In the next day or to I’m going to be paying a visit to Romania, yes I am!
I’m going to take a 5 hour drive north to the town of Constanta (pronounced con-STANT-sa).
Why? There’s this thing colloquially referred to as the “quarterly visa shuffle”. I arrived here in Bulgaria on July 4th, I must exit the country on or about October 4 because I am living here without a visa – at this point anyway. You can only stay in most countries for 90 days without a visa … but it’s cool if I just go out of the country for a while, get my passport stamped as leaving, and come right back – start another 90 days.
I started a business, Hagel Haus Ltd., I did all the required things to register my business here in Bulgaria, an EU country need I remind you – all in support of my getting a visa-D business Visa to live here indefinitely.
The thing is – I don’t have that business visa yet. I actually have to leave the country and apply for this visa at a Bulgarian Consulate somewhere. Normally one goes to the Bulgarian Consulate in the country in which you live – But that means I would have to fly to Washington D.C., and BACK, just to apply for a visa.
It seems there is a Bulgarian consulate in Constanta, I might be able to apply for the visa there. So I have several reasons for taking this trip: The quarterly visa shuffle, checking to see if I can apply for a visa there, and the final reason – I get to go to Romania! I get to be a tourist there in Romania, I can add another country on my list of “been theres”.
If I can’t get the visa at Contsanta, it’s likely I’ll be flying to Bucharest then to get it. Romania is an EU country … and even though Istanbul is closer than Bucharest, Turkey is not an EU country.
So anyway, I’m pretty excited about this trip. It’s a city on the Black Sea coast, about 5 hours north of here, in a completely different country. Wow, all I can say is wow 
