Tag Archives: solo travel

Belogradchik Fortress, Bulgaria: The Time I Almost Got Murdered By a Bee.

10 Replies

I am going to be going out of chronological order with this one but I am just dying to post about it.

Yesterday afternoon, I took a bus from Sofia to Belogradchik.  I got picked up at the bus station by the owner of the guest house I was staying at (Drakite Guest House).  For a whopping $19 usd, I had a very nice room with private balcony and a shower so big that you could take every shower I have had to so far on this trip and fit them all inside.

This morning I am up so early go to see the fortress.  I cannot wait.  I pause to take a morning photo from my balcony.

morning balcony view, belogradchik, bulgaria

Then off I go.  To get to the fortress is a very strenuous walk uphill.  Up many hills. But the walk features GOATS!!

GOATS! Belogradchik, Bulgaria

goats, belogradchik, bulgaria Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2 3

Paris Day One – April 29, 2013

Leave a reply

I woke up in Brussels, Belgium about thirteen minutes before my alarm went off.  I was still tired but it’s getting better.  Shower, repack, head to Brussels Midi train station to take a Thalys train to Paris.  I board the train and someone is in my seat.  Not only is she in my seat, she is completely settled in.  It looked like she had some manual, a lot of paper, a calculator, highlighter, pen and phone all out.  She appeared to be working very hard.  I’m not sure how she had the time to get all of that out since the doors had opened two minutes earlier, but there it was.

I stand over her, she doesn’t look up.  I say “You are in my seat.”  Nothing.  Again, louder “YOU ARE IN MY SEAT!”  She looks up and says something in a language I don’t understand.   I put my ticket in her face and point to the seat number.  She repeats whatever she had originally said that I didn’t understand the first time.   Someone trying to pass by tells me “She is willing to exchange seats with you.”  Oh here we go again.  No.  I have the window seat.  I chose the window seat.  You could have done so just as easily.  But no, you decided to take my seat.  This is so obnoxious.  Not even the part about wanting to switch seats.  The part about getting all settled before even asking.  This is disgusting human behavior.  So I make it clear, NO.  She then has to gather up all her stuff and get out of my seat.  Ugh.

I passed out as soon as the conductor checked my ticket.  I woke up in Paris.  Today’s walk to the hotel is three minutes.  Get this.  I do not get lost not even one time.  Not even for one block. I found it no problem.  I am psyched!

Continue reading →

Brussels, Belgium – April 28, 2013

Leave a reply

My original plans for Brussels were:  Get Starbucks, check into my hotel, go to the Atomium, come back and have a nice quiet night in my room to recover  from Groezrock.  Then I could fully start the vacation portion of this trip well rested.

Yesterday, I had taken my camera out to use it for the first time this trip.  I discover that the LCD screen on my camera was cracked.  Are you kidding me?   We can probably assume this happened during the flight of death with the SCREAMING kid.   Oh, did you miss that rant?  Here you go.

But I will take the blame for this one.  It is the second time I have done this.  The last time was just in September.  So this seems to be new recurring problem in my life.  Hello idiot, buy a camera case.  So I now have to buy a new camera.  Oh how I did not want to do this at all.   I don’t like buying anything without insane amounts of research.  I don’t like spending money on new things when I can fix the old things for under ten bucks. I don’t even want a new camera at all.  I LOVE my camera. This was going to be a very painful purchase.

Continue reading →

Another Quick Picture Post: Sarajevo, Bosnia

1 Reply

Sarajevo is a very bi-polar city.  As you are walking around, you see many beautiful buildings, such as this one.  It is the Sarajevo Academy of Fine Arts, housed in a former church:

academy of fine arts, sarajevo, bosnia

Beautiful, right?  In fact, it is so beautiful that you may have overlooked this bridge in front of it:

festina lente loop bridge, sarajevo, bosnia

Festina Lente bridge.  It is so freaking cool looking.

