Thursday, June 11, 2015
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
The Belly of the Whale: A Long, Hard Journey into Greece - Part 2
(Continued from Part One)
Twenty minutes later, and we're still looking for the train. So this was the delay Ticket Mistress had mentioned. Jay and I checked our watches nervously; the 40 minutes we had for our Sophia connection were dwindling fast.
When it finally showed, the train was a half hour behind schedule. Jay's sprint to the bank had long since been declared pointless, and we found ourselves unable to relax for the entire three-hour journey. At every stop, we stress-ate museli (our only available snack) and checked our watches against the original timetable: ten minutes in Sophia... eight minutes... six...
At the very last stop before the final haul into town, the train stopped for some reason I'll never know because I don't speak Bulgarian. The local passengers looked unfazed and stepped lazily off the train for a cigarette while Jay and I continued to grit our teeth and clutch at our watches in useless pacification. By the time we got rolling again, we knew it was too late; sadly we watched our connection train time come and pass on our respective minute hands.
"Well, I guess we'll rent a car..." Jay-the-man-with-the-plan began.
"Nah-ah-ah, we can't lose faith yet! If this is any indication of Bulgarian timeliness, there's a chance the next one's late as well..."
By the second grace of God/Buddha/the universe that day, I was right.
Jay and I had exploded onto the platform and raced along the Sofia station, which was (of course) under construction and confusing as hell. When we finally found the departure board, we located the train and determined it was indeed delayed 20 minutes.
"But where's the platform number?" wondered Jay.
Just as we asked this, a Bulgarian man with a holey smile and what seemed to be an airport lanyard and badge approached. In broken English, he asked us where we were going and if we had tickets.
"Thessaloniki, Eurail," I replied. "Reservation?"
"You have Bulgarian money, yes?"
"Yes."
"Reservation."
He marched us toward the ticket booth. As we rushed along, he asked for our Eurail passes. I made eye contact with Jay. We still didn't know who this guy was and the last thing I wanted to do was to hand him my $700 pass to freedom. As Jay hesitantly offered his, I focused on the man's feet, wondering how quickly I might grab his ankles should he try to run away. Instead, he turned toward the ticket booth.
"Two to Thessaloniki! Eurail! Reservation!"
The ticket lady looked minorly annoyed at the interruption, but otherwise unconcerned by the man's request. Maybe he did work for the station after all. I relaxed. Slightly.
Tickets in hand, it was back to the platforms. The man --we'll call him Thing 1 -- lead us up to an awaiting train, where I expected he'd ask for a tip and leave. Instead, he asked us to stand just shy of the other passengers, beside a man with a similar dental problem who was holding EuroTour pamphlets. Our numbers were now matched, and these guys didn't seem to be going anywhere soon. My uneasiness increased.
When the train was connected for boarding, Thing 1 and Thing 2 lead us up the stairs and to the compartment specified on our tickets. I hovered at the door, unwilling to go inside with both of them in there, but when they took my backpack to store on the overhead shelf, I followed it into the compartment, not wanting to let my belongings out of my sight.
Once we were all inside, the Things did the only thing left to make me 100% uncomfortable with this situation: they "demonstrated" the ability to lock the compartment door and close the curtains. Holy shit, I thought. I'm an idiot, and this is where we die.
Not wanting to stick around for whatever robbery, battery, or violation was about to happen, I screetched "WC! WC?!" and pushed past Thing 2 toward "the bathroom." Once out, I raced to the conductor at the edge of the car.
"Excuse me! Hello? My boyfriend is in that car with two men. I think they might be dangerous. They want money. Please help?" I clutched at the man's arm and tried to drag him away from the door. He looked at me as if I were an irritating fly.
"My boyfriend! Help? Assistance?"
The conductor waved his hand at me and stepped off the train toward some other passemgers. I marched back to the compartment in fury, fearing what Jay might have endured in my absence.
I arrived to find him unscathed, but showing the Things his wallet, now empty of the little Bulgarian money we bad left over from that morning.
"That's all I have," he said, cool as a cucumber. "Sorry."
I, on the other hand, piped up like a feisty piglet, thrusting myself into the compartment.
"OKAY, OKAY, YOU'VE HELPED US ENOUGH. THANK YOU. GOODBYE."
The Things left without further comment. I locked the door. I looked at Jay.
"They took 7 lev. He wanted 20, of course, but that was all I had."
So the whole experience had cost us what we probably would have tipped the guy anyway. I felt nauseous and stupid.
