Despite the misadventures, if there is any one thing I regret from my journey to the northern half of this country, it is that I did not stay longer in the prominent border city of Ruse (pronounced Roo-say). Even outside of the city centre, old apartment blocks seemed somewhat better-maintained than in other parts of Bulgaria. Apartment blocks, of course, are not my primary criteria for judging a city. Ruse’s claim to esteem on my part–though I was there for only a day–is its atmosphere and architecture. There is a vibrant culture of pedestrian traffic, cafes, and many clubs that gives an air of vibrant youth to the city, yet all of this exists within the backdrop of the sort of imposing architecture which gives Ruse the title of “The Little Vienna.”
To my temporary inconvenience, however, Ruse, even with the personal appeal, is still a part of the Bulgarian transportation system, and with that necessarily comes the occasional problem. Myself and two other (totally amazing) Fulbrighters, themselves living in Ruse, had decided beforehand that we would travel to Silistra, just East along the Danube. Knowing that there was a bus heading out at 10:30am, we found a taxi and got to the station.
As we approach the bus terminals, I see a tiny white shuttle bus that could seat about 10 people, maybe 13 or so without much regard to comfort. This bus was completely full beyond rational capacity and still had about 10 people lined in a semicircle around it. We were still looking for our bus, which should be arriving soon, but I see no other active vehicles around. Possessing most of what little Bulgarian we collectively knew, my role in the group was to try and figure out what was going on and where we could buy a ticket. After some misdirections by random bystanders, I approach an information window. “Uhhm, we’d like three tickets for the 10:30 bus to Silistra, please,” I attempt to say. The man points behind us; “That bus,” he says, “you buy the ticket on the bus.”
I turn around and realize that there is no other bus here besides the sardine can of a shuttle that was already loaded up like a clown car. He was pointing to that bus. Sure enough, I circle around its front and find that it reads “RUSE -> SILISTRA.” There was no way we would ever find room on that thing for the three of us, but, disheartened, we decide to wait and people-watch just to see what’s going on.
Just after we took a seat on a bench, a woman exits the small mob lingering outside of the shuttle and walks over to us. One of my companions stands up to greet her; the approaching woman is a fellow teacher at a school in Ruse, and, as if the gods themselves sent her as help, she speaks English. She explains to us that there was a bus scheduled to go to Silistra at 8:30 that morning. Somehow, this bus never appeared, and so everyone who was waiting for the 8:30 was now making a bid for the 10:30, along with everyone else who had planned on leaving at 10:30 also. The helpful teacher explains to us that she will be on this bus and so does not have much time, but she helps me at the info desk again to ask about the next bus to Silistra. We thank her heartily and she returns to the bus, which puttered off out of the station a few minutes later.
We enter a little waiting area within the station to locate the correct window from which to buy the tickets, as there were multiple bus lines in operation. I look at the bus schedule and see the correct time and destination. “Three tickets to Silistra at 11:30, please.” “21 leva,” she says dispassionately. I put the money down on the tray–it is custom in Bulgaria to put money down on a tray first rather than to take it from someone’s hand directly–and she scoops it up slowly, printing out our tickets. I ask her where the bus will be; she mumbles something in response that sounds like numbers. “Sorry, I don’t understand,” I say. Suddenly, a sign that I imagine read “Do not disturb” gets slammed onto the window, and a shutter is pulled down. A different employee for the same company steps out of a door adjacent. Obviously somehow irritated, she yells, “HERE, HERE,” pointing at some vague location in front of the waiting room. I nod my head and acknowledge just to get out of the situation.
Waiting outside at a table, the three of us get a small snack and watch the seconds tick away, since we had at least an hour to wait. There was little room on table for our small banitsa one of us had purchased from a store inside, as all of our bags were sitting on the table; in Bulgaria, there is a superstition that leaving your bags on the floor will bring you poverty. Whether out of belief in the superstition or simply to avoid being hassled–as some Bulgarians will let you know when your bags are on the floor–we complied with the tradition.
