North America

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Have You Ever Considered How Freaking Amazing the Global Postal System Is?

Yesterday, a neighbour came by to drop off a letter my best friend had mailed me from Virginia just ten days before (and this after the postcard I sent her took almost a month!).

It wasn’t until I went to Mexico, with its so unreliable as to be useless postal system, that I began to realise just how freaking amazing the global postal system is. It’s an incredible model of international cooperation! How is it that someone could have dropped something off at the post office in Latvia and it’s in my mailbox in Saskatchewan just a week later? Never mind stuff that comes from China!

Sure, mail gets lost or stolen sometimes. Some shipping prices are unreasonable. Sometimes things take forever to go just a few kilometres, never mind around the world. But the amount of times mail just works is staggering. When SaskTel gave me my iPhone, I sold my iPod Touch on eBay. The buyer wanted the cheapest possible way to get it to him in New York state with no insurance or tracking. I wrapped it up in a bubble envelope and had to clearly mark the contents for customs. Anyone between SK and NY could have pocketed the iPod with no one the wiser, but it got there.

I was ridiculously excited to get mail yesterday, almost as excited that the post card I’d sent had arrived. There’s just something about receiving an item that was touched by a loved one half a world away to make you feel infinitely more connected than you ever could by just email.

One of the best parts of getting mail from Bast is the stickers she puts on the envelopes. This one on the reverse, one of three to make sure the flap was well sealed, made me burst out laughing:

Photo on 8-13-16 at 12.10 PM

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Zipping into Town

My current work project ends Monday and Max is going to be here for two weeks, so I’m “free” as of Tuesday to go exploring! So I wanted to go to town today to buy just enough groceries to get me through the weekend.

Unfortunately, I was up later this morning than I would have liked, but I finally left at 9:15, hoping I’d get lifts because I really had to get to work not too late!

Well, about halfway to the main road, I got picked up by a man who had picked me up a few weeks ago. He dropped me off at the start of the market at about 9:40. I did a walk through and was rather disappointed by the slim pickings today, especially the tomatoes. Most were of the cooking variety, with few big juicy ones to slice into sandwiches and those that were there were obviously a bit old. I guess the season for the “good” tomatoes has passed? I did find a few that would do me for the weekend and I did much better on the onions than I did last week. The only new fruit was grapes, but I really didn’t think I’d get those home unsmooshed!

Done with the market part of the day, I picked up a “kufte” (кюфте). This is what I got that first time that I thought was kebapche. But when I ordered kebapche last week, I got more of a hot dog type thing that, while yummy, wasn’t quite as flavourful. Kufte is shaped like a patty (so think kufte=”hamburger” and kebapche=”hot dog”) and has onions and more cumin in it. The lady held up an enormous piece of a bread and a small one. I asked for the latter and that gave me a much better meat/bread ratio than I had the last two weeks. Next week, I’m ramping up my game and will ask for cabbage and pepper sauce on it. Just need to practice saying “lutenitsa” (лютеница)! 🙂

I then popped into the supermarket for some sandwich stuff, bread, and sausage to cook up with a tiny cabbage I’d picked up at the market. There really isn’t much in that little store! When I have a car sometime in the next two weeks, I’m going to do another run to Kaufland. Since today was actually not that hot (it was positively cool this morning after it rained all night), I picked up a small package of frozen ground pork and a bag of mixed frozen veg (amusingly, their “Mexican” mix, with green beans, red peppers, carrot, and peas). I’ve found it hard to get green veggies here (I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen a broccoli, not even in Sofia!), so I’ll be glad to have that for variety. I couldn’t believe I came out of there for only 12BGN (9CAD).

The other food store has better produce and variety than does the supermarket, so I decided to pop in to see if they might have decent looking grapefruit. I finished the night before last the ones I’d bought at Kaufland and couldn’t get over what a treat they were! Well, the little food store had some and they looked really good! Grapefruit here is the same price as in Canada; like at Kaufland, I paid 1CAD each. These are the ruby red ones, not white, so that price seems fair to me. No point comparing with Mexico since this is an imported fruit here!

I headed out of town and had no sooner crested the big hill that the man who had given me a lift in pulled up behind me and gave me a “Well, you might as well get in!” look. He was loaded down with a lot of stuff and I wish I could have had the words to ask where he picked up his big bag of oranges! He lives here in the village and knows Max, so he was going to drive me all the way up to the house, but I told him that the guesthouse was fine because it’s hard to turn around up here (Max actually reverses down to the main street!). I thanked him profusely, of course.