We confirmed from some other passengers that we were indeed headed to Thessaloniki, and the train headed out a short time later. Slowly but surely I began to breathe normally.
"I really thought we were going to die back there."
"I know. I was on high-alert too," Jay assured me. "Was that like a... pseudo-mugging?"
"Basically. We were pseudo-mugged by a Dr. Suess character..."
"I'm so hangry..."
"Are we really on this train right now?"
"Is there any more museli?"
"We're going to Greece. We're getting the hell out of Bulgaria."
"I wish there was a dining car..."
"That toilet on the last train smelled like a pet shop. Maybe this one will be better...?"
We were delirous, but we were alive. Seven hours later we would take an affordable ride from a kind taxi driver to our angelic Couchsurfer hosts' apartment. They'd order us midnight gyros and talk about the wonders of Greece. We would sleep off today's nightmare in the comfort of an Ikea futon. And I would write this all from a beach in Santorini, overlooking the Agean Sea.
Twenty minutes later, and we're still looking for the train. So this was the delay Ticket Mistress had mentioned. Jay and I checked our watches nervously; the 40 minutes we had for our Sophia connection were dwindling fast.
When it finally showed, the train was a half hour behind schedule. Jay's sprint to the bank had long since been declared pointless, and we found ourselves unable to relax for the entire three-hour journey. At every stop, we stress-ate museli (our only available snack) and checked our watches against the original timetable: ten minutes in Sophia... eight minutes... six...
At the very last stop before the final haul into town, the train stopped for some reason I'll never know because I don't speak Bulgarian. The local passengers looked unfazed and stepped lazily off the train for a cigarette while Jay and I continued to grit our teeth and clutch at our watches in useless pacification. By the time we got rolling again, we knew it was too late; sadly we watched our connection train time come and pass on our respective minute hands.
"Well, I guess we'll rent a car..." Jay-the-man-with-the-plan began.
"Nah-ah-ah, we can't lose faith yet! If this is any indication of Bulgarian timeliness, there's a chance the next one's late as well..."
By the second grace of God/Buddha/the universe that day, I was right.
Jay and I had exploded onto the platform and raced along the Sofia station, which was (of course) under construction and confusing as hell. When we finally found the departure board, we located the train and determined it was indeed delayed 20 minutes.
"But where's the platform number?" wondered Jay.
Just as we asked this, a Bulgarian man with a holey smile and what seemed to be an airport lanyard and badge approached. In broken English, he asked us where we were going and if we had tickets.
"Thessaloniki, Eurail," I replied. "Reservation?"
"You have Bulgarian money, yes?"
"Yes."
"Reservation."
He marched us toward the ticket booth. As we rushed along, he asked for our Eurail passes. I made eye contact with Jay. We still didn't know who this guy was and the last thing I wanted to do was to hand him my $700 pass to freedom. As Jay hesitantly offered his, I focused on the man's feet, wondering how quickly I might grab his ankles should he try to run away. Instead, he turned toward the ticket booth.
"Two to Thessaloniki! Eurail! Reservation!"
The ticket lady looked minorly annoyed at the interruption, but otherwise unconcerned by the man's request. Maybe he did work for the station after all. I relaxed. Slightly.
Tickets in hand, it was back to the platforms. The man --we'll call him Thing 1 -- lead us up to an awaiting train, where I expected he'd ask for a tip and leave. Instead, he asked us to stand just shy of the other passengers, beside a man with a similar dental problem who was holding EuroTour pamphlets. Our numbers were now matched, and these guys didn't seem to be going anywhere soon. My uneasiness increased.
When the train was connected for boarding, Thing 1 and Thing 2 lead us up the stairs and to the compartment specified on our tickets. I hovered at the door, unwilling to go inside with both of them in there, but when they took my backpack to store on the overhead shelf, I followed it into the compartment, not wanting to let my belongings out of my sight.
Once we were all inside, the Things did the only thing left to make me 100% uncomfortable with this situation: they "demonstrated" the ability to lock the compartment door and close the curtains. Holy shit, I thought. I'm an idiot, and this is where we die.
Not wanting to stick around for whatever robbery, battery, or violation was about to happen, I screetched "WC! WC?!" and pushed past Thing 2 toward "the bathroom." Once out, I raced to the conductor at the edge of the car.
"Excuse me! Hello? My boyfriend is in that car with two men. I think they might be dangerous. They want money. Please help?" I clutched at the man's arm and tried to drag him away from the door. He looked at me as if I were an irritating fly.
