Sept. 7….Our last days in Eastern Europe

The next morning, after breakfast, we took the local bus into Sunny Beach to try and find the ticket office where the tourist information guy had told us we could buy our bus tickets to Istanbul . He gave us a landmark to look for and, we got off the bus when I though I saw it. We asked a man on the street for directions and, unfortunately, he steered us in the opposite direction of where we should have gone. After walking for what seemed like hours along the zoo of a boardwalk of Sunny Beach and all the tacky hotels, we finally talked to a young man who takes the bus to Istanbul regularly and he directed us right back to where we had hopped off the bus. Hot and exhausted, we finally found the office and bought our tickets for the night of Sept, 9 at 11 p.m. This was an overnight bus that would get us into Istanbul at six in the morning on the 10th. We would be staying at another home exchange from the 10th to the 17th. Not wanting to walk another step, we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant, of all things, that was a block from the ticket office. It wasn't great and more expensive than the Bulgarian food but, we had the "Bulgarian Nights" feast to look forward to that evening,

We got back to the condo in time to rest up a bit before meeting the bus that would take us to the village were the Bulgarian nights was being held. When we arrived, we were greeted by a white haired man playing some sort of bagpipe instrument. The grounds of the facility were quite interesting, attempting, I think, to create a typical Bulgarian village of days gone by.   In one area, there was a variety of animals that the guests could view, and, then, there was a huge hall with picnic tables and a stage where the dinner was to be served while we watched the show . The village was known for making its own wine, stored in large vats, and we were encouraged to drink as much as we wanted as it was included with the dinner and the goal, according to our hosts, was to leave the feast having emptied the vats.

After walking around the grounds and viewing the animals, we found our seats and dinner was served as the show began. It was a little hokey at first, as it was mainly geared towards the kids in the audience but, as it progressed, the musical numbers and traditional dancing were very entertaining and well performed. The traditional food was mediocre but adequate and, of course, the wine flowed freely. After the dinner and the show, everyone went outside to a spot where a fire had been burning but, by now, had been reduced to hot coals. Apparently, there is some kind of Bulgarian tradition of walking on hot coals and, with much pomp and circumstance, one of the villagers, in bare feet, proceeded to enact this tradition .

The best part of the evening followed after that with a raucous band and even more raucous guests dancing to the modern, as well as traditional, tunes while attempting to finish off all the wine in the vats.  The majority of the people attending this event were from Russia, Estonia and Latvia and there was a group of older Russian woman who decided that Bill was their "man of the evening."  They were a riot as they took turns pulling him onto the dance floor. One of them, who must have been particularly fond of Bill, planted him with kisses and hugs. The whole affair lasted until about midnight and we didn't get back to the condo until almost one in the morning.Sept. 8 - 9 We spent our last two days in Sveti Vlas swimming and relaxing at the pool, walking on the beach and, basically, just chilling out. Both Hirzetema and the guy at the tourist office has told us about an up-scale restaurant, "Cactus", in the Marina that had fabulous food and a fantastic view so, we decided to treat ourselves and go there for dinner . It was located way past the end of the boardwalk at the marina and up a hill so, the view was fantastic and the meal didn’t disappoint us, particularly the incredibly rich and sinful chocolate soufflé dessert. The next day, we were leaving for Istanbul late that evening so, we did more relaxing by the pool and then, late afternoon, walked up to the village to make one last attempt at finding Bill a Bulgarian tee shirt. We finally found one that was acceptable and, even though it had Bulgaria written in English, it didn’t have any other stupid touristy sayings on it. We, once again, checked out the menus at the various restaurants and struck up a conversation with one of the hawkers outside one of the restaurants who convinced us that we should dine at his establishment. Once again, the meal reinforced our belief that the food in Bulgaria and Romania was superior and cheaper than any of the food we had eaten in other parts of Europe, which was a huge and delightful surprise. The salad and our appetizer of stuffed mushrooms were delicious and prepared beautifully and my head was filled with different things to try making once we got home.After our early dinner, we walked back to the condo to pack, making sure we didn’t forget anything, We caught a taxi to Sunny Beach where we would board the bus and, then waited for about an hour for it to arrive. As it was an overnight trip, we were hoping to be able to get some sleep so we would be a little rested to start the next leg of our adventure which was going to be incredibly different from what we had experienced in Europe.