August 18, 2016 by Rae

A Very Full First Day In Plovdiv

It was a pretty good night at the hostel. Other guests were quite noisy until about midnight, then it went quiet. The bed was very comfy and the temperature good thanks to the fan. I didn’t get enough sleep, but it was better than expected and I was surprisingly raring to go this morning.

First order of the day, find breakfast. After wandering for close to an hour here in Plovdiv and my experience in Sofia, I came to the determination that Bulgarians don’t eat breakfast. Oh, you’ll find them drinking teeny cups of coffee and smoking in cafes, but you don’t see anyone actually having a meal. Those who are are having a pastry and coffee to go.

I ended up at a Costa Coffee, which I knew would be expensive, but would at least have a good sized cup of coffee. I went to the cashier and said in Bulgarian, “Please, I would like a not small, not big Americano with very little milk and a croissant with jam.” The lady rang me up, gave me my order, and then said in perfect English, “Have a nice day!” *shakes head*

I passed this sign post near the central post office:

I am more than the equivalent of a round trip to Maz from Haven away from the East Coast of the US!

I asked a couple of people today about this mosaic, but no one could tell me what it means. First line is Plovdiv, second line is Leningrad. I think the date is 1980?

I went back to the hostel and did a bit of work and translation before heading out for a few hours. I decided to check out the history and archaeology museums as they are right by each other. So I headed towards the Maritza River.

Like Sofia, Plovdiv has pedestrian underpasses for crossing busy boulevards.

My first ice cream of the day! I was asked how I deal with the heat. Ice cream. Lots of ice cream. I have small portions (sometimes multiple times a day!) and get it in a cup if I can. This is Kit Kat flavour.

Plovdiv is difficult to get around as it is laid out in what I consider the exact opposite of a grid pattern, so there is a lot of signage in the touristy part of town!

This is the monument to the unification of Bulgaria, outside the unification museum.

This says history museum, but that’s really misleading as it’s strictly about the unification of Bulgaria in 1885.

I was greeted in English and shown where to start, then was left to my own devices. A decent chunk of the museum had good English translations and I spent some time reading quite a bit of the Bulgarian (got in lots of practice with the lower case script). I am definitely picking up some vocabulary.

This appears to be a map of trade routes:

A bunch of stamps:

Plovdiv’s original name:

What I got from this is that it’s about a bank safe:

Yeppers. 🙂

Old currency.

Bicycle produced in France:

Cultural life in East Rumelia, one of the provinces that would become part of the state of Bulgaria after Unification.

This newspaper is called Maritsa, just like the river that divides Plovdiv.

Administrative organization of East Rumelia:

The establishment of the province of East Rumelia. It lasted seven years until Bulgarians showed they had the potential to manage their own affairs.

The Congress of Berlin is what split up the original Bulgarian state, in 1878.

This is the only man who was killed after unification. According to the guide on the walking tour yesterday, he went into a post office to send a missive about unification and the post master, scared of who knows what, chased this man into the street and shot him dead!

“At the gates of Plovdiv, September 5, 1885.”

This is a turtle shell. I think it was turned into an ink well.

Army medical supplies.

Manifesto for the Bulgarian People: Bulgarians… and that’s as far as I got. 🙂

Map of the route of the movement of the Bulgarian army from the southern to the western border during the Serbo-Bulgarian War.

It was only on my way out that I found the English signage explaining the point of the museum!

And here’s a bit about this gorgeous building:

This was my first Bulgarian museum and I’m surprised by how much I got out of it! Little did I know what awaited me next door at the Archaeological Museum…

This museum did not allow photographs, which is unfortunate because it was one of the best museums I’ve ever been to! I went through twice and spent the whole time saying, “WOW!” under my breath. It covers the history of Plovdiv from prehistory to the Middle Ages and is very professionally done with flawless English translations. I made a note on my map of some of the incredible things I saw.

In the prehistory section, I really liked the ancient pottery and tools, which ranged from flint knives to Bronze Age hatchets. The room about the Thracians, a collective of ancient peoples with no written tradition, had ancient giant safety pins that looked rather like modern ones. I immediately envisioned that the Thracians wore some sort of toga-like garment.

There was a small room about the history of the museum and the building, how both fell into ruin and were restored. This room also had some old coins.

