What to do with 3 Euros???

After a rather unproductive talk - these are the best ones - and a lot of arguing, we came up with this: the "What to do with 3 Euros?" list.
Why 3 Euros? I have no idea, what so ever. Anyways, here it goes:


What to do with 3 Euros?

Köln (Germany)
Suggested by me and Nara

- Currywurst with bread, in that place I forgot the name (I swear I'll try to remember it and post it here!);
- 200gr of a de-licious butter cookie in that bakery/coffee house, which I also forgot the name :D ;
- 3 gigantic burek at that place owened by that guy from Israel. It's opened 24 hours a days, so it's definitely the best place to stop by after a night out (fuck, I'll have to look for this place's name as well);
- 2 hours of internet at Venloen Strasse - cheap, cheap, and the atendants are so nice :)

Berlin (Germany)
Suggested by Nara

- 3 coffees in the libanesse kiosk where Nara made some crazy old german friends that were mocking every overweighted person that walked in the establishment

Amsterdam (Holland)Suggested by Nara

- glass for shots of drinks, at any souvenir shop, in Amsterdam. Nara was telling the images stamped on the glass were the best ones, rather "typical" ones from the city, like penises, cows and marihuana leaves

Paris (France)
Suggested by Fécula and Rodrigo

- 4 1l packages of apple juice. Fécula was kinda obsessed with apple juice all during the trip.

Geneva (Switzerland)Suggested by Fécula and Rodrigo

- 1 plastic dog leash hanger, at IKEA. The piece is simply great, in the shape of a dog's butt, the "hook" of the hanger being the dog's tail

Beograd (Serbia)
Suggested by me and Nara

- 6 Tito lighters (I have to take pictures of that);
- 3 pairs of acryllic wool gloves - that is, if you buy them with the gypsies at Bulevar Kralja Milana. Fantastic colours (the deep blue and the fiery red are my favourite);
- Pommes frites plus a bottle of Coca Cola at the Biblioteka cafe, on Terazije (lovely place by the way, I highly reccomend);
- 8 croissants - really, the best ones I ever had, ever in my entire life. Forget french croissants, or french puff pastries in general. The real thing is the serbian one. God, I need a cheese one right now.

Niš (Serbia)Suggested by me and Nara

- 6 "go's" to the most awful toilet you probably ever saw in your entire life, at the central bus station. Nara said some nasty things in portuguese to the keeper, you wouldn't wanna know...

Varna (Bulgaria)Suggested by me and Nara

- Damnit! Just now I realise I didn't buy anything in Varna. But, hmmm... 3 Euros is an 1/8 of a ticket from Sofija to Varna, going straight to Shabla (although, Nara and I agree, this was priceless)

Sofija (Bulgaria)Suggested by me and Nara

- 6 failled tries to call to Varna on a public telephone, at the bus station. The cool "plus" of this What to do with 3 Euros option is that after each failled phone call, you get a voice message explaining - in bulgarian - how you should proceed to correctly complete a phonecall. Brilliant;
- 3,5 500 ml bottles of Sprite


Other suggestions are more than welcome :)

Tourism boom in Shabla puts Bulgaria on the top 5 destinations for travelers around the globe

The small city on the Black Sea coast had more visitants last season than all the Hawaiian Islands together last year, says the Bulgarian National Tourism Board

Sofija, April 24th 2009 - by Marija Almeida

The Bulgarian National Tourism Board announced, last Monday, that the country had a tourism boom in the past year as never seen before in any other place in the world. The reason for this sudden world curiosity on this Southeastern Europe country have its reason on the newest and hypest coast resort on the globe: Shabla

“Only last summer season, Shabla had more visitants than all the Hawaiian Islands together last year” declares, excited, the executive director of the Bulgarian National Tourism Board, Mrs. Poli Karastoyanova.
The unexpected tourism boom in the region last season made the Board decides for urgent measures to support and attend the huge visitants’ demand. “It’s good, and at the same time, very complicated. Although in the past two years Bulgaria's been watching a significative increase in the tourism area, what happened in Shabla was something completely without any precedents, and met us rather unprepared for it. We’re already working on projects to increase not only the city’s infra-structure for the next summer season, but the entire region’s”, says Rumen Draganov, the newly-elected head of the Board.

