This time we are traveling east, from Blagoevgrad to Varna. That’s like Los Angeles to New York except it’s a shorter distance across Bulgaria. We began our cross-country journey at 7:00 am sharp with every member of the group on the bus. We were immediately rewarded with a stop at “Viva” gas station for coffee. Our bus driver, Georgi was the hero of the day for his quick maneuver to the nearest coffee pot. There’s nothing worse than driving a bus full of teachers who wants to know when they will get their coffee.
Here’s a list of things and activities that caught our attention on the roads across Bulgaria:
Stephanie Knapp: This country has more organized agriculture than I have ever seen; there are machinery and substantial sized fields planted with crops. Then I saw a man with a hay wagon and a donkey!
Margaret Holtschlag: I saw miles and hours of sunflowers!
Pat Goodman: Seems like road construction is happening for the first time. The infrastructure that is, there’s lots of construction going on everywhere.
Andrea Hartlund: As we drove across the country, I noticed that there’s very little development going on and if there are any activities at all, it’s very sparse.
Anne W. Dale Blair: The card-board cut out of cop cars stationed along the roads are quite interesting. Fake cop cars? C’mon!
Kristen Holtschlag: I noticed that there are so many trees ….and long tunnels.
Heather Bartlett: Van Gogh could not have painted enough sunflowers even if he could paint his entire life.
Julie Marek: I like the pre-fab houses. These are metal boxes with windows. Probably the first aluminum houses to exist.
Larry Neitzert: This is the first time I see an agriculture system much like the American model.
Carol Mohrlock: I noticed the bridges with Cyrillic boards as we get closer to Varna.
Karen Lee: There’s a lot more advertisement (highway billboards) that don’t make sense to me.
Shirley Hazlett: I saw small groups of people, men and women, sitting, having coffee and gossiping along the side of the roads.
AnnMarie Borders: I spotted a shepherd, some sheeps and lambs. The sheeps all walk in a straight line and the lambs were frolicking and gamboling on the field.
Pamela Galbraith: Bulgaria is the most beautiful country in the world!
Kristin Grattan: I am trying to make sense of all these Cyrillic signs….the bus is going too fast!
Le Tran: The contrasts found in this country are fascinating. There are farming equipments and then there are peasants working on the fields. There are crumbling apartments and there are posh new shops sitting next to each other.
We reached our destination at 5:30 p.m. Checked into our rooms with our new roommate and then walked toward the Black Sea. We had to check out the sea as most of us are from the Mid-West. We were definitely behaving like teenagers on the beach with our cameras snapping pictures with our friends. Some of us stayed on the beach until sunset. We enjoyed a leisurely dinner on the deck of a large restaurant. As far as our eyes could see, the water was beautiful and the sky clear. The clouds were pristinely white and magical. Seagulls chased each other across the sky, squealing like little children on a playground. The cool breezes of the ocean calmed us as we chatted away, enjoying each other’s company and the wonderful air enveloping us. What an end to another day in Bulgaria.
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