Bulgaria

Oh Bulgaria… what an interesting stop.

Day 0:
It only took us a couple hours to get from Istanbul to Varna (just up the Straits of Bosphorus and into the Black sea). So we were anchored in our tender spot by noon the day before we were allowed to get off the ship. Evil S@S… plain evil.

Day 1:
We slept in a bit on day 1. The night before they passed out all the passports because you had to have it with you at all times (which they changed ½ way through the port though because the port authorities kept telling people they didn’t need it to get back in). So the morning was fairly relaxed. We were tendering though so we had to wait for the first 2 S@S trips to leave before we could get our tender tickets and get off the ship. The ship was docked right next to a big park with a beach, an aquarium, a zoo, a dolphinarium (which is my new favorite word!!), and a kiddy park. Me, Bridget, Taryn, and Georgina went to find the dolphinarium and ended up walking for about and hour and 15 minutes. Oh yeah and we met up with Justine, Jordin, Ashley, and Alyssa.

So once we had been walking for a really long time and had no idea where we were we decided to ask for directions. So we stopped a man riding a bike in a speedo (thank god that trend never caught hold in America) and he pointed to where we were on the map, which was WAY farther than we wanted to go, so we back tracked and found the dolphinarium. When we got there the show had already started (at noon) and the next one wasn’t until 1530 so we found a nice Bulgarian guy who spoke English and asked where there was an ATM. He told us that there was a petrol station down the street with an ATM and a mall right by there with one as well. We walked down the road for about 15 minutes until we found it and we all got money and then went over to the mall for lunch. I got tortellini and it was delicious! After that we went back to the gas station and got some ice cream for dessert and then cabbed it back to the dolphinarium.

Ok so on S@S before each port we get a green sheet with important phone numbers and the times for the S@S trips and we also get a blue culture card that has some important phrases in the language of the country, common culture things like if tipping and if you should haggle or not, and the top 5 things to see in the port city. The dolphinarium was on the culture card as the #3 must see thing in varna and it was horrible. It was super cheesy and like a worse put on version of the dolphin show at the aquarium in Chicago with dirtier facilities. But we had fun anyway.

After the dolphin show we walked around the park some more and took pictures of things. It was interesting to see a country so defined by war. There were all sorts of tanks and helicopters etc left over from the war used to decorate the park. They even had those little kid things that have springs on the bottom and normally have a horse or something on top and the kid sits on it and rocks back and forth but instead of a horse they had a panda bear, Thomas the tank engine, and a tank.
After exploring the park we walked with Meli (another S@Ser) over to her hotel for a quick bathroom break and walked into town to explore. After that the ship was done tendering so we went back to eat dinner.

S@S has been a little upset because of  bunch of other S@Sers learned how to sneak on alcohol and they decided to crack down. So at preport they announced that they would be making the punishment for bringing alcohol onto the ship more severe and they made the checks more thorough. As a result I got felt up trying to get back on the ship. They went through my entire purse including my wallet and spilled all my lev coins into the bottom of my purse and then after I swiped on the lady who usually checks my purse went all Turkish baths on me to make sure I hadn’t hidden alcohol in my dress.

After dinner we took naps and went out.

Day 2:
I started my day at a nice late 11:00 and headed out to Karin Dom, a rehabilitation center for disabled children. Taryn was on the trip too. We started off by the man who started the center coming out and giving a speech and then the children sang a couple songs for us. It was really cute. One of the older children sang a song for us as well. Then we had to wait for the musicians to show up so some S@Sers sang some songs for the children (You Are My Sunshine, The Eensy Weensy Spider, and Twinkle Twinkle). Finally the musicians arrived and played a couple little flute things and some bag pipes and we did traditional Bulgarian dancing and finally got to play with the kids. I got some pizza and pop and chatted with a guy with twin 3 yr old daughters who had a mental disability. Him and his Bulgarian wife had been taking their kids to Karin Dom since they were a year old. After I was done with my pizza I took the trash for the group and then went to the playground to play.

I met this little girl at the playground (I have no idea what her name is. Every time I asked her she talked so quiet that I couldn’t hear her). We ended up going down the slide together a couple times (I counted to 3 every time before I went and before she went) and then she showed me the stickers she picked out and then she went down the bigger slide. I didn’t want to crawl through all the tubes to go there so I waited at the side. When she saw me there she sat and waited. I didn’t know what she wanted and then I realized that she wanted me to count to 3. After a while she ran away and I watched one of the twins try to figure out the videographer’s camera. It was adorable! Especially when the videographer turned the screen around so she could see herself. After a while she lost interest and started looking for these little red beetle things that scared the living daylights out of me. I saw a bunch so I pointed them out and she started walking around looking for more. I followed her and after about a minute she decided that she was going to sit on my lap. Her mom told me that she knew the alphabet song so I sang it and she grabbed my hand and tapped it in time to the music. So cute!! After we sang a couple other songs together (she tried to do the hand motions to the eensy weensy spider… it was funny) it was time for the kids to go so I walked Gabi back and they both looked shocked that she had sat still for so long.

After that it was time for a tour. They showed us the business rooms and the therapy rooms for speech therapy, Montessori therapy (that made me laugh!), physical therapy, music therapy, etc. It was really cool to see things like an alphabet poster and a colors poster in Bulgarian, especially since I spend so much time at Jumpstart putting up posters and have seen my share of English ones.

