All roads lead to McDonald's even in Cryllic
Sofia is full of historic churches
We had reserved a hotel in Sofia via hotels.com. The address listed on hotels.com said the hotel was on Biglastr. I wrote the address down on a piece of paper and handed it to a cab driver outside of the train station, the cab driver just scratched his head and told me he didn't know of this "Biglastr"....so, we went back inside the train station, purchased a map, and tried to figure out where the hell our hotel was. I couldn't find Biglastr on the map anywhere but what I did find was...wait for it...Bigla Street. They had abbreviated but not put a space where appropriate. We stepped back out, flagged down a cab and asked to go to 30 Bigla Street and were taken there without delay. Overall, we found the people in Sofia to be very friendly even though I was fined for not having a valid bus pass (the validation machine on the bus is communist era and doesn't work too well) by a guy who was kind of an asshole. Marsha thought he may not have even been legitimate..this is a possibility, but it was a small amount of money and I didn't feel like investing negative energy into the matter, so I let it go. From Sofia, we took yet another overnight train, this one to Istanbul.
On the night train..
Ottoman paste in front of the Blue Mosque
The "wishing pigeons" of Istanbul
Improvisation at its finest
I had a negative impression of going to Istanbul. It gets a lot of bad press and a few short days before we went there were talks of a coup. Thus, I decided to not tell anyone where I was going...I didn't want anyone to needlessly worry about me, and witnessing a coup seemed like something pretty exciting anyhow! Seeing the number of Senior Citizens' tour groups that we did put any worries of a coup immediately out of mind.
Istanbul turned out to be a wonderful surprise. There are, of course, the well known tourist attractions like the Blue Mosque, The Grand Bazaar, The Golden Horn, St. Sophia, Whirling Dervishes and The Bosphorus. There is also something magical about the city. A mixture of old and new, east and west and absolutely full of the friendliest people I have ever met, anywhere (and if you have been reading this blog, you know I have been a few places). We only stayed a few days in Turkey. I had no idea how much the country had to offer and I fully intend to return to explore the greater part of the Turkey. I learned so much about myself, the world and Turks while here. Istanbul has transformed me, perhaps nearly as much as Kashmir. This is something I should have written about earlier, while it was still fresh in my mind but I was too busy living and exploring to take the time to write about it. C'est la vie.
From Istanbul, another overnight train..this time to Thessaloníki, Greece. I haven't got much to say about Thessaloníki, but in short, do you know why you have never heard of that world famous excellent Greek service? Because it sucks. Horribly. Oh...but you can buy a chipmunk in a cage if you are so inclined. The poor service also extends from the restaurants to the airlines and to top it all off, we were flying out on a day that they decided to call a strike so our plane was delayed by several hours and we were stranded in perhaps the world's most depressing airport. Next stop...Berlin.
Because it was cheap to fly to Berlin, and because we wanted to visit another country, we flew to Berlin. We spent a night in a hotel cum kindergarten (yes, you read that right) luckily, school was out and we weren't disturbed by the goings on of a school directly below our hotel room. What is the one thing you would want to see if you had only a few hours in Berlin? Why...Checkpoint Charlie of course. This historic spot along the former Berlin Wall is perhaps the most famous transfer point between east and west and was iconic of the cold war. Nowadays, you can pay a man dressed in a uniform to stamp your passport with any one of a dozen or so stamps from the communist era. I didn't go for it. Marsha did. Goodbye Berlin, Hello Doesburg, Netherlands.
In Doesburg we were privileged to spend several days/nights with Marsha's friend Julie and her family. It was a treat to spend time in this type of setting after so long living an unconventional lifestyle. We had one of our funnest days during a folk festival in Doesburg. We both went clog dancing! It was a hoot.
The professionals
The "not-so" professionals
No trip to Holland is complete without windmills
From Doesburg, we spent a day in Amsterdam, visited the red-light district and saw a few sights before flying to Edinburgh, Scotland. Scotland is exceptionally expensive but also exceptionally rich in history, natural beauty and culture. We stuck to a pretty traditional tourist itinerary with a ghost tour of Edinburgh and a bus tour of the Highlands including a monster spotting cruise on Loch Ness. Next we flew to London. The idea was to drive to Stone Henge but soon after departing we abandoned this idea due to the horrific holiday weekend traffic and opted for a day in the city. I'm left with a pretty "been there, done that" sort of feeling about London. Granted it's rife with history and culture, but for me, the crowds and the cost are too much to make me want to return. From London, we parted ways. I flew to Denver, Marsha to Houston with plans to see each other in late June or early July.
The Highlands
Edinburgh architechture
Nessie revealed
The London Eye
So...that pretty much concludes what I'm going to take the time to write about Europe in this blog. I'd love to talk to you in person about it sometime over a beer!
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