Ray Ray is about to go CRA CRA!

I slept in a little today, so I missed breakfast. So did Candice, but Megan and Katie were nice enough to steal us some food. We ate in Katie’s room, and then left to catch a bus to Nessebar which is this ancient city on the rocky coast of the Black Sea. When we left, there were a whole bunch of cab drivers sitting outside trying to get people to take cabs. This one guy was pretty pushy about it, so we stopped and negotiated with him for a few minutes. He said he would only charge us 40 leva a person to drive us all the way to Nessebar, wait for us for a couple hours, and drive us back. The bus was going to cost us 20 leva for one way, so we jumped at the opportunity. Especially because there were 6 of us, so we fit in the same cab. We jumped in and settled in for the hour and a half ride. We eventually arrived at this really adorable beach town. There were a ton of old ruins and churches, but the architecture was really amazing.

All of the houses were made of wood and the top floors of the buildings jutted out over the first floor which was pretty cool. We explored the town for a little and decided to look for somewhere to eat. As we were looking, we stumbled upon this amazing church overlooking the ocean, so we decided to go inside. It was in ruins, but still really cool. There was this adorable old man inside playing this small banjo, and this British guy was sitting next to him playing a miniature version of his instrument. We stood and watched for a little, and he started playing all these awesome songs like Yellow Submarine and such. So, we sang along for a little and took pictures with him. A few of us also bought his little banjos because his picture was on the back of it! It was so cute.
After that, we continued our search for authentic Bulgarian food. We ended up going to a restaurant overlooking the ocean. The waiter was pretty annoying, but the food was good. I think he was just excited that we were from the U.S. because Americans don’t really come to Bulgaria. Maggie and I split an order of mussels, and I had a beer. The seafood here is really, really good. After lunch we continued to walk around. People loved the idea that we were from the U.S. This one guy even started singing American Woman to us which was pretty funny. Another thing about Bulgaria is that there are a TON of kids. And they are so cute! So, I may have been a little creepy and taken pictures of a few of them. Their clothes are even adorable!

Just to let you in on a fun little inside joke, Megan is always writing in her journal. It is definitely a good thing so we can remember everything, but I tease her about it and call her The Scribe. Pretty hilarious. I just wanted to document that in some way. Haha. We got some gelato and continued people watching and shopping for a while. After a few hours of relaxing in the town, we call Rumen which was our taxi driver’s name, and he picked us up. On the way back to Varna, we asked Rumen if he would mind stopping at one of the many sunflower fields along the drive back. Luckily, he said yes, so we stopped along the highway and ran over to all the sunflowers. They were gorgeous! We were taking pictures and laughing about the possibility of snakes while Rumen peed on the other side of the highway behind the taxi. Pretty hilarious. Candice made a little butterfly friend that landed on her finger. It was pretty crazy how friendly it was. After a couple minutes, Rumen crossed the street with a knife. Haha. Megan said later that she was afraid he was going to kill us in this field, but he ended up cutting us down a bunch of sunflowers! What a gem! They were huge though! About the size of my face! It was really fun stopping in the field though. As we drove back, I fell asleep in the back. Rumen felt like a dad driving us all back from soccer practice or something. Haha.

When we got back, we showered and went to dinner. We picked a place really close to the beach. I had seafood paella that had this HUGE squid leg in it that everyone else was grossed out by. It was awesome though. We saw a bunch of SASers walking back from the beach, but we never visited the beach because our friends Amanda and Gabriel said it was contaminated with some really gross things from the factories in the area. EW. After dinner, we walked into town because we were in Varna during their annual music festival! The event we were going to was held in this old Roman bath which is exactly like a spa back in the day for men. We got there super early with a bunch of people from SAS. We were just hanging out there, and it started to get really crowded. They eventually opened the doors, and Bulgarian people were literally PUSHING us to get into this show. They must really love their classical music! So, we didn’t get good seats. We had to sit on this small collection of rocks in the middle of the seating area, so by the end of the show, my butt was completely numb. I sat right behind one of my professors and his kids, which was funny.

The show started, and it was really good. They had a small group of classical musicians in the back. The lead musicians were this guy who was playing something that looked like a clarinet but was different, and a guy with an oboe. Then, the main guy who was clearly in charge had like 4 different kinds of Bulgarian banjo/guitar things. There was also a drummer, bassist, and singer too. The music they played wasn’t straight classical, so it was actually really fun. The guy who spoke only spoke Bulgarian, so I didn’t really know what was going on, but near the end, I am pretty sure a famous singer sang with the group. It was really interesting. And it was really cool that the event was held in the ruins of an old roman bath. AWESOME.

After the show, we went down to a bar on the beach to get a drink and dessert. They didn’t have the largest selection of desserts, so Katie and I split a piece of lemon pie, and I had a mojito (my fav!). My friend Rachel really wanted this double chocolate cake that was on the menu, but they were out of it. This is about the time that her nickname of Ray Ray was created because without chocolate, Ray Ray goes CRA CRA. Haha. The pie was SUPER lemony, but the mojito was really good. It was really late after that, so we headed back, checked our email, and headed to bed!