By 11:00, the dogs had been petted, the groceries put away, and the coffee was perking. I wasn’t even gone two hours!

Now work. Then, I can have fun planning my next two weeks!

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Compromised!

I wasn’t too concerned today at the grocery store when my Visa got declined. Well, I just called CIBC and learned that my card was compromised! Someone used my number at Wind Mobile (interesting because that would put the breach in Canada…) and when that got approved, they went on a mad shopping spree to the tune of several thousand dollars!

Since I balanced the books the other day, I was able to confirm that everything that’s posted is mine and that I haven’t put through anything since then. So I’m not responsible for any of the charges that did go through before the fraud system froze the card and the representative says that he doubts I’ll hear anything more about this.

The rep immediately canceled my card and is rush shipping me one here to Maluk Izvor. Hopefully, the mail works as well as I was promised it does! Imagine if this had happened in Mexico, where the mail system is unreliable and there is no mail on Isla!

I don’t use my card a lot, favouring cash since that’s easier in these small communities, so I’m not in any sort of pickle as long as the card does come and I don’t have to start all over again.

It was fun giving the rep the address since everything sounded so “alien.” It helped when I said, “This line is the address, street first, then house number. This next line is the town. Now, we’re at the province and postal code.” No, mail in Bulgaria does not have to be addressed in Cyrillic.

The only way that I might wish I had my card is if I go away next weekend and need to book a hotel, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen. The work week is starting very slowly, so I may not want to take off at the end of it.

CIBC does a great job in situations like these of reassuring me that all is fine. I’m not distressed, but a whole hell of a lot curious as to how my card got compromised!

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Last Day at Home and Off to London

My last day at home wasn’t the flurry of activity one would think. I’m absurdly organised and good at managing my time. I methodically ploughed through my to-do list, including getting three loads of laundry done by noon. I was so on top of things that when Charles came to ask me to run an errand with him in the late afternoon, it didn’t throw a wrench in my plans at all.

When we came home from that, with me taking a good long last view of my beloved valley as we came down the hill into the hamlet, it was time to shut down the internet and power and do one final sweep. I almost forgot my toothbrush and… computer charger!

I trundled down the street with my two travel bags as well as a bag filled with what I needed to get me through the night at C&C’s. I’d brought a few things over earlier in the day, including a tote of things I didn’t want to freeze, and would stow the bag in that tote.

Caroline made me an extra special going away dinner. We started with Greek salad, then had roast pork tenderloin, beets, yellow beans, and rice. They bought a whole live pig last year and butchered it themselves, and boy was it delicious! There was a maple syrup glaze on it that was succulent! The beans were home grown, of course, as were the beets that Caroline canned last year. So good! The extra special part of dinner was that she’d made dessert, a strawberry rhubarb pie (with vanilla ice cream). I’m so spoiled!

Needless to say, the food and wine put me into a coma and I slept pretty well from 10:30 to 3, then, thankfully, I managed to fall asleep for nearly another three hours.

It was pouring rain when I stumbled downstairs, enjoying coffee on the porch with Caroline as we looked at our damp green hills. I forced myself to have a bit of breakfast, just some toast with peanut butter and honey, and then got ready, changing into my airplane outfit, closing up my bags, and stowing what wasn’t coming with me.

The plan had been to leave at 7:00 and we pulled out at 7:15. The drive to the airport in Regina took almost 2.5 hours, but they flew by! As we approached the exit for the airport, I once again expressed how grateful I was for the lift and Caroline replied, “We just wanted to get rid of you and the surest way to do that was to make sure you got to the airport all right!” Bwa ha ha ha. I love her and Charles so much.

We only had a few minutes at the unloading point at the airport to say goodbye and then off I went. I’d checked in the day before and had my boarding passes on my phone, so I went straight to security. There was a bit of a lineup, but it went quickly. It was rather a pain to get my electronics out of my computer bag since it was packed so tightly, but I got it done by the time it was my turn to put stuff in bins.

I got through the scanner without it beeping and then came what felt like an interminable wait for my stuff to get through the X-ray machine. But everything scanned okay and they didn’t make me open my bags or take off my shoes.

Then, came a wait. There’s not much at the Regina airport terminal. I got a second breakfast and a really good coffee and spent some time doing online stuff before calling SaskTel to cancel my service. That was painless and the reps I spoke to were very excited about my trip.

