Greetings from the road

I need to be quick as I'm on one of those shared computers at a hostel in Bulgaria. It's hot. Even the Austrailians are saying it's hot, and they should know.

I have always wanted to go to Bulgaria just to learn to read the Cyrillic alaphabet and to have a confusing time with nodding and shaking my head. It's not a lot of reasons for wanting to visit a place, but do you have anything better?

Here, to say yes you shake your head back and forth, and no is up and down. It seems so easy in theory and I even practiced, only to fail miserably when the time came. I was on a bus from Varna on the Black Sea Coast to Veliko Ternovo and of course, the trains are running late so I'm not sure when my stop is (I have to change trains). So, I ask the woman who I have been sitting accross from and watching sleep for the last three hours. First I try to say the name of the town but failed, so then I tried to show her where I had written it down, but it was in the wrong alaphabet. Well, eventually I got my point across and she nods her head up and down and says No in Bulgarian. So, is it my stop or isn't it? Of course not. So I wait for the next stop of which she looks at me, smiles, and shakes her head back and forth. Now?

Later, on the next train a man is pointing out the town of Veliko Turnovo, which is a grand old town and once capital of Bulgaria, and I'm trying to say how beautiful it is and I'm nodding my head up and down and he's looking at me as if I don't approve. Oops, so I smile at myself and start shaking my head, but it turned more into just swinging my head around in circles because I really have no idea of which way it should go. I'm sure I looked like a complete ass, or like I had some neck kink. Well, either way, I arrived to the right town and didn't seem to offend anyone too much.

I'll post pictures later in the week.