Our odyssey began on the last day of July in the Seattle airport. Our first flight took us south to Arizona. Seems a strange way to get to Europe, but...... Then off to New York, where we had a 10 hour layover. The symphony scheduled a sight see of the big apple while we were there so we took the kids into town. Most of our time was spent on Ellis Island. This was the first time on the island for all four of us. I'm not sure how far back you have to go to find an Ellis coming through, but on Deborah's side you need only go to her mother.

When we arrived at check in for the flight to Athens we found a line that went out of the building, around the corner and about three blocks down the sidewalk. The only thing to do was to wait. Seems there were *two* 747's going out of that terminal across the ocean. One to Athens and one to Israel. All leaving a terminal which had seen a plane exploding in the air just a few days before. Security was a bit tight. After sitting, showing our passport, moving a few inches, sitting, showing our passport, filling out several forms and sitting. After about five hours in line we were on board and about to push off only three hours late!

After 36 hours of flight, lines, checks, forms, re-checks, waiting and busses we are in Athens. Three 747's had landed and all the passengers were waiting at passport inspection. There were about 1,000 people in a 50 X 50 room. All trying to get through two gates where our passports were supposed to be checked. The officials were in no sort of hurry. The one working with the Americans was processing about one every 30 seconds. The one processing the Arabs was not doing any at all. They were cat calling the man and fights were breaking out. During the show we were all stuffed together. Poor Lizzy was really turning red. She was hot and did not have enough air down where she was. We finally got past that and went out to the zoo that they call baggage pickup, then out to find our buss. When we all got loaded we were off to the hotel.

After two days without sleep the idea of getting into something that didn't move sounded great.

There was a tour of the Acropolis scheduled for us and by gosh we were going on it. We didn't even have any time to change shirts before we were off. It was a few degrees above 100 and we took a very interesting first trip. The guides were a bit puzzled though. How could those Americans be so lack luster in such a great setting? When they understood what we all had been through there was more patience.

My room was on the 16th floor and I remember well standing on my balcony looking out on this exotic city, feeling the incredible Athenian sun hitting my poor white flesh.

What a trip it had been and we had just began.

On our first full day in Athens we decide to try to find a small church that we could see from the Acropolis. The books told us that it had a lot of mosaics in it. I exchanged some USD for Drakmas and knowing no Greek at all tried to negotiate a taxi ride.

Now European traffic seems to work on somewhat different rules than here in the US. To the observer it would seem that the white lines down the center of the road are guides for the traffic. In the states it divides the lanes. In Athens it is what everybody drives ON. Except the motorcycles, which are everywhere. The motorcycles just drive in between the cars. I don't think they have any sense at all of "lanes" or "traffic flow". They seem unaware and impervious of and to the traffic on the road. Sidewalks are just as good a place to drive as the road. Traffic lights mean nothing. Everybody parks on the sidewalk, which makes sense as there is no place to park on the street!

Well, cabs are a cross between motorbikes and cars. They are small enough to try to act like motorbikes, but not always with as much success. Red lights and speed limits are for the "other guy". It's more fun than any ride and Disneyland.

So we divided our party between two cabs (the one rule they DO seem to have is a limit of 4 per car) and take off for this hill we have told them about. As we are flying through town it seems more and more clear to me that our driver is not as sure as I thought that he understood. We described hills with our hands and tried to use language that met nothing at all to the other. I knew that there was a tram that went up the side of the hill and tried to indicate that. He seemed to understand, but kept talking about "ferries". Perhaps not such a good sign.

In time (and about 600 dks.) later we were dropped off at the foot of the tram. I couldn't find Deb or her party, but knew how to get to the church. So we bought four tickets (at 1000 dks.) and went up the side of the hill on a train that runs at a 45 degree slope.

We now are on the highest point in Athens. The view is great. The church is closed. Deb and the others not in sight. The view was great though! We spent about a half an hour up there when up comes Deb. If you are dropped on the OTHER side of the hill you can climb up. That is where her cab dropped her.

We spent some time looking around at the city and then decided it was time to continue. The plan had been to see the church (closed) then go the Plaka (center of town) and then go home. When we were up on the hill we had seen an interesting church. An easy walk to we added that to our tour.

Everybody took the tram back down and then spent some time in the shops at the bottom. The third part of our party meet us there. They had gone to the bank to deal with some lost travelers checks and were going to try to meet back with us if they could. Off to the church! Streets in Athens are never straight. They turn around the hill or about any other thing they wish. We saw a lot of interesting buildings, but couldn't seem to find this large church that could be seen from the top. One of the members of our party had a map and was trying to navigate. It turned out that this was not his strong suite, however.

