Day 2 - Bulgaria

While most of the group had stated last night that they were planning to chill on the ship today, upon waking in the morning, everyone was eager to check out Bulgaria.  As you might expect, we started this family vacation attempting to balance the desire to check in with each other, courteously agreeing to join with each other on excursions, wanting to ensure that we all get to enjoy time with dad without monopolizing his time and also aware that we each also have a need to satisfy our own interests.  This could be a potential relationship minefield. Already there are clear differences on the approach each of us has interacting with Dad’s interpreted needs, but I remain positive that we will work it all out, its early days yet.

Chris and Stephanie stayed behind on the ship to deal with luggage issues while everyone else (except me) went to the ancient, fortified city of Veliko Tarnova that used to be the capital city of Bulgaria.  While I am sure that there were many interesting facts about the tour, all that Gus could talk about was the massive communal bed in the sleeping area of the fortress.

I went by myself on a hiking tour to see the rock-hewn church and caves carved into the limestone cliffs of Ivanovo.  They were carved during the 12^th-14^th century by Christian monks dedicated to a life of silence but not discovered until the 19^th century. 

My tour was only a half day, so I returned to the ship for lunch with Chris and Stephanie.  I wanted to send a postcard and surprisingly, the ship couldn’t accommodate this, so the three of us decided to take the 15-minute walk into the city to the post office.  This may seem like a pretty unremarkable activity to share, but as many of you probably know, not everything is simple in a foreign country.  First, Eastern Europe is in the middle of a heat wave and the temperature today is a steamy 34 degrees without the humidex, you go outside, and you melt.  Secondly, one might assume that euros would be acceptable everywhere, not so much.  The post office would not accept them, nor do they accept credit cards.  This was not a small back of the shop counter; it was a full-sized government post office.  The lady at the counter, who didn’t speak English, told me in French how much the stamp would cost in Leva, then told me how to get to the bank.  Chris tapped out at this point and returned to the ship before he melted into a puddle.  Surprise, surprise…. the bank doesn’t deal in cash, period.  Off Stephanie and I went to find a currency exchange office and finally back to the post office.  Alas, with Chris gone, so was our navigation.  Neither Stephanie nor I had phones, so we had to find our way back the ship with our internal compasses.  After a couple false turns, and considering the direction of the sun, we headed north to the river.  Success!  We had a couple good chuckles and agreed that getting lost is all part of the adventure.