Bullies, Babies, and Buffy

2 min to write:

From there we went to Pamukkale (Cotton Castle). It's absolutely beautiful, cascades of calcium pools that look like snow. We then took a bus to Istanbul, got there early in the morning...that place is crazy. First off the city is really dirty and there aren't any trash cans (link?), secondly they try to suck every penny out of tourists, thirdly the people there are so focused on trying to bully you out of your money that it's really hard to just talk to them as people. If you go to Turkey, stay out of Istanbul. That being said there were some nice things, the Aya Sofia, some of the people, Hellboy was in English (Whoop!), and there is a bridge with people fishing on top and cafes below.

On the way out of Istanbul we met a couple with a baby who were on their way back home to Bulgaria. They invited us to come with them, so on a whim we got out early, they gave us a tour of their town (no clue as to the name...north and central Bulgaria), I got to play with their baby a lot, and then we went to their house. But not just any house, it was in a tiny village and surrounded by little walls. Turns out it was an old farm house and inside they grew just about everything: peppers, tomatoes, grapes, apples, raspberries, and other stuff I've never seen. For dinner we had homemade brandy, homemade wine, a pepper salad, and more other food than we could handle. Also we got to watch Bulgaria beat Iceland in football on the TV. That night we played music with them and went to sleep really late. The next morning we had a huge breakfast with fresh cow milk, homemade yoghurt, honey from their bees...you name it, it was ALL fresh!

That day we went to Transylvania in Romania. Beautiful place. We slept in the mountains near where Dracula was from, then went to his castle the next day. The village was amazing and the people there really used pitchforks and scythes to gather hay, had clubfeet, little tiny houses, old toothy men grinning, gypsies ruined the countryside, and there were horse drawn carts galore. It was straight out of a fairy tale...but half the price!

Now we're in Budapest, about to head out to Vienna, and who knows where the road will take us from there...it's never gone quite where we thought it would before now, so why should that change?