This trip was unexpected. It was our first free day and fortunately it was planned from our hosting organisation. First week on the strange country, so it was good to explore it with locals. We had started our journey with two minibuses and our destination was kind of unknown. We knew the cities names but if you have no idea what is behind the name it doesn't help a lot. Our first stop was next to the highway, there is located Razgrad regional historical museum. Really cool place, I adore interactional and playful exhibition there. You can gather facts and information through unusual methods. For example I tryed to solve mosaic puzzle and suddenly appeared Quirino who took time how much time does it take to me 😆 We saw a lot of Thracians treasures and that raised our motivation a lot. In museum area was also a open-air area. I hanged around with Anna and randomly we were in the field picking flowers. I found poppy, it was so beautiful that I didn't want to throw it away, so I found a place where to hold it 😝 After our ride through small mountain villages we reached our second destination point Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo. We had a light lunch there and place itself seemed touristic. But it was great nature there. Again we had to climb up from stairs. It's weird to think that years ago munks lived in those caves and climbing there was part of their everyday life. Paintings were interesting and view from the cave was so beautiful. We had an opportunity to discover more that place. Weather has changed because in Razgrad it was a little bit cloudy but here it was hot as hell. Fortunately or unfortunately up the hill it was super windy. It was refreshing but it was bad a decision to conquer mountains with dress 😆 I did my best to control my dress, I was like Marilyn Monroe fighting with the wind. But this view there was breathtaking. Nice place to take new Facebook and Instagram photos. I like that my phone refused to work with photographer and on most of photos I have double head or hand. When I walked down I saw a lot of lizards, another cute creatures in this world. When we were waiting for anothers it was just a hell standing there, even in the shadow the temperature was high. This mountain trip was a challenge to Anamaria because she is afraid of high. It was so proud of her still walk up and join with us. Our last itinerary destination was Ruse. City next to Romanian border and Danube river. Ruse is more pleasant city than Sofia. Ruse is small and beautiful, people are quiet and modest. It was still warm outside when we had arrived. But always there is a solution to your problem. Cappy did their advertisement on the street and people handed out free ice-cold orange juice. What a kind act. I love shopping in Bulgaria. In every town you can find cheap shops. Bulgaria is shopaholics paradise. We used the free time to visit China shop, cosmetics store and second-hand shop. What a shopping experience after a wearying cultural day.
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Backround information that I found from Internet: The comment here on Eleri meaning "Overflowing Happiness" is the only example of the name's meaning that I have seen on the web. Most sites state that it means "greatly bitter", another says it means "overflowing", yet another site said it meant "enough" and others just simply state that it is the name of a river in Wales or the name of one of Brychan's daughters... I did find a story that stated that the name of the river came from the story of a water nymph who fell in love with a shepherd boy that ended up dying and that, in her grief, she cried the river. Therefore the name means "overflowing sorrow". I would like to add that on our Greece trip a Cyprus businessman said that my name means "come here" but I didn't find anything that proves that from the Internet. I am used that my name is not easy to remember and pronounce. Even Estonians are not really confident to pronounce my name. So, obviously I won't get mad if foreigners mispronounce it. It's always funny to see people struggeling with my name. One thing is how to pronounce it, second one is how to remember it. Everybody knows that Marat has an excellent brain. In on-arrival training he named all the participant's names and then he reached to me and Heleri ... silence. Even professor was strugelling on the second working week with our names. Third struggeling part is Eleri and Heleri. Who is who? You say Heleri but you mean Eleri and vice versa. Funniest thing is that even Anna called me Heleri for weeks. It supposed to be easier to her but nope. Actually I reacted every time when somebody sayed something similar to my name. And you can always solve a problem giving a person a new name. For example Elari, Ilaria, Jüri or Jürka. Why do I use name Eleri Baci? Because Baci sounds a bit like my last name and it looks better than my own name. Actually my surname sounds even more like word "pazzi". I also have a story with word "baci" when I was in Italy for a first time. Our guide recommended us to buy Baci products and she told us the word meaning. From that moment I realised that it's not the best idea to tell my surname to Italians, they may mishear it. For now I have made my fear part of my everyday life. That's why most of my accounts are named so. Mustafa told me that this word has also meaning in Turkish.
Baci - kisses (Italian); rude sister (Turkish) Pazzi - insane/grazy people (Italian) Our first working day wasn't really a working day. It was introductive day to Thracians history. We had breakfast with people from Switzerland. It was a pleasant surprise that we are going to work with university students. Because they knew how to work with those tools and guided us. On the other hand it was a bad thing because we didn't have enough work to do but this is an another story. At first we went to a Thracians tomb, where a tourist bus just has arrived, so it is bigger touristic attraction than somebody can expect from this little village. Prof talked us why Thracians were located just here and told us other interesting facts. Then we drove uphill to see a panoramic view. We visited medieval village and an old oak, everything was overgrown, but we were told that we are going to clean it up later in our project.