11:30 rolls around, and I have seen no bus with our destination listed. The anxiety really starts to build for me, as I’m worried we’ll have another no-show bus and then will have to wait even further and be stuck on another crammed shuttle. I gather the courage to go to attempt asking the information desk, again, for information. “I don’t see our bus,” I say, or something like it. He fires off a few sentences with great speed, and I suppose he sees the confusion in my eyes, so he says more slowly, “It has not arrived yet.” Recalling the no-show bus, I inquire, “Will it arrive?” “Yes, I think so,” he says. Reassuring.
Fifteen minutes late, a bus reading “SOFIA -> RUSE -> SILISTRA” pulls around the corner. We all leap up and hurry to stow our baggage just so we can be on the bus and maybe sleep for the two-hour ride.
Silistra, though fairly remote, turned out to be quite nice also. While in Ruse, I was never actually in a good position to get a look at the Danube; I got that opportunity abundantly in Silistra, where there is a whole magnificent park which stretches along the riverbank. Unlike in Ruse, we also got to see, and even thoroughly explore, several sites of old ruins, as they were open to the public, not closed off by fences or gates. It was a strange experience to be cracking jokes in modern English, a tongue which the inhabitants of these structures would never have heard even a word of, while walking through what were once their walls, all of this happening, at times, nearly two millennia after the structures had been abandoned.
We stayed at another ETA’s apartment in Silistra, still with the intent of making it to Bucharest the next day. We had some contacts in Silistra, including a cab driver who would be willing to take us across the border and into Bucharest for a flat fee, and a fairly reasonable one, at that, for both the journey there and back again. We thought this was fantastic, and set our alarms for the next morning to meet the driver.
Upon awakening, we could not see out of any windows for more than a few yards; apparently the Danube had kicked up some serious fog in the area. If you looked closely, you could actually see the particles of water vapor dancing about. We pack our things, check that we have our passports, and set foot outside. I again regretted leaving my George Mason hoodie in my apartment back in Pazardzhik, as the temperature was still chilly. After awkwardly standing around for a few minutes, the taxi driver pulls up; we pile in our bags, and we’re off to the border.
Guards at the border control peer into the cab’s windows to verify that we bear some resemblance to our passport photos. At one point, a guard, apparently not knowing what kind of a word “Colby” was, asked me if I was “Alexander” (my middle name). I nodded my head. The cab driver, also not knowing any English, decided to call me “Alex” for the rest of the trip.
Once through the border control gate, we start moving through the fog… and then suddenly stop at a line of cars. People are getting out of their cars to go into several shacks nearby or simply stroll about. We asked ourselves a lot, why aren’t we moving across the bridge? Somehow, word gets to us that it is because of the fog; there isn’t enough visibility to make it across. Us ETAs decide to step out of the car and have a gander at the area, only to discover that there is, in fact, no bridge at all; the line of cars lead up to a ramp, which ends abruptly in the Danube. Looks like we are taking a ferry across.
No less than a full hour later–cutting into our planned Bucharest time–the “ferry” meanders up to the shore, and when I say “ferry,” I mean a dinky Romanian tugboat with a rickety metal platform towed behind it (these “no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole” moments seem to be quite common for me on this trip). We run back to our taxi, and almost immediately after, the driver says, “Ah, the ticket!” and hops out to run into the nearest shack, presumably to buy the ticket for the “ferry” which he should have gotten ages ago. He hops back into the cab, and we inch forward onto the precarious platform which was to separate us from the cold waters below.
The “ferry” proved to be surprisingly stable. So stable, in fact, that as we were standing outside of the cab looking around us, we noticed a stowaway Bulgarian pigeon walking about, apparently trying to sneak across the border via our ferry. In the distance, we see another ferry approach, filled to the limit with cars just as much as ours was; among the crowd standing about we notice a familiar face. We see another ETA who was on her way back from Romania. We eagerly wave to her, and I think that was one of the most sincere and excited “Hello!” waves I have ever given.
The drive to Bucharest was long, but the roads were well-maintained, making for a smooth ride; we managed to get some shut-eye before we entered Bucharest and had to pull over to ask at least 3 other taxi drivers how to get to our destination, a hostel, since none of our Bulgarian phones worked in Romania and the hostel was located on some random side street that few people would know off the top of their heads. We pay him the agreed amount of leva for our whole trip and he speeds off, promising to meet us the next day at around noon.
