Leaving Plovdiv and Arrival in Varna

I woke up late, but well rested. It was nice waking up with no hangover :) I gorged on breakfast (it was really good) and puttered on the computer waiting for Tsvetan to wake up and text me...

... it wasn't until afternoon that he did, so by the time we met up, it was time to take a train back to Sofia! The train was way more comfortable; I hadn't been on many trains since entering the Balkans so it was a nice change :)

We made it back to the house, and I was already packed still. I found a host in Varna, on the Black Sea coast! Thought that was pretty cool, so I decided to go the next day :)

It was dark by the time we got back, and since I was leaving the next day I decided not to go out. I had to get up early in the morning...

... which I succeeded at! I was scared I would miss the bus to the station, but I made it in time and got on the 8 hour train to Varna. The train took all day, so I arrived in the dark again. It was in fact an hour late somehow. There was a student holiday going on, so the train was packed to the brim all the way to Plovdiv. I had to get up three cars to get on the section that went all the way to Varna, so I had to maneuver my backpack and I through the skinny side sections of the packed train to get myself where I had to be.

By the time I found somewhere to sit in the right cars, I was covered in sweat and exhausted. I was looking forward to having a shower when I arrived in the city. My host came and picked me up, and gave me some weird news.

She had cooked dinner for me, which was nice, but I was wondering why she had wrapped it up. Turns out I was not going to what was described on her profile (double bed, own room, internet access etc). Her husband did not approve of CS, and he was home so she was driving me to an apartment building nearby to house me in her friend's unused attic space. She was warning me that it was "not so good"... I was wondering just how gross it was going to be.

We got up to the top floor, and there were at least eight different little "apartment" rooms up there. I say the term loosely. I don't know how to describe it, but there was a shared bathroom for me and these strangers which consisted of a raised concrete square with a door and a hole in the concrete to do you stuff into. There was also a flusher (whew).

The room had a smell which really got to me though. There was something clear and slimey on one of the two chairs, so I had to wipe it down before reluctantly sitting down. Rumi stayed with me while I ate for a bit, then went back to her husband. There was no internet and I was scared to touch anything in the place, so I did a German lesson and pulled out my sleeping silk sac.

There was a red light above the bed, which made me wonder what her male friend used this little dirty room for. The sheets where visibly brown in little dots all over the entire mess, and it was not smelling clean. It took a little while to fall asleep because of the smell of the place, but I was protected in my little silk bag and eventually I did fall asleep.