Report Card

Having conducted a detailed review of four nations - two newly part of the EU and two would-be entrants, we stand ready to share our conclusion with you, the ignorant reader to whom we just had to explain which countries were in the EU and which weren't (hint: not Turkey, yet). Sit back and enjoy the informative hilarity...

1. Bulgaria

Wants to be the new: Greece. Effortlessly styleless, not really persuaded by this whole "capitalism" thing. Naptime protected by law.


Main exports as determined peering out bus/train window: Sunflowers, Corn



Food products of note: Pizza, with ketchup and mayonnaise



Phone: Boxy, out of date, proudly Russian-influenced


The Verdict: They're here now, and they seem so excited about this whole "Europe" thing that asking them to leave would be like kicking a (mildly retarded) puppy. Bulgaria stays.

2. Romania

Wants to be the new: France. Really, really wants to be the new France. At some point they'll simply change the whole country's name to Flance and try to convince Japanese tourists that they've simply taken a wrong turn somewhere around Budapest. Have got the architecture and bucolic scenery more or less down, need some work on the cuisine, and need to find someone other than Bulgaria to look down on.


Main exports as determined peering out bus/train window: Sunflowers, Corn



Food products of note: Re-badged Hungarian, imitation French. Sausages. Avoid the octopus, it's supposed to be art.


Phone: Much flasher and more "european" than the Bulgarian version, but, ultimately, it's a lot pricier and less fun without being any more functional.

The verdict: It's probably too late to kick out the French, so while this is much less satisfying, we're going to say that Romania doesn't really bring anything new, and should make way for somewhere a little "edgier". I hope you guys didn't forget all of your high-school Russian in the last seven months...

3. Serbia

Wants to be the new: England. Not too sure how it feels about "Europe", "Customs Unions" or "Foreigners" generally. A faded imperial power, with an internal narrative of lost grandeur and dirty tricks played by outsiders. Enjoys eating sausages and potatoes.

[Geographic centre of (historic, greater) Serbia, as marked in central Belgrade]

Main exports as determined peering out bus/train window: Sunflowers, Corn.


Food products of note: Sausages, produced without inconvenient (and technologically demanding) skin.

Phone: Does what it wants, thinks it's more or less replicating the Western version, but missing some key features. Don't call it, it'll call you.

The verdict: Serbia plays hard-to-get, and we're a sucker for that kind of thing (also, ethnic cleansing has a sort of perverse charm). These guys are a lot of fun, so they're in.

4. Turkey

Wants to be the new: Poland. Huge, and more religious than they generally let on. Sees the EU more as a source of rivers of cash than of ideological mentoring. Secretly thinks Europe could stand to learn a lot from it. Architecturally, they may be right.


Main exports as determined peering out bus/train window: Sunflowers, Corn.

Food products of note: Melon and cheese, washed down the large quantities of anise spirit. Kebabs.


Phone: Prettier than the Bulgarian, less pretentious than the Romanian, more welcoming than the Serbian. But, when you get right down to it, kind of depressingly third world...

The verdict: Tough call here. Turkey is beautiful, fun and surprisingly well-run. But there's a lot of it, and Europe really needs something to define itself in opposition to, and once you start including big chunks of Asia that kind of falls apart. We'll take Western Turkey, right up to the Bosphorous, and, as long as we're being picky, that nice little fish restaurant on the Asian side. We'll hand the rest over to Ufuk Uras. We like his style.

Turkish Election Snapshot

With election day fast approaching, the eyes of the West turn to Turkey, a nation poised at a delicate fulcrum between East and West, between religion and secularism, between Bulgaria and Thailand. Today, your correspondents take a closer look at the issues which they believe will shape this historic campaign...

1. The Tünel
Questions have been raised as to the continued viability of a "railway" which runs for only 500 meters and which closes at 9 o'clock, right when your correspondents would like to catch it. In addition, suspicion surrounds its claim to being the world's first funicular, and indeed whether there is really any such thing as a "funicular" in the first place... Also, what's with those dots over the "u"?



