I decided to go to Bulgaria to renew my tourist visa, which will expire in 2 weeks. I don't think I can get it on my own in time, and if I start work (still no word, but I emailed the place last night...) it won't be ready in time either. So I decided to make a journey to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. While it is far from Istanbul, it sounds like a neat city to spend a few hours, and Sinan has been there before so he could give me some details and hints. He needs to get a visa to go to Bulgaria which costs like $80 and also takes time and documents, so I went on my own.
I took a night bus from the main bus station in Istanbul. To get there from where I live, I needed to take 2 shuttles which worried me a little, but luckily I found a guy going there who spoke English and he was a great help. Sinan also talked to the first bus driver and he kept an eye on me as well. After a few hours on the first bus, we got to the Turkey/Bulgarian border, and it takes about 1.5 hours to get through because of the guard places at both countries. We need exit stamps, and for them to entry stamp it. It was 3:30am by the time we left. I was in the front row, near the driver and hostess, which is good because it is safer (not giving men the "back of the movie theater idea") but there is a HUGE window which means I see everything, like us swerving around or the narrow roads, and also see the bus driver driving with his knees and also getting to breathe his smoke. I managed to sleep a couple of hours when we arrived in Sofia at 8amish and I got to catch a quick glimpse of some really neat architecture. The plan was to stay a few hours, then catch a 12 bus back and get back to Istanbul at about 9pm
Once getting to the bus station (a really nice one, not dark and sketchy) I went to the Information desk to ask about getting into town. Please correct me if I am wrong for thinking this, but when arriving in a country that is part of the EU, in a capital city, in an international bus station (buses to Turkey, Greece, Austria etc), with a desk that says Information (about the only English word in the whole place), but I assumed they would speak English! I asked and I got the rudest sounding "No" I've ever heard in my life. Quote from my parents: It's not what you say, but how you say it. Fortunatly I didn't need them because there was no 12 bus, so I decided to take the 9am bus rather than the 17:00 bus so I could get back to Istanbul while it is still light. So my one hour in Sofia was spent outside for 10 minutes to get fresh air, looking at the train to the city center imagining I was going there, and then trying to spend 9.5leve because I needed .5 for the bathroom.
The bus ride back was nice because it was light out, and I got to see the scenary. While Sofia was pretty run down and full of cement apartment complexes, the country side was quite lovely and a great change from the hustle and bustle of Istanbul. We later picked up some more people and the lady next to me was a Turk who lived in Bulgaria, and we managed to make some conversation with my Turkish!
This is my only picture of Sofia because I thought when leaving we would go back through the center but we didn't, sadly.
Ok if you are still reading here is where it gets good. Going back into Turkey through the border gate house place is where I was expecting to buy my new visa, which is just a $20 sticker in my passport. The official came on the bus, collected our passports, giving mine a long look, which I figured was because I was the only American, and I just exited Bulgaria that same day, and he knew that I was just border jumping which the Turkish government isn't a huge fan of. While they had our passports, we got off the bus for customs so they could look through the bags. Then we got back on the bus, and they handed our passports back. I realized there was no sticker and that I hadn't paid anything or said anything about getting a new visa, because I thought we would go to a desk or something. I tried to get up to go ask the hostesses about it (not that they spoke English so it would have been interesting) but the lady next to me wasn't going to let me by, saying the stamps they gave me were okay for the 3 month thing, and anyway we were leaving, we were finished, etc. So we left, and I realized, I don't have my new visa. My 90 day visa was still good to enter and exit the country (I still had 2 weeks), so why would they think I need a new one? I should have told the guy collecting the passports I needed a new one. So as we left, I knew I would be back. Awesome.
So pretty much, I got to spend 18 hours on a bus, 1 hour in the Sofia bus station, to not get a new visa. But here are the bright sides: I got to practice Turkish. I got 3 little cakes on the bus, and I bought Pringles in the bus station. The scenary was pretty. I got to have a change in environment.
So right now I am looking to go back to Bulgaria, either tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm trying to decide if I want to just go to a city as close to the border as possible, not caring where it is, or make more of a day out of it, like a city on the Black Sea. Maybe I should play it safe and go on the same route that I know, because I know how bad I am at asking questions and being assertive and figuring out transportation and so forth. Hmmm adventure #2!
Check in in a couple of days to see if I am successful! We'll see!
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