Yesterday, I ended up buying another digital camera (Canon's Powershot A430) for 176 Euros, or about $235, thanks to the devalued dollar. I ended up wandering around the same streets I explored three years ago when Kevin and were here. I ended up at the exact same spot in the spice bazaar (a photograph of that spot was on my wall in my apartment). If I stayed another day there, I would not see anything new, so I headed to the massive Otogar (bus station) in the morning and found a bus leaving for Bulgaria within the hour. It was a seven hour ride to Plovdiv, but it was nice and comfortable in the plush Mercedes coach. Even going through the passport control was a breeze (you just sit on the bus while immigration officers board the bus). We did deboard to get our passport stamps and for customs inspection. I smuggled 25 cigars into Bulgaria! A middle-aged man mumbled something and handed me a bag of cigars as we approached the customs inspection point -- I figured he wanted me claim the cigars he bought at the duty free zone were mine. No problem. The customs officer peered into my, then pulled out the cigars. He eyed me and said something in Bulgarian, and nodded his head in agreement to my fine tastes. Everyone laughed, and he moved on.
Almost all the signs in Bulgaria are in Cyrillic, the same letters used in Russia and other Slavic countries. A lot of the rusty and crumbling apartment buildings hail from the Soviet-influenced era, but there are stores selling new electronic gear and hip clothes. The roads are not as smooth as they were in Turkey, and the people have completely ignored, which is amazing. I'll see what the next few days bring.
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