"My boyfriend! Help? Assistance?"
The conductor waved his hand at me and stepped off the train toward some other passemgers. I marched back to the compartment in fury, fearing what Jay might have endured in my absence.
I arrived to find him unscathed, but showing the Things his wallet, now empty of the little Bulgarian money we bad left over from that morning.
"That's all I have," he said, cool as a cucumber. "Sorry."
I, on the other hand, piped up like a feisty piglet, thrusting myself into the compartment.
"OKAY, OKAY, YOU'VE HELPED US ENOUGH. THANK YOU. GOODBYE."
The Things left without further comment. I locked the door. I looked at Jay.
"They took 7 lev. He wanted 20, of course, but that was all I had."
So the whole experience had cost us what we probably would have tipped the guy anyway. I felt nauseous and stupid.
We confirmed from some other passengers that we were indeed headed to Thessaloniki, and the train headed out a short time later. Slowly but surely I began to breathe normally.
"I really thought we were going to die back there."
"I know. I was on high-alert too," Jay assured me. "Was that like a... pseudo-mugging?"
"Basically. We were pseudo-mugged by a Dr. Suess character..."
"I'm so hangry..."
"Are we really on this train right now?"
"Is there any more museli?"
"We're going to Greece. We're getting the hell out of Bulgaria."
"I wish there was a dining car..."
"That toilet on the last train smelled like a pet shop. Maybe this one will be better...?"
We were delirous, but we were alive. Seven hours later we would take an affordable ride from a kind taxi driver to our angelic Couchsurfer hosts' apartment. They'd order us midnight gyros and talk about the wonders of Greece. We would sleep off today's nightmare in the comfort of an Ikea futon. And I would write this all from a beach in Santorini, overlooking the Agean Sea.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
The Belly of the Whale: A Long, Hard Journey into Greece - Part 1
In Joseph Campbell's Monomyth (more widely known as "The Hero's Journey") there is a point where the hero is hurtled into the dangerous unknown; where he must face his fears in order to further his quest. This point is known as "The Belly of the Whale."
Jay and I reached our whale belly on June 4, 2015. It started at the Pavlikeni train station, in Bulgaria. It ended (as things do) over two glasses of red wine on a Santorini beach. In between there were fleas and pseudo-muggings, delayed trains and delayed planes, lost items and missed meals... and there were also some bona fide gaurdian angels. But I'm getting ahead of myself here....
Let's start with the fleas.
Out of respect for our well-meaning hosts, I must acknowledge how tidy they were. They swept their kitchen after dinner every night. They didn't hoard unnecessary items. They did laundry often.
It didn't change the fact that there were fleas living in the basement of their rental house. And those fleas found me. And in the course of two weeks, they bit me 41 times.
Three days into our stay I noticed a constellation of tiny red dots around my ankle, which hadn't been there during our train ride from Bucharest. There was another, smaller collection on my other ankle. The next morning my lower back started to itch, and I found seven more identical bites there. By this time I'd spotted what looked like a flea jumping around on the bed, so we decided to shake out the sheets and let them fry in the hot sunlight outside. Jay also took a vacuum to every surface of our room.
This was more of a treatment than a remedy. Over the next week, I woke up to flea bites on my shoulders, ankles, forearms, hands, upper chest, BELLY BUTTON, and (to my great horror) in a neat little arch across my left breast. These were delivered in spite of my new pajama situation, which included full-length leggings tucked into tall socks, a sleep bra under a camisole under a long-sleeved shirt (which was itself tucked into the leggings and safety-pinned across the v-neck), and a satchel of lavendar stuffed down my cleavage. It was 85-degrees here during the day; I don't need to tell you how many of those layers were unnecessary under a sheet and comforter, not to mention how geeky I looked.
As the bites persisted, my sanity waned. Specks of dirt on the bed seemed to jump to life in the corner of my eye. Crawling sensations on my upper body had me turning on the light to inspect myself. I swore I could hear them planning their next attack. By the end of our stay, I thought I might ask to sleep on the floor of the kitchen.
On our last night in Bulgaria, I took to the pantry to defend myself. I found a clove of garlic and ate the whole thing raw. I cut the top off a lemon and rubbed the juice all over my arms, torso, and face. I came to bed smelling like a dinner salad, but (spoiler alert) I didn't endure a single bite that night.
That same evening, as I was on my way to the kitchen, I noticed small furry shape in the darkness jet across my path and into a crevice in the stone staircase beside me. I didn't think anything of it until I woke up at 2:00am to the sound of something skittering across the plastic casing of the couch beside our bed.