2. Fraud in the Basilica Cistern
The basilica cistern - Timeless treasure, or governmental greed? What lies beneath the ancient columns and worryingly large-mouthed fish of this world-famous Istanbul site is a story as old as time itself. Hopeful tourists throw their coins into the pool, only to have them later fished out by faceless Cistern employees, and thrown into the government's net - of corruption... Our shocking pictures reveal all...



3. Rampant inflation in strategic cocktail/pony ride sectors
Steep rises in the prices of basic goods such as riding in a horse and carriage and drinking a cocktail made from Turkish sparkling "wine" have lead to fears that Turkey's economy may be overheating. As the prices of mixed drinks in some venues suggested by your correspondents' ridiculously pretentious travel guide reach $25, calls have been made for government action to end rampant profiteering in this sector. Similarly, pony rides, long a key part of Turkish and 9-year-old girl culture, have become so inflated that only the most profligate of correspondents would consider dropping $35 on one, leaving other correspondents without enough money for a decent sized beer, let alone an overpriced cocktail...



4. Key seat - Buyukada
With election-eve upon us, all eyes turn to traditional bellwether Buyukada island, located one hour by ferry from Istanbul, though subjectively much further, particularly when one becomes sea-sick during the short voyage and collapses in front of the ferry toilets. In any case, as goes Buyukada, so goes Turkey as a whole, and the closely fought battle being waged here reflects the struggle faced by the entire nation. In one corner representing one, or perhaps more, of the relevant parties, probably AK (of which we have heard) is Ufuk Uras, a man whose posters proclaim a strong commitment to independent action, and whose reputation as a parliamentary bomb thrower stems from the profane and anatomically impossible tirades he directs at the opposition. Buyukadans, swayed by a man whose very name is also his campaign slogan, appear to be leaning towards his re-election, in a move that will continue your correspondents' amusement deep into the next term.

So as night closes in over a nervous, and increasingly hungry Istanbul, our thoughts turn to the future, and, in particular, to Pide, which we believe is pronounced "pied".

[Update Updated: We were privileged enough to witness the rival campaign rallies featuring the two leading parties and, in a nod to Turkey's fragile relationship with democracy, the police. Based on these observations and the startling volume at which the parties' theme songs were blasted form truck-top speakers, we have concluded that the key political sentiment espoused in Turkey is "I have an earsplittingly loud dream"...]

taking the 'bul by the (golden) horns

So we're back in Istanbul, or as I like to think of it, "not in Sofia" so things are looking up.

Needless to say we did further battle with the Orient Express, or as we discovered it was called when we went to buy our tickets to leave Sofia early, the Balkan Express (which certainly explains a lot about its previously mentioned lack of expressness). Specifically, and I know that this is the sort of detail that will bore you all but I feel that I need to share the pain, the train was THREE AND A HALF HOURS LATE arriving in Sofia. That's right. And to make it worse, because of the delay, we crossed the border at about 3.30am and at the Turkish border they hauled us all out of the train to get our passports stamped in the freezing cold. So basically, we, like Jesus, have suffered so that none of you have to. DON'T TAKE THE ORIENT EXPRESS.

Onto better things. Mr Segway [Serbia] struck again with his awesomeness by recommending a discount European booking site so we are now shacked up at a 4 star hotel in the heart of non-backpacker Istanbul. So we have spent the last two days trawling through the garment district, the grand bazaar, made it back to the spice bazaar and generally been touristing Istanbul.

We have also noticed a pronounced anti-american sentiment, which was surprisingly lacking last time we were here. Specifically, a salesperson from whom we were purchasing a -shock horror- bag accurately recognised our accents and went on tell us proudly that he could also pick English (held his throat and indicated that they speak from the back of their throat) and American, "because they give you headache". Who were we to disagree? Later, at the spice bazaar, we encountered another salesperson who was wearing an earring with a not entirely polite instruction on it. When I suggested it may be a little rude for someone in the sales business he explained it was for "bad people", then, after diplomatically but somewhat unsubtley asking where we were from, he elaborated that it "is for Bush".