Continue reading →

Quick Picture Post: Capri, Italy

4 Replies

Have you ever seen the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa becomes a vegetarian?  The family starts out at a petting zoo.  A lamb walks up and they all “Awwwwwwwwww” it.  Then a smaller lamb comes up and the “AWWWWWW” gets louder.  Then the third….and then when the poor first lamb returns, they have seen so much cuter that Homer “Get out of the way YOU”s it?

Capri Island is that petting zoo.

First you get off the boat and you are at the Port of Capri.  Oh wow!  Look at this!  You take like fifty pictures, it is so beautiful.

capri island, italy

Continue reading →

Pick Pockets at the Eiffel Tower

1 Reply

So I consider myself to be a bit more street wise than the average human being.  So when planning a trip to Paris, I had the whole security thing to consider.  Yes, the internet is full of people who have been pick pocketed in Paris.  But surely that would never happen to me.  But then I keep thinking about my sister.  She was obsessed with the Eiffel Tower.  I mean OBSESSED.  It is all she ever talked about.  Every trip I took to Las Vegas would have her begging me to bring back something Eiffel Tower related.   She talked about this stupid tower ALL THE TIME.

Finally, she is going to Paris.  She is going to the Eiffel Tower.  She is so excited.  Flash forward about an hour after she gets to Paris, and I get a voicemail I can barely understand because she is crying and choking.  She tells me to call her back, does not leave a number or a hotel name.  I had to break into her email to find the confirmation.   Turns out, she did get to the Eiffel Tower.   As soon as she got off the plane.  And she got pick pocketed and was now broke in Paris.

I know my sister pretty well.  She doesn’t like to pay attention to anything.  She carries ginormous purses that are never closed.  I don’t necessarily want to blame the victim here, but these things did cross my mind.  She swears that she was super careful.

So now my turn to go to Paris comes.  I don’t want to do things like carry a money belt or whatever.  I want to just go.  I am street savvy, I can do this.  But in the back of my mind, I can’t stop thinking about how stupid I will feel if I am robbed.  I picture the conversations.   My sister saying “I told you so”.  So I buy a money belt.  But I still don’t want to use it.  So I compromise.  I head for the Eiffel Tower with only 5 euro on me, in a change purse.  I leave my wallet back at my hotel.

Continue reading →

TODAY I AM GOING TO EUROPE

Leave a reply

guide books

Woo hoo I am going to Europe!  Oh I am so excited.  As an extra special send off, I am spending my last day at work during “Bring Your Kids to Work Day”.  No please, never bring your kids to work. Ever.

My finalized itinerary is as follows:

Belgium – Sleeping in Geel for both Groezrock Fest and the pre-show, which is in Ham, Belgium. So excited for this.  I will also have one night in Brussels.  I wanted it to be Ghent but I waited to long to plan this out and I simply didn’t have the time to research it.  Until I quit my job and travel forever, I will keep my Type A personality and never be able to travel freely without over planning.

Paris – I never wanted to go here.  Now I am and oh hey, I’ll be there on a Monday when things are closed and also on May Day when things are closed.  Grade A Type A fail.

Naples – I will be going to Capri, Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii.

Rome – I am excited to cross the line into Vatican City and add it as another country I’ve visited on my list.  It’s not cheating. I swear.

Bosnia – Sarajevo and Mostar.  I may take a train one way between Sarajevo and Mostar as I’ve read it has really beautiful scenery even if it takes a lot longer than the bus.

Serbia – Sigh.  After doing and redoing and doing and redoing and (insert more and more and more doing and redoing) this part of my trip, I am settled.  I am going to Nis.  I want to be in Nis so bad.  It just took a while to get it to fit.  I would like to thank my new laptop and its installation of Free Cell for working my brain to be able to solve the puzzle of how to do this.  I am getting a partial overnight train ride on here.  That’s a cross off on my “List of Things I Want to do So Badly in Life”.

Bulgaria – Oh so excited for this part of my trip.  I knew NOTHING about this country when I started planning this trip.  Now I know everything.  I will be in Sofia, traveling to the Rila Monastery, Veliko Tarnovo and the place I am most excited for on this entire trip – BELOGRADCHIK.   Let me post the picture again!

