Answer: by tacking it onto a safari. Only antipodeans such ourselves would consider East Africa and Eastern Europe - a mere 8,000 km (4900 miles) apart - "nearby".
We took this wedding invite as an opportunity to go to a country we hadn't planned to ever visit, and have a gay old reunion with Edinburgh friends in the process.
We arrived at 3 in the damn morning to a town called Varna, the third largest city in the country, after Sofia and Plovdiv. We got picked up by our hotel, and were transported straight back to 1970's Soviet chic to piece together a decent night of sleep. Deluxe red carpet service for $62 AUD ($42 USD, 389 NOK) per night. Well worth it!
You might be asking: why, why fly at such an ungodly hour? Why not just rent a car and drive? It's less than 7 hours between Istanbul and Varna so easily doable in a day.
Answer: because car theft is rampant in Bulgaria (and to Bulgaria if stolen elsewhere in Europe) and no Turkish car rental company will let you cross the border. So it's a middle of the night flight or...walk.
The weather was cold and damp and it was grey, grey, grey. What is it about these former Iron Curtain countries that is so devoid of color?! And architecture?
We got to Black Sea Rama, a golf resort on the Black Sea, early in the afternoon. The place was massive, so it was a good thing we had the car to get everyone around the property!
We loaded up on grocery store hooch and promptly commenced day drinking with all the Edinburgh people before the official wedding proceedings began that night.
The first officially sanctioned pre-wedding event was held at a bar in the nearby town of Balchik.
It was a surprisingly civilized night for how late we stayed out, how much we drank and how little we ate. It's always fun to catch up with people after an extended absence, even though our previous reunion was a mere 16 months prior. There were various skits performed throughout the night, which Germans love to do around weddings. Such a bizarre tradition but they all seem to love it, so I can't mock this cultural phenomenon.
The next day was the wedding day. The weather remained grey, windy and cold but with much less rain than the day before. Here's the pool at our villa to illustrate:
The pool saw no action outside of dipped pinkie toes because it wasn't heated, so was sadly not fit for use.
It was touch and go all day if the 2 p.m. ceremony would be held outdoors as planned, or moved somewhere indoors. At the 11th hour they decided to keep it as is, at the outdoor amphitheatre.
People were rugged up, but as the [short] ceremony went on the sun peaked out more and more over the backdrop of the Black Sea.
So clearly the universe approves of this union!
The only thing that tops a short and sweet ceremony is unique cultural elements. They did this Bulgarian tradition of breaking a huge bread behind their backs, which was fun:
After the ceremony we went straight into heavy boozing with cocktail hour(s).
Where the weather kept getting better and better! They could not have been luckier; the weather the previous day was so terrible and it really turned around during the festivities.
There was a few hour break between cocktails and dinner, so I promptly went to sleep while a party formed in our villa. If I am to be out boozing until the wee hours these old bones need their beauty rest!
An extra-long golf cart made rounds around the property to pick guests up and deliver them to the evening venue.
The dinner was good, speeches were held in multiple languages and - importantly - not too long winded, and the booze was flowing. And more local cultural traditions!
An excellent kick off to a long night of dancing and partying.
It wouldn't be a wedding without a photo booth!
It was a fun, drunken night, just the way it should be.
Thankfully we had the full next day to lounge around the resort and didn't have to catch a flight out like some people. This is a pro tip I've learned from attending many a drunken out-of-town wedding. Don't rush! Give yourself an extra day to recover!
All 7 of us in our villa had this foresight, so we had a day of relaxing and a very civilized dinner at home.
However this meant we had to leave the next morning well before the crack of dawn on our 30-odd hour journey. It was no doubt the longest, most convoluted route we've ever travelled, made worse by the fact that a delay in Doha, Qatar stranded us for a night in Sydney, so we get home Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday night.
But we do what we gotta do, to hang out with our Edinburgh gang in exotic destinations!
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