We did find the church, but I don't know how. (It was closed.) We tried to walk to the Plaka but were lost and started fighting about the correct course of action. In time the Plaka was found but closed. All the kids wanted to go back to the hotel and swim. Two cabs were hired for the return trip and three of us stayed behind to walk home.

One was our fearless navigator. After starting in the wrong direction (btw this really is a great way to sight see, you see a lot of sights) I took the map, oriented it on the sidewalk and showed him the direction we needed to go. I then went. He could follow or not, but I was set to go off on my own.

One of the places we passed was the Olympic stadium. This is the stadium used for modern Olympic events when they were/are held in Athens. We thought it would be a good idea to go around the track. After going with the orchestra to NYC I can saw that I have conducted in Carnige (sp?) Hall, I wanted to be able to say I had run in the Olympic stadium too. We were back in the hotel in about two hours. Full of the sights, sounds and smells of the big city.

That evening was our "Athens by night" tour. We went to a farm house outside of town to drink ozo, eat Greek food and be entertained with Greek music (modern and classical) and watch Greek dancers perform for us. By the time the evening was over most everybody (notably MY kids) were up on stage dancing away. At midnight we returned to our hotel having devourer Athens.

The next day we began our treck into eastern Europe. We drove up the coast along some of the bluest seas you could imagine. Hearing of battles and myths that we had only read about in books. And we were there. Monuments everyplace. We drove past the "mighty Olympus Mountains" (our's are MUCH more impressive BTW) up to Salonika. Then eastward to Kavala where we stayed the night.

This was our first opportunity to go swimming in the sea. The water is beautiful and clear. This would be a great place for SCUBA. I saw a few snorlkers in places, but that was about all.

Our hotel was on the sea and at the base of a tall hill populated with houses. On the top of the hill was some sort of very large building (house??). That evening Deb and I went out for a bit of a walk. I wanted to explore the hill and she just wanted to go walking and get some water. We made it a couple of blocks and the doubled back. Several of the kids (ages 16-85) were our in the water while their parents (or at least the parents of the younger ones) watched. We went back into the hotel and into our rooms. Each room had a large balcony (very popular over there) that looked over the water. The remarkable thing about these balconies was that each one was home for about five families if swallows. So we would be about 100 feet (sorry... about 35 meters) above the ground watching several hundred swallows navigate the air and then come back to the nest to feed the young. To this sight there was the backdrop of the setting sun.

The next morning I got up to go walking. I usually got up every morning about 5:30 to go out for a walk before breakfast. While I watched the birds last night I had seen a small island behind the hotel and wanted to take a closer look. It turned out that there was a rock island about an 1/8 acre in size just about 30 meters out into the sea. Some kids had taken furniture and a pirate flag out there (I could just imagine them swimming out there dragging lawn chairs and wooden tables, plus that flag and pole). Looked like great fun. But I had a hill to climb.

I resumed the path that Deb and I had started the evening before. In the US we are used to cities that were build for cars. The streets are laid out and then the houses attached to this matrix. I guess they didn't have many cars in ancient Greece. The roads laced between houses planted all over the hill. There were gardens (flower and food) in all the yards and on all the walls. Some people were getting up and sitting in their yards some were walking and several were up working on some of the houses.

With the exception of churches, goat barns, palaces and one city in Bulgaria all the houses were built in the same way. You start with a concrete foundation. There are square concrete supports about 18 inches square and about every 6 feet supporting the next floor, which was concrete. Then more supports going up the next floor and so on. When you get to the top floor there will be left about three feet of re-bar left sticking up for the next floor when you get abound to it. Seems you can't get loans for houses so you do it in stages in Greece. When you finally DO get to the top you mount a red tile roof. Sometimes this concrete was pumped in by truck. Sometimes it was mixed in the street (in the middle of the street!!) by shovel. I saw it brought in by pony cart and cement mixer, pickup truck and on men's backs. The form was always the same though.

This created a structure of all walls and staircases, supported by these vertical posts (all concrete). Beautiful spiraling staircases which had been poured into forms created by nailing together boards (how did they do that!!). The walls were filled in with brick and mortar. The bricks were larger than the ones you find here and were full of holes, very light. Windows and doors would be formed at this time. Once the walls were up the outside frosting of this building would be stucco. Doors and windows filled in and the house done. Simple houses would have simple "frosting" and no ornaments. Fancy houses would have fancier "frosting" and many ornaments. But all buildings shared the same skeleton.

