Wedding in Bulgaria

Originally we declined the wedding invitation of Jan (the German male name = yan) and Mariya (just the Bulgarian spelling of Maria) in early October in Bulgaria.  How could we ever make that journey work?!

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?

After thirty years you can still feel the chill of Communism, and I suspect you always will.  But to be fair, the city center was actually pretty leafy and nice.

We had no burning sightseeing desires outside of eating a traditional Bulgarian meal, which did not materialize because it turns out the third largest city is still a lot of people with nowhere to park.  So we headed out of town - in the rain of course - in our rental car to head to the wedding venue an hour away.

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!

Istanbul, Turkey

We had Monday to Friday to kill between safari and our next destination in Europe so where to spend it?

Somewhere ancient, with fab food, on the doorstep of Europe, and with a direct flight from Kilimanjaro, please!  We didn't even consider anywhere else.  Istanbul is a place I really felt needed to be done at least once in my life.

We had 2.5 days on our own before friends joined us, so we spent those first few days enjoying paved roads again, seeing more humans than animals and cleaning out all our crevices. 

We weren't in hardcore tourist mode, so were happy to look rather than explore too deeply.

Galata Tower

Spice Bazaar

Kadikoy

Humble-brag ahead: we were on three continents in only two days!

Istanbul straddles both continents of Europe and Asia, separated by the Bosporus Strait.  The majority of people and tourist attractions are on the European side, but the Asian neighborhood of Kadikoy is getting more hip and worthy of a visit.  All that separates the two is an affordable and scenic commuter ferry ride across the Bosporus.

Where there's lots of places to eat, and places to buy things to eat.

And the most flagrant display of police/military muscle I've ever witnessed!

Let's rewind.  A few short years ago there was a failed coup in Turkey, meaning the military tried to overthrow the government.  The government that is super dodgy*.  I never fully understood what happened and why, but I know there were guns and jets and marches in the streets and plenty of deaths (more than the few hundred reported, me thinks).

* I legit don't dare say more, and not just because I really don't know details

So when we came upon hundreds of police motorcycles in formation, blaring their horns in unison saluting a Turkish flag I thought it was happening again.  And holy shit did it freak me out!  My first reaction was to shove my camera and phone deep in my bag, out of sight.  This was intuitive.  I don't want to be pistol whipped or to wind up in a Turkish prison for recording something I shouldn't!  My second reaction was to run in the other direction.  My fight or flight response was so incredibly high in that moment and my ass chose flee.

But we did not.  The motorcycles were leaving (still roaring away, sounding so ominous and creepy) but lots of people were pleasantly watching the action and taking photos/videos, so I unclenched.  But it was a nerve wracking sight in the only country where, prior to my arrival, I've had to cleanse my email and chat history of anything that could even be perceived as critical of their government.

That - you've gotta admit - is fucked up.  Later we asked a woman at our hotel what we'd seen, with video.  She claimed she didn't know, which I don't believe for a hot second.  I think she didn't want to say, especially to foreigners.  That. Is. Fucked. Up!  Free speech, please.

Apologies for the wall of text but I wanted to get that story out there, which means I probably can't ever go back.

And that's tragic if I can't return for the one reason I went in the first place.  Food, glorious, food!

Best baklava I've ever had, bar none.  Best fish rat, too!

By now our Dutch friends Pieter and Erica joined us.

You might remember them from such trips as Barcelona a little over a year ago.  They're good European travel companions, which is impressive as they've spent a lot of the past year living in our fine city of Brisbane!

Our hotel had a rooftop bar that was perfect for having a few brews and watching the sun go down over the minarets.

Despite being almost entirely Muslim booze is bountiful in Istanbul.  Just the way I like it!

Blue Mosque

Built 400 years ago this is still a working mosque today and one of Istanbul's must see tourist attractions.  Except everyone on TripAdvisor said that it was so deep under construction that it really wasn't worth paying to go into.  So we didn't bother.

It's also a working mosque, so they close it to tourists at prayer times throughout the day, which was precisely when we were there.  So we enjoyed the view from the outside and the musical call to prayer, and that was the end of that.

Hagia Sophia

I can't find an exact definition of the word "hagia" so I take it to mean a building that was once a church, but then turned into a mosque, and is now a museum, which is precisely what Hagia Sophia is.

When it made the jump from church to mosque JC did not vacate the premises entirely.

Buying tickets to get in was a huge debacle, with nobody in charge, massive queues and kiosks that barely work, even after accepting your credit card payment.  It's one of the must do's of Istanbul, though, so you've got to suck it up and get in there...eventually.

Basilica Cistern

This place was really nifty, and not just because it was dark and cool which makes for excellent respite from the Istanbul sun.

It's an underground reservoir that was used to store water...1,400 years ago!  Constructed in the sixth century it's quite the engineering marvel for its time.  It can hold 80,000 cubic meters (2.8 million cubic feet) of water which isn't as helpful as knowing how many liters/gallons it can hold, but I'd estimate the size of a football field.  A ton of water!

Boat Trip

On our final day we were flying onward in the middle of the damn night, so we planned a long, slow day after a late checkout at our hotel.  We killed a few hours cruising up and down the Bosporus Strait snapping photos along the way.

We cruised down to the Bosporus Bridge, which is the main bridge connecting the European and Asian sides, and back to the center of town.

We even saw dolphins!  On more than one occasion!

Who knew they lived in such urban, busy water?

After the boat trip we tried to quickly zip through Topkopi Palace, the opulent former residence of sultans of the Ottoman empire and probably the ultimate must do in Istanbul...but it was closing just as we arrived.  Piss poor planning!  That's the second missed must do so far.  But with a 2 a.m. flight, I must say the extra relaxation and 1 p.m. hotel checkout time were probably worth it.  Maybe.

Istanbul Archaeological Museum

Luckily the archeology museum right next door had extended evening hours, so we had somewhere to bum around for a few hours to entertain ourselves with wonders of the ancient and modern world.

Until we got the boot (before closing time, I might add), and off we went to a leisurely dinner.  Still with seven hours to go until our flight!

Our grand plan after dinner was to swing through the Grand Bazaar, yet another Istanbul must do, on our nighttime stroll back to the hotel to grab our luggage and head to the airport.

But wouldn't you know it, that was closed, too!  Bazaars are 24/7 operations, we incorrectly thought.  I was not expecting it to be closed for business at 7pm! For those keeping track:

Top 4 must do's of Istanbul
Hagia Sophia - accomplished

Blue Mosque - not accomplished on purpose

Topkopi Palace - not accomplished due to poor planning

Grand Bazaar - not accomplished due to poor planning

There's clearly a lot of blame here for not checking opening times and planning ourselves accordingly.  However!  I did not find Istanbul an easy place to visit in the slightest. 

Maybe it's because we were staying in an "up and coming" neighborhood (Karakoy) where local fishermen and hardware shops are in far greater abundance than tourist attractions, so we had to travel to get to the action.  

Something as simple as buying a tram ticket was very near impossible.  As we experienced at Hagia Sophia: nobody in charge, massive queues and kiosks that barely work.  Mix thousands of locals with thousands of tourists and it's a stressful place to navigate.  So I'd recommend staying right in the center of the tourist attractions, which I normally don't like to do.

Finally I'd recommend actually planning ahead.  Don't be like us!  And if at all possible, fly out at a more reasonable time than the middle of the damn night!