Greetings from Varna

Zdraveite!

Our hotel is alongside a very large park, a few kilometers away from
the town center. It is a restful place and we are happy to stay in
one location for a few days. We were very tired last night after our
marathon travel experience. Overnight train from Istanbul to Sophia,
then finding a reliable taxi from Sophia to the airport, flying across
the country to the east coast of Bulgaria. The train was very spartan.
Two other passengers shared our compartment. They were both english
speakers and friendly.

Today we walked through the park to the town, saw a lot of sites,
bought delicious raspberries from the market and also bought a peach
because our Polish friend, Ewa, said they were very good. Will try it
later and let you know. All of the food has been wonderful, tomatoes
have so much flavor they are like candy. Fresh fish is always on the
menu. I did enjoy pork last night, something not readily available in
Turkey!

In one part of the park there was a place where mostly elderly women
were selling crocheted table cloths, doilies, knitted socks. The
owner of our hotel told us that the average wage in Bulgaria is
$400/month. Price of gas is very high.

Dogs run freely through the park. Most of them have a plastic ear tag,
which I surmise is some sort of registration. A few cats were in the
park. My heart was stolen last night at the restaurant by a sweet
calico kitten.

Bulgaria is so different from Turkey! It feels and looks much more
western. Less muslim population and we have not heard the call to
prayer. People are friendly. Apparently few Americans visit Varna.
When we use our little bit of Bulgarian language the locals are quite
impressed! The Cyrillic alphabet is a challenge but we are having
fun decoding words.

We went to the Ethnographic Museum today which was interesting. Love
the textiles and native dress . Lots of walking, took the bus back to
our hotel.

Tomorrow we plan to spend some time at the beach. We can see the
Black Sea from our hotel.

Don't forget to check out some of our pictures of our trip on our website!