There was a large room about Plovdiv in the classic and hellenistic periods, featuring black on red pottery, ornaments, and weapons. Nothing I’d never seen before, but the first time I’d seen them in their point of origin! Off of that was a tiny room about the coins of Philippopolis. They were tiny! This was the first currency of the region.

And then… what I will remember as the mosaic room, but which is the ancient Philippopolis room. It had lots of other things besides the mosaics, but that’s what I remember best. This is a representation of one that you can see from outside the museum:

This is a very important piece as it is the first (and only) proof of an ancient synagogue in this region!

The final room, Plovdiv in the Middle Ages, had some belt buckles that look strikingly like modern design.

I highly recommend the Plovdiv archeological museum. I suspect visiting it will be one of the top highlights of my Bulgarian summer!

The restaurant where I wanted to have lunch was right behind the archaeology museum, so I considered that a sign: Restaurant India! For someone who didn’t like Indian food most of her life, I’m making up for lost time!

Beautiful decor inside. I wanted to eat outside, but there were no tables.

This is the first menu I’ve seen in Bulgaria that I found to be expensive (reviews support that impression). I just went with a beer, butter chicken, and plain naan. I would have liked rice to go with all that sauce, but just this represented 20BGN with the tip:

Thankfully, the food was wonderful! I was asked how spicy I wanted my meal and said, “A little.” The chef understood that perfectly and I got just enough heat to make my nose run, but not so much that I couldn’t taste my food. After a couple of months of my cooking, these still exotic flavours really hit the spot! Shame it’s so expensive, but it was a worthwhile treat.

Then, since I was right at the Maritza River, I crossed it using the pedestrian overpass. It was like a sauna in there!

The Maritza River.

Starting to think it’s impossible to get a picture of a city in Bulgaria without a McDonald’s being in the way! I thought the house to the left was quite interesting.

See the RV?

The archeological museum had inexpensive post cards, so I bought one for Bast. The central post office is right by button plaza, so I headed there to mail the card. What a contrast to my post office experience in Sofia! All the necessary signage was translated (badly, but let’s not quibble) into English so I knew which room to go into and then which wicket. I said to the lady in Bulgarian, “I would like a stamp please.” She looked at my card and said in fluent and bored sounding English, “One lev and 40 coins please.” There’s so much English in Plovdiv! After I got my stamps I went outside to post the card, but was puzzled that there was no mailbox, until I saw this:

I was pretty sure my post card didn’t warrant priority, so I put it in that “forein countries without priority” slot. Hope it gets there!

I then wandered up the hill back into the Old Town, soaking in the atmosphere of this truly ancient city.

The cobblestone streets are the worst I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe cars drive on them. This is a good patch!

This translation amused me.

My Mexico dresses would not look out of place in Bulgaria!

Here’s the exterior of that St. Constantinople and Elena church we passed on the tour yesterday:

More bad cobblestones!

Our guide had told us to visit the Hindlyan House to get an idea of 19th century Bulgarian architecture.

I love these narrow passageways. They remind me of Edinburgh.

The house is behind another one and down a bit:

The information panel for the house was in Bulgarian, English, German, and French. I can’t speak as to the quality of the Bulgarian and German, but the French had more info than the English! The house was built between 1835 and 1840 and is about 2,000 square feet over two stories. It was restored in 1974, but the exterior paint and frescoes are all original. It is the only house with a well preserved bathroom that had hot and cold running water.

This was the bathroom!

The ceilings in all the rooms were works of art:

This was a fortified storehouse:

I continued wandering around. So much beauty!

Remains of Byzantine fortress walls!

Unfortunately, the ethnographic museum was closed because of renovations. It might be open tomorrow. This is what the exterior looked like:

Today, there was a lot of demolition going on!

Here’s the back of that gossip tower from the tour yesterday:

I went back to Lamartine’s house and ogled:

I found my way back to the Roman amphiteatre and dropped! The full heat of the day was upon us at this point. I had no idea I could move this slowly, but there I was, just slinking through the streets of Plovdiv’s Old Town and trying not to melt!

And back to Lamartine’s house, but not by design!

Is that perhaps a chimney?

Another bronze statue, no idea of whom:

I wish I could come back to see Tosca at the Ancient Theatre before I leave!