If anyone has the opportunity to see Bucharest for a night, I do recommend taking that opportunity. Though, do beware of which taxi cabs you get into, as after dinner (partially consisting of some Staropramen beer on my part) and having explored some of the more important landmarks by foot, we were looking for a way to get back to the hostel. A man approached us offering a taxi (red flag #1); we looked at each other and said, “Sure.” Inside the taxi, no prices were listed (red flag #2), the meter was completely twisted to the side such that only the driver could read it (red flag #3), and the driver mentioned something about there being “night tariffs” (although a legitimate thing, they usually aren’t that much more expensive than daylight trips, and so probably would not be worth mentioning at all, especially if prices were posted: red flag #4). About a third of the way through our journey, I begin to realize that maybe, just maybe we were going to get seriously ripped off. But none of my companions seem to be alarmed, so I chalk it up to paranoia. Paranoia and beer.
In this part of the world, 83 RON (~20USD) is way too much for a cab ride a few kilometers across town. Whatever, nothing to be done about it; we scrounge together the money, get out, and settle down in our lovely hostel.
Finally came the last leg of our journey; getting back to Bulgaria. The ETA from Ruse decided she would find her own way back home by bus or train, as both myself and companion 3 had to go back to Silistra (he lives there, and I left a bag in his apartment). No point in her tagging along, really, so she heads out just before our original cab driver is supposed to meet us.
The cab driver is forty-five minutes late. I never learned why this was, but perhaps it was because of Bucharest’s horrible traffic. Anyhow, he exchanges some words with my colleague from Silistra; apparently, the servers were down at the border control in Silistra (from which we came), so if we wanted to get back home, we would have to drive all the way down to Ruse first, and from there to Silistra. Overall, a lot longer than the original, planned-upon 2 hour return leg home.
If I had not left my bag in Silistra, I could have just been dropped off in Ruse and I would have gotten home smoothly, as I had to go back to Ruse anyhow to get to Sofia, and from Sofia to Pazardzhik. This level of convenience was, of course, not available to me. The drive to Silistra seems to take forever as I begin to worry, would I arrive on time to catch a bus? I knew a bus was supposed to leave at 3:30, but there was no possibility of making that now, as we had to take a detour through Ruse first, adding at least an hour to our trip. There was one more, however, at 5pm that I might just catch. “Alex,” the driver said to me, “I think you will be successful with that bus.”
And successful I would have been, as we rolled into Silistra around 4:30. The ETA and I go into his apartment, I grab my laptop bag, and I run back to the cab to make it to the bus station.
The driver says, “Where is your friend?”
I (try to) say, “Oh, he’s not coming. He’s in his apartment, where he lives…”
“What about the bill?”
My heart sinks. I thought we already paid the bill for both to and from Bucharest when he dropped us off at the hostel. But I’m in a rush, so I ask him how much the bill is, figuring maybe I can just pay it myself and be on my way.
“200 leva.”
It was at this moment that I realized I would be stuck in Silistra for that Monday night. Now I had to rely on all transport going smoothly on Tuesday, as I had to be back at school by 8am on Wednesday morning.
I run back to the apartment. Out of breath, I explain that the driver is saying we owe him more money. We walk down and try to discuss with him what is going on, as my Bulgarian was not quite up to par for this task. Apparently, we were to pay him the one-time fee if he stayed in Bucharest for the night, which he did not. Instead, after dropping us off, he drove all the way back to Silistra, and so today’s fee was because he had to drive all the way back. A stupid misunderstanding.
I woke up early the next morning to catch whichever damned bus was the first out of Silistra. Mentally exhausted, I slumped against the window for the entire 7+ hour ride to Sofia. From there, I managed to get a train without problems back to Pazardjik. I walked into my apartment at about 8:30pm that night, fewer than 12 hours before I was to begin classes the next morning.
And I hadn’t come up with a lesson plan.
During one of my classes the following week, we had some extra time, so I recounted an abridged version of my tale to the students. I asked, “This is about as bad as transportation gets in Bulgaria, right? So I should be able to handle anything at this point?”
A girl rose her hand. “Nah, that’s pretty average.”
I’ll have the rest of the year to find out whether or not she was joking.
(A big thanks to Angela, for housing me in Ruse and providing an emergency lesson plan, and McKinley, for housing me in Silistra. You’re the real MVPs.)
Post-Communist Colby 