"Jay..." I whispered through the darkness, "Do you hear that?"
Jay sat up in reluctant confirmation and grabbed our lamp off the nightstand. In the shadows, the couch continued to rustle. Jay gave it a prod with the light. Nothing. He shifted the couch. Nothing. At last we realized the skittering noise was coming from the stone just behind our head. Yep, there were mice running through the walls.
We rolled over and went back to sleep, willing tomorrow to gallop apace.
I woke up at 5:30am and hopped out of bed instantly. About 4 hours later, Jay and I were seated at the Pavlikeni train station, having breakfasted and bid goodbye to our hosts and the fleas, dreaming of the black sand beaches that lay only hours ahead.
The day was busy, but simple enough: We'd catch a train to Sofia, where we'd have a 40 minute layover to find a quick dinner and purchase tickets for the daily train into Thessaloniki. There, we'd spend the night with our first-ever Couchsurfing hosts and fly into Santorini the next afternoon.
For a beautiful 15 minutes on a train station bench, this plan appeared fool-proof.
We had attempted to purchase a reservation ticket with the Bulgarian-speaking ticket mistress upon arrival at the station, but she assured us our Eurail passes would serve the same purpose. The train wasn't due for another hour, so we'd settled on a bench to pass the time.
About 20 minutes into this hour, Ticket Mistress was back with an espresso mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She continued to speak Bulgarian to us with admirable faith in our comprehension (which in reality was nonexistent.) I heard something about a delay, Jay heard something about a ticket, and eventually we cobbled together we would in fact need to purchase the reservation to Sofia. So I pulled out my Visa...
"No visa. No card. Cash only."
Of course it was cash only. We were in the middle of no-man's-land Eastern Europe. As our meals and lodging had been provided by our Work Away hosts, we hadn't bothered to take out any Bulgarian lev. Jay held up a Hungarian bill and a euro note, at a loss. I glanced around for an ATM.
Jay went back in to the office with our guidebook dictionary. I didn't know it at the time, but he was on the phone with Ticket Mistress' daughter, who was hurriedly translating English directions to the nearest bank. As it happened, the bank was about a mile away.
Jay yelled something of this to me as he raced out of the station with the euro in hand. In our pile of luggage, I began to panic. I considered standing up and shouting about our predicament to the passengers around us. Maybe one of them was Hungarian and would exchange with us? I had an adjustable diamond-looking ring on my finger... could I fib a honeymoon sob story? Or maybe we could do a clown routine... or Shakespearean monologues? Something told me that even Jay's best Macbeth wouldn't earn us 15 lev in 30 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, and about five minutes before our train was due, Jay came sweating and panting back onto the platform. He'd sprinted the mile and back, and was clutching a fistful of Bulgarian cash -- quite literally our ticket out. I made a big show of kissing him for this, and felt the urge to cry and thank a God I never knew I had. We got the tickets. We looked on for the train.
To be continued....
Jay and I reached our whale belly on June 4, 2015. It started at the Pavlikeni train station, in Bulgaria. It ended (as things do) over two glasses of red wine on a Santorini beach. In between there were fleas and pseudo-muggings, delayed trains and delayed planes, lost items and missed meals... and there were also some bona fide gaurdian angels. But I'm getting ahead of myself here....
Let's start with the fleas.
Out of respect for our well-meaning hosts, I must acknowledge how tidy they were. They swept their kitchen after dinner every night. They didn't hoard unnecessary items. They did laundry often.
It didn't change the fact that there were fleas living in the basement of their rental house. And those fleas found me. And in the course of two weeks, they bit me 41 times.
Three days into our stay I noticed a constellation of tiny red dots around my ankle, which hadn't been there during our train ride from Bucharest. There was another, smaller collection on my other ankle. The next morning my lower back started to itch, and I found seven more identical bites there. By this time I'd spotted what looked like a flea jumping around on the bed, so we decided to shake out the sheets and let them fry in the hot sunlight outside. Jay also took a vacuum to every surface of our room.
This was more of a treatment than a remedy. Over the next week, I woke up to flea bites on my shoulders, ankles, forearms, hands, upper chest, BELLY BUTTON, and (to my great horror) in a neat little arch across my left breast. These were delivered in spite of my new pajama situation, which included full-length leggings tucked into tall socks, a sleep bra under a camisole under a long-sleeved shirt (which was itself tucked into the leggings and safety-pinned across the v-neck), and a satchel of lavendar stuffed down my cleavage. It was 85-degrees here during the day; I don't need to tell you how many of those layers were unnecessary under a sheet and comforter, not to mention how geeky I looked.