061_001_Belogradchishkakrepost.jpgI can not wait to have my own picture to post.

Then last stop, Istanbul.  I still have no idea how to get there.  I have so many routes printed out.  Nothing is clear at all except that at one time, there was a train from Veliko Tarnovo to Istanbul.  It may or may not be running due to construction. It may or may not leave at 23:04, 23:28, 00:04.  There is also a bus…maybe.  It may be run by Matpu or Oz Batu or maybe there’s two, one by each company.  What time do these buses leave?  Damned if I know.  Matpu shows schedules from Plovdiv, not Veliko Tarnovo.  Oz Batu doesn’t exist on the internet.

So that’s that.  I can not wait!

One Week Until Europe!

Leave a reply

I need this vacation so bad.  I can not wait to be out in the world where my biggest stress is not being able to find iced coffee.

I am STILL not ready to leave.  I am not even sure how this happened.  I am one of those “packs months in advance!” neurotic kinda gals.  My life is just so hectic right now. I can not wait to escape it.  I can not wait to be standing HERE:

061_001_Belogradchishkakrepost.jpg

How do places like that exist on this planet and why the hell have I waited so long to see them?

I am also insanely excited to take my first steps on the continent of Asia.  Sure it’s cheating as I am doing this in Istanbul.  But I’m counting it.

Yesterday, my job asked us to pick which summer Fridays we want.  I love picking summer Fridays.  I love how I was already off for four of them, so I am gaining back more vacation time.  This also means I now have an additional two long weekends that I need to make plans for.

My head is all over the place today.  My job is insane. The people who work here should not be allowed to see daylight.   I can not wait to be far away.  Come on one week from today…..just one more week.  I can do this.

 

 

 

Two Weeks Until Euro Extravaganza!

Leave a reply

I am getting freaked out about how close my trip is. I am still not ready to go.  I am also still redoing my plans.  My last revision now has me going to Belgrade, Serbia and taking an overnight train to Bulgaria.  I have always wanted to take an overnight train.  I am sure that the reality of it will never match the vision of it that I have developed in my head.  But in the end, I will still have crossed yet another item off my bucket list.

It is so difficult planning travel in the Balkan countries.  Public transportation information is basically nonexistent online.  Adding to that, there is just so much to see.  It is killing me to know that lack of complete freedom in life is keeping me from seeing these places that I will be so close to:dubrovnik-croatia

Continue reading →

Three Weeks Until Euro Extravaganza!

Leave a reply

This morning I got up for work.  My first thought was “THREE WEEKS UNTIL VACATION!!!!”.  While getting my morning iced coffee out of the refrigerator, I noticed a fortune cookie that was leftover from last weekend.  I opened it and got THIS:

goningYes misspelled fortune cookie, yes I am.

My trip is so soon and I am still not ready.  Today I have decided to redo my itinerary again.  This is all because I can not find out if the Nis, Serbia bus station has luggage lockers. I had planned to stop there for a few hours between Sarajevo and Sofia.   If i take a chance and leave my trip the way its been cemented in for weeks now, I may find myself carrying my bag around sightseeing.  The internet tells me nothing.  So here I am right now taking a break from going  nutso and redoing my itinerary to switch out the “stop there for a few hours” part with “spend one night in Nis”.  Then I have to find a night in Bulgaria to give up so that I have a night to spend there.  I really need to consider booking more flexible trips, where I don’t insist upon seeing so much at one shot, so that I do have spare days.  But I don’t want to, because I want to see every inch of planet earth right NOW.

So my updated upcoming travels are now:

April 26 – May 20 – Europe

May 22 – May 27 – Seattle, WA

May 29 – June 3 – Austin, TX

June 6 – June 9 – combo of Chicago and Toronto.

I am the opposite of a fan of my job.  But I will admit that I am in love with both the amount of vacation time I get, as well as the fact that they let me take it all in a row like this.  Most places would not.