Република България - 25, 26, 27 October

After 4 weeks of permanent staying in Novi Sad, I got an invitation to join two wonderful girls on a journey to Bulgaria. Valerie (Belgium) and Elodie (French) are also volunteers in Novi Sad.

We took the 6am train to Belgrade on Saturday. I couldn’t sleep because of the excitement. There were two guys on the same wagon, smoking. Yes, in Serbia, as in other South East European Countries, it’s common to find people smoking everywhere, even if the law says it’s not allowed. In this case, there was even a no smoking sign, but someone had taken the cigarette picture out of it.

At Belgrade’s train station, we had time to grab some sandwiches for the long way, buy the tickets, use the toilets and get in the train to Istanbul. Many times we wished we could stay until the last station, but this train was taking these three girls until Sofia.

We found a compartment with three other people: a Serbian guy – Daniel, and a Dutch couple – Joshka and Tobias. Daniel (I think he wasn’t more than 20 years old) was going to his home town, he is working in Belgrade during the week. So, until he left on his home town station, he was thrilled with the chance he got to meet foreign people. As me, Valerie and Elodie looked sleepy, he got into a conversation with the Dutch couple (they were both around 22 years old, art and photography students, travelling to break the routine). Daniel, in his rudimentary English, tried to find an opportunity to go to Holland, asking them how much they earn, how much they pay for an apartment (“wow! Expensive… expensive”), or for a room (“very expensive…”), gave them his address and number and asked them to call him as soon as they’re back to Holland. Daniel left, the rest of us stayed.

When we got to Niš the train started going backwards we got confused. Should we have left the train there? This was when Owen, an Irish nomadic in his twenties joined our compartment, saying that he was bored because in his compartment he was surrounded by people who don’t speak English. He also said “if you notice some weird movements in the train, like big women walking forward and backward with cigarette pack’s, don’t worry, this is normal”.

Finally, we reached the border with Bulgaria. That’s where the real fun started. We laughed so much that for a moment we couldn’t stop. It was true, the big ladies were wandering around the wagon, becoming bigger and bigger as they were shoving more and more packs of cigarettes under their clothes. Then there were those who we called “the pimps”, smiley guys wearing golden rings and chains, doing nothing, just checking if the women were doing ok, and probably making friendship with the train controller. After a long time stopped at the border - it could have been something like 30 to 45 minutes - the train finally started again. Then, it was the time to see bags flying out of the train’s windows… In the first stop after the border, the big ladies and the men normally evacuated the train.

Elodie started explaining a card game and when we started trying it, there was Sofia’s train station. Me, Valerie, Elodie and Owen stayed in Sofia, Joshka and Tobias continued to Istanbul, being their last objective to get to Iran.

In Sofia we took a coffee offered by Owen that left after. Then, the three of us met Nadia, the sweet, nice girl that hosted us in Sofia. We went to her apartment and then went out to look for something to eat. It was late so the only thing we found open was a Chinese restaurant where they served us food to take away, supposedly for 4 people but the doses altogether were enough for at least 8 people.

The morning after, we took a three hour bus trip to Veliko Tarnovo, a historical important point of Bulgaria and a wonderful city…

On our way there I saw signs showing the direction of Stara Zagora, a city in Bulgaria that gave the uncommon name to my street in Barreiro, Portugal.

In the evening, we took the bus back to Sofia and met with Nadia for a night tour in the city. Then we found the “Apartment”, a cosy kind of tea house, with homemade deserts and many special rooms, as if we were home. I heard someone speaking Portuguese and of course I went to check where do they come from and what were they doing there. Two Portuguese girls, working in Brussels, decided to spend the weekend in Sofia, because a low cost flying company had really good offers.

After a good night sleep, we took a vigorous breakfast at home and went to discover the nice city of Sofia.

I was positively surprised, the idea that I had of it was totally different from what I found. I thought I would find disorder, tight streets with noise and a lot of people in confusing masses. I found wide streets, green spaces and a peaceful city (as much as possible, being a capital).

We took the night train from Sofia to Belgrade and slept all night on our sleeping bags, with a compartment just for us. Novi Sad welcomed us at around 8am, with time for a shower and go to work by bike. It was a hard day for working, after such a special experience in Bulgaria.