That's right.  I remember getting on the plane in Madison, Wisconsin, sometime in the afternoon of January 13th.  22 hours later my flight from Frankfurt Germany landed in Sofia, in a blizzard!
Nedda and Ivan were there to meet me.  We followed a couple of snow plows clear across Bulgaria, until we turned south to Burgas.

So anyway, here we are, here I am.  Tonight Zlatina and I are going to entertain a little, we invited people over from her school, and I invited everybody who had anything to do with my being here.  We'll have a nice social time, with some rosé and white wine chilled on the balcony, some red wine, and stuff like that.

It may be that some of the people won't be able to make it.  Folks here in southeastern Bulgaria are not used to the kind of cold we're having here this past week – many engines won't start.  Deep snow is still all over the place, the roads have been turned into glaciers, and it's hard freezing every night.

But we'll try.  Happy Anniversary Kevin.

Oh, by the way, the forecast for tomorrow calls for more heavy snow.

I guess I have to say that Varna is a prettier city than Burgas, a larger city.  Certainly more attractive than Sofia … in fact it kind of reminds me of Seattle, only without all the rain all the time.  The city puts up lots of christmas lights, keeps them on through the new year.  I hope to go out tomorrow night and take some slow-shutter speed photos to show you.

Well, I ate too much at dinner again, seems it's the time of year for that.  Good night, and have a happy new year of if you can.

Link to Photos from our Varna vacation

 Photo Gallery

It was a Saturday in Burgas, Zlatina and our friend Boian and I decided we would take the bus south to Sozopol to enjoy the scenery, take some photos, eat at a nice restaurant … just enjoy each other’s company in a seaside town that has become a favorite for us.

Of course I brought the camera   I’ve been wanting to play a little with the various light, aperature, exposure time and other settings which I don’t yet know much about.  I wanted a long-term exposure of the bay, with some of the hotel lights reflecting.  I wanted to play with some of the preset lighting arrangements.

For example, this photo is using the “tungsten” light setting.  It has more to do with overhead or ambient lighting, but it always adds a very bluish shading to everything – especially when taking photos during the late afternoon or early evening.  Click on the photo to see it alone on the page.

Here we are (Zlatina and Kevin) sitting in the front seat of the bus. I’m on the left … of the picture that is … it’s in the mirror anyway. Zlatina’s daughter Galia took a bus up from Sofia to meet us here, she arrived shortly before we did.

This was the bus from Burgas to Plovdiv (at left), we weren’t able to take the train to Koprivshtitsa because the track is out between Karlovo and Koprivshtitsa.

I have to remark that Plovdiv smelled like Sofia, like Los Angeles to me. I know that we didn’t get to see anything of Plovdiv, other than a nice restaurant and the bus station, so I have still to travel to Plovdiv for a real vacation.

This kind of travel in Bulgaria is easy enough when you travel with your Bulgarian friends The buses were clean enough, the ticket agents and drivers friendly enough, and helpful. The other passengers were well-mannered and quiet, no troubles. Other than having to stay in a bus for hours at a time, this was good traveling.

Leaving Plovdiv on another and smaller bus, here is an example of the kind of roads we traveled to get to Koprivshtitsa.

We left the “main” road a couple of times for the bus driver to let off or pick up other passengers in little out-of-the-way villages.

Some of these little villages were real “village”, goats in the streets, pretty much everyone you saw was old. Walls made of adobe wearing down in the weather and time. Picturesque, certainly.

One of the reasons I went on this trip was to take pictures of the mountains in autumn color. And we did see lots of color – with our eyes. The bus windows were a bit too dirty, the hour was a bit late, the sky was gray and cloudy … not the best day for photography. But I have to say the mountains on the way up were quite beautiful, and even if I can’t share pictures with you I can highly recommend the drive from Plovdiv to Koprivshtitsa at this time of year.

About mid-day we walked east out of town onto a mountain road. What can I say about what I saw there, that you can’t see in the photo gallery linked at the top of this post? It was beautiful.

