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Sunday, October 13th - Plovdiv
Sunday in Plovdiv is quiet in the early morning. The hostel offers coffee and a roll for breakfast. I set out afterwards with my camera to take a few photographs, but I stop at the farmers market in the main square to get more to eat. I am craving fruit this morning so I but plums and some oranges. With the changeable temperatures, I need to keep my Vitamin C intake up.
After a walking tour of the old medieval centre, though the cobblestone streets and the narrow laneways, I strike out farther, checking out the sights. Most of the sights are on the south side of the river where the hills are. There are more remnants and artifacts from Roman times than I originally thought. Many of them show up as outcroppings of ancient stone works, fragments of buildings or archeological excavation sites. There are fragments of an ancient Roman aqueduct and the base of
what was a temple. I climb the base of a hill to see the ruins of the Roman amphitheatre, which is still used for music performances I presume, as there is a wooden stage set up inside. I have climbed around to the top of it to get a look inside. I continue to the top of that hill, one of seven the city is built around, to see the city below. I climb down the other side to climb up another hill half a kilometre further along, crossing part of the centre along the way. This one has no major attraction on it but affords me another view of the city.
I return to the city centre to find a place to eat lunch. It’s 1:30. I get a sandwich at a small restaurant on the main market street. I am eating it on the patio when a friendly bearded man at a neighbouring table starts talking to me. His name is Dragos. He is an English teacher at a adult community college in Plovdiv and he is pleased at the opportunity to practice his English with me. His English isn’t perfect, but speaking English perfectly with all its rules and exceptions is nearly impossible. He has the best English I have heard in Bulgaria. I wonder if his eager friendliness is disguising a deeper desire to be close to me. I wouldn’t mind He’s sweet too, about 30 years old and, although I am not into beards usually, I like his energy.
Dragos has to run some errands but has an idea how to extend our conversation. He and a friend are going to a spa somewhere out of town tonight and he asks me if I would like to come. He says it would be a good opportunity to see beautiful areas outside of the city. They want to spend the night there, but they must leave at 6 am tomorrow to make it back to Plovdiv in time for his friend to get to work on time. Having nothing better to do and craving social interaction, I say yes. Dragos will pick me up at 5:30, as soon as his friend is off work.
I walk around for another hour and then return to the hostel to pack a bag for tonight. I am excited about the outing. In my mind, I see a hot springs in a stream on the forest floor surrounded by autumn leaves, set up like a hot tub with the three of us naked and sharing a flask of wine. I decide to pack very lightly. Since no one is sharing my room or watching me come and go I don’t tell anyone. I only bring half of my available money in case it is a set up for a robbery, even though that seems very unlikely.
Dragos is on time. His friend Sergei, another bearded man his age, is in the passenger seat. I crawl into the back and they set off. We cross the river and head north. Actually, I am not sure because the cloud cover has moved in and it’s hard to tell which direction is west as the light fades. There won’t be much to take pictures of in the dark either so I wonder why I brought my camera. Dragos and Sergei are deep into a conversation in Bulgarian. The window is open too, because Sergei is smoking. It is easy to ignore me in the back seat and easier for me to ignore them. I ask Dragos where we are going. He names some town but it is hard to hear his answer over the wind from the window.
We are at the spa, which disappointingly is a modern high rise hotel over a mineral springs. This feels like a mistake. Dragos books us a shared room while he leaves me alone with cigarette smoking Sergei, who speaks no English. We endure the awkward silence until Dragos returns. Sergei is intent on monopolizing his conversation and it doesn’t include me. The room could be in any Holiday Inn. We split the cost and bring our bathing suits and hotel towels down to the basement where the spa is.
It’s a large swimming pool filled with warm mineral water and dozens of heteros and their children, rather like a flooded shopping mall without stores. Dragos and Sergei are checking out the babes and comparing notes, something Dragos is trying to involve me in. I play along in an unenthusiastic manner, trying not to encourage them. I hope to Hell that they are not hoping to pick up some hooker and to take turns with her back in the room. Just in case, I prepare a story about a girlfriend back home I am in love with.
My other problem is that I am used to eating around six and it is already eight. My stomach, which has been rumbling for an hour, is now generating a fairly regular stream of farts. I swim back and forth across the pool to make the bubbles less obvious. “OK,” I announce to Dragos when I get tired of this, “I have built up my appetite now. Let’s go eat!” I use as much enthusiasm about this great idea as I can. It works. We return upstairs, shower and change into our street clothes. Dragos and Sergei take turns changing in the bathroom but I change in the bedroom. They say nothing.
Over dinner in the hotel restaurant, Dragos does a better job as a translator, in part to show off his English skills to Sergei who remains unimpressed. I ask Sergei, through Dragos, what he does. He’s a draughtsman. He’s not interested in cycling from country to country and I am not interested in draughting so we don’t have much to say to each other after that. “That’s nice,” I respond, but Dragos doesn’t bother to translate. I decide this a theatre class, not a dinner with friends, and I am doing my best at acting, trying not to show I am bored.
We retire to the lounge for drinks after that. Fortunately, by this time all three of us are bored and there’s no football match on the television, so one drink does us all in. After some negotiation, Dragos and Sergei agree to share a bed (instead of one of them sleeping on the floor) and I have a bed to myself.
PHOTO 1: old Plovdiv
PHOTO 2: St Nedelya Church
PHOTO 3: small street in medieval Plovdiv
PHOTO 4: the Roman amphitheatre
PHOTO 5: the front of the amphitheatre
PHOTO 6: Plovdiv from the hilltop
PHOTO 7: Ethnographic Museum
PHOTO 8: stone map of old Plovdiv
PHOTO 9: Dragos and Sergei
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