June 7, 2001

I was wrong – the cherries are still around. It seems that there’s even more now. But all the grandmothers who were selling their bags of cherries from their cherry trees from the village aren’t in the bazaar anymore. The every-day vendors are now selling their batches – who knows for how long – so I had to get a kilogram on my way home today.

I was sitting down in the park by the Danube yesterday. I was waiting for Kate to finish her pensioners’ English class. An occasional student or two would walk past and we said hello to each other. Out on the river was a fisherman’s boat with two fishermen. They were throwing their nets in and straddling the boat with tremendous balance as the current swept them towards Romanian waters. Across the walk, children played on the playground equipment as mothers watched, talked and munched on sunflower seeds. A barge from some other country drifted down the river. I couldn’t tell if the barge or the water was moving faster. Two benches down from me were two more benches, with four elderly ladies on each bench, sitting shoulder to shoulder, talking away. I was sitting in the shade and writing in my journal. Young families, students, men with their dogs, and solitary men looking at the ground were out on a “razhodka” (a walk), taking their time, strolling around the park. A seagull drifted in the wind and the sun was still high even though it was nearly 6pm. The sky wouldn’t be completely dark until nearly 10pm. It was peaceful to be there.

Kate and I head to Sofia tonight – on the night train. I’ve probably mentioned this already, but when we go to Sofia, we usually take the night train from Silistra to Sofia – from one end of the line to the other. It leaves at 6:30pm and arrives in Sofia at 6am. We get a sleeping compartment for the night and the train weaves its way around northern Bulgaria and eventually makes its way into Sofia. The first time we took the train we could barely sleep because of the constant stopping – there are about 20-25 stops between here and Sofia. Now we sleep through most of the stops. When the train makes a stop it isn’t smooth – these are vintage mid-Communist-era German train wagons. Most of the signs are written in German – at first it seemed really strange to us but now it’s just the way that it is. Inside of each sleeping compartment are three bunks with clean sheets and a blanket. There’s just enough room to change and use the sink. Usually Kate and I pack ourselves a little dinner and buy ourselves a beer and watch the country side pass by under the setting sun. We begin in Silistra with a diesel engine and then about three or four hours later, we switch to an electric engine. About five hours later we switch back to a diesel engine. All along the way (this train runs every night), postmasters put packages and bags in the baggage car, just behind the engine. Sometimes it seems we stop in the middle of fields to pick up one, maybe two, passengers. There’s usually a broken down building nearby that somewhat resembles a train station. At other stops, which are bigger, train conductors stand beside the track with some tool and tap at the wheels – I guess they’re checking them for something or other. But that bell-ringing sound of metal on metal has come to mean night traveling for me in Bulgaria. Sometimes I wake up to that sound and some low voices of passengers and the conductor, and I soon fall back asleep. When we finally arrive in Sofia, the sleeping car conductor comes around with his key, knocking on the doors. It’s a sharp, metal on linoleum sound – usually about four or five hard taps. We have to knock back or make some other sign that we’re awake before he moves on to the next door. We get off the train in Sofia; walk down into the station, pick up a little snack, walk past the other weary travelers and early-morning-trekkers. It’s not exactly the most welcoming train station and I always have a feeling that someone’s got us pegged for a mugging. After we pass the taxi drivers who used to try and push a 20 leva taxi ride into the center (they don’t do that to us anymore – I think we’ve passed their foreigner-test and now we look like we might know what we’re doing), we enter into the city of Sofia, which is just waking up. People walk around with their plastic cups of strong coffee, occasionally eating a banitsa or croissant. It’s not until about four hours later that the sidewalks come alive with pedestrians and the main strip, Boulevard Vitosha, is clogged with cars.

-Josh