Filed under: Roadtrip Turkey - Bulgaria | Tags: Bulgaria, Bus, Sofia, Turkey
One week in Turkey had passed so quickly, but it was time for Bulgaria. Our bus left from Edirne and my friends’ parents were so kind to take us there by car. It saved us quite some trouble compared to carrying our entire luggage in a minibus. When we arrived at the big bus station of Edirne, we were told that the bus was actually picking us up on the highway, a few kilometres before the border. So we rushed back to the car and went to the indicated place (a petrol station with restaurant) on the highway. The last Turkish word I learned was “arslan”, which means lion. The restaurant was called like that.
We were still well on time so we waited patiently. But the bus wasn’t there at the indicated time. We called the bus company and they told us that the bus, which was coming from Istanbul, was still quite far away. After about 1.5 hours of waiting it actually came and we could really start our trip to Sofia. I had just gotten comfortable in the bus when we came to the border. Everyone had to get off the bus and show their passports to the Turkish officers. Then, we were in between two countries and there was the opportunity for some duty-free shopping. After a short break there was again a passport and customs control by the Bulgarian officers. Luckily neither the Turkish nor the Bulgarian customs control found anything suspicious on the bus and we could continue our journey. The worst-case scenario was that everyone had to open their suitcases (the worst-worst case was that this had to happen on both sides), but we could proceed quickly. Welcome to Bulgaria!
I looked out of the bus window almost the whole ride – the landscape is really impressive. Sofia is located in the very west of the country, so the trip led us from the very east (the border with Turkey) to the very west of the country. During that bus ride I discovered the difference between “hill” and “mountain”. But in some parts of the country the landscape was really flat, almost like at my hometown in Germany. The bus stopped at some other big cities, like Haskovo and Plovdiv before it reached Sofia in the early evening. At the central bus station of Sofia we were picked up by my friend’s cousin. We stayed at the cousin’s and aunt’s place for a week before my friends left and I moved into my own apartment.
And that was the end of a really exciting time in Turkey and a bus ride through Bulgaria. If you compare the route to the initial plans that I posted a few weeks ago you see that we didn’t quite visit as many places as planned. Our plans to visit Istanbul for two days were cancelled because our accommodation was cancelled. My friend’s father said: “It is an insult to this city if you visit only for 2 days!” That is why I’m determined to come back and spend more time in Istanbul next year. You will certainly read about it in this blog.
But for now I look forward to some adventures in Bulgaria and you will be able to follow me by clicking “Sofia, Bulgaria” in the menu on the left-hand side.
Filed under: Roadtrip Turkey - Bulgaria
Suddenly it was one day before the departure to Sofia! My friends and I went to the city centre of Kırklareli to change money and we also visited the town hall. When we came back home there were already the preparations for dinner going on. My friend’s mother and two neighbour women were rolling a mix of rice and something else into grape leaves. It was quite a lot of work! Luckily I needn’t have a bad conscience, because they let me join and I prepared some of these wraps as well. I must admit though that mine didn’t look as professional as those of the Turkish women 
One of the neighbour women stayed for a chat. She was really friendly and again I wished I could speak Turkish. Her daughter had recently got married and they explained to me how the wedding ceremony works and showed me some pictures. I also got to know that the women use henna colour on their hands for the weddings. I really liked the idea of henna and the neighbour said she still had some henna powder that she didn’t need anymore so she gave it to us. So after dinner (the grape leaves) we mixed the henna powder with some water and painted tattoos on our arms. Mine stayed for two weeks by the way!
Filed under: Roadtrip Turkey - Bulgaria
The next day was a Sunday, time for a Turkish style BBQ! We packed some meat, vegetables, bread and drinks and drove to a special park for barbeque. There were benches and barbeques ready for use, so we grabbed one and tried to start a fire. It was a little windy, but the “neighbours” had some hot coal they didn’t need anymore, so we could use that. There were wild dogs straying around the barbeque, but they never came really close.
My friends prepared meatballs and a salad they called “Gipsy Kebab”. Something that I hadn’t seen in Germany before was that they put the vegetables on the barbeque, eggplant and peppers. After a while they were ready and could be peeled. Together with some other ingredients (tomato, onion, garlic, oil) they were made into a salad. I really liked it, because the eggplant and peppers were still warm when we ate it. And the meatballs were delicious as well.
That day the weather was not too good; it was rather cold and windy so there were not many people having a barbeque. But it is a tradition in Turkey to go to some place on Sundays with the family and have a BBQ or picnic. In my opinion it is a very good tradition that should be kept up. Spending some quality time with family and friends seems much better to me than watching TV (or similar activities) the whole Sunday as it often happens with German families. So, next time you visit a park in Berlin-Kreuzberg and you see Turkish people having a BBQ there, that’s why! Maybe the German government should consider having such public barbeque places as well; it seems much safer to me than illegal fires.
