Bulgarified

Hello/Bonjour/Merhaba,

My trip out of Ankara started on a high note: the rediscovery of my beloved camping knife! I may have been too quick to judge the passive-aggressive cleaning tendencies of the hotel staff, but their cleaning style must indeed have been too vigorous if it landed my knife under the TV where I found it. (Honestly! Who thinks to look UNDER the TV?)

After a whirlwind dance bar visit with Banu and Basak last night, I hopped on the 1 a.m. bus to Istanbul, and then on the 9:45 a.m. bus to Plovdiv, from where I'm writing you now. I'm already having some mini culture-shock after the month in Turkiye. All the signs are written in cyrillic, and nobody would react if I tried some broken Turkish on them. The women are all uncovered (some to an extreme degree, in fact!) and I've left the comforts of my single hotel room in Ankara to a bunkbed in shared 8-person coed dorm room in a hostel. In an hour we'll go check out the food around here. I'll be altogether too happy to eat real food, as I had to sustain myself on roasted chickpeas and snack cakes on the bus for the last 1.5 days! (Mom, take heart: I also ate two small apricots for their vitamin content).

Should be an interesting few days. I haven't any clear plans yet, but the other travellers are really friendly and all English-speaking, and we're all glad to hang out as a group. In fact, our dinner reservation is for 14 people!

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