Since February 2008, Bulgaria watched an increase of 23,4% (compared to the same period of 2007) on the number of foreign tourists visiting the country’s winter resorts. The summer resorts in the Black Sea Coast saw an increase of 167,3%, being 94% of this percentage concentrated only on the city of Shabla and its surroundings.

With a history that goes as far back as to the roman times, Shabla – a small city around 15 km south to the Romanian border – was once a popular destination for eastern bloc tourists, during the communist years. The 1990’s, however, were of complete ostracism for the region.

Although authorities can’t quite explain the subtle world interest in the city and the region, locals have their own theories about the phenomenon. “We were in the bar, on last year’s Christmas eve, when two tourist girls, said Brazilian, appeared in the city. Few time later, a bunch of tourists started arriving in Shabla. I have no doubts, those two girls brought Shabla back to all it’s glory, they were a good omen” declares Georgi Irinov, a local miner. “My friend’s hotel is now always full and I’m working as a cooker again, just like I was in Germany!” he adds.
If the two mythic Brazilian tourists had or not been to Shabla, only few can confirm. But after the tourism boom last year, a monument to the “Unknown Brazilian Girls” was erected in the city’s main square, where the city locals pay tribute monthly, on every 24th.

For 2009’s summer season, the Bulgarian National Tourism Board has already a traced plan: other than the opening of Hilton's luxury hotels newest member, the Hilton Shabla Palace Hotel, around 15 new accommodation establishments will be ready until this year’s summer. “We want to attend the expectations of all kinds of tourists that visit Shabla. The opening of the Shabla Folk World theme park will be an excellent option for families that choose to spend vacations in our country’s coast. In addition to a wide range of ecotourism, we just settled now the first Rock in Rio – Shabla Edition, that is going to put us on the route of the great european festivals. We have attractions for all ages and tastes”, celebrates Aneliya Krushkova, head of the Bulgaria State Agency for Tourism.

The Agency also releases, next Friday, the tourism campaign “Shabla – a priceless experience”. The release party will have the presence of Jamaican singer Shabba Ranks, who recorded a new version of one of his greatest hits specially to pay tribute to the Bulgarian resort: his 1992 song, Mr. Loverman, evokes Shabla on its new refrain. “This city is beautiful. Reminds me of my hometown, Kingston” declares, moved, the singer.

For 2009’s summer season, the Bulgarian State Agency for Tourism and the National Tourism Board predict a raise of at least 53% compared to last year’s boom.

For those interested in taking part on the Shabla-o-mania, access

http://www.shablainfo.org/ for more info about Tourism in Shabla, or even http://www.bulgariatravel.org


ps.: this is a work of fiction

Do you know where Shabla is?!

Exibir mapa ampliado

Balkan Expedition - Part III (Final)

We got into the café.

As fast as I could I managed to take the seat on the table nearer to the entrance. I remember just "leaving" my body on the chair, like if I had no bones in it. Nara took the seat on my left, and when we were both seated, we took a deep relief breathe - Kostov was coming to "rescue" us, in only a couple of hours! Only a couple of hours...

Anyways, I noticed Nara was OK again when she said she needed a coffee - she always needs a coffee when she's fine. She stood up, looking for the waitress, when she noticed the miner looking men were inviting both of us to join their tables. Before I could say "Nara, I think we'd better stay here", she was already heading to their table.

