Bulgaria day 8: The long trip home

All good things have come to an end, and this is no exception. I'm off home today. OUr flight is early afternoon, so we have a wee while to hang around. First thing is to drop our luggage off at a friend's house to pick up later. We get a taxi out to the flat. It's out in the stix, so I get to see the communist high rises which are outside the tourist areas of Varna.





They are so raw and decaying. They drip in modern history, and give you a little idea what these little places looked like in the 80's. All over Eastern Europe seemed to have these ugly concrete monstrosities. Not like the privileged western Europeans in Glasgow:



The groom told me a hilarious story of when he stayed at the top on one of these high rises as a student. When the lift wasn't working you had to use the lift in the other building and walk across the roof. This was particularly troublesome when you were drunk, as there were nesting seagulls who would attack you. I just have visions of students drunk on Rakia racing along these roofs, while being dive bombed by seagulls.

We have a quick last minute trip round town, and get some food at BSM. It's then time to pick up the luggage and head for the airport. After some very thorough security checks, we boarding the plane. The bride and Obi Wan are traveling with me, so I have company on the long trip back via Dusseldorf.

Obi Wan entertains himself by playing about with my camera. He has been head photographer during the holiday, and many of the photos in the blog were taken by him.





He even makes a movie with two toy dogs, so maybe we have the next Obi Wan Speilberg on our hands. I however read a book and relax:



My holiday reads this holiday were:

Chuck Palahaniuk on recommendation of my brother:





Vernon God Little:



I'm sorry(well also pleased) to say that I was so busy, that I only managed to get through fightclub and half of Vernon God Little. Fight Club was really good. Easy to read, comical and well written. I've seen the film, but the book provides a lot more. I like Chuck Palahaniuk's writing style, and his sense of hunour is very cruel. I've also read Choke, and intend to pick up Lullaby next time I'm reading.

I'm not a big reader, so it could be a while. I like the writing style in Vernon God Little, but the amount I read didn't provide me with enough storyline to keep me engrossed when you have the distractions of Bulgarian tourism. Maybe I'll get back to it at some point.

Eventually we touch down in Dusseldorf. We momentarily stop to stock up on munchies from a little supermarket, and make the mad dash to make our train connection.

We settle down in the very front carriage. It's quite cool looking out the front of the train as you are travelling. I say quite cool. I mean that in the first five minutes of being on the train it was interesting to see this new perspective, I don't find it as riveting as one of my fellow travellers, who has filmed the whole thing from Basel to Amsterdam. What do you do with such a video? Show your friends? Watch it back and remember how much fun it was to stand with a video camera for 7 hours. Personally I think he was a couple stotinki's short of a lev.

I much prefer our departure from Dusseldorf train station as captured by Obi Wan:



By the end of the trip, it's about 11pm, and the Bride and I are shattered. Obi Wan is however wide awake and excited. He's putting so much effort into holding his eyes open that he could get work as a Maradona impersonator.

Finally, I tram home, and sleep in my own bed for the first time in what seems like months..