Murder(ous) on the Orient Express

With a tear in our eye and a bottle of the local spirit in hand we set off sadly for Sofia (That's alliteration, and while uncommon in booker prize winners, it always goes over a treat with high school English teachers. Some of you may want to give it a try.) aboard the alleged Orient Express, which, as it emerged was neither the luxurious icon we had imagined nor, technically an "express". Christina, whose patience with transportation is not legendary, took this news particularly badly, and unceremoniously evicted everyone from our (8 person) cabin with an angry glare and some broken German (long the language of forced dispossession). The upper class English gentlemen (attired in suit pants and a dinner jacket, the bill for the drycleaning of which Orient Express Co will certainly soon be receiving) who appeared to have been sold a bill of goods spoke for both of us when he turned away from the guard who was explaining what our tickets meant and said, loudly "there is no fucking first class is there?".

In the end the trip wasn't too awful, and we were amused by the spectacular quantities of cigaraettes the (six, chain-smoking) Turkish Bulgarians who (eventually, and only for the last hour thank god) shared our cabin smuggled into Bulgaria, and the hilariously lax efforts of the Bulgarian customs office to catch them at it (but not so lax efforts to reject bribes from said Turkish Bulgarians - the euros were first passed to Customs "discreetly" folded into passports and then, ultminately, more directly, straight into the inspectors' hands - that's the beauty of a common currency: bribes are much easier to give border police). Given the cigarettes cost about $1 a pack here in Bulgaria it's hard to imagine that it was worth the effort.

We write now from Sofia, which, unlike other allegedly dull capitals, more or less lives up to it's billing. Still, Christina has found handbags, and we have more or less recovered from our battle with the Orient Express. Expect more posts with less content in the immediate future, or at least until Tuesday night, when our second round with the "Express" kicks off...

[Suggested caption: "the left leg merely does a forward aerial half turn every alternate step"]

c'MON!

"I've made a huge mistake..." Careful readers will note that I am riding a Segway Human Transporter (pronounced "segue human transporter") in this photo. This is because, while in Belgrade, Chris and I rode on Segway Human Transporters, and it was, not to put too fine a point on it, AWESOME!! Mine was red, Chris' was yellow, and beyond that words fail me in describing just how awesome it was. Use of the verb "Bolton" would not be inappropriate here...

In addition to RIDING AROUND BELGRADE ON SEGWAYS (!!!) we were taken out for drinks by the head of the Serbian National Segway dealership, a man who can and will be fairly described as Mr Segway [Serbia]. A Segway Human Trnasporter can spin around while standing still, using the magic of gyroscopes. Mr Segway [Serbia] possesses a Mark II Segway Human Transporter, which exceeds the awesomeness of the (red) Mark I Segway Human Tranposrter I rode. I am saving up for a Mark II Segway Human Transporter. Mr Segway [Serbia] had not heard of Arrested Development, or Gob Bluth, but by the end of our tour we were able to teach him how to yell "c'MON" like Jamie after a couple of drinks while I am trying to sleep. He has promised to look for the DVDs... At one point Mr Segway [Serbia] took photos of Christina and me in front of naked men "wrestling" with horses outside Serbian parliament while Chris and I were on our (red and yellow) Segway Human Transporters.

[Mr Segway [Serbia] and his delightful girlfriend Jelena, who had just sat her FINAL university exam ever, and who both chauffered us around Belgrade until 2 am on our last night - Thank you!]

There were also periods during our time in Belgrade where we did not have Segway human transporters and were not being chauffered around by Mr Segway [Serbia] and his girlfriend. While these times were occasionally fun they pale into insignificance in comparison to you-know-what (RIDING AROUND BELGRADE ON SEGWAYS!!). Still, Belgrade is a surprisingly pretty and laid back city, following the Eastern European pattern of a heavily meat-intensive cuisine and plenty of attractive old buildings scattered seemingly at random around the city-centre.

We can particularly recommend the Nicola Tesla museum, which satisfied the necessary and sufficient conditions for retaining Chris's interest - namely the presence giant purple lightning. According to the (fiercly nationalistic) biography, Nicola Tesla created the 21st century (which makes Al Gore look comparatively restrained) and was strongly opposed to the (then hypothetical) independence of Kosovo. But mainly, it was about the purple lightning.