Here’s a map of the tourist part of Plovdiv:

I headed back to my hostel for a mid-afternoon break, stopping at this fountain right by the hostel to get a cold drink to fortify me for the climb up to my room!

I cooled off and rested for a bit, writing my post about the walking tour and trying to decide where to go for dinner. I came up with two possibilities. While all of this was happening, it began to rain, which I hoped would cool things down!

Around six, I headed straight up to the Old Town again, right to the summit of Nebet Hill, to check out a Bulgarian restaurant I’d spotted yesterday. It ended up not being that appealing, so I headed to my second choice in The Trap. I have to say that I’m shocked by how little of an effort that climb was, especially since it wasn’t as hot. All my dog hiking is paying off!

My second choice for dinner was the Italian restaurant Maramao.

I loved the bricks outside of it:

I was greeted warmly in English and took a seat in their covered courtyard. The menu was in Bulgarian, English, and Italian. I settled on a glass of white wine and a main, but was tempted by one of their appetizers. I asked the server about the main portion size and if he thought it would be too much for an appetizer. He asked what appetizer I had in mind and when I told him, he said he was pretty sure that it wouldn’t be too much for me as the appetizer was quite light. So I ordered it!

Here is my roasted pear with gorgonzola (blue cheese), balsamic vinegar, and walnuts. *drools at the memory* This would have made a good dessert for me!

I took some pictures of the courtyard while waiting for my main and drinking my crisp cold Bulgarian white wine:

And here is my main. These are “tordelli,” a type of ravioli, with a ragú sauce that had cinnamon or maybe nutmeg in it. Very good!

With the tip, my meal was just 3BGN more than lunch,which really shows how expensive my lunch was. Every other time I’ve spent around 20BGN for food, I’ve had a main with an alcoholic beverage and either an appetizer or dessert.

I headed back to the hostel after dinner and was just two blocks away when it started pouring! I was rather glad to have an excuse to call it a night!

June 27, 2016 by Rae

A Day at the British Museum

The only thing on the plate for today was to spend it at the British Museum! Getting there was super easy. I just had to take the overground from Kensal Green to Euston Station, then walk a few blocks down Gower Street. Since the exterior set for “Sherlock” was literally on my route, with no detours, I stopped for a picture and to have breakfast at Speedy’s Cafe, also featured on the show.

I got to the museum just before 11AM. I had a plan to tackle it. I would start with what I came to see, the Rosetta Stone and the Egyptian artifacts, then work my way down from the top. Ha ha ha ha ha. The British Museum is a warren of rooms and staircases and it was impossible create any sort of logical path through it. I ended up doing the museum very haphazardly, often doubling back multiple times to the same rooms by a different staircase. I’m pretty sure I got to every room, but, obviously, I did not read everything!

I had lunch in the Great Court on the ground floor, a wonderfully flavourful baguette loaded with cheese, pickled onions, Dijon, and more. I could not believe how good it was! A few hours after that, my aching legs shaky, I went to the Great Court restaurant upstairs to have a cream tea. As research had told me, service was dire, but it was nice to sit for almost an hour with my treat and work on my Bulgarian. 🙂 A cream tea is a pot of tea with scones, jam, and Devonshire (clotted) cream. I have a full afternoon tea booked for tomorrow!

I stayed at the museum almost right to closing, going back to see things in less crowded conditions. The order of my pictures will reflect that.

The British Museum was everything I’d dreamt it would be and MORE! One thing that really delighted me was that there were “touch stations,” where you could handle real ancient artifacts.

After the museum, I thought of doing “something else,” then realised that I was completely tuckered. So I headed home, going out again about an hour later to the Kensal Rise high road to get some fish and chips for dinner. That walk did me in. My legs are sore!

Tomorrow is going to be interesting because of my Oyster/public transportation problem. More on that after the pictures. I’ve got some notes, but the pictures are more meant to be things that caught my attention than a way to educate my readers. 🙂

: “221B Baker Street”

: Vicki, here’s your non-map. 😉

: I could not believe that I was there!

: The Great Court is magnificent!

: Egyptian artifacts were in two separate galleries. The ground floor had stelae and statues.

: The colour and detail is unbelievable!

: THE ROSETTA STONE!!!!!!!!

: Back of the Rosetta Stone

: I love the expression on its face!