I had worked myself up as far as I could and was watching my watch. The bus left at 8am and I though it a good idea to be back by then. On my way back down I lost track of the roads I used to come up. No problem down is down. All I had to do was to stay on the same side of the mountain. Roads became trails, trails become goat paths and soon I was in some industrial area going through warehouses to get to the main street. Once there I could not recognize anything. The main highway was before me and everybody was driving like crazy. The city was off to the left (as it should be) but no hotel. So, question. Was the hotel to the left too (we got to it before the city, but the city was a ways off), or was it around the corner to the right. I tried right. Crossing a Greek highway is interesting. Once on the other side I walked down the road. Watching both my watch and the landscape, looking for any landmark I could use to fine my hotel. I had the name and address of the building with me, but didn't have much Greek. People pointing and then giving complex instructions involving many turns isn't much help to a dumb foreigner.

It was getting late and I just needed to get back. I found a taxi and showed him the address. He nodded and pointed to the back seat. I got in. He kept talking and kept pointing backwards. Seemed he wanted me to go down the street, not in the back seat. I thanked him and got out. About 100 yards down the road was the intersection I had begun from. Back in time and even was able to have some breakfast before heading into the city and then to Turkey.

As we drove through Kavala on our way into Turkey we went under a roman aqueduct. One of the things that kept striking me was the sense of history around everywhere. The road we were on was built on one the romans put in. This aqueduct has been around for two thousand years. This land is where battles were fought that we hear about in ancient history. There is nothing like this in the U.S. On the other hand hatred runs deep too. The Greeks don't think much of the Italians. Everybody hates the Turks. Also while the buildings and culture was very old I think the oldest tree I was must have been around for about 20 years. It is a different world.

As we moved north we began to see fields of sunflowers. That seems to be the main crop in that area. They are grown for the seed and the oil. We would see fields that ran from horizon to horizon. They were beautiful.

As we crossed out of Greece out guides made a stop at the duty free shop. They needed "supplies", cigarettes and booze. Items that would be required as bribes as we moved into Turkey. We then drove to the Turkish frontier. We had all been told to get a Turkish visa before leaving the states. Some had not. Those who had not needed to pay $20 for the visa. Lizzy was one such person. I got in line with her while Deb and Esther got in the fast line for those with visas. Turned out Lizzy was the lucky one. We all got a blah white sticker. She got a very nice stamp. After getting her visa we then got into the fast line.

Deb had gone to the bank to cash some t-checks into Turkish Lyra. We became millionaires. at 87,000 tl to the USD we now had about 5,000,000 tl. Such wealth!! Crossing the border was not very hard, but we clearly were moving into a third world country. Also we began seeing something that would become common. Storks! Large white birds who would nest on top of anything tall, trees, poles, chimneys....

We hit Istambul at about sunset. It's something to watch a large buss being guided down these small cobble stone streets. I wouldn't want to have to drive my truck down some of these roads!! As we approached the hotel our way was blocked by a police car. We could see no reason for the car being there, it just blocked the road. After a while trying to get past the car a few officers just came out and picked the car up and dropped in on the sidewalk.

When we were settled in our rooms we started to explore the hotel. One of the workers in the hotel was motioning us up to the bar. Our rooms were on the top floor and there was a bar on the room. We went up to the roof. Our first view of the city was sunset. The sun was dropping behind the Blue Mosk. Just below it was the New Mosk. From our vantage we could see six mosks, the Golden Crescent, and both the European side and the Asiatic side of Istanbul. Certainly this would be a special experience for us.

There are some small changes in this country when you go from state to state. Idaho clearly has the worst roads. You can tell the moment you cross the border. You can never question the moment you cross into Nevada because of all the lights and pings. I swear that whenever you cross the California border all plant life ends. But all those differences are minor compared to the Turkish and Bulgarian frontier.

Greece has modern fast roads. Turkey has paved roads, but far behind anything even Idaho has to offer.

I mentioned the houses in Greece. The interest rate is so high that when you build you do so in segments as you can afford. As we neared Istanbul we saw a totally different sight. Large, new, modern housing. Using the same construction technique as we say in Greece (and would in Bulgaria), but much taller. Rows and rows of gleaming, white, new houses. The sunflower fields changed places with these large cites. From horizon to horizon were these tall new apartments, and more being built. There were only two problems here. There were *only* apartments. No shops or businesses. They were all empty. They had never been lived in. They were far too expensive for the average Turk to ever afford. There was no reason to live there. They were unused and more were being built. Outside Istanbul we must have seen housing for 1.5 million people. All empty!

Seems the inflation rate in Turkey is something like 180%. Remember that we were getting 87,000 tl to the USD? So any money the government kept in the coffers turned to toilet paper over time. Also they want to enter the European Community. The EC will not let them in until the standard of living is raised to a certain point. So in anticipation of this great boom to the country all these "speculation houses" are being built for all the Europeans who will be flooding in when they are accepted. Of course the government further bankrupts themselves by doing all this building, but that point seems to have been missed. These are beautiful condos. I kept thinking about how the government could solve their problems if they could only sell the buildings to Americans and then beam (ala Star Trek) them over to the new site.