So, on this table there were two guys only: the most miner-looking man in the whole cafe (he was wearing a full-of-holes grey wool cap, and a huge grey jacket, with some little grey beard covering his cheeks) and his younger friend (black haired, with a black jacket on). As Nara was approaching the table, she asked "Speak english?". "English? No, no, no Engleski", the older man said. "Sprachen sie Deutsch?", he asked.
"YES!!!" Nara quickly replied, and finally took a sit at the guys table, next to the older man, facing me, just a few tables away. After the introductions (of course they mistaked her name with "Nada", as usual), she started explaining them what happened to us in our way from Serbia to Bulgaria. That was when I realised the black haired guy didn't speak any other language other than bulgarian, as his friend was translating to him what Nara was telling them. But it wasn't quite working: the two guys were so damn drunk, they were asking her again and again what happened to us and what were we doing, on a Christmas eve, in that cafe in Shabla. After having the same answer from her some three times, the man gave up and started telling about him, and started asking where we were from. "I bet you can't guess where we're from! Try to guess!", Nara said. While they were trying each and every possible european country - and Nara saying "no" to every wrong try of them, I was looking at her and shaking my head like saying "Fuck Nara, don't do that! Don't tell them where we're from!". She was looking back to me with a crazy smile on her face, like if she wasn't understanding why she shouldn't do that.
I mean, we didn't know anything about those two, they were pretty drunk, we didn't speak the same languages, we were alone in Shabla and, to make it worse, everybody knows that brazilian girls have the reputation to be easy and big arsed ones. Hehe, we are not "easy", and most certainly not big arsed girls, haha. But they didn't know that.
When she said "We're from Brazil", the two men were like "Noooo, you're not, you're lying!". Although she even showed them her student card to prove it, they didn't believe her. Then they started pointing their fingers at me and asking Nara where her friend was from. When she said Brazil, again they said she was lying.

That was when I decided I should join Nara at their table, to not leave her with them all alone. I sat right before her and beside the younger black haired guy that, as soon as I sat down, took my hand in his and raising his eyebrow with a drunken look he started saying in bulgarian "Your hands are so cold..."
"Fuck", that's what I thought, and as quick as I could I took my hand off his and put it inside my coat's pocket. He was staring at me moaning something that sounded like "Oh come on, give me your hand". Fuck again, I so wanted Kostov to arrive soon!

I then saw Nara was on a similar situation with the older man, haha. In a very, very 'restricted' german he was saying something like "I cook Berlin. 15 years. My mother sick. My daughter not house. I alone. Come to my place with me". Nara was pretending she didn't get what he really meant, saying "I need to stay and wait for my friend to pick me here, can't go anywhere else". And he said everything all over again, this time to me as well, and the younger one was still trying to get my hand again, and Nara saying "no" once more, and then ha! The younger guy took a note of 50 leva, placed on the table, and pushed it to our direction. On that moment, I think Nara realised she'd better really stop giving them the attention she was giving. She looked at me as who says "Dammit!", and I gave her back my "Yeah, dammit!" look.
She turned to the guys and said "What is that? What in the world is that???", pointing at the 50 leva. The older guy looked to his friend said something in a harsh tone of voice, turned back to us and said "I'm sorry, my friend is very drunk, he got confused, he just wanted to pay a coffee, he's confused".
"It's Ok, it's Ok", Nara replied.

Immediately the guy said again "So, come my house, I alone, my mother sick" and that was when we finally gave up, stood up, and got back to our table.

We were both nervous with the whole situation at this point. After making a nervous speech to Nara, pointing how she should never have started talking to them in the first place, we both started laughing, laughing so much, that we started crying, hahahaha. Laughing, crying, and pointing out to ourselves our bizarre situation and saying to ourselves "Kosta, please, come quickly!!".

After we managed to control ourselves, we agreed on speaking very low and not even looking at their direction til Kostov rescue us. So we did. But even so, the older guy - after realising we wouldn't go back to their table - came to us, kneelled down next to our table and started saying a bunch of things in Bulgarian. Nara was getting kinda pissed, telling me, in portuguese "I told him I only speak german, why is he still talking in bulgarian, dammit! I can't get a word!".
As soon as she said that, he stood up right away, and said "Romanian! Romania!!!" and started saying a whooooole lot of things in romanian, hahahaha. We completely forgot how much portuguese sounds like romanian and how close to the romanian border we were, dammit! Nara looked at me like who says "It doesn't matter what I say or in what language, he just won't stop". Yes, indeed he looked like he wasn't gonna stop, hehe. After a minute speaking romanian to us, he stoped, with a thoughtful look on his face, glazing at our table. That was when he saw my notebook, full of russian stuff written on it's cover. When I noticed he was staring at my notebook's cover, it was already too late: he turned to me and started speaking russian, hahahaha. I just couldn't believe that was happening, that guy was unstoppable, completely!!! The most annoying thing is that, actually, I could get quite some stuff of what he was saying, but I was holding myself back to not answer anything, or then heaven knew what could happen, haha.