: The interior of this sarcophagus was as impressive as the exterior!

: The mask is very lifelike!

: How to wrap a mummy.

: The first library to contain all knowledge.

: Why don’t you write your tablet and do your homework?! (LOL)

: The Vrindavani Vastra, the oldest surviving textile of this type.

: Interior of a coat.

: Serpent with many heads.

: Persian stonework.

: A gold cape.

: I got to touch this 3,000 year old bronze bracelet!

: The Hoxne Hoard.

: Assortment of wooden clocks. Wood is actually a better material for clockmaking than is metal as it does not wear out as much.

: This is an automaton, a machine that does things. It would move across a table and the canons would shoot.

: Another touch display showed Brits what’s coming in terms of polymer currency… I got to touch some ancient coins.

: That Cyrillic at the top says “Megafon.” 😀

: Moulded rather than blown glass.

: A Roman sieve.

: The next several images are of the infamous Parthenon sculptures or Elgin Marbles. Greece wants these back!

: Even the floor of the museum is worth looking at. Do you see the fossil?

: I was amused that Mexico is separate from North America…

: This inordinately amused me.

: Turquoise mosaic.

: I like how they had a mirror to show the underside.

: Impressive!

: This was probably the most gorgeous room, filled with bookcases. It was very cosy.

: Ptolemy I.

: I GOT TO TO TOUCH REAL ANCIENT MUMMY WRAPPINGS.

: And a prehistoric axe!

: And an alabaster kohl pot from Ancient Egypt!

: Here I am touching a REPLICA of the Rosetta Stone.

: Name cartouche.

: This shirt was a gift from Bulgaria.

: Ceiling in the entrance of the museum.

: The Great Court from above.

: The Great Court from above.

: Gebelein man, preserved in a bog.

: This mummy was coated with a resin.

: My cream tea. I had just plain English breakfast and since it was a special occasion, I added both milk and sugar to it! I am in love with clotted cream…

: I found this HUGE exhibit of Korean pottery tucked away and not even on the map!

: The oldest known yellow glazed pottery.

: The colours in this exhibit were phenomenal.

: So pretty!

: This represents the coronation of a king in an African country and was made in the style of the Last Supper.

: A door from Nigeria

: After the Mozambique civil war ended in 1992, weapons were decommissioned and made into art.

: I loved the prawns in this African textile.

: This jaguar is a water container.

: This basket is huge and was a costume. Normally, it would have been burned after and novices would have eaten the ashes.

: So many little seashells!

: Crystal skulls have been proven to have come from Europe.

: Salish, from Vancouver Island.

: I loved this bit of floor.

: These little figurines have the best caption in the whole museum!

: Someone at the museum has a sense of humour!

: These were diplomatic letters.

: A prosthetic toe from Ancient Egypt.

: This is a man’s head crushed inside a helmet.

: I was headed out the door when I spotted a tiny gallery I missed with some beautiful Japanese artwork.

: Russell Square. I cut through it to get to the Tube and got a sense of déjà vue. Turns out it’s another Sherlock filming location!

: I loved the exterior of Russell Square Station.

: Dinner! Needed a bit more vinegar, but was good! It was too much. I had half the fries, half the batter, and all the fish.

: I then popped into Tesco Express for a treat.

: These are orange confit-filled wonders. I don’t want to admit how many I ate. 😀

So my Oyster problem. The Oyster card is a prepaid card. You tap it when you start a journey and tap it at the end and whatever your fare is gets deducted from your card balance. I only had enough money left to travel today. I tried to “top up” three times today and each time, the transaction failed. No one at the ticket booths could help me. I called the bank and they said that the money was charged. I called Oyster (yay for Skype on both accounts) and they said there was nothing to do for me since they only refund money to UK residents with a bank account here. So now, I’m out about 60CAD (!!!), although I’m pretty sure I can get my money back by filing a fraud report with CIBC once the transactions post, although that will very likely take months to sort out. But what do I do tomorrow since there’s not enough money on my account to go anywhere? Needless to say, I’m not giving Transport for London my credit card again! Public transit in London is excellent, but you have to be very self-sufficient as there is no help available and the payment system is unnecessarily complicated and convoluted. What I will try tomorrow is a newsagent on the Kensal Green high street who has an Oyster symbol. Maybe I’ll be able to pay with cash…

June 26, 2016 by Rae

The Regent’s Park and My First Night in London

Being as knackered as I was late Saturday afternoon London time (having been up nearly 30 hours), I didn’t want to do anything that would require a ton of mental energy. The Regent’s Park was on my list of things I wanted to see and super close by. A stroll through a bit of it would kill some time. So I took the Bakerloo line back to the Regent’s Park station.

