Alrighttttttt now onto Bulgaria! So a disclaimer to all older people (aka parents, grandparents/ anyone that remembers me as a small child) that there wasn’t much else to do in Bulgaria except engage in various nighttime activities. I even looked for meaningful things to do! Except I had no such luck… so read on with caution!
July 23rd:
We arrive in Bulgaria! We start off by having the usual diplomatic briefing which was pretty cool. Unlike most other ports that we go to, we realize that Bulgaria is not a very hot cruise ship port. The US ambassador explained that they just had a cruise ship a week and a half ago. In all of the other ports there were cruise ships coming in and out every day. We also learn that due to Bulgaria’s eastern European ties and their communist past, they might hate Americans. However, we all learn later that Bulgarians don’t hate Americans, but in fact are shocked by our prescence in Bulgaria. Apparently, there was a newspaper written about the MV Explorer the day we got there!
Okay so moving on, we get off the ship and take a taxi for 10 euro (which we realized was a MASSIVE rip off) to the center of town and walk around. Because it’s a Sunday there isn’t much going on, but we go looking in and out of shops, go into Mango and this place New York and buy some clothes which is always exciting. Our tiresome day of shopping leads us to pretty much a Bulgarian Chilli’s, so that was exciting. We look at the menu and realize that not only is the Bulgarian Leva really good for the dollar, but that food is extremely cheap. It’s great! Oh and there are also ten million kinds of cheese on the menu, including fried and such. SO for all you cheese lovers GET EXCITED.
We somehow find our way to the ship after refusing to pay another expensive taxi ride. We stop at a gas station on the way home for some snacks and free wifi, so that was an exciting stop. We get back to the ship to relax and get ready for the evening’s festivities. We head out with a pretty big group of us to hang out on the beach and then go to this club called Extravaganza. Our ship is docked right by this huge stretch of bars and clubs and such, so it was only a short walk. It is a SAS fest per usual, and we all have a great night.
Before I move on to the next day, I feel as if I should explain the title of my blog. So Bulgaria has a huge problem with the Mob because they pretty much run all of the clubs/ everything that is anything. So we were warned at pre-port to stay away from clubs with nice cars parked in front of it, and if guys in nice suits are coming to your direction, definitely get out of their way.
July 24th:
Today starts out a bit late, so Jessica, Melissa, and I all make our way to the beach at the early hour of 1 pm. We pretty much lay out on the beach all day and just relax for the day. Bulgaria was pretty much a vacation for us, so I had to continue reminding myself that it was okay to do nothing except lay on the beach. So we make our way to go buy a snack, and then head back to the ship after a few hours.
Somehow the decision was made to go to a bar crawl in Golden Sands, which is a beach that is about 30 minutes away by cab. I wasn’t prepared to go that far, but I knew that it was going to be fun! So we get into a cab and make our way to golden sands. I get out of the cab in golden sands and realize that it is pretty much beach town meets Vegas. There are so many carnival games and beachy type shops, and sex shops on every corner. It was definitely a site to see. So while I am taking everything in as we are walking to the bar crawl, I see a massive group of people wearing lime green shots carrying various different international plans. And little did I know, that that was the bar crawl I was about to embark on! So we happily grab our lime green shirts and ask the guide for the American flag. However, there was no American flag! That should have been shocking but considering we are the first Americans that this woman we came across had ever met, it shouldn’t have been.
So we embark on our bar crawl journey and get a pretty good look around Golden Sands. Lots of casinos and a baby Eiffel tower and Ferris wheel to complete the Vegas Façade. We realize that Bulgaria is pretty much a vacation spot for Eastern Europeans, and no one else really came to visit. Considering that there were almost 100 Germans rallying around the German flag, we realized that Germans truly loved to vacation in Bulgaria.
July 25th:
Jess, Lisa and I decide to head back to Golden Sands so that we can do some serious shopping and beaching! We walk around for a while and shop around, go eat some pretty delicious food with free wifi (and A/C) and I buy a headband. We head to the beach for a bit but I realize that there are lots of bugs in the sand and I couldn’t bare to have another Mykonos incident, so we quickly left the sand. We say goodbye to golden sands, but not before taking a picture with the baby Eiffel Tower, of course.
That night we go to a club called Coco Cabanna which ended up being a very fun night! I also potentially came across some American secret service people/ members of the mafia. Always a sign of a good night.
July 26th:
You know what the last day in port means!! SHOPPPPPPING! So we set out on an adventure to buy a lot of great things, and we go to this cute little open market thing and buy typical Bulgarian goods.
So as you can tell Bulgaria was not as eventful as some of the ports, but it was definitely a nice vacation! We only had one day in between Bulgaria and Turkey so we had what we call “Turkey Day” which is where we have global studies (gag me) for two hours and don’t have normal class to just learn about the country that we are going to. Sooooo on to TURKEY!!!
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