Nara and I stayed completely mute, staring at the table, and after a while he gave up and got back to his table.
Thank God!

Nara and I could then start a conversation without being interrupted at every second. We were making some random drawings on my notebook, while talking about how funny it would be telling about that whole situation to our friends, hehe. All during our talk, Nara was staring at every single car that was passing before the cafe, believing it could be Kosta coming to save us, haha.
The older guy still made one last try to please us: he gave, to each one of us, an orange, a huuuge one, hahaha. And got back to his table. I remember even the waitress was laughing like crazy when he gave us the oranges, hahaha.

I was so tired, I didn't even have forces to be scared of nervous anymore, hehe. I wasn't even anxious for Kostov to come. I was simply absent. And Nara was still staring at the glass windows, hoping that each car passing by would be Kostov's.

Then, at one point, she stood up and started heading to the glass door, saying "I think it's him... It's... Yeah!! It's him, it's Kosta now!!!". And I was like "I bet it isn't. It's probably the 10th car passing by that you say it's him for sure, Nara..."
But this time she was (finally!) right: it WAS Kosta, and with his brother! Nara ran to the glass door and tried to open it, but it was locked, hahaha. She shook the door a bit, but it didn't work so she just stood at the door, with her hands and her face glued to the glass, watching Kosta and Martin approaching to the cafe. The waitress came and unlocked the door and ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! We held Kosta as strongly as we could, the four of us lauging a lot as we grabbed our things and headed to his car.

After an almost two hours trip back to Varna, we arrived at his house, met his parents, and had the coolest Christmas eve of the last years :)))))))))

Needless to say, this "Shabla adventure" became the_joke among all Kostov's friend in Bulgaria, haha. I guess we will be forever remebered as the "Shabla girls", like they named us.

Balkan Expedition - part II

There were so, but sooooo many guiches in the bus station, that I got a bit confused. I decided then to go to the "Information" desk (yes, "information" in english, written exactly like this), and ask for some help. "Speak english?", I asked. The woman on the information desk made me a sick face and said a dry "Ne". Bastard. I gave up asking for help and started roaming around the bus station, passing guiche by guiche, trying to find "Varna" written in cyrillic. After several minutes I finally came across "Варна" written in one of the guiches and bought two tickets, for 26 Leva (something around US$ 20 dollars), departuring at 9 am. We had something like and hour and 20 minutes til then.

With the tickets in hands and some spare time, Nara and I decided that it was time to call Kostovinski e tell him at what time we would be arriving in Varna, so he could pick us up at the station when we arrive. From Sofia to Varna it's a 7 hours trip, which meant we would be arriving there around 4 in the afternoon. We went to a public telephone and tried to call, but somehow it wasn't working, at all! We tried all the possible codes to make the phone call, exactly like Kosta told us to do, but it simply wasn't working! When I was on my 10th try, Nara suddenly held my arm strongly, with a scared look on her face and said "Teta... Bad news..."
I was breathless for a second. "What is it Nara??", I asked. She said "It's 2 minutes to 9 o clock".
I said "So what?!" but then, immediately I realised: fuck!!! Bulgaria is one hour ahead of Serbia, and I completely forgot to set my mobile clock to the right time!!! That meant we had exactly 2 minutes to get to our platform and get into our bus! We got all our things and bags as fast as we could, coats and everything, and ran as fast as possible to the platform number 8. But alas: even though we were officially a minute before the departure time, our bus to Varna wasn't there. Get the picture: Nara and I, standing on the empty platform, disappointed faces on, with our coats wrongly buttoned up and scarfs badly tied, holding our baggage in the clumsiest way possible, with heavy snow falling over our heads. I wish somebody would have taken a photo of that moment. Even my gloves were not correctly on, I was probably looking like Monty Python's Dr. Gumby or something similar.

