easter vacation in pictures....

my bulgarian easter trip started on the night train from sofia to varna on 26/27th of may. i had in mind to stay two nights in varna and somehow travel up north from there to the romanian border in order to visit my friend iselin and her family (we know each other from spain and hadn't met in almost three years). much more i hadn't planned, except, of course, my accommodation in varna: one night with a russian couchsurfer currently doing a voluntary service in varna and one night with a bulgarian CS woman (>40yrs), who proved to be extremely hospitable and had an admiringly amount of energy. soon she'll even own a small apartment just for couchsurfers a few km away from varna along the beach...wow!!!
the first night in varna i shared the bed with this little cute grey cat (picture 1). he was became really crazy in the morning, though, and kept playing with cat-and-mice with my hand, so i threw him out shortly after sunrise :D
unfortunately, my first two days in varna were....RAINY...mostly i walked through the city with my russian host, her polish room mate and two girls from NZ who had been hosted by tanya the previous nights. and we frequently escaped the rain in restaurants and cafés...well, in the end of the first day, i had been to three or four different places. hahaha. the next afternoon i met with another CSer, who offered me to give me a ride to the romanian boarder the following morning as there is only one bus line serving the route varna - costance which is quite expensive. i gladly accepted and the rest of the afternoon we spent walking a bit more through varna (picture 2: roman bath ruins - the oldest in...well, somewhere, and picture 3: varna beach)....at the end of the day i "moved" to rumi's place - my second host whom i had already met the day before...

sorry, i guess, it's getting a bit complicated with the chronology...but don't worry, it is not so important "when" i did things....the whole point of writing this down is giving you an impression of "what" i did, right?

anyway, the day i was leaving varna, the weather was great, sunny, warm....my "chauffeur" and i stopped twice along the coast - at "golden sands" (picture 4), one of the biggest tourist resorts: sea, beach, hotel complexes, highway, forest (national park). btw, i had noticed already in varna the huge amount of chestnut trees and also along the beaches and between them most trees were deciduous trees, many of them chestnuts as well. in my opinion very "fresh" and beautiful :) - and in balchik we walked to the castle once in the possession of a romanian queen (picture 5) and a bit around in the pretty gardens around - with the not yet blooming roses.

finally, we arrived at the bulgarian-romanian border (picture 6), which i crossed by foot while the cars were waiting in line (the picture was taken from the romanian side looking towards bulgaria). kinda cool!
after a few minutes iselin and her husband picked me up and drove me to their home only about 15 minutes further north in mangalia (pictures 7 and 8 - the church is just a few years old and if i got it correctly, the pastor who married iselin and her husband works there)

well, mangalia isn't really such a picturesque town so i didn't take many pictures there. but after all i have been there to visit iselin and to finally meet her cute little daughter sofia (*6.sept.06; picture 9) and the more touristic areas around mangalia (vama veche, and the resorts further north until constance) i had already visited in 2005 during my first time @ iselin's...

after just two nights, i had iselin take me to kavarna the next bigger town in bulgaria, from where i took the bus to varna. there, finally, i spent yet another day with sun at the beach (picture 10)
and in the company of the polish room mate of my first CS host walking through the center (picture 11 = cathedral in varna), along the sea, across a huuuuuuuge park and and and....until i took the night train back home to sofia just in time to attend a bulgaro-german wedding on may 3rd (greetings to kalina and henning :))

ach ja, und zu guter letzt grüße ich noch meinen liebsten wuschelfilzball, der ab morgen wieder in berlin ist und wo wir bald unsere gemeinsame zukunft beginnen werden *freu*