much to my surprise, last nights 12 hour night train journey from bucharest to here, was less painfull than i would have imagined. i may go so far as to say that it was enjoyable. well, as far as night trains go. enjoyable enough to justify my not having spent the whopping $9 extra it would have cost to get the sleeper. i figure, its always an adventure on the train, and hell, i can sleep wen i get to my destination. on this particular train, it helped that there were just 4 of us in the compartment. all about my age, a couple from romania, and a guy from bulgaria. so we were all speaking english of course, cause my romanian and bulgarian are limited to please, thank you, and cheers. lots of interesting conversations, and it was nice to have people explaining to me about bulgaria, as i knew it was going to be strange, but i had no idea exactly just how strange it would be. (its worth noting, that at one point in the evening, we were all sitting there, minding our own business, chatting and whatnot, when all of a sudden there was a huge explosion. in our compartment. christ it sounded like gunfire. after panicing for a few seconds, i looked around to find everyone was ok, just covered in dirt. there was dirt EVERYWHERE. as it turns out, someone had thrown a large dirt clod through the open window of our compartment, and it had hit and exploded everywhere. freaked me out, thats for sure. i had been standing at that window catching some fresh air not 30 seconds prior to that. jeeez. scary, but everyone was ok. phew.)
stepping off the train was like stepping onto another planet completely. now, i've been in scads of different languages before, and getting off the train is always a bit of a culture shock, but at least previously, it has always been with a latin character set. and almost always, there has been at least SOME english to accompany it. no no coco, were in noman's land here. bulgarian is a cyrillic language (think russian), and thus, there is no deciphering one word from another. it may as well be japanese. its the most surreal experience ever, to look around a train station and not even be able to pronounce a single word. especially at 6am, having not slept much at all. thankfully, my bulgarian friend was there, and point me in the right direction towards town. and fortunately, it was a straight walk. 6am, freezing outside, and here i am walking with a map thats written in ENGLISH, trying to navigate signs that are CYRILLIC.
i made it, finally, after meeting up with a german guy in a backpack along the way. at 6am, you can pretty much assume that someone with a packpack, staring blankly at a map (as i was), is probably a backpacker headed the same place you are. its a bit reassuring. we made it, to the art hostel, and i promptly passed out until noon.
and with the much needed rest, i've spent the remainder of the day wondering about, orienting myself not only with the city, but in the process, with the language. i sat inside of a cathedral for a good hour, just reading phrases from my phrase book (more of a list than a book really), and after a while, finally began to get the hang of it. its actually pretty neat to be able to sound these words out, as many of them ar cognates to english or another language. even the word INTERNET is obviously not written I-N-T-E-R-N-E-T, but if you can sound it out, it sounds just like it should. so there i was, walking around town, taking pictures and reading outloud any signs that i could see. quite entertaining, really.
it may be all in vain, however, as i doubt that i spend much time in bulgaria. sofia is a billion times better than bucharest. literally, a BILLION. it has character, and feels small, and homey, whereas bucharest certainly did not. buuut, its not quite homey enough to keep me from the beach, so after visiting a monastery tomorrow, its bye bye bulgaria, and hello greece. another country where i'll have to learn a new character set in order to survive. ha.