Then we thought that perhaps the bus was late or something. But no. We waited for 15 minutes and nothing came, at all. So we went inside the station again as outside was far too snowy and muddy for us, and started the expedition to find another guiche selling tickets to Varna - cause that one where we bought our "lost" tickets had only one daily bus to Varna.
After 20 minutes having to put up with people making sick faces at me when I had to switch from my shitty russian speaking to english (after all, my russian is far, faaar away from being enough for such things and even so, bulgarian is quite different), I finally made it to find another guiche selling tickets to Varna - the next one departuring at 10:30 in the morning. We had almost one hour til then, this time with clocks correctly set to the right time, hehe.

We went to the second floor of the station to try and find a functioning public telephone. We were excited as never when we saw a shop with a huuuge display saying "internet and international phone calls". But as it was too good to be true, of course it was closed and nobody could tell us when it would be opened.

When it was 10:10 we ran to the platform and to our happyness, this time our bus was there: bright and shinny, waiting for us! Now, this bus was waaaaay better and modern, comparing to the one that took us from Belgrade to Nis - and we had plenty of space to place our legs! If there's one thing that drives me crazy is not having space enough for the legs inside buses.
But well, there we were: sitting (almost) comfortable inside the warm, cozy bus, heading from the Bulgarian capital to Varna, on the other side of the country, as you can see in the map below:

(Click on the map to enlarge)

During the trip - between the several stops the bus made, admiring the beautiful and white balkan landscape and taking some short naps - I was trying to call Kosta from my serbian mobile phone. After trying tones of times, I realised I wasn't managing to call him because I had run out of credits - damnit! Now our only chance to talk to him was to wait for him to call us. Hoping that he would realise that I didn't have credits (and then, call me) made me aprehensive all the rest of the trip.

When it was around half past four in the afternoon, my mobile finally ringed and yes, it was Kosta himself calling us!!

K - Tchetche!
M - Kostinho!
K - Heeeeeeeeeeeey!
M - Heeeeeeeeeey!
K - Bonitchinhas!
M - Saudades, "Julinho"!
K - How are you doing? How's the trip?
M - Just great!
K - I'm so glad you're coming! My whole family is already waiting for you two!
M - And we just can't wait to meet all your people! The view from the bus is so amazing!
K - And at what time are you arriving, after all? Where exactly are you now?

When I was about to answer, the phonecall was suddenly interrupted.
I was swearing all the dirty words I could remember (in portuguese, of course), and so mad I felt like destroying my mobile. Again we were hoping he would call back at anytime soon. But he didn't: instead he sent me a message, asking me to call him as soon as we were in Varna, so he could pick us up at the station. Fuck again!!!

At this time of the trip, the sky was already getting pretty dark - winter days are soooo short... The bus' lights soon were very low, almost off, and then Nara and I, tired and exhausted, fell asleep. That was when the real adventure started.

I woke up all of a sudden, like if somebody had called my name or something like that, but no. Nara was asleep in the seat next to mine and, to my surprise (and later, to my despair) the bus - that was pretty full when we left Sofia - was now almost completely empty: beside us two, only a young bulgarian couple were still there with us. One of the two bus drivers (obviously the one that wasn't driving at that moment) came to us and started asking a lot of things in Bulgarian. I had to concentrante and pay huuuge attention to what he was asking, and I understood that he wanted to know where were we going to. "Varna", I replied.
The guy turned completely white, opened his eyes wide, asking me back "Varna? Varna??? Oj Boze, Boze!!". He started walking from side to side and talking to himself, very nervously. I was so, but so in shock I couldn't say a word. I looked at Nara, and for the look on her face I could see that, like me, she had just realised what had happened: we missed our stop in Varna and we were now heading to some other city.
I turned to Nara and asked "What are we gonna do now?!" and she replyed "I don't know, I have no idea...". At this moment, the guy was talking to that couple that was still in the bus with us, and the girl stood up from her seat and came to us, followed by him. When she got closer, I explained her (in english, of course) that we were going to Varna and before I could finish my sentence, she said "Hey, Varna was 80 kilometers ago. The next and last stop is still 30 kilometers away, in Shabla".

