I’m back from my latest adventure now (with 3411 photos and 1 whole notepad – that’s 140 pages) – a 2 week trip round Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. This was a day in Bucharest – Romanias capital – and the day also happened to be my birthday…

It appeared my roommate was curling her hair with curling irons in the dark; a short discussion on money belts was had once I was dressed (with mine on – it’s traveled a lot and is starting to disintegrate), and it was 7:05AM when we went downstairs, where I began my breakfast with fruit (and followed it with some cooked stuff), mango juice, an orange from my bag, and bits of melon. Snow in Massachusetts in 1992 (three foot of it fell overnight) was mentioned to me, I explained the UKs Monster Raving Loony Party; and school days were among the conversation at the table (and then I spotted a bulldog nearby).

I decided to have a mug of hot chocolate (and then I knicked a couple of biscuits); we went and grabbed our stuff and she gave me a plastic folder to put biscuits in, and back downstairs, she handed our keys in at reception and walked off somewhere. I sat down and consumed another biscuit and another mug; ‘It’s Raining Men’ was playing on the speakers at 9:30 AM, and 7 girls (about thirteen years old – in basketball kit – with one holding a trophy) were leaving the hotel and it said ‘smart basketball’ on their shorts (and Google has now told me what a smart basketball is: The Smart Basketball is a ball that works with the Dribbleup app to provide kids with real-time virtual feedback on their dribbling performance. At Dribbleup, our Smart Basketball uses computer vision technology to track the ball as it moves). Then I sampled another rather sweet thing (and thought I had the right to – given the day)(usually I try and limit it as I’m diabetic), noticed ‘I’m a Barbie Girl’ playing quietly at that point – followed by ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’; and I was trying to keep a bit of health in my breakfast by then and had grabbed an apple, a big Bulldog type dog who had quite big testicles had been walked past; and it was 21°C at 10:10 AM when me, P and D left the place while talking about cats (as they’ve got one who’s got a kink in her tail).

We reached strada Stirbei Voda, and P pointed out a massive trail of ants crossing the pavement and coming out and going into a tree, pigeons were everywhere in the park sort of place, an incredibly rusty old car was on the street prior to Revolution Square – where a white spire with a blob on it symbolizes Romania, (which P thought was symbolizing communism and I thought it looked like a gone wrong pom-pom) (Wikipedia says: The Memorial of Rebirth (Memorialul Renașterii in Romanian) is a memorial in Bucharest, Romania that commemorates the struggles and victims of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which overthrew Communism. The Memorial of Rebirth has been described as “the impaled potato”, “a potato skewered on a stake”, an “olive on a toothpick”, “the potato of the revolution” and “the vector with the crown”.).

Calea Victoriei was a closed off road that we crossed to a building (with a statue surrounded by flowers – and P said that man was the founder of Turkey), Teatrul Odeon was something I forgot; and further down was a butchers with scarily large bits of meat in, a massive building covered in a sheet, and a huge advert for a Google Pixel.

A shop called ‘Two Mad Dogs Burgers And More’ had a big plastic bubble outside and wasn’t far from the big stone building, and a drunk/high person was stumbling around and struggling to stay upright, a cafe had ‘Everydays a Greek Day’ on a banner outside, and we stopped at a different one called Grand Cafe – Van Gough, and while sat there, talked about Shakespeare, books, I mentioned the World Of Books website, he said he reads The Times literary supplement, and did English and Italian at Warwick University, (reading Italian novels was part of it), and it was about 11.30am we began wandering back.

B was met, and the Circul Militar National (The Palace of the National Military Circle) and a man collapsed in a doorway were passed on the way, P ensured I knew we were going back the way we came, I noticed the t-shirts of 2 men: BROCCO-LI (and a cartoon of a bit of broccoli), and ‘I THINK I AM AS MAGIC AS FUCK’, and a man in a doorway was playing music with a saw.

By 12.05PM we were in a chemist (which was well air-conditioned), I noticed nasal aspirators; and a few more things I forgot were talked about before we got back to the hotel. I forgot when, as I was absolutely desperate for the loo, and at a table inside – the 3 of us sat down with some water, phones were poked, and the van was loaded, boarded, and moved (being driven by S) at 1.07pm.

I noticed there were several religious pictures above the drivers seat, C announced that it was my birthday at that point (because my birthday was on the forms when I signed up), and then talked about Bulgarian culture and that they don’t say please and thank you a lot, they have a lot of pink tomatoes, and they produce a lot of rose oil. By 1.40pm – when the van said it was 40°C – we were on a road called E70, and a place called Jilava was approaching rapidly; 30 minutes later we were on the E85 – where the queues of lorries extended for miles, I saw a lot of Transylvanian lorries, and I was getting sleepy and had my eyes shut (while retaining consciousness). I forgot when the border with Bulgaria (which is the River Danube) was reached because I decided to consume a rather large ice cream (and thought I’d consumed way too much sweet stuff today); we were told this was The Friendship Bridge (Wikipedia says: The Danube Bridge (also known as the Friendship Bridge: Bulgarian: Мост на дружбата, Most na druzhbata or, more commonly, Дунав мост, Dunav most; Romanian: Podul Prieteniei or Podul de la Giurgiu) is a steel truss bridge over the Danube River connecting the Bulgarian bank to the south with the Romanian bank to the north and the cities of Ruse and Giurgiu respectively. It is one of only two bridges connecting Romania and Bulgaria, the other one being the New Europe Bridge between the cities of Vidin and Calafat) – and our guide said stuff about uncertainty avoidance (which – now I’ve looked it up – seems to be an unbelievably complicated thing) in Bulgaria and in Switzerland.

It was 4pm when the border was crossed, what we were told was a traditional Bulgarian snack was handed out; and it was 4.26pm when we passed the end of the queue going the other way on the E85. Driving continued, I had a look back through my notepad, a village called Kutsina had horrendous (what may’ve been an attempt to handbuild) speed bumps; and at 5.53pm we entered Veliko Tarnovo…

I forgot when we got to the hotel – because M helped L with her case, and then a quick bit of unpacking was done, and we went back out for a quick bit of exploration of the Bulgarian city before dinner: while out and about, knives, knife cases, and magnets (of all sorts of shapes and sizes – some pretty sexual) were noticed in shop windows…

…further down was a shop with a heck of a lot of soap, butter, perfume and body firming cellulite cream; then 1 with a bit of cookery equipment, plates and pottery; an art shop with a lot of big horse paintings, and the next art shop had wooden penises of various sizes. 1 called ‘Happy Potter’ had some gorgeous stuff; and we continued down the road intermittently peering into windows (and passing a Bulgarian bank), and got to the restaurant on time.

There, the group took up 2 tables; I decided to treat myself – with homemade lemonade (which there were 3 varieties of) and interesting ‘open sausages’, it rapidly got dark, I tried to photograph everyone with their plates, the Canadian woman in the group managed to photograph me, I could only consume 2 of the 4 sausages (and wrapped the other 2 in a napkin to keep as emergency food supplies), a woman came round trying to sell roses, we all paid; and the hotel was returned to by 9.30pm.