Second on our list of surprisingly enjoyable musea was the Serbian National Bank Exhibition, which was at the opposite end of the boredom scale from where its name suggests. It featured what I imagine was a significant portion of Serbia's gold reserves, and currency dating from each of Serbia's bouts with hyperinflation, together with a fairly brutal assessment of the various governments' responsibility (I'm not sure if Nicola Tesla would have agreed). Each of the nations we've visited so far has recently chopped three or more zeroes off its currency, the sole exception being Bulgaria, and when Bulgaria is at the head of any group to which you belong you know that all is not well (unless that group is number of crimpers per capita).



[The guard at the Serbian Bank exhibition was particularly keen that we take this photograph with the gold - perhaps to prove the existence of Serbia's gold reserves which you would do well to doubt given that Serbia's hyperinflation during 1992-1993 comes in second only to Hungary after WWII]

I may not know art....

[Suggested caption: Culture, distilled to its purest, hedge-clipped-in-the-shape-of-a-bear form]

We'll we've made it to Belgrade (which for those of you who are unsure, like our putative Romanian travel agent, is the capital of Serbia, which also happens to be the COUNTRY right next to Romania - colour me concerned about Romania's focus on western/EU Europe) armed only with Pete J's favourite Serbian phrase (which Christina informs me I am not to reproduce in polite or possible Serbian speaking company) and are having no luck at all finding the Chinese embassy. Perhaps we should ask the US military, who seem to be able to do so quite by accident.

Before Belgrade though, there was Sibiu, [one of the] Cultural Capital[s] of Europe [for 2007]. Let's just say that culture, like nostalgia, ain't what it used to be, and now comes primarily in giant yellow octopus sculpture form - and while I don't really like opera, at least I feel like a philisitne for failing to do so, which doesn't really apply to the octopus. It's hard not to suspect that the whole "installation art" thing, which was Sibiu's primary contribution to European Culture [2007] is a subtle ex-communist dig at the corrosive effect of capitalism on art - "sure, we persecuted, and often murdered our artists, but at least there were significantly less octopii".
Otherwise, nice city. Plenty of churches, etc, etc.

There was also, briefly, Timisoara, lying just beyond the small town of Faget, which I found myself celebrating rather too enthusiastically in the presence of our flagrantly gay Danish cabin mates... Timisoara is an heroic city in the Timmy O'Tool sense of having been in the wrong place at the right time and ending up starting a revolution. We got in at 10pm and left again at 5am, so we were unable to determine whether the spirit of revolution was something in the water - though I did experience some cramps on the train the next morning.

Belgrade is deeply cool, quite a change of pace from the new EU entrants (so far we rate it's putative membership application a qualified yes) and with plenty going on. Check back tomorrow to see the world's most awesome tourist experience recapped...

Just the bear necessities

For all of you who were holding your breath to find out whether we lived or died last night on our midnight bear hunt (or indeed whether we saw any bears in downtown Brasov) I can confirm that we are both alive with all our limbs in tact. But don't let this detract from the weirdness that was our bear hunt. Let me explain...

At Paul's suggestion we signed up for the bear hunt - pay if you see any bears, be ready around 10pm were our instructions. Just after 10pm (literally minutes after sunset in this crazy hemisphere) we piled into the back of a very old stationwagon with out hostel owner and two other aussies (one of whom was a Victorian policeman - this is slightly amusing because "bear hunting" is now illegal in Brasov due to the treatment of people by bears and visa versa and the police patrol for people leading tourists or bringing food for the bears and we were forced to doge the police at various times during the night...) and headed out to surburban Brasov. As we approached a built up area with rows and rows of apartment blocks we started trolling slowly past the industrial bins. That's right. The bears are being forced out of the forest and into the residents' kitchen waste bins. in search of food. So a quiet cruise through the neighbourhood yields not only loads of tourists doing the same thing but also up close bear action. Gives an entirely new meaning to the "crusin' the 'hood".

[For the slow of wit among our (vast) readership, this is a photo of a bear. engaging in the acts described above.]

Said I loved you but I lied

Paul was very keen to title this blog "Who let the (community) dogs out??" as an ode to Romania's (particularly Bucharest's) plagues of wandering, unowned and, as Josh keeps reminding me, potentially rabid dogs. Josh is also sufficiently well informed as to be able to tell you the cause of the vast numbers of stray...errr...I mean community dogs - from memory I think it is something to do with a government decision to move people into housing blocks but not let them keep their dogs....?