As the bites persisted, my sanity waned. Specks of dirt on the bed seemed to jump to life in the corner of my eye. Crawling sensations on my upper body had me turning on the light to inspect myself. I swore I could hear them planning their next attack. By the end of our stay, I thought I might ask to sleep on the floor of the kitchen.
On our last night in Bulgaria, I took to the pantry to defend myself. I found a clove of garlic and ate the whole thing raw. I cut the top off a lemon and rubbed the juice all over my arms, torso, and face. I came to bed smelling like a dinner salad, but (spoiler alert) I didn't endure a single bite that night.
That same evening, as I was on my way to the kitchen, I noticed small furry shape in the darkness jet across my path and into a crevice in the stone staircase beside me. I didn't think anything of it until I woke up at 2:00am to the sound of something skittering across the plastic casing of the couch beside our bed.
"Jay..." I whispered through the darkness, "Do you hear that?"
Jay sat up in reluctant confirmation and grabbed our lamp off the nightstand. In the shadows, the couch continued to rustle. Jay gave it a prod with the light. Nothing. He shifted the couch. Nothing. At last we realized the skittering noise was coming from the stone just behind our head. Yep, there were mice running through the walls.
We rolled over and went back to sleep, willing tomorrow to gallop apace.
I woke up at 5:30am and hopped out of bed instantly. About 4 hours later, Jay and I were seated at the Pavlikeni train station, having breakfasted and bid goodbye to our hosts and the fleas, dreaming of the black sand beaches that lay only hours ahead.
The day was busy, but simple enough: We'd catch a train to Sofia, where we'd have a 40 minute layover to find a quick dinner and purchase tickets for the daily train into Thessaloniki. There, we'd spend the night with our first-ever Couchsurfing hosts and fly into Santorini the next afternoon.
For a beautiful 15 minutes on a train station bench, this plan appeared fool-proof.
We had attempted to purchase a reservation ticket with the Bulgarian-speaking ticket mistress upon arrival at the station, but she assured us our Eurail passes would serve the same purpose. The train wasn't due for another hour, so we'd settled on a bench to pass the time.
About 20 minutes into this hour, Ticket Mistress was back with an espresso mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She continued to speak Bulgarian to us with admirable faith in our comprehension (which in reality was nonexistent.) I heard something about a delay, Jay heard something about a ticket, and eventually we cobbled together we would in fact need to purchase the reservation to Sofia. So I pulled out my Visa...
"No visa. No card. Cash only."
Of course it was cash only. We were in the middle of no-man's-land Eastern Europe. As our meals and lodging had been provided by our Work Away hosts, we hadn't bothered to take out any Bulgarian lev. Jay held up a Hungarian bill and a euro note, at a loss. I glanced around for an ATM.
Jay went back in to the office with our guidebook dictionary. I didn't know it at the time, but he was on the phone with Ticket Mistress' daughter, who was hurriedly translating English directions to the nearest bank. As it happened, the bank was about a mile away.
Jay yelled something of this to me as he raced out of the station with the euro in hand. In our pile of luggage, I began to panic. I considered standing up and shouting about our predicament to the passengers around us. Maybe one of them was Hungarian and would exchange with us? I had an adjustable diamond-looking ring on my finger... could I fib a honeymoon sob story? Or maybe we could do a clown routine... or Shakespearean monologues? Something told me that even Jay's best Macbeth wouldn't earn us 15 lev in 30 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, and about five minutes before our train was due, Jay came sweating and panting back onto the platform. He'd sprinted the mile and back, and was clutching a fistful of Bulgarian cash -- quite literally our ticket out. I made a big show of kissing him for this, and felt the urge to cry and thank a God I never knew I had. We got the tickets. We looked on for the train.
To be continued....
Monday, June 8, 2015
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Bulcherrya
One of the more delightful surprises from our stay in Pavlikeni was our hosts' cherry tres. It seemed fate granted us this treasure, forthey'd just barely ripened when we arrived, got better each day we worked, and faded by the time we departed.
The gift of picking fresh, organic fruit right off the tree was something we looked forward to everyday, and I've never tasted better cherry crumble, pie, or jam! (Yes, our hosts were chefs. Yes, they made all three.)
Friday, June 5, 2015
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