Gorgeous tiles at the exit to Regent Park’s station.

My plans weren’t too ambitious. I would just walk in a generally westerly direction (ie. back towards Kensal Green) to the Marylebone or Baker Street stations and return home from there. I saw some gorgeous flowers on my walk.

And a lovely fountain.

I found a toilet with an interesting flushing mechanism.

You have to pay 20p to use the toilet. Similar setup and price to Mexico!

I found paradise. What more could a gal want?!

The burger prices were very reasonable by any standard. The hot dogs, though, wow!

Very good soft serve!

I don’t want to admit how long I stood at this map trying to orientate myself. My brain was fried!

Lovely gate.

Then, came the roses, each prettier than the last! I thought these would be my favourite…

What is this bird?! Its feet were really odd.

These turned out to be my favourite roses. Look at their name! I fell in love with them before I saw the sign.

So pretty!

I passed the wedding party that belonged to this monstrosity…

Not sure what church this is.

Out of the park and walking the famous Marylebone Road. I only know how to pronounce it (Mar-leh-bone) because I heard the name mentioned a few times on “Sherlock.”

Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. I went to the one in Las Vegas in ’07.

I was going to end up seeing a lot of this station…

Found a sushi restaurant I want to try…

Won’t be hard to find again as it’s right in front of 221B Baker Street, home of the Sherlock Holmes museum. I’m not a fan of the books (just the modern series) and know the museum is a complete rip off, so I wasn’t temped to visit.

I had reached my limit by this point,so I rode home from the Baker Street station. I got in at 6:30 and promptly went to bed with my computer. By 7:00, I was seeing double and gave up. I shut down and promptly passed out, waking up just shy of midnight.

I ended up being awake for nearly three hours even though I was exhausted. I wound up researching afternoon tea and found one that seemed suitable for me in terms of location, price, and dress code, so I booked it for Tuesday afternoon.

By the time I was ready to go back to sleep, my phone was almost dead, so I decided to try my new power converter, which has a USB port. It works great!

I woke again around 5:30 and then for good around 7:00. It had been a super quiet night (even quieter than at Haven!) and the bed was comfy, but that combined with my exhaustion wasn’t enough for my confused brain to let me sleep straight through. I was still in better shape than I thought I’d be.

I opened the window to get some fresh air, noticed a weird sound, looked out and saw… a fox! Wow!

I have access to the kitchen, but decided to forgo making my own coffee in favour of going out for breakfast. So I hung out for a bit, made a rough plan for my day, and headed back to Baker Street to start on my first day of adventures in London…

May 28, 2016 by Rae

A Worthwhile Muddy Drive

Today was the Willow Bunch Community Garage Sale. I don’t know if it’s the population dwindling or if it was the weather, but not very many people participated. As I drove through town looking for balloons and signs around 9:30, I thought my outing would be a bust. Ha!

I drove past the first home that had stuff for sale because it seemed too small to be worth my time. Silly Rae! I went back, thankfully, and found something I have been looking for for ages:

It’s a small good quality dry erase monthly calendar. I’ve been using a dry erase board for years to track my transcription load, but there was only room to write out a week at a time. You might be surprised that I don’t use an app for that, but I haven’t found a calendar or task app that can let me manage my queue in an effective manner. I can just glance at the board, with each of my clients being colour-coded, and easily move things around. This will get a lot of use!

I also found these:

They are real leather and are brand new. I will be really happy next time I head to Mexico to have so many good pairs of sandals at the ready!

