Kay Goes Intrepid!

Well I've met my group. There are twelve of us in addition to our tour leader, Amanda, who is sweet and young and British. All tour participants other than myself are Australian (the company in Australian). I'm also the only person in my "age group." There are two 31 year olds, the rest are all rather old, but adventurous types; most have done Intrepid trips before and see it as a special way of travel.

It's also disconcerting that seven of them have already been traveling together on a linked Intrepid tour, plus two old lady friends did the same thing the rest of them did but a few days earlier. So now I feel self-conscious about not being able to talk about Vienna, or Poland, or the Czech Republic, or Slovakia....

But everyone is really nice; I love that the middle-aged guys ran up to their room to get beers when we made the move from the lobby to the breakfast room during our 45 minute welcome meeting. And our first dinner was walking to an outdoor street festival to get beer and sausages (really really good sausages).

The two 31 year old have been friends since kindergarten. I want to be all friendly with them but I can't help this feeling that they're a tiny bit weird. At one point, Amanda was telling us that all the cities we were going to weren't dangerous but naturally we should follow precautions one would employ in any of our cities at home - like, would you walk around late at night by yourself there? And one of these girls goes, "Well of course! And leave the door unlocked too!" I admired the way Amanda just went on talking, it was just weird and a bit awkward to say that in a voice nearly shouting.

All of them do something I find outrageously funny: apologize to me every time they say the word "America" or "US" even though they aren't saying negative things about it! The other 31 year old (I'm still working on the names; it's only been a few hours) was talking about her problems getting cash after her wallet was stolen. She had a Mastercard and they weren't giving her Hungarian Forints, so she asked if she could get US (I'm sorry) dollars. One of the other ladies was talking about a trip: oh, when we were in America (I'm sorry), we went to blah blah... The way they do it is just hilarious!

Somehow I got miraculously lucky. There are five pairs of people (three couples, two set of women friends), me and some guy named Bruce who didn't show up at the welcome meeting or dinner. This means I'll get a private room almost every night! When I arrived today, the receptionist told me I had a single room, and I get to it, a huge bathroom (relatively) and a king-sized bed! I just sat down unsure whether to just stay in bed all day or go out and actually see stuff. Soooo comfortable, wow. I did a good mixture of both. I mean, I like bunk beds a lot, but it's a special thing to have a nice hotel room all to yourself.

I went to a gyro place today and asked for one, surprised to find how nice the man working there was. His English wasn't great, but he asked where I was from then commented on how much he liked Seattle's basketball team, not something I get very often. I totally assumed he was Hungarian, then he volunteered that he was from Iraq and I was so delighted I just starting spouting Arabic at him. We were having a nice simple conversation until I asked why he lived in Hungary...but then of course he said three of his daughters and his parents were killed in the war. I said I was very sorry, but wasn't really sure how to continue, so it got awkwardly quiet until he kindly offered that he liked American people he only hated American government. I've had the same conversation so many times in Jordan, it felt weird to repeat it in Arabic in a city like Budapest. One plus was that when I was paying, two Hungarian guys my age were inside ordering, and they said something to me in English, I responded, then talked to the guy more in Arabic. I think it was the only time in four days I felt serious respect from a Hungarian!

Bulgaristan

Menus in Bulgaria have entertaining English, here are some of the delicacies we came across (all quotation marks from the original menus):

Wolf Bites
Platter "Wolf's Hunger"
Wolf Salad (a dish of various meats and some cheeses, as well as the interesting inclusion of "homework dry")
Fillet "Minion"
Liver in a Hunter's Way
Mushrooms in a Shepherd's Way
Sauce "Tartar"
Salad for Drinking "Fox"
Big Sandwich with Forcemeat
And many many things in earthenware pots.

The food overall was fantastic, lots of salads and vegetables. Many salads include heaping portions of yoghurt, which frightened me at first, but now I'm having trouble going back to "normal" salads.

The three hostels i stayed at in Bulgaria were the best three hostels I have ever stayed anywhere. I feel bad for my friend Marya, because this is her first time staying in hostels and the rest of her hostelling life will just be a disappointing search for one like those in Bulgaria.

Marya and I went to a bookstore in Veliko Tarnovo, the first city in Bulgaria we visited, because she didn't have a novel in English and wanted to get War and Peace. I was looking at postcards and she said to me from a shelf: "Oh, hey, they have books in English." I didn't hear, but a middle-aged guy standing her near goes: "Yes, they do, and they can read them too." Poor Marya was so stunned she couldn't get any good retort out and just sort of stuttered "Uh...I didn't mean...I was just..." They didn't have War and Peace, so we just awkwardly rushed out of the store.

The Lonely Planet has been wrong about many things in many cities. The locations of several places have changed. This has led to very sad problems, but despite the fact that my friend speaks far better Arabic than I and is rather smarter; I have discovered that I am FAR superior at reading maps and navigating than she is. This has brightened my spirits in those difficult times of being lost.

Hungarians really don't seem to like me at all. I don't much care, because I love Budapest more than anywhere else and I'm going to move here someday and learn Hungarian and be rude to them back.