Bulgaria

From my $30 two bedroom flat with a kitchen in Bucharest, I caught a bus to the train station, and arrived almost an hour early, just in case, since it was Christmas day. I prided myself in avoiding taxis for nearly four months now, always walking or taking public transit, except for two times with my hosts from Cluj when it turned out cheaper than the tram anyway.

 The stray dog problem is so out of control here. I heard there were some in Hungary but I don't remember seeing any. In Romania I began to see plenty. And in Bucharest, so many, wandering through traffic, curled up sleeping beside pillars of majestic buildings. I saw several plastic containers around the city, filled with disgusting food scraps, left by residents for random stray dogs. And now, dogs lay sleeping all around the train tracks; a woman throwing scraps to half a dozen mutts at the next station; and three dogs fighting at the next.

My train was nearly empty. When I heaved my monster luggage up onto the rack, I noticed that both wheels were worn down and split, but apparently still functional. This weakened my taxi avoidance pride a bit.

We crossed the Danube River which marks the border between Romania and Bulgaria. Heavy industry crowded the banks on the Bulgarian side. It looked as ugly and frightening as Burlington Bay by the skyway in Ontario. Also, short cooling towers populated the countryside for a couple kms.

I didn't bring much for snacks and boarded the train a couple hours ago without lunch. It was very wishful thinking on my part that there might be a dining car or a food service of any kind on this 9 hour ride. My bad luck always seems to turn into very good luck: there were only four of us in this car of 32 seats. Me, an American guy, a South Korean girl, and a Finnish girl with a lot of food which she insisted was only going to be thrown away! The Ami and I shamelessly dug in, and although it was mostly stale bread and cheese, it hit the spot and I was thankful.

After chatting with them a bit, I quickly realized that compared to this group I'm no world traveler, that's for sure! Between the three of them, hardly a country in the whole world was left unexplored!

The Bulgarian country began to prove itself very picturesque, with green rolling fields for very long stretches and no houses, livestock, or people to be seen. I struggled and finally got two windows open and we spent most of the daylight ride standing in the windows, enjoying the view and the unseasonably spring-like weather of around 14 C, and chatting. Nami, the Korean woman, had already traveled several hours from Budapest on the same train, and the total duration of her train ride to Greece was going to take over 30 hours!

Around 10 pm, Marjo from Finland and I departed the train in Sofia and shared a cab, since my hotel was just before her hostel. I was quite anxious about what must have been an error at booking.com, since I got a deluxe double suite at what seemed to be a nice hotel, for $7, with breakfast included. Marjo's hostel was much more, without breakfast. But I got a confirmation from the hotel so they had so far missed the glitch. I imagined that it was a Christmas special, but I noticed that the same room online was over $100 the day before or after. Two bad, 'cause I would have tried to stay for two days otherwise for sure!

My worries increased when the taxi driver couldn't believe me. And I almost fell over when I saw the place. Marjo said bye and told me the location of her hostel, just in case. At check in, the young receptionist began to blush and said, it's a mistake, a big mistake. But it must be honored. I was torn between running circles around the lobby with my arms straight up, and crawling under a rock. But I just blushed too and said Merry Christmas, handing her 5 euros. Then we started to laugh as she began to list all the amenities and services: "included in the cost of this five star hotel (pause and subtle sigh) is free wifi, satellite tv, award winning buffet breakfast, a pool, spa, jacuzzi, sauna," etc. (at this point I had little stars in my eyes and started to space out...)

Unfortunately it was now approaching 11 pm and checkout was in about 12 hours. So I scrambled off to my room, still disbelieving, and began to do my best to take advantage of all the amenities, starting with using my iPod to brag about my luck on facebook!