As amusing as Paul's suggested title is, I prefer to call this blog "Said I loved you but I lied" as a tribute to Michael Bolton, whose concert we were lucky enough to be able to attend in Brasov last night. When I say "attend", what I actually mean is: the idol himself was performing here last night, concert starting at 9pm, and the performance was in an open air arena, heavily patrolled by both private security and the Roumanian police force. But we're not sure what they were patrolling for, because when we walked past at about 7.50pm, hoards of locals had set themselves up on the streets surrounding the arena (on the inside of the polcie barriers) and appeared to be devoting their Saturday night to waiting for the certainly fantastic performance. So, when we walked past again at 10pm and the Bolton himself was about to come on, freeriders that we both are, we nosed our way into position and cheered and sang along to the songs we "new by heart". For at least 20 minutes anyway. It was certainly an experience. And I've always wondered how those old "rockers" go at concerts - turns out the answer is amusingly and in small eastern european towns. The only disappointment was that we were unable to ascertain how much people had paid to actually be inside the arena, we were offered tickets by some scalpers for the bargain price of $A200.

Enough frivolity.

We left you in Bucherest, a city we had some doubts about visiting but about which we were proven wrong. Bucherest was slighty cooler than the sauna that was Bulgaria and the temperature allowed us to explore the city itself which is a delightful infusion of communist statues, (coloured) fountains, huge sqaures etc and gothic architecture. The architectural highlight of the city is definitely Ceausescu's parlimentary palace. This is an enormous building which Ceausescu (the former dictator of Romania whose rule ended when he was shot on Christmas Day 1989) designed having been inspired by his trips to North Korea and Beijing in the early 1980s. The building is the second largest in the world, after the Pentagon (tell me, what does that say about America's ego?) and is built entirely from Roumanian products. But the oddest thing about the palace is that because so little of it was built before Ceausescu's death, the democratic government decided to finish it to his plan, minus intricacies such as wall size portraits of the man himself and his wife and a helicopter pad in the main ballroom.









[Suggested caption: "Romanians discover coloured ink, hilarity ensues".]

Ceausescu's palace also gave us our first introduction to other tourists. More particularly, toursist of the American variety on a Christian mission in Bucharest, or as they called it: "mapping His kingdom". Suffice to say one of them actually had on a baseball cap with a bald eagle rampant on the stars and stripes and another looked like he had taken a break from filming the Sound of Music....

We departed Bucharest for Brasov in the Transylvanian mountains by very swish airconditioned train, which has inspired us to catch the Orient Express from Belgrade to Istanbul... The Transylvanian mountains are cooler again and very European, with castles and churches dotting the green hills which we're told become ski fields during winter. We went vampyre hunting today in Bran which was fun and picturesque, but for the flocks of tourists which caused us to be very grateful we had paid $A10 and made our own way there rather than being led around by our hostel's guide for $A100.

We now plan to head further up into the mountains and wind our way back down the western border with Serbia. But for now - we're going on a bear hunt (think the children's book by Michael Rosen) and if we make not like the tourist two years ago who tried to feed the bears rather than just watch them, we'll blog again soon!

Editorial note:
1 We've mastered the magic of linking to things. Enjoy.
2 "I said I loved you but I lied, this is more than love I feel inside". What, exactly, is it then Michael? Indigestion? Mild curiosity? In fact, I propose that this unnamed, stronger-than-love emotion be christened "Bolton" in honour of its presumed discoverer. Sample use "I'm Boltoning this newfound ability to link to stuff." 3, Kate has shamed us by displaying the ability to post links within our comments section before we managed it ourselves. In our defence I note that we are using deeply old school technology and that Kate met her previous boyfriend on the internet, so she has the inside track in this regard.