Shabla. Sha-bla. S h a b l a . . .

I asked her if she knew of a bus from Shabla to Varna still on that day, she said "Only tomorrow morning, at 5 am".

Fantastic. We were supposed to spend Christmas eve with Kosta and his family and now we were heading to heaven knew where, and without being able to reach Kosta on his phone number. Could it get any worse?

After a while, the bus finally stopped. The couple went out, and Nara and I were even more desperate then before. Nara went to the bus driver and started trying every language she could, haha. When she realised that she would have to speak bulgarian, she freaked out and her eyes were almost crying. The bus driver was SO nervous with the whole situation that he hit her on her shoulder rather strongly, twice, and said something in bulgarian that, in that context, it could be only "Wait, wait and stay calm!".
He went off the bus, and started walking in the icy, melted snow, looking down and smoking heavly. We went off the bus too, and looked around.
Have any of you guys ever watched "Priscilla, the Queen of the Desert"? Do you remember the cities they would have to go to, during the film, that were nothing more than a square, a church, and 24 hour bar? So, that was Shabla. The only difference is that it was covered in mud, snow and dry, leaf-less pine trees. But then, something came out to our view, like a light in the end of the tunel: a big display saying "Internet and international phone calls".
Nara quickly took her purse and went to the bus driver, asking him to wait a bit that she was going to make a phone call. Heaven knows how, he got the "phone call" part of her speech, and asked her to wait. He took his mobile phone on his hand, and gave it to Nara, so we could call from it! I ran inside the bus and took my notebook with the phone numbers, and the bus driver dialled for us. We waited several seconds, and it didn't work. He dialled again, and again no answer. When we were about to start freaking out again, his mobile phone ringed - it could only be Kostov calling back - and this time, it really was!!! The bus driver passed me his mobile and hearing Kostovinski again was a relief:

K - Tete!
M - Kosta!!!
K - What happened? Why you didn't call me back, or messaged me?
M - My serbian mobile phone went out of credits and the german one wasn't working here in Bulgaria...
K - Yeah, I thought so. I tried to call you, but it didn't work. Where are you now, after all?? It's 7 pm, are you close to Varna or?
M - Well, it happens that, hmm, we missed the stop in Varna...
K - You missed Varna?? How come?! It's probably the biggest stop after Sofia! Where are you now???
M - We're at... Ahm... Shabla.
K - You're in fucking Shabla?!?!
M - Yeah...
K - Fuck!
M - Yes, yes, fuck!
K - I can't believe it, oh god
M - I can't believe it either, believe me.
K - Do you know where Shabla is?
M - No?
K - Good for you, then. You're 15 kilometers from the romanian border, Tete...
M - Fu - cking - hell . . .
K - Yes, you get it... Where exactly in Shabla are you now?

I passed the phone to the bus driver, as he would most certainly know where we were better than me. After a minute talking to Kosta, he gave me back his mobile, and Kostov just asked us to wait inside one of the (only) two cafes/bar of the city, that in about 1 and a half or two hours, the most, he would be getting there by car to pick us.

R e l i e f. I was so relieved to have talked to him and to know that he would be there to rescue us anytime soon!
Only at this point I could stop and analise the whole trip we were taking (since we left Belgrade til then) and damit, I could help but laughing. I was laughing so loud and hard, I started crying, hahahaha. The whole situation was SO completely surreal: when in my entire life I would imagine that I'd be lost in Bulgaria, almost at the romanian border, with Nara, on a Christmas eve?!