One of the cultural highlights of my trip was the attendance of a Mevlüt ceremony. It is a sort of inauguration of a baby to the religious community. You could compare it to the christening of a baby in Christian communities.
The ceremony was held at the grandparents’ place (they were the uncle and aunt of my friend). It was a sort of open door event and family, friends and neighbours could join. The apartment was quite stuffed with people and the women had to wear headscarves because there was an Imam there as well. Even though I could not really communicate everyone was really friendly and my friend’s aunt (the grandma) took me by the hand and led me to the room where I found the mother and the baby girl and some other women and kids. In the hallway the Imam was preaching and praying – he even had a microphone and speakers. The baby was wearing a white dress, almost like a bride and the mother had to wear a red ribbon in her hair.
At some point the mother had to take the baby to the Imam and he said some prayers and repeated the baby’s name three times. She is by the way called Zeynep Eylül. Zeynep is an ancient Arabic word for jewel, and it was also the name of Prophet Mohamed’s granddaughter. Eylül means September, that’s the month of her birth. After giving the name to the baby the Imam said some more prayers and then left.
Once he was gone most women took their headscarves off again and started chatting. There was also food for everyone: rice with chicken, some sort of dessert and Ayran to drink. Everyone had brought presents for the baby, mostly clothes, and once they finished their meal they came to see little Zeynep and her mother and then left. Only a few stayed somewhat longer and chatted with the family. It was really a pity not to be able to speak Turkish!
(I’d love to post some photos here, but I first have to get in touch with the parents of the baby and ask for permission.)
Filed under: Roadtrip Turkey - Bulgaria
After the tiring day in Edirne we decided to take it easy the next day. We borrowed the family car and drove along the road to Bulgaria. The landscape was really enjoyable with lots of hills (I admit that I called them “mountains”, but later in Bulgaria I saw real mountains and realised that what we saw in Turkey were only hills). It reminded me of my trips in Andalucía, Spain. After about 30km we saw the border, but we didn’t cross. Instead, we turned around and drove back a little to a dam. There, we had a beautiful view over the water and the hills. It was also time for picnic.
We also drove through a tiny village. To me it felt like travelling back in time. The situation on the countryside seems quite underdeveloped. Yet, my friend assured me that “Thrace [the geographically European part of Turkey] is only 50 years back in time from European standards, but in some parts of Anatolia it’s 100 years”. I’m not sure how much he exaggerated there, but indeed, I saw that Turkey has not yet reached Western standards. But for me that was one component of the trip that made it really interesting; so far I had only been to Western countries.
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- The dam. Beautiful isn’t it?
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- A ruin nearby the dam
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- View from the “window” of the ruin
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- Sunset and the hills
Filed under: Roadtrip Turkey - Bulgaria | Tags: Edirne, mosque, Selimyie, Turkey
The next day, my friend from Çorlu had a job interview in Istanbul and with the other friend I went to Edirne to pick up his visa for Bulgaria and have a look around in the city. Edirne is the city that I liked most. It is located at the border with Bulgaria and Greece and its main monument is the Selimiye Mosque. That was the first time that I entered a mosque. I was really impressed and amazed by its beauty – outside and inside. To me it felt like it was really a place that was worthy to pray to God (or rather Allah). It was also very interesting because there was a prayer going on and I could observe the rituals.
We also visited the Bayezid II Complex which consists of a mosque and some other buildings among which a very early asylum for insane people. Back in the early days, the mentally ill people were treated with the help of music and water. In the whole complex there were buildings measures going on, but we were nevertheless able to sneak into the mosque, which was ready inside already. Also here I was fascinated by the art and the architecture and the great skills that people needed and need to build such impressive buildings.
My friend wanted me to try the food that Edirne is famous for: fried liver. I tried a little piece of it, but somehow the thought of what I was eating there disgusted me (it didn’t even taste bad though) so I did not manage to eat more.
One other thing about Edirne that I would like to mention here – even though I could not witness it – is the yearly Kirkpinar Wresting. During these festivities, men only dressed in leather pants and covered with olive oil wrestle with each other. The match is of course hindered because of the slippery oil on the opponents’ bodies. That is an interesting tradition!
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- The Selimiye Mosque
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- Market hall below the mosque
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- The city centre of Edirne
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- Speciality: fried liver
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- In all busses you find somewhere the word “Maşallah”
The second day in Kırklareli. After a really rich breakfast (I love Turkish breakfast!!) we went to the weekly bazaar of the town (see pictures). It was really the biggest sort of market that I had ever seen, but I was assured that there are even bigger ones. Apart from all sorts of domestic goods there were also a lot of pirated designer goods. I bought some stuff there for Bulgaria and we got some ‘simit’, a sort of big bagel. That’s my favourite Turkish bread, if you haven’t tried it before you should!