Next we went to Demir Baba Teke. Our bus parked next to an excavations, but it wasn't our working place. There were also camping places and local people spent their free time grilling there. There were running cold spring water, really refreshing. We went downstairs, a lot of stairs to step by 😀 The place itself was peaceful, little frogs were swimming around and the forest was surrounding the building. I entered to the mausoleum, it was interesting, I have never visited church like this kind of athmosphere. There were stange people praying in language I couldn't recognize. The weird clothes I saw, broken floor and the ancient smell inside, this all made me escape from this room. Those birds flying in and out was like in my childhood when swallows had a nest in my countyside's stable. Anyway it was a weird experience. Outside there was a wall and if you can walk few meters eyes closed and reach to the wall fingers in the holes your soul is innocent orsm? I didn't try it but it was entertaining to watch how others do it. I think Chiara hasn't done anything bad in her life because she hit those holes. I think my problems started from those stairs there. As I said a lot of steps, enough time to speak with somebody. But it was also a good task, we walked upstairs faster than others with Anna and we made ourself different work out tasks on the stairs. Good way to fill time when you are waiting for others. Later we came back to the tombs. We saw a not very well preserved tomb and we visited one covered tomb inside, it was so cool. It's always fascinating to see things that others can't. We also had an opportunity to visit most famous Thracians tomb but we were too big group, so we had to divided into 2 parts. We were outside waiting for another group and I was observing creatures who looked like chipmunks. They were sooooooo cute, running from a hole to another one. I really wish I could make one of those cute animals to my pet ☺️ It was also informing time while waiting there. Rashed told that Sveshtari is one of the hottest place in the summer and the coldest one in the winter. So, this area has a rough climatic location. By the way we picked some mint with Anna near to the tomb to make some tea. We dryed it in our room, it was a fantastic period because our room had home scent. Everybody knows that Estonians are gatherers, because most of us collect berries, herbs, mushrooms and vegetables by our own. In today's society it is so much easier to go into a market and just buy mint tea. Once again, I want to apologise to all the people who were with me in the bus when we were driving to Sveshtari. When I gave a Tarkan's CD to the bus driver I had no idea he is going to play it 5 times a row. I bought this album from Istanbul airport and I just wanted to listen it for a first time, but yeah it turned out badly. Anyway, trip to Sveshtari was nice. It was cool to get out of the city and see how Bulgaria really looks like. Near to the Sofia there were a lot of mountains and tunnels, like in Italy. But suddenly there were only sunflower fields. Aaah, they are so beautiful, another thing you can never see in Estonia. Our bus driver is a little bit grazy was my first thought. But this grazy driving style is so Bulgarian that right now it doesn't bother me anymore. But it was a little bit scary then. Cultural differences. At first you are scared but after a while you love them. I was awake during the whole bus driving time. I repeated words from my Italian copybook and time flyed really fast. We had a 6 hours trip From Sofia to our working place, so it was needful to take a break to eat and move a bit. So we had a little break in gas station. It was really modern place, I was a little bit surprised again. But yeah, this gas station was really European. There was possibility to order food, so there were menus in English and in Bulgarian. We tried with Anna to learn new Bulgarian words comparing the menus. It was kind of pointless because after an hour we didn't remember anything, at least we tried 😉 We had our next stop in Bulgarian previous capital city Veliko Tarnovo. We hadn't had much time there but we saw the city main attractions. Unfortunately my phone battery was dead, so I couldn't take any pictures but fortunately Anna sent me her photos. It was extremely hot day and the sun was burning, so it was so much better idea to stay in the air-conditioned bus. We had a luch there and there was a TV show "Kuzey Güney". It was kind of preparation for arriving in a Turkish village. Another 3 hours of driving to reach our destination place. I thought about my life during driving there. Firstly about last night, even though I didn't remember much I collected information from others. I tryed to figure out what is going to happen in these 2 months and after our project but I hadn't had an idea how my life really turned out. I came out of the bus and I had no expectations about that place. It was impossible to find a lof of information about Sveshtari on the Internet for example on the Google Street View. I went directly to the hostel and didn't look around, so I didn't have any impressions. We had an opportunity to select our rooms and roommates. For us it was clear that we want to be all Estonians together. They showed us room upstairs but there were only two beds, we also looked two another rooms. It was a mess to organize the rooms system but at the end we still got the room upstairs. Actually we won like a lottery because this room has a lot of advantages. But it is another story. At first we had a trouble. We had 2 beds and 1 couch and we thought that somebody have to sleep on that one, so I made 3 paper rolls and one of them had a pen mark inside. Anna got the marked paper and she had to sleep on the broken couch. Fortunately, boys brought us a new bed and they carried out our two useless couches. We changed our room furniture location a lot to make a space for our suitcases. We had so cool plans how to decorate our room with flowers and stuff but they stayed only as ideas. It was an evening to get use to with the new situation.
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AuthorJust another confused youth. Archives
November 2017
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