to live recklessly, i guess this is it.
ok we knew we needed visa for entry into bulgaria, transit or short-stay purposes, but we decided to risk it after weighing it against a 120 turkish lira which is about 140 sing dollars each and an undeterminable waiting period due to sloooww bureaucracy. at most, we would just have to put up with the stifling presence of some bulgarian officials for a few hours, which was what happened to cleef. so it was a zipping in and out of the many duty free shops at the turkish-bulgarian borders with boyfriend whom i suspect has fallen into the vices of fraternity life because
he basically went "wow the liquor is dirt cheap and we should buy to keep warm and perhaps buy some tobacco as well", a sinfully dark chocolate liquor that only induced further euphoria, our high was given a rude jolt when the bulgarian customs denied us entry, acted all self-righteous when we all know they take bribes, the bus driver threw our bags out, left us freezing and stranded, given marching orders by the burly buggers to make our way back to turkish territories. so devoid of human empathy! i was just laughing with glee as i saw one of my must-do-things-before-i-die come true. we were gonna become true-blue hitchhikers! stranded in desperation. it was no mean feat, considering the mere number of civilian vehicles passing through the customs in the dead of the freezing night. yay for a friendly stranger, albeit mysterious. he was more than happy to take us to the nearest turkish city but he was slightly apologetic for having to stop by the police customs to have his "equipment" checked. and so we found ourselves in edirne, more like he dropped us off at a petrol kiosk a few miles away from the city centre. and of course i wasnt too happy with the bf for not opting to go back to the safer sanctuary of istanbul after the novelty of adventure had worn off. but BUT we ended up sitting in the plush confines of the mayor of edirne's office, sipped apple tea and nibbled on chocolate, took some pictures, made serious talk and some small talk so yes, out of every bad comes a good.
oh we were almost robbed in bucharest. wonderlicious! my shrieks were definitely more helpful than the bf. and with every bad comes a good, because a kind romanian family overheard my dramatic primal screams of feminine wrath and took us in, calmed me down and helped us call for the hostel to escort us through dark streets to relative safety.
anyway, it's now home sweet home at his romanian friend's family place. great hospitability, great food. i like!