After crossing the large square from side to side, we finally reached the cafe. When we got in, again I felt like in the movie "Priscilla, the Queen of the Desert": there were only men in the cafe, miner looking ones, with deep drunk look on their faces. Faces those now completely turned to the door, where me and Nara were standing, over-thinking if we should really get in there. I remember myself saying a long "puta que pariu", and Nara confirming and repeating what I had just said "Ehhh, puta que pariu mesmo".

Anyways, we got in and took a table.

(3rd and last part at anytime soon)

Balkan Expedition - part I

So, on december 24th, half past midnight, Nara and I headed to the Central Bus Station here in Belgrade, to start our loooooong journey to Varna - in the Bulgarian Black Sea coast - to spend christmas with our beloved friend, Kostov, and his family.

We waited the Niš Ekspres bus for about half an hour in the station, side by side with an amazingly beautiful gypsy woman, her small kid, and her husband.

Nara and I got into the bus, took our seats and right away a chubby guy, a Serb, came to us asking (in serbian) if we were bulgarian. I said that no, and his second guess was "Russia". I said "ne" again and then, in english, Nara and I told him we were from Brazil. The reaction was as it always is: everybody gets so excited when we tell we're from Brazil, hahaha. That is, when they believe us, of course. Cause most times people think we're joking.

Anyways, this guy was showing us the gps system of his super modern mobile phone for the first 20 minutes of the bus trip (mobile phones are pretty, pretty important here in Serbia). Thank god after those 20 minutes the guy decided to rest a bit, allowing us rest too. That was when I started sleeping like a stone, and Nara too.

Nara told me that in the middle of the trip she woke up once, and could see the gps guy talking to another one, looking and pointing at her. She was scared, of course: imagine yourselves waking up with too guys looking and pointing at you while speaking in serbian! As soon as the gps guy saw that Nara had just awaken, he said loudly "go back to sleep! go back to sleep! Everything's ok, back to sleep!!" - almost like if he was ordering her to do so, hahaha. She was so sleep, she couldn't help but really getting back to sleep, haha. Thank god I was sleeping far too heavily at that time.

I was suddenly awaken by some guy, from the bus company, speaking very loudly and walking from side to side in the bus, asking the passangers some questions. The gps/mobile guy came to us asking "Sofia? You going to Sofia? You need to change bus, this is Niš! Change the bus to Sofia, this is Niš. Now, now move!!!". Nara and I grabbed our coats and bags and left the bus like if we were being thrown away or something, hahaha. Along with us came a bulgarian girl, and a serbian guy.

So, we were in Niš, the third biggest city in the country (although you could never tell by looking to it's central bus station). It was almost 3 and a half in the morning, snowing, the floor of the trashy, traaaashy station was completely covered in muddly snow and my sleepy self forgot to put the coat on - so yes, I was freezing, hahaha. The guy from the bus company (the one who woke me up with his loud voice in the bus), took us to a room, and asked us to wait a bit. I was so sleepy and confused, I can only remember there was a TV, with the movie "Swordfish" on, with serbian subtitles. Trying to read the subtitles - as the TV volume was far too low to be heard - helped me to feel more and more awaken after a few minutes. So cool, I love trying to read subtitles in cyrillic! After a few minutes in this "rustic" waiting room, the serbian guy came to me and asked me "Speak english?". I said "YES!!!" right away, hahaha - I was so relieved! And the bulgarian girl spoke english too, and quite some serbian as well. He then told us we were waiting for the bus that was gonna take us to Sofia, because that one we were in would go from Niš to another serbian city, which I can't really remember the name now.

We waited for half an hour, until the loud speaking guy from the bus company came in again, asking us to follow him. This time I had my coat and my gloves on, so I didn't mind the wind and the snow at all. As we walked throught the platforms, I couldn't see any bus waiting for us. Perhaps it was yet to arrive?