In the bazaar tents I also had a cough attack. I’m not sure whether the air was so dusty from all the textiles or if it was because of the cold that I already suffered from since my departure from Germany – probably a mix of both. But it only lasted for a few minutes.
After this interesting experience at the bazaar we walked around in the city. For me it was strange to see gipsies with horse carriages in the traffic and all the street dogs and cats. We also visited the little museum of Kırklareli which displays the regional flora and fauna and historic pieces of ancient Thrace. While we were in the museum it started to rain heavily and so upon getting out of the museum we ran as fast as we could to the closest snack bar, because my friends wanted me to try a special kind of meat balls. Unfortunately I was still full from breakfast and couldn’t eat many of them. They were tasty though.
I noticed that the Turkish culture is heavily influenced by food and the people eat often and lots of food. Luckily they also eat a lot of fruit and vegetables. I can tell you now already that I put on 3 kilos during only 1 week in Turkey.
Delicious melons for sale!
Shoes, shoes, shoes
Ayran (a drink)
Filed under: Roadtrip Turkey - Bulgaria
In the morning I woke up by the call to prayer of a mosque nearby, but stayed in bed for some more hours. Then my two friends prepared a really tasty Turkish breakfast. It is quite different from what I normally had for breakfast. It takes a while to prepare and I would almost call it lunch, because we only started eating at around 11 AM. After relaxing in Çorlu until early afternoon, we took a minibus to Kırklareli. The ride was very adventurous (although I think I was the only passenger who felt that) and I kept myself busy with counting how many times the driver would have lost his licence if he was driving in Germany – I gave up counting at 15. But we reached Kırklareli safely after about 2 hours and went to the home of my other friend.
His mother prepared a gigantic dinner for us. Actually I was full after the first course, but I tried the rest as well of course. There was soup, beans in tomato sauce, rice with roast chicken, salad, cheese, chocolate and melon for dessert.
Some first impressions of Kırklareli:
The mosque in the city centre
A street kitten
Game Over! (yeah, definitely for this building...)
They're producing sweeps here
It is now day two of my adventure. Yesterday I flew to Istanbul. The original plan to stay at Istanbul first has been dropped though, because of some problems with accommodation. Instead, we went to Çorlu where we stayed for the night. Çorlu is a city about 90 kilometres to the west of Istanbul and has some 200,000 inhabitants. On the pictures it looks rather deserted, but actually it’s an industrial city.
After a really enjoyable dinner (we had the Bulgarian “moussaka”, whose name exists in Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish, but it’s a different dish in each country) I felt rather exhausted and we went to bed. Unfortunately, a day before the start of my journey, I caught a cold and because of that I did not sleep well.
Relaxing in the shadows
At the busstop
Filed under: Roadtrip Turkey - Bulgaria
Two days left for me at home in Germany before my departure to Istanbul.
From Istanbul the plan is to travel through the Western part of Turkey, called Thrace, which is on the European side of the country. Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city is divided by the Bosporus strait. The land on the Western side of the Bosporus counts as Europe, whereas the land in the East belongs to Asia. The fact that Istanbul expands to both sides of the Bosporus makes it a really unique city from a geographical point of view. But there’s more to see there of course. I’m excited!
After a few days in Istanbul, the journey will continue westward. Two of the planned destinations are Kırklareli and Edirne. Perhaps more places will be visited as well. Once in Edirne, the Bulgarian border will be within grasp.
The exact route in Bulgaria is not known yet, but will probably include Kardzhali and Plovdiv. As mentioned already, the final destination is Sofia. I will spend the whole semester in Sofia, so in the coming months you will be provided with more pictures and impressions from Bulgaria!
The Route
What would a journey be without travel companions? Luckily, I happen to have two good friends – one being Turkish, the other one being Bulgarian but living in Turkey. Not only are they nice company, but they also speak Turkish and Bulgarian which will probably turn out to be really handy. And of course, having native guides will let me experience the two countries and the cultures from an angle which most “normal” tourists will not be able to experience.
My suitcase is almost completely packed, but a lot of other preparations have preceded this. When applying for the studies in Bulgaria I already got an idea of the bureaucracy in this country. In order to have my documents legalised I had to see four different institutions in Germany and the Netherlands. At least I do not need a visa since Bulgaria is a EU country. But I pray that I will not get in trouble with my identity card, since I do not have a passport. Legally there is not a problem with that, but who knows!
I’m rounding off my post here, the next one will probably be from Turkey, so stay tuned!
