Category Archives: Europe

That Time I Got Scammed (?) in Istanbul

I don’t know if i technically got scammed.  But here is my story.

On my last full day, I had planned to get up at the crack of dawn and be walking into the Blue Mosque the second it opened.   The night before, I had a horrible night’s sleep.  I was woken up in the middle of the night by a text that kept me up for the rest of the night.

I still manage to get up and out.  I get to the Mosque and I am an hour early because I do not know how to correctly research opening hours.

It is really hot. I am really sun burned. I am so tired.

I sit down on a bench outside the Mosque to rest and collect my thoughts.

A man comes up to me and offers to shine my shoes.  I say “NO”  I am not even wearing shoes, I am wearing cheapo sneakers that are getting thrown out as soon as I get home.   Despite me saying “NO”, he then says “just let me brush off the dirt”.   Now I get mad.  He is already down and brushing the dirt off my sneakers.  All I want to do is sit here in silence and rest and go into my own little world where I figure out the things in my personal life that are now running rampant through my head.

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Top Thirteen Travel Related Happenings In 2013

  • Best Country I Visited:  Bulgaria, by far.  I cannot express enough how much I fell in love with this country.   My favorite moment in this beautiful country was standing on top of the rocks at the Belogradchik Fortress and knowing I got here all by myself.

Belogradchik Fortress, Belogradchik, Bulgaria

  • Not My Best Destination:  Nis, Serbia.  This was not in any way a fault of Nis, it was my own.  You can never blame a city for someone who lacks the ability to read a map.  Or who did not learn basic language so that when she ordered an iced coffee, she was presented with a cherry milk shake. I am very fortunate that the least best time I had still cannot rightfully have the word “worst” associated with it.  I don’t regret that I went.  I will go back.  Plus, I got a fun anecdotal story about ordering iced coffee in Serbia!

Nišava River, Nis, Serbia

  • Bus Ride From Hell:  Overnight from Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey.   Using a squat toilet with spiders as big as my head lurking over me, while developing a fear that the hot florescent lights would cause them to be burned to death and drop into my hair.  Yeargh.  It was totally worth it.  Anecdotal story aside, ISTANBUL.

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Bus Ride From Veliko Tarnovo to Istanbul – Squat Toilets, Spiders, Smuggling and Depeche Mode…Wait…WHAT?

Last transport of my trip – overnight bus from Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey.  This was quite the trip.  Finding out information about this journey before leaving home was nearly impossible.  I could never figure out where I was supposed to leave from, Veliko Tarnovo has two bus stations.  I was able to get some bus company names, but they had no internet presence.

There is a train, but the schedules I came up with were so beyond contradictory.  I also found a bunch of websites saying the train wasn’t in operation right now because of construction.  I would really prefer to take the train but all of this research getting me nowhere was really making my head spin.

So I left the USA without having any clue how I was going to be doing the last leg of this trip.

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Tsarevets Fortress – Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

The main attraction of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria is Tsarevets Fortress.  I had specifically picked my hotel for the balcony view overlooking it.

tsarevets fortress, veliko turnovo bulgaria,  view from balconyI saved visiting the fortress until my last day, when I had several hours to kill before heading to Istanbul.

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Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria – Where My Worst Travel Fear Was Realized

Today I woke up in Sofia, Bulgaria and attempted to go to the bus station.  At first I could not find the tram station.  Then I got on a tram going in the wrong direction . Of course I did.  I finally got to the bus stop, bought a ticket and I was on my way.

Before arriving, I was all kinds of confused about the bus station in Veliko Tarnovo.  It appears there are two bus stations, the South bus station (Yug) and the West bus station (Zapad).  I was never sure which bus station I would be getting out at prior to getting there.  When we arrived in Veliko Tarnovo, I wasn’t even sure we were in Veliko Tarnovo since there were no signs.

It turned out that my bus didn’t drop us off at either bus station.  Instead, we were dropped off at Hotel Etar, which is used as a bus stop for only one bus company (Etap.)  I didn’t even know this stop existed at all.  Note, this is way more of a convenient stop than either bus station.

At the time I got off the bus, I was so confused about where the hell we were since nothing matched the map I had.  Rather than deal with it, I took a cab to my hotel.  It cost me $4 BG which is about $3 US.  The driver even tried to give me change from a $5.

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Bulgaria: Rila Monastery and Boyana Church. Featuring Bonus Adorable Dog Pictures!

This morning, I woke up late and had to rush to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral to join up with the tour group I was going to be traveling to the Rila Monastery with.  This was my first time joining a tour group.  I had originally wanted to go on my own and spend a night at the monastery (how cool is it that you can sleep there??)  But as I went about fine tuning my itinerary, it turned out I was not going to have enough time for this.  Getting to the monastery on a day trip seemed like a complicated nightmare.  So tour group seemed to be the best option. I was kind of hesitant since the introvert that controls me thought it would be hell on earth.  But it turned out that the only downfall was for the other people who had to deal with me being late to meet them, causing us to leave a few minutes late.

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Sofia, Bulgaria: The Adventures of an Idiot (A)Broad

So remember when I went to Europe back in May?  And I posted about it regularly?  But then I stopped suddenly and never finished it?  Well I think that was because subconsciously I did not want the trip to end. So if I held out forever, never finishing up blogging about it, it would not be officially over.  But now since 2013 is dangerously close to being over, while I still have four more trips left this year, I figure it is time to get cracking.

When we last left off, I had returned to Sofia from Belogradchik. I also got to use my very first squat toilet.  Oh the adventures one has when one travels.

squat toilet

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Belogradchik, Bulgaria – v.1.5

I had originally  made an “out-of-chronological-order” post about my trip to Belogradchik, which you can find here.

I loved it there so much that I could not wait to do it in chronological order.  But there is some information I would like to add, specifically about getting there and back.

When I was researching this, I found out there was a bus.  But the information was really lacking and completely conflicting.  Now that I have been there, I can help.

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Goodbye Niš, Serbia, Hello Sofia, Bulgaria!

I was taking a 4:30 am bus from Niš, Serbia to Sofia, Bulgaria.   My Niš apartment was on the third floor of a building that had a cement spiral staircase, and no lighting at all in the hallway. Being that I am leaving at this ridiculously early hour, there is also no sunlight in the hallway.

I gave myself an extra half an hour to sit down on the stairs and scoot down them with my suitcase in tow, to avoid breaking my neck and killing myself.  It is times like these that I almost wish I were not solo, just so that someone else could witness how stupid my life is.

steps death

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Mentally Melting Down in Niš, Serbia

Today I was able to sleep in a bit since Nis doesn’t have all that much to see.  This means I am up by 8:00 anyway.

First thing I do is Google to see where the train station is, since I had forgotten to do that before I left.  Oh fuck.  It is a 21 minute walk, which is fine.  But there are a lot of turns and stuff on Cyrillic written streets.  There is no way in HELL I am going to be able to find it in the dark at 2:30 am.  FUCK.  This was my whole reason for staying an extra night in my hotel.  I don’t want to trust that I can get a cab.  So I decide that I will just take the bus to Sofia tomorrow.  Good bye dreams of finally taking an overnight sleeper train.  UGH.

Since I am going to the Fortress today, I make that my first stop since it is pretty much at the bus station.  This way I can buy a bus ticket to Sofia for tomorrow. It was an easy walk, passing over the Nišava River.

Nišava River, Nis, Serbia

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