No, it wasn't. There wasn't any bus. At all. There was a taxi, actually. A red, Yugo (a.k.a. "the worse car ever produced in the world") taxi, probably as old as me, some twenty-some years old. It looked even older, though, believe me. Do you people know what is it like a Yugo??? I believe the picture below to be quite enlighting:



When I saw the so called car, I could only remember the words of Trajan, a romanian guy we met in Cologne, when we told him we were heading to Serbia soon:

"Serbia is an interesting place, you know. Very "rootsy", hehehe". Indeed.

Ok, it's just four of us, I thought. And just til the other bus station. So, Nara, me ad the bulgarian girl took the back seat, and the serbian guy was in the front seat. After some 15 minutes squeezed inside the red Yugo taxi, we started taking the road. On that moment, I realised: there wouldn't be any bus to us - we were actually going to Sofia by car. By Yugo, I mean.

I think Nara and I were just so exhausted that we accepted the whole situation and just relaxed. Or at least we tried to, until everybody in the red Yugo (but us!) started smoking compulsively. Yes, our last drop of confort had just being spilled.
It took us more than 3 hours to get to Sofia. The roads were terrible, we could't barely see anything from the Yugo windows. Passing through the border was pretty fast: it took us some 10 minutes only to show all the documents and get the entrance stamps to Bulgaria (people from Brazil do not need a visa to Bulgaria).

The day was dawning and we were arriving in Sofia, under some pretty heavy snow. I remembered that early on the day we left Serbia, when I spoke to Kostov, he told me he was stucked in the airport in Sofia, on his way back from Thessaloniki to Varna, because the flights were being cancelled one after another due to the bad weather.
When we finally came out from that red Yugo taxi - smelling to cigarette smoke like I've never been before! - we headed to the central bus station, just 50 meters ahead of where the taxi left us.

On the moment we stepped into the bus station, I took a deep, deep breath and smiled: thank god I could read cyrillic script! I mean, thank Marcos and Jelena, my two russian teachers, hahaha. If I had their phone numbers on that noment, I swear I'd have called them both just to thank them for teaching me, hahaha. Everything, literally everything in the central bus station was in cyrillic. Not like in Serbia, where there are lots in latin script too.

Anyways, I told Nara to sit, wait and take care of our bagagge, so I could walk around and look for a guiche selling tickets to Varna. It was december 24, the day of Christmas eve, and we had to be in Varna around late in the afternoon/early in the night. So we had to find a bus leaving from Sofia as soon as possible.



To be continued tomorrow, I desperately need some sleep now.

Uma introdução...

Faltam 10 dias pra viagem e, sinceramente, eu acho que a ficha ainda não caiu. Pelo menos não completamente.

Já comecei a juntar as tralhas e arrumar as malas: casacos, luvas, meias, chapéus (chapéus!!!), sapatos...

Dia 28 nós 4 - eu, Nara, Fécu e Rodrigo - saímos do Rio de Janeiro e seguimos juntos até Paris, de onde Fêcu e Rodrigo pegam a conexão para Genebra e eu e Nara seguimos pra Düsseldorf. De Düsseldorf vamos imediatamente à Colônia de onde, depois de 1 semana e meia, seguimos para Belgrado, Sérvia. Belgrado vai ser nosso "QG" nos Balkans. Da Sérvia iremos à Bulgária e provavelmente também à Macedônia (que é meio que questão de "honra" no nosso roteiro, hehe). Fécula e Rodrigo devem se juntar à nós denovo ou em Belgrado ou em Varna, ainda não definimos muito. Talvez a gente passe o ano novo (católico) juntos, em Belgrado. Eu e Nara ainda ficaremos para as festividades ortodoxas antes de retornar à Alemanha, conhecer Berlim e, então, ver o que faremos de nossas vidas (momento mais temido do plano todo, com certeza).

Minha mãe diz que é o roteiro de viagem mais "não-ortodoxo" que ela já viu (sem trocadilhos, hehe). Mas eu acho lindo. E ela também acha.

Daqui há alguns dias volto a postar. Com fotos e novidades da viagem ;)

Bem vindos ao Wish I could reach you in Belgrade :)