Koprivshtitsa is a town, a village full of history. The events that took place here, the people who lived here … all deep in the hearts of Bulgarians. Almost all of my friends tell me that they visited here when they were children, something I would hope any country, any culture would do to show it’s children why they are the way they are. As a foreigner I could only appreciate the museums as a tourist, but I could appreciate the colors and flavors and scenery and the people living and working there … the beauty of the mountains, the fall colors … it is easy to appreciate that.

I give it five stars out of five as a destination for you to visit if you want to come to Bulgaria and see this country. Sure, stay in Sofia for a time, Plovdiv, see Varna or Sunny Beach or Burgas for the coast … but be sure to see Koprivshtitsa too.

If you want to know Bulgaria in a way you cannot by visiting the locations designed for foreign tourists, you cannot miss this.

Galia and Kevin (me), standing in the colors

We asked this woman to be in a picture with us, she seemed happy to do it. I never learned her name, but “thanks” for walking down the street at that moment.

We are planning a trip to Koprivshtitza … a hard word for me to say, what with all these Bulgarian consonant conglomerations   Hey, it’s almost easier to say it when seeing it spelled in Cyrillic.

Here is their photos page thought I’d send you right along.

So over the weekend of October 24th and October 25th we are hoping to take a drive from Burgas to Koprivshtitsa. This is a general Burgas-to-Koprivshtitsa map, with terrain, from maps.google.com

It’s autumn, yes it is.  I’m hoping for a drive through the mountains to a mountain destination will give us lots of opportunity to appreciate fall colors in Bulgaria.

For instance, did you know I went to Istanbul a few weeks ago?  Yeah, I did.  Zlatina and I took a bus from Burgas, crossed the Turkish border in the middle of the night, made it to Istanbul about 6 in the morning.

Here are the photos:  Trip To Istanbul

Or click on the image below. Opens in a new window

The people at the Bulgarian embassy here in Washington D.C. were nice to me, were helpful, and they left me with the impression that because I’m a spouse of a Bulgarian citizen that there should be no further difficulties in granting me the long-term visa.

Of course, 30-40 days must pass, sigh.  They told me that I should expect my visa to be available on or about August 1 of this year.

Which works out for me pretty well.  My parent’s 52nd anniversary is on August 3rd, so I’ll be staying here … well there in Longview until at least then so I can celebrate it with them.  Hopefully within the week I’ll be flying one-way to Sofia.

Now begins the wait.

I have to get up at 5am tomorrow, to begin my 22 hour “return” flight to Tyler TX.  It’s a bit odd, calling this a return flight, since the start of this trip was back on March 10.
Anyway, here’s the schedule.  Ain’t it wonderful?

Return Saturday, June 6, 2009

United Airlines 9296 Economy  |  Boeing 737-500 Passenger (735) |  2hr 25min |  868 miles

Operated by: DLH LUFTHANSA — LH 3489. Please check in with the operating carrier.

Depart:	6:20am	Sofia, Bulgaria Sofia (SOF)
Arrive:	7:45am	Frankfurt, Germany Frankfurt International (FRA)

Seat: 6F | Seat is pending airline approval | View/change seats |

Change planes. Time between flights: 2hr 55min

United Airlines 8864 Economy  |  Airbus Industrie A340 (340) |  10hr 50min |  5130 miles

Operated by: DLH LUFTHANSA — LH 438. Please check in with the operating carrier.

Depart:	10:40am	Frankfurt, Germany Frankfurt International (FRA)
Arrive:	2:30pm	Dallas/Fort Worth, TX Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW)

Seat: 20A | Seat is confirmed | View/change seats |

Change planes. Time between flights: 5hr 40min

American Airlines 3549 Economy  |  Embraer RJ145 (ER4) |  45min |  98 miles

Operated by: AMERICAN EAGLE. Please check in with the operating carrier.

Depart:	8:10pm	Dallas/Fort Worth, TX Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW)
Arrive:	8:55pm	Tyler, TX Tyler Pounds Field (TYR)

Seat: 14C | Seat is confirmed | View/change seats |

Total duration: 22hr 35min | Total miles: 6096 miles

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