Jeep Safari (July 25)

*Two things I forgot about yesterday’s Donchevo village visit:
1) When we were walking down the street, a donkey pulling a cart went by so I took a picture. Then a sweet Bulgarian lady came running over to me with a bouquet of flowers for me! It was so precious! She had just picked them from her garden and wanted me to have them. :)
2) I forgot to mention that we got to visit the kindergarten! It was a Sunday so they didn’t have class, but it was still cool seeing their classrooms. Aside from the alphabet, you would’ve thought it was a kindergarten in the U.S. There were bright colors all over, paintings that the children made displayed all over, and even a wall with golden stars for behavior and rewards. I remember that distinctly from when I was in kindergarten! We also got cute handmade cards as we walked in, and ANA gave them to us! :)

Okay, now back to today! :)

Today was the long-anticipated JEEP SAFARI! I had no idea what to expect, except that we’d be in open-top jeeps driving through the trees and countryside of Bulgaria. A group went yesterday and said it was amazing, so I was really excited!

We met out in front of the ships where our jeeps were waiting for us. It was just Michelle and I going together, so we got to make some new friends in our jeep. There were 10 jeeps total! Our driver was crazy- it was AWESOME! First we stopped to get a beautiful view of Golden Sands from above. It was pretty! Then we were on our way. We were driving on not-roads, where other jeeps had driven but very holey, bumpy, and uneven. I was sitting in the back on the side, and kept having to duck so I didn’t get hit by all the branches!! When we would emerge from the trees, all we could see for miles was huge bright golden sunflower fields. It was incredible. We stopped at a brandy distillery (again), but I already had enough of that stuff (by enough, I mean I fiery sip).

Then we drove farther and stopped at a giant sunflower field so we could run around in them and take pictures. The only bad part was….I was wearing shorts and flip flops, and so was most everyone else. There were bees on pretty much every sunflower, so we had to be careful! It was sooooooo much fun running through them though and posing in the middle of a huge sunflower field for a picture. We ran back out, hopped back into the jeeps, and kept on going. I noticed on my legs that there was a little red bumpy rash in a line…uh oh. With my skin, I should have anticipated it. I didn’t know what poisonous plants they have in Bulgaria, so I kept my eye on it. Whatever the bumps were, whether from plants or bugs, they kept getting bigger and started getting pus-filled centers (sorry). I figured if they kept getting worse I’d go to the clinic in the morning to make sure it wasn’t the same type of thing I got in the Bahamas (that I had to take antibiotics for). After sunflowers, our next stop was a honey tasting one! We got to try all different kinds of honey—and even see some of the bees flying around us that made it (not my favorite thing!). I was having really bad allergies, and someone told me that if I eat the honey from the area it might reduce my allergies a bit. I don’t know if this is true or not, but they were pretty sure it would work…soooo I ate tons of honey. :) Delicious! We learned that if you put the honey UNDER your tongue, you get more flavor and it’s almost a bit spicy. I like eating it normally! Then we only had 2 more stops- our next one was a shooting stop! We all took turns trying to hit a target. I was “THIIIIIIS close” according to the guy who was helping out there.

Before I talk about our last stop, I’m going to say a little something about the jeep part. Has anyone been on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland? Yeah, this was like that BUT ON STEROIDS. It was so bumpy we had to hold onto the frame above us so we wouldn’t fly out. Sometimes there were ditches and one side of the jeep’s wheels would be down in the ditch, and the other up on higher land. At some points I was convinced we were going to flip! We sped through big puddles and mini ponds and randomly did donuts, spinning around crazily and then speeding off. Mom, you would have hated it and Dad and Rob, you would have loved it. :)

Then our last stop was lunch. Because I still wasn’t feeling well, I ate a bunch of bread and just tried the kabobs. Oh, and I had watermelon too! I wish I could have partaken in eating more of the culture’s food, but it would have not been fun for my stomach and I knew it. Above our table was a little bird next with little tiny baby bird heads sticking out, their beaks almost bigger than their heads! The momma bird kept coming and feeding them- it was so cute! Then the jeep safari drivers all came marching in and played music and we all danced to it. It was a blast! On our way out, Michelle and I stopped to say hi to some sheep and goats. As we were baaa-ing at them (communicating, of course) and taking pictures, their owner came out and was herding them a little but was smiling at us so we knew he didn’t mind. Then we went over to the gate side and started talking to the goats again, and the Bulgarian man disappeared. As we were still obsessing over the goats, he came back and had little sunflowers for us and put them behind our ears! It was so sweet! Then on the way home, we realized we could stand in the jeeps so we were on our feet the whole way home. Of course once we got back to civilization, we’d have to quickly plop down if we saw police. It was so fun- I felt so carefree!

When we got back to the ship, one of our guides’ mothers was at the port with her news crew (National Bulgarian news) and wanted to interview some of us for the news. A couple people talked about Semester at Sea, and Michelle and I stood in the background smiling, with our sunflowers behind our ears! Once I got on the ship and stripped down, I noticed that I was wearing full white clothing…meaning, I was brown and dusty where my shirt and shorts didn’t cover, and the rest of my was “Julia white.” Needless to say, I hopped in the shower right away and scrubbed all the dust off!

At night, we went out in Varna. There was a musical festival when we were there! We went to the festival and it was classical music that night, and it was at the Roman baths. It was so cool! Then we went down to the beach where bars lined the shore and hung out there for the rest of the night. We actually ended up having to “babysit” some people and bring them back to the ship, which always takes away from the experience. While on the beach we found THE grossest fish thing. There’s no way to explain it. It was like oozing this puss stuff and was soooooooo gross, so naturally we took pictures. I think I’ll spare you guys and not post the pictures!

Then we came back to the ship, and that concludes day two in Bulgaria!