Bumbling along...

....through Bulgaria!

Ask somebody what they think of when you mention Bulgaria and you'll get varied answers (excluding those who just give you a quizzical, somewhat blank look)--my favorite being "Is that where Bulgur wheat comes from?"  There's more to this country than Olympic weight-lifting cheats or the classic Bulgarian "heavy" in every Cold War spy novel!

When you're trundling across Bulgaria in a bus, you'll get a variety of comments, apparently depending on where you're from:

"This looks like west Texas." (It was hot and dry that day in the southwest.)

"This looks just like Kansas." (Fields and fields of blooming sunflowers.)

"This looks like it could be Indiana." (Cornfields.)

"We could be in Kentucky right now." (More cornfields.)

It's pretty obvious Bulgaria is an agricultural country--field after field of sunflowers, corn, and most surprisingly--roses. While we didn't actually see them blooming (that's in June, I'm told), it's not often you see something you think of as a fancy garden plant grown on an industrial scale! Bulgarians are justly proud of their roses; we were told all about them over the span of, say, hours.  (There's a lot of miles to cover--there's time.) We were highly encouraged to purchase rose scented lotions and perfumes--kind of with the assumption that you'd have to be out of your mind not to want rose scented everything. After a pit-stop, our bus full of sweaty tourists started smelling better and better.... Mr. P, with an expression of growing contentment, commented that it made him think of his Grandma. Apparently he wasn't the only one; everybody seemed rather pleased to be there!  Hmmm... maybe this was the Guide's diabolical plan all along?!  Now if she had brought out a plate of warm cookies....

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Chances are, if you see a monument in Bulgaria,
it's commemorating a battle with the Turks.
Chances are, the Turks won.

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Typical Soviet architecture in Eastern Europe.
Where a Soviet star or hammer & sickle once resided...there is nothing.
Depending on your point of view,
this might be considered an architectural improvement.

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A church in Vidin, Bulgaria.
You'd mind your P's & Q's walking through
that door, wouldn't you?!


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Beautiful Bulgaria

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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

                                  ---Mark Twain

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All the really important things....

Istanbul has a lot of really cool stuff--major understatement!
Beginning with the city walls....it was a fortified city at one time.

And then there's the mosques...the glorious, wonderful, stupendous, awesome, utterly beautiful mosques!

The Blue Mosque
As you can tell, I loved those pink flowers!
 Never did find out what they were,
but they were everywhere.

However, there are the lesser known mosque Cats!

Doesn't everybody take photos of cats while on vacation?!

At the entrance of the Blue Mosque.

One photo is not enough, let's get a better look....

Hello, Puss!

Then again, besides the feline distractions, there is this:

Blue Mosque

I should mention here that it was 98 degrees, no breeze, with high humidity; probably warmer inside the mosque. So there I stood in this grandeur, trying to pretend that a torrential sweat was not running down my backside, remaining calm, even striking a thoughtful pose (ha!). One must maintain a sense of decorum afterall. But on the inside....I was jumping for joy, doing cartwheels, exclaiming (oh so thoughtfully, of course): "This is so cool!!!!" 

You could pretty much say I felt that way on the entire trip! 

Inside the Hagia Sofia (Aya Sofya)
For a little perspective,
those round Arabic discs are 25 feet across.
(Isn't that a couple storeys high?)

The Hagia Sofia deserves an encore because it's just that amazing!  (I'll spare you the other 100 or so photos I took of this place! Not kidding!)

Can you tell I have a thing about pillars & columns?

Later, we went to the Topkapi Palace...where the big-time Sultan lived, with his rather large entourage of servants, family, and of course, the Harem.

Speaking of Harems....

Maybe this was a little more along the lines you'd expect to see at a Palace?:

I guess I have a thing for domed ceilings, too!

At one point Mr. Pocketts and I escaped to go to the National Museum of Antiquities. (Still 98 degrees, etc.) Here's what you do when you have a few extra bits laying around:

Any one of these would have been the centerpiece of a museum back where I come from!

And when you blessedly collapse in a chair to have an icy cold Coke (98 degrees...), somebody might be watching you:

Why, hello there, you!

The Turks, or rather the Romans at the time, also made good use of a few leftover Greek bits. During Justinian's reign, ginormous cisterns were built.  And what if you had a couple pillars that, for whatever reason, didn't quite meet the specs? Well, you improvise:

Finally a good use for those pesky, old Medusa heads.

Sometimes you have to do that more than once:

After all that, it sure did feel good to get back to our hotel room and lie down in the air-conditioned bliss! We were dead tired!

While we were gone, our hotel was thinking about us.  They were kind enough to leave treats for us--every day was a Turkish Delight indeed! (sorry, couldn't resist)

or

Ok, so I took photos of my hotel candy--don't judge me! 

And as for the cat picture-taking thing....in my defense, I wasn't the only one!

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Join me next as, for some quirky reason, I decide that riding across Bulgaria in a bus sounds like a swell idea!

A Soft Introduction to an Old World

Let's see....where were we?

Ah, yes...the Bed & Chair in London....

If you are familiar with traveling to London, you know that you can spend a lot of money just to stay in a reasonably comfortable hotel, which will include a semi-reasonably good breakfast, and (hopefully) your own private bathroom.  It's an expensive city! So...you get a bed and you get the requisite chair...and you make do. Speaking in mere generalities, we have a long running joke with an Australian friend of ours who actually lives in London now, trying to capture the curious English mindset: "Why be comfortable when you can make do?"  I love England, but they do have a penchant for the whole "stiff upper lip" thing and happily putting up with adverse circumstances. It's a matter of pride, I guess--they will persevere! 


I digress... back to the chair....you can have this chair:

The Chair

Or ((she flippantly says)) you can fly to Istanbul and have THIS chair:

Ahhhh!

Difficult choice, eh? But wait a minute, here's what it looked like after I'd made myself a little more comfortable:

This is only about one third of the room....there was the TV, the desk, the walls of windows, the view, the marble and tile bath, the doorbell.....  (And, for my needlework friends, see that framed design above the bed?  That's real embroidery!) Why am I blathering on so about a room, you might ask?  Well, it was all so unexpected!  This was included in a last-minute, heavily discounted river cruise deal (which we did a little further bargaining for an even better deal--believe me, they'll work with you on that!).  We just hadn't realized this was part of the package---I'd naively been expecting a Bed & Chair! I was prepared to make do. Hmmm....maybe the English are onto something?....Who says you can't benefit from low expectations?!

The Bosphorus

View from our window.

Really, the difference was night and day!