wasn't able to see Ivelina.

Now I'm writing from Joana's place. Sasha's plane was scheduled for around 8:00 in the morning, and the internet page says that her plane did indeed leave Sofia. She's flying first to Vienna, then to New York and from there to Washington. I hope she didn't have any delays or cancellations.

The hospitality of Joana has been great. Even though we arrived in the middle of the night she had prepared dinner, and it was wonderful to relax with a nice glass of wine and cheeses and great company.

New flight information
My flight for today leaves at 16:10 from Sofia to Budapest (MA 831), after which I'll fly with flight MA 662 from Budapest to Amsterdam. I'll arrive there around 19:45 o'clock, hopefully. It's the same flight that Sasha took a few months ago. Her first flight then had many hours delay and she had to stay a night in Budapest. Well, if that happens: I still have some place for pictures on my camera ;)

I'm still in Sofia. My flight this afternoon was cancelled due to snow in Vienna.

I'll fly tomorrow with Malev, leaving from Sofia around 16:00 o'clock. Tomorrow more! We're staying at Joana's now.

We are at Zdravka's work now. She works in a tall building at the central square in Plovdiv and her office has a great view.

We'll go into the city now -- back to the cold...

I'm in an internet cafe in Plovdiv now. It's a local "internet club", which is mainly visited by kids playing games. The price for internet access in this cafe is about 35 euro cents per hour, probably the cheapest of the places I've visited
so far.

Yesterday we visited Zdravka and her family, and we're still in Plovdiv now. We'll meat Rangel and Nasko in a little while, to look at some computer stuff. We have a relatively busy schedule today, with a couple of things to be done and arranged before we see Milena and David tonight. I'm really looking forward to that.

It looks like it has snowed here more than in Perushtitsa -- in fact, it's snowing right now.

Yesterday we had the last evening in Velingrad.

Last Saturday we had great night in Tavern Omar so we decided to go there again.

Of course, on a Monday evening there wouldn't be live music or dancers, we were sure. Anyway, we were just planning to eat something and go home.

Well... wrong! We stayed again hours in the restaurant.

Some pictures.

Reading the menu.

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Sasha.

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Music.

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Dancer.

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A lot of guests started dancing the xoro.

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We were back at the hotel around 1:00 o'clock.

Somehow I feel I've been in Bulgaria for a very long time... but it has only been a week. Аnd the good news: there are another two weeks to go! I'm really having a great time here, and it's wonderful to be together.

We're still in Velingrad; yesterday we had an easy day (after the long night in Omar). The hotel is very quiet now, many guest left yesterday. I think no more than ten rooms are occupied. So the sauna and swimmingpool are all ours!

Back to the hotel now, I've spent more than enough time on internet.

Yesterday night we went out for dinner near the hotel, in a place called Taverne Omar.

We had lunch there Friday with Milan and Nadia. Then it was empty -- there were no other guests, but yesterday night it was completely full.

It's a real Bulgarian restaurant, and the waiters where dressed in traditional costumes. Joana had also recommended the place, and she was absolutely right to be enthousiastic about it. We had a wonderful evening!

We arrived at 20:15 o'clock, and we were at a table right at the center, near the stage. At 20:30 live music started. There were a man and women singing, and a band playing many types of songs: mostly Bulgarian, but also Serbian, Turkish, Gypsy etc. After a while a group women started dancing (xoro) on the Bulgarian music.

Later there was what's called in Bulgarian a "programm". This meant much more singing, more musicians and the best of all: a lot of dancers.

We really loved the Bulgarian dancers (they were from Plovdiv). Тhey performed Bulgarian, Turkish and Spanish dances, and they were very impressive; real professionals. And all this was right in front of us, while we were having rakia, shopska, more rakia and later a delicious meal with great Mavrud wine (Bulgarian, of course). Prosto chudesno!

We were back in the hotel after 01:00 o'clock.

We are in Velingrad now, a resort-town about two hours from Sofia.

Milan and Nadia brought us here by car yesterday, which was a very beautiful trip through the Rodopi mountains. There was a lot of snow in the mountains, but we still haven't seen it snowing in Bulgaria.

We are staying in Hotel Dvoretsa, which means hotel "The Palace" in English. It's a really nice place, with a swimmingpool, sauna, massage... very good. The city of Velingrad is known for its mineral water, and the water in the swimming pool is also mineral water. It doesn't have any chlorine therefore, which is pleasant. The water smells a little bit smokey.

We are having a wonderful time together, really a holiday. Below is a picture of the entrance of the hotel; notice Santa Claus climbing up the balcony (Djado Mrash in Bulgarian).

On the picture below Sasha standing in front of the outside pool. It's too cold now to swim there, but there are also jacuzzi's outside(again with mineral water), that I'll definitely try.

I'm writing this in an internet "sala", in the center of Velingrad. It doesn't have a very quick internet connection, but the guy working here is very friendly and let me use my digital camera to download pictures from it.