In Bulgaria: By the Black Sea

I arrived in Burgas at 7:45. It was early in the morning and yet I could instantly feel the heat and immediately regretted wearing jeans despite Marketa’s prior warning that the temperature went up to almost 30 degrees a couple of days ago. Numbers mean absolutely nothing to me, I can’t relate to them. You can shout 40 degrees at me but if you don’t tell me exactly what to wear, I probably will pack an extra jacket that I almost did if I hadn’t asked Marketa the night before my departure. For some strange reason, whenever I go someplace new, regardless of the season, irrespective of the weather, I always think that it is going to be cold and have to bring a jacket. On the other hand, when I travel in the cold season to cold places, I can never imagine how cold it can get and bring the clothes you would wear in the summer and freeze myself out.

Marketa wrote me a note on how to get to her flat in Pomorie, a city 20 minutes away from Burgas. I walked out of the airport to the street to the bus stop and saw a bus about to leave. I dragged my luggage, and ran toward the bus, preventing it from moving. I saw the sign ‘Pomorie’ while the driver kept saying ‘Pomorie’ and some sound similar to ‘No.’ But I insisted on repeating ‘Pomorie’ until the driver shook his head and waved for me to come in. After securing my luggage at the front of the bus, next to the driver seat and comfortably sat down, I started noticing my Balkan surrounding. Riding on the bus in the Balkan and the seaside is something I have come to enjoy. It is always lively, insanely relaxing. The drivers aren’t stressed out, annoyed like those in the city and often let me hop in and out when I wish. They don’t slam the door in your face when you arrive a minute late. There are always some middle-aged women or men sitting in front to talk nonsense with the bus driver. There is no exception here.

The bus dropped me off in New Pomorie where I switched to a local bus. I showed them Marketa’s note. The ticket controller took my note, asked the driver and nodded. The bus dropped me off in front of a red building. I grabbed an old lady and asked for “Trovsga ulica.” She pointed to the direction of a street but told me to double check with a taxi driver. Bulgarians speak a Slavic language that sounds very similar to Serbo-Croatian. In another 10 minutes, I was standing in front of Marketa’s flat.

Marketa is a friend of a colleague of mine. She is half Bulgarian and Slovak. Every summer, she and her mom go on vacation to Pomorie to see her Bulgarian family. We met only a few times, and I’ve already invited myself to visit her and her mother at their holiday home. I wanted to come to Burgas the year before and maybe met up with Market for a few days. But I ended up not going because I couldn’t find any cheap ticket and didn’t have many holiday left. Fast-forward to one year later, Marketa and I have gotten to know each other a little better. I’ve always thought I know someone better since my interpretation of ‘friend’ is very loose. Like the Latino, I refer most of whom I know as ‘friends’. Here I am spending a mini holiday with someone I had gone out only within a group.

I have no complaint. A nice little place by the Black Sea, what can beat that?