No guns please, we're Bulgarian

Last night, in the throbbing seaside resort of Varna, we were privileged enough to see nightclub culture Bulgarian style, which, like their cuisine, involves heaping portions of whatever happened to be handy at the time. In at least one case "whatever happened to be handy" was motorised dodgem-style boats and a small, filthy pond. To my great shame I have to confess that we avoided the (figuratively) alcohol fueled dogem-boats in favour of the (Guinness-certified) world's-longest-cocktail-list-having-bar and the Africa-through-Bulgarian-eyes one. The first choice was based not only on the prospect of being able to choose between dozens of minor variants of the same drink but also because of the comforting "no guns allowed" pictogram on the front door. Not so the medieval-themed dance club down the road, where Chris saw a patron showing the doormen his gun before happily strolling in to create more mayhem than usual on the dance floor.

Beyond the cocktails and weaponry, Varna delivered the kind of beach which reminded us why we live in Australia, and the kind of hotel which reminded us why communism is history's most amusing cause of mass starvation. Also, there were Churches.

This is the (supposedly functioning) phone in our hotel room. Although the list of call-able destinations was purely Eastern Bloc and some select communist/dictatorship Asian nations.


[Suggested caption "In Soviet Russia, phone dials you".]


We write now from Bucharest, which is significantly less ugly than we had been promised, providing a passable imitation of Paris without the `tude.

Crossing the new, EU-approved border to Romania went smoothly, so much so that two of the customs officers hitched a ride home in our minibus, but we've ended up in by far the most expensive (and nicest) hotel room of our short trip by virtue of showing up in the city centre on a Friday night without a reservation. On the upside, we have a separate lounge room in our suite, featuring overstuffed arm chairs in which we shall sit, pretending to enjoy the local brandy. Tomorrow we visit the world's second largest building, and contemplate once again the dangerously amusing nature of socialist dictatorship.

Apparently "Hobo" means something entirely different here...

...which is a shame really, because it sounded like a delicious flavour for an icecream. A small prize (hint: a postcard) for the first member of our no doubt vast readership who posts the correct translation.

Bulgaria continues to engage and amuse, as well as providing Christina with dozens of seemingly identical handbags of which to ask my opinions (the smaller, lighter ones tend to be my favourites). We went horse riding today in a small village outside Veliko Tarnovo (or "Vitello Tonato", as I've been telling Chris it's called - just a little recipe humour there for you folks back home...). I was saddled (har!) with the world's most disobedient horse ("horse-face") and consequently spent much of the time yelling frantically ("horse-face!!") and being dragged through trees (no, really), but the bleeding has largely stopped and a good time was retrospectively had by all. We also mounted an assault on the Thracian Fort overlooking Vitello, and purchased a variety of traditional Bulgarian rose-scented cosmetics. Favoured family members and selected friends can look forward to smelling, literally, of roses on our return.

(the next paragraph takes place before the previous one, as I'm told wonky chronology is the kind of trick booker prize winning authors employ; be sure to pay attention, I may slip in an unreliable narrator later on)
Plovdiv continued to provide us with a delightful combination of the ancient and the merely out-of-date, not to mention monstrous (or, "Bulgarian" as we're starting to learn to think of them) portions of grilled meat and beer. My attempt to trick Chris into eating a skewer of chicken hearts ("duck") was undermined by their stubborn refusal not to taste exactly like I imagine chicken hearts must. Also, there is corn in everything, up to and including the cake Chris ordered for dessert. And the pizza features gerkins and is served with a delicate blend of tomato sauce and mayonaise...

Having bid a somewhat tearful goodbye to Plovdiv ("the Plov" as the guide calls it) we took a long, winding bus ride through frighteningly narrow mountain roads and small towns distinguished only by their choice of socialist realist statues in the main square. The statues were awesome, the mountain roads, somewhat less so...

Attentive readers will be aware that that gets us to Veliko Tarnovo ("Vitello Tanato"), clinging awkwardly to the edge of a precipice like an Australian tourist who shared a 2.5 litre cylinder of the local beer with another Australian tourist who does not pull her weight, drinking wise. But I digress... Beautiful revival era buildings, stunning views of the valley, easily located accomodation and angry homestay touts who now cast aspersions on the entire Australian race each time we pass.

And with that I'm off to try a Bulgarian portion of something made with two types of sausage and two types of cheese and a glass or two of the local wine. Wish us luck for the walk home...