Then, I went to the library as they were advertising books and magazines for very little. With my line of work, I’m often too brain dead to read anything substantial in the evening, but magazine articles are just the right length. Well, the library took advantage of me:

The sign said to fill a bag for 25 cents so I was trying to not be greedy and just grabbed a few of whatever titles that interested me, like Our Canada, Canadian Living, and Canadian Geographic. One of the library ladies said, “Oh, someone wants magazines! Yay! What are you interested in?” I told her and she put all the rest of the aforementioned magazines in my bag, a couple of National Geographics, and a bunch of Tastes of Home (good recipes). She would have kept going with more, but that was enough! I paid 50 cents for this whole stack. I can’t wait for the next nice afternoon that I can knock off around 4:00 and go sit in my swing with some of these and my last cold beer!

Next stop was the thrift store. I got a nice tee-shirt and a not-so-nice (pilly and a bit worn) maxi skirt that will be great for just wearing around the house when I’ve got projects on the go and don’t want to have to worry about stains. I also found:

These are heavy duty appliance casters (wheels) that should work well for my plan to build a rolling platform for my table saw.

And then, for nostalgia’s sake, I picked this up:

These are the exact kinds of locks we used when I was in high school. Twenty years later, I still remembered how to spin it. The combination is on the back so, yes, I was able to test it. And, yes, I need to memorise said combination and remove the sticker! 🙂

Next stop was a house advertising a bunch of tools. I showed up late and all the good stuff had been picked through, but I got an Allen key set, a mallet, and two tape measures. The guy had so many tape measures he said he’d just give me the second one, so I grabbed it! Now, I can keep one in each out building and one in the RV!

It was still a bit too early for lunch at this point (BBQ at the seniors’ centre), so I decided to mosey on over to the Willow Bunch Museum to see the new Métis room (I have an invitation to attend the official opening on June 21st). I caught up with Nichole at the front desk and then she said to pick out anything I wanted in the gift shop, like a jacket, as a thank you for all the translation I do for them! I was shocked! I tried on a few different ones and this was a winner:

The shimmery olive colour doesn’t translate well to the screen, but it’s really luxe and will go with everything. The inside is fleece and the outside is apparently water repellent (according to the tag), although I’m not holding my breath about that.

Can you imagine how much use I’m going to get out of it?! It’s going to be a great hiking jacket. It’s going to Bulgaria with me if I end up deciding to stay up in the mountains.

It does break one of my rules not to wear things with logos and place names:

But I can live with it. 😉 I’m still reeling from shock at what a nice gift this is!

I then did a blip through the museum, making a note of some of the signs that I need to translate. The new Métis room is really impressive and I’ll make a point to go with my camera next time so I can do a blog write-up.

My next to last stop was the seniors’ centre for the BBB. $5 gave you a choice of a hamburger with a really skinny patty or two hot dogs, plus either water, pop, coffee, or ice cream. I went for two hot dogs with water since I was really hungry and I knew the burger would not be enough. My neighbour Caroline, two of her houseguests, and another neighbour were there, so I joined them. They’d gone for the hamburgers and ice cream. Thankfully, there was only vanilla or strawberry, so I wasn’t tempted. Plus, it was damp and cold, not ice cream weather at all! My hot dogs were good (Mexico spoiled me in that regard!), with the bun being cold but the dogs themselves perfectly BBQed (I expressly asked for the ones that were set aside for being a little too charred). We were all happy with our lunch and happy to support the seniors’ centre.

Finally, we all went to the food store to pick up a few sundries. I just wanted Chinese-style soy sauce for a pork roast marinade and it was on mega sale, yay! I also got a tub of my favourite plain Greek yoghurt for half off, woohoo!

Not counting the food store stop, my budget today was $20, $15 for shopping and $5 for lunch. I came in $2 under budget. 😀

The drive home sucked, though. It was pouring rain and the gravel road was very muddy and slick. I was slipping and sliding all over the place, even at a crawl, and really glad to get home!

May 6, 2016 by Rae

The Homesteader Museum, Powell, Wyoming

After visiting the internment camp, Vicki and I continued into the town of Powell to visit the Homesteader Museum, which has free admission. A good chunk of it was closed because they had just opened for the season, but there was plenty to explore, and the price was right!

We both loved the lilac bushes outside. They are my favourite flower.

The main part of the museum is this big room with lots of treasures in it!

We were greeted by a museum worker who gave us a very good introduction to the history and geography of the area, including how this was basically a desert until irrigation made the land arable. Then, Vicki and I started poking around the exhibits. There were tons of interesting things and I only took a few pictures.

I had a very similar typewriter back in the day.