After that we boarded the buses again and headed back to the ship. I had dinner on the ship, took a nap (yay!), and then went out.

Day 3:
We slept in again and then had lunch and headed out to find the bungee jumping bridge. Taryn had heard that it was a short walk so we headed out in the right direction. After about 20 minutes we were pretty sure we were lost so we asked some truckers via charades where the bungee place was and as soon and we pretended to jump off the bridge they all went “Bungee! Bungee!” and pointed up the bridge. So we walked for another 15 minutes or so and finally found the place. There were 11 people in front of us when we got in line and so we had to wait for about an hour before we could go. Taryn went first and yelled “F***” the entire time. She was the most excited about it because she loves heights. Bridget went next and didn’t even scream. I was getting bundled up in my harness when she went and I didn’t even notice she was gone until I looked down and she was dangling from the cord.

One lesson I learned on the ship before we headed out to bungee jump is that it is a bad idea to do extreme sports on S@S because there are a lot of nervous nelly’s on S@S and they will tell you stats you don’t want to hear such as bungee jumping is the leading cause of detached eyeballs and 1 in every 6 people who bungee jump die. After I was strapped into my harness the dreadlock guy sent me to talk to the guy who would attach me to the actual bungee cord and I decided to ask him if it was actually that scary. His response was, “Oh the first time is not that bad. The second time is worse because you know what is coming.” As you can guess that wasn’t exactly comforting.

The place we were jumping from didn’t have a platform or anything so we had to climb up on the rail to jump and that was the part I was most scared of. I was sure that I was going to fall over backward before I actually wanted to jump. The guy gave me a 5 minute bungee lesson so I’d know what I was doing. I climbed up on the rail and the guy said “ok you can go now” and I turned around and yelled “What?!?” and then I realized that it was time to jump and freaked out slightly. I decided to jump right away before I lost my nerve.

The jump was AWESOME!!!! I felt like I was going to hit the water and seriously thought I was going to die and then the rope pulled me back up and I bounced around for a while. The first thing I had to do was figure out which way was up so I started by looking at my up and everyone elses down (the water) and then figured out where the bridge was. Then I had to figure out what side of the bridge I was on so I looked for the heads hanging over the side and found them. Then I had to grab the rope that the non-dreadlock guy sent down to me and that took a little while. Then I hooked it to me and they pulled me up and I was done! Whew!

Georgina went next and she was really nervous! She literally turned about 4 shades lighter than normal. It took her a little while to work up the nerves to stand up and actually go. She started saying “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” And we thought that she was going to get down from the railing. But she jumped! And I could see her swearing to herself the entire time : )

After that we caught a cab back to the ship, ate dinner, took a nap, and went out.

Day 4:
I woke up pretty early on the last day to go on an orphanage visit. There were a lot of people signed up for it so they split us up into 3 buses. One for the baby’s orphanage, one for children ages 3-8, and one for disabled children. I picked the baby one (birth to age 3). The bus ride was pretty short and when we got there our tour guide translated for the lady who runs the place and she told us a little about how it got started and what happens with the kids when they get older. After she talked for about a half hour we all washed our hands and split into disabled, baby babies, and older babies (aka 2 and 3 yr olds). I picked the older babies and we went out to the playground.

I had so much fun playing with the kids! As soon as I got out there a little boy came up and said hi so I put down my purse on the side of the sidewalk and gave the little boy a high five. While I was doing that another little boy, Georgi, came up and took my purse. I had to chase the little guy to get it back and once I tickled him enough that he let go he grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the S@Ser handing out wafer cookies and got one. He at it in like 2 seconds and dragged me over to a S@Ser handing out pretzels and grabbed 2. He kept going between the 2 until both his hands were full and then he tried to feed me a cookie. I said no and once he was done eating we played for a long time. He was really funny and when he saw another S@Ser using a wheat looking thing to tickle another kids foot he took off his shoe and handed me a wheat thingy and then stole my shoe and tickled my foot. Such a cute kid : ) If it didn’t take a couple years I probably would have adopted him.

After that I went back and ate lunch at the ship and then headed out to town in search of postcards and stamps. This was the first port that hasn’t had a touristy shop with everything from jewelry to postcards to shirts available. It took me an hour of walking to hunt down a place that had postcards. It probably wouldn’t have taken that long if I spoke Bulgarian but the word “postcard” is really hard to mime (I tried… there is a reason I’m not an actress). Once I found the actual post cards it was easy to ask someone where stamps were because I could point to the post cards with the little square in the corner where the stamp goes. I spent the last of my lev on the way back to the ship and wrote my postcards when I got back and then (shocker) I took a nap and ate dinner and then watched Law and Order: SVU with my friends which was funny because we fit 5 of us in mine and Bridget’s room.

We get to Egypt tomorrow and i'm really excited for it!! Yay africa : )
Day 1- S@S trip, The Best of Alexandria (gotta love a city named after Alexander the great : )
Day 2- Cairo day trip
Day 3- Pyramids with Camel and Jeep Safari
Day 4- TBD
Day 5- TBD but probably stay in Alexandria and shop

Alrighty… I’m going to go listen to the deans try to scare us during the preport. Hope everyone is having a fabulous summer and is getting super tan and enjoying America for me : )