[Suggested caption: "Now, try finding a working bathroom..."]

България

So here we are in Пловдивm, България. Confused? Well so were we after we ended our 7 hour bus ride out of Turkey and across the border in to what the Turks delightfully call Bulgaristan. We decided to skip the capital and make our first stop Bulgaria's (България) second city - Пловдив (Plovdiv), descibed by the guidebook at "The Plov".

Our first challenge was the fact that our map used the more traditional roman alphabet while the street signs used the cryllic alphabet (which apparently originatd here in Bulgaria, not Russia) and I had only managed to memorise half the alphabet by the time we arrived. Our second challenge was that the guidebook has decided to randomly pick and choose which streets it places on the map. But after a protacted experince of Paul telling me what street he thought we should be in and me trying to determine if the cyrillic on the street sign matched his info, we found our homestay and started the Plovdiv experience.

We walked into town and after a short stroll past some of the many ruins (Plovdiv boasts that it is one of the oldest cities, older than Rome and a contemporary of Troy) we settled down for our first meal of grilled meat. And it was sumptuous. We had aimed to make a good impact on trying the local alcohol, but after two varieties each in servings no smaller than 500ml, when confronted with the prospect of the local brandy Paul may have been heard to say..."ahh I really wanted to taste brandy from....ahh..ahh...what country are we in?" So we'll leave the brandy (rekia) for tonight...

It is worth noting that:

1. we seem to be in a town that is simulataneously handbag heaven and the land of the $3-actually-good-cocktail; and
2 while we may have missed Nicola and Sarouche's 80s party on Saturday night, Bulgaria keeps its own, more permanent, window to the past open in the form of crimped hair (very much the rage) and tiny denim numbers - in fact, (says Paul) it's almost like having Nicola here with us.

[Suggested caption: "The fact that this pizza has mayonnaise on it is sufficiently funny not to require further comment"]

GO!

[Suggested caption: "At this stage, we considered it unwise to say anything hilarious about religious icons"]





We've been ın Turkey less than 12 hours and already we're doıng as the locals do - we're marrıed (fıtıonally - but I'm keepıng the rıng) and we've got our kıt off for a scrub down ın the hamam (turkısh bathes).

We're also planning our quick escape to Bulgaria - which is by no means a condemnation of Istanbul - we love it; the food, the people, the shopping, the scrubs, the signs with 'cok' everywhere. But we're scared we might repeat our last experience here where we spent 10 days focussed solely on trying to work our way through the different culinary delights....

and now to Paul....

Well, I had hoped to have my own post - tentatively titled "The miracle nut comes from Turkey", after the Turkish hazelnut advertising slogan of the same name. Oh well. We survived a complicated attempt by Qantas to ensure our European jaunt started with a night or two in Singapore, and managed to make it to Turkey together with our baggage. Turkish Air was surprisingly decent and, in addition to its enthusiastic hazelnut promotion, sports the slogan "Turk Hava Yollar", which I choose to believe translates as "Turkey has an airline" or possibly "Turkey has a flying machine".

I skipped out on the whole "being scrubbed with annotolian goat hair" thing in favour of a visit to the spice bazaar, where I wowwed the locals with my mad barberry identification skillz (they are small, red, Iranian and sour in case you ever find yourself in a similar predicament).

Istanbul is startlingly picturesque, pleasantly warm and warmly pleasant. Basically every side street ends in the kind of building which would have been turned into a theme pub were it located in the rocks, and, conveniently, some of them contain theme pubs. We're planning to do battle with Raki, the local aniseed spirit, over dinner tonight, and if things go well I may reprise my "harvey Paulbanger" - a reimagining of the traditional harvey wallbanger substituting each ingredient with a slightly different, slightly more Turkish variant.

Ready, set...

Over a year since our heffalump hunt in Laos we are trading humidity, dust and long bus trips for a civilised, luxurious European summer holiday. Kind of. Look out Istanbul, we've got our Luxe travel guide and we'll be doing style on the cheap. As for Bulgaria and Romania we hear we're about to become millionaires. And as for Ukraine - who knows what to expect there since they ditched the definite article and became their own nation state.

We'll only be gone 4 weeks but who says we can't have our own blog.