We boarded on time. It was very quick flight to Toronto and I bought a sandwich on board to eat. The airplane sandwiches are always good and fresh and no more expensive than what you get on the ground, so I don’t see the point of trying to juggle a bag of food onto the plane with my gear. Speaking of which, my gear was perfectly sized. My computer bag was really at the limit for under the seat stowage, but I could actually have expanded my suitcase if I wanted to.

My layover in Toronto was really short. We landed at about 5:10 and my next flight was departing at 6:00, which meant I really only had at most 40 minutes to get to the gate. It took forever to deplane and no one else appeared to be in a hurry. I was way at the back of the plane and pleaded to folks to let me through, but no one cared. By the time I got into the terminal, it was 5:30. There was no signage, no departures board, no one to give directions, nothing. I had no idea where I was supposed to catch my flight to St. John’s and didn’t want to risk going too far in the wrong direction looking for assistance. I finally spotted a WestJet agent who was in no hurry to help me. She was chatting with someone else about her plans for the weekend and gave me a dirty look when I said, “Excuse me…”  If there was a time for rudeness, this was it and I firmly said that I needed my gate info. She finally brought it up and the gate was pretty much clear across the terminal. OMG. I raced off and with Pearson being under renovations, there were detours. It took forever to reach the gate, where they were at final boarding call! According to the agent who checked me in, I was literally two minutes from missing my connection. PHEW.

Having made my flight to St. John’s, I could finally relax since I had a longer layover there and now knew that I would very likely get to London on schedule.

There was frost on the window near the end of that leg of my journey:

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Here’s how my two bags stack for easy transport through the airport. I do have to say that this got really heavy by the the time I got through Gatwick and I was happy to have a backpack.

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My layover in St. John’s felt like it took no time at all. I was disappointed that there was no food to be bought that late at the terminal. I knew I could get a sandwich on the plane, but had hoped for a “real” meal.

I was a little freaked out when I got paged, but it was because they wanted to make sure I was there since I hadn’t checked any luggage!

Before I knew it, it was time to board for the last leg of my journey. I’d hoped to sleep, but the 5-hour flight wasn’t conducive to that. There was a lot of turbulence, so there were constant announcements, plus I was famished and it took almost two hours to get our first beverage service, when I could get a sandwich. But like with my previous two flights, I did nothing on the plane, but close my eyes and at least attempt to doze.

The clouds were thick like snow as we pushed east:

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For the second time in my life, I watched the sun rise over the Atlantic.

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Sometimes, there was enough break in the clouds to see the ocean:

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Ireland!

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We flew over what felt like the whole of the south of England, coming up the North Sea coast. I was struck by how rural the country appeared, with so much farmland and only small clusters of cities. Gatwick Airport is well outside of London, so I didn’t get a first glimpse of the city from the air. We landed right on schedule at 8:20am local time.

All I wanted after we landed was to wash my face and brush  my teeth. The first bathroom I encountered was over crowded, but the second was empty. Feeling a little more human, I was ready to face passport control. The long lineup moved quickly. I’d already filled in my tourist card on the plane, so there wasn’t much to do when I got to an agent. I just confirmed how long I was staying and why and that was it, and got my first stamp in a passport since the last time I got to the UK!

Next was customs, but I had nothing to declare, so I just breezed through that. And then, I was in the main part of Gatwick airport and it was time to figure out how to get to London, then across London! Yes, I’d done my research, but it was contradictory and I’d made the decision to figure it out on the spot. To be continued!

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Landed in London

I have been up for just over 24 hours straight now, so this is just a brief check-in. I don’t think I’ll blog much while I’m here, to be honest. But I will take lots of pictures and notes and blog when I have the time and energy!

It’s been quite a journey to get here:

Car to Regina

Planes to Gatwick

Train to London

Underground to Queen’s Park

My last connection on the Tube! Was I glad to see it! Gatwick to London Victoria on the train, London Victoria to Oxford Circus on the Tube Victoria line, Oxford Circus to Queen's Park on the Bakerloo line, then switch to the overground part of the Bakerloo line.

My last connection on the Tube! Was I glad to see it! Gatwick to London Victoria on the train, London Victoria to Oxford Circus on the Tube Victoria line, Oxford Circus to Queen’s Park on the Bakerloo line, then switch to the overground part of the Bakerloo line.

Overground to Kensal Green

My own two feet to the Airbnb!

I caught glimpse of the Palace of Westminster and the London Eye, bought an Oyster card, and mastered the Tube. Not a bad day considering I feel like a zombie!

I’m off to find food and to get very far away from my bed!