Speaking of Star Trek, Deb had the perfect way of describing the average Turk. The Turkish are the race from which the Foriengee (sp?) will evolve. True, true, true..... If they can sell it they will. If they can barter or bicker over price they will, and they love it!

When we were coming into our hotel it was pointed out that just about a block from our building there was a MacDonalds (puke!!). Several of the kids wanted to go over there to eat. MY children thought that was a horrible idea. They wanted to eat on the street and see what was there... (But then Esther is the one who cried when she received a Barbie doll from a friend. She couldn't understand why anybody would give such a useless gift..... That's my son!) Just around the corner there was a small restaurant. It had about three tables inside and one overflow table out on the sidewalk.

"Come in, come in!", the manager called. "Best food in Turkey!"

If you didn't want to be physically dragged in and sat down you needed to cross over to the other side of the road! But this did look like a good place to eat so we sat down at the table on the street. He kept trying to get us to go inside, but this is the table we wanted so that was okay by him. (I could just hear him think "loco gringos".)

The menu was all in Turkish. In Greece we could read the alphabet and make sense of some of the words. In Turkey they use the Latin alphabet, but the words meant nothing. The water saw our confusion and took us over to sample plates sitting behind a window. He spoke little English. I spoke no Turkish... but I could point. So we ordered our meals here as we would in many more places. I called it the "point and click" method.

We had tea (Turkish tea is WONDERFUL!!), Fanta (everyplace served Fanta, sometimes orange, sometimes lemon) and three different kinds of meat on skewers. I had spiced lamb with eggplant. The girls had beef. And as with every meal we ever saw there were tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and cheese. We watched the meal being prepaired with great artistry and gusto (and a little bit of a fight between the manager and the chief).

We ate well, enjoyed the people (if not the smell.... Istanbul has a population of 12 million!) and had a great time. And the bill was only 1,100,000 tf. First meal I ever had that cost over one million! Everybody was pleased.

Most of the more interesting and exotic postcards were sent from your hotel in Istanbul. Based on all postcard reports from you all none of them made it out of the country :<.

Our next day started with a trip to the "Blue Mosque". This is one of the largest mosques in the world with six minarets (I'm sure that's misspelled!! -- thanks Carol). We parked in the square outside the mosque. There are three large monoliths there. One had been brought from Egypt, one from Greece and one made there. They were all plunder from the Ottomans. Moving such large items in this age would be a feat. These were brought in by row boat!!

In structure a mosque and a Jewish temple are almost the same. Outside the main wall are all the merchants. You could buy postcards, gifts, rugs about anything you wanted. As you moved past the outer wall you enter a large court yard. This is the area of purification. There are fountains where you are to wash your hands, feet, arms and legs. Before entering the mosque you must cover your legs and take off your shoes. Anyone who had bare legs was given a cloth to wrap themselves in.

The mosque itself is one large dome with smaller domes cascading down from it. This creates a very large space.

In the Christian and Jewish tradition there developed representational art forms. In their temples and cathedrals you find artwork showing things, people, scenes from the holy books. In the Muslim tradition you don't represent things in art. So all the walls and ceilings are decorated in script. Very ornate and beautiful writing, as well as complex patterns can be found covering EVERYTHING.

While inside the mosque you are not allowed to sit.

Sitting next to the mosque is the Hagia Sophia. In contrast to the mosque this is one of the oldest Christian churches in the area, still under reconstruction.

After spending time in these two fine churches we were back in traffic. Which is quite a show. At one point a small car tried to cut off the buss and get ahead of us. The car lost. This cost us about an hour as our guide fought with the police. At one point he borrowed a camera from one of the passengers and took a photo of the accident. This turned out to be a very good move. It seems that the driver of the car had bribed the police to doctor up the accident report. It came out looking nothing like what happened. The photo helped in the argument.

Our next stop was the Turkish rug shop. We were scheduled to tour a factory and see how the rugs were made. All the tour was ushered into one large room where we got a small lecture on how the rugs are made. First in came the drinks. Pop, ozo, riza, tea (love that Turkish tea!), coffee, whatever you wanted. Then in came the samples. Large, small, cotton, silk, wool. After the show we were broken up in small groups and taken to smaller showrooms.

We were shown several fine rugs that we could buy for only $2,000 (USD). One small silk rug struck me. I have never seen such color!! It was about two by three feet. Only $7,000. Cheap at twice the price! I was trying to decide whether I wanted something cheaper or how to get out of the room. I asked if there was something around $500. In came a rug.

"Regular price $700 USD, for YOU only $550, but you need to take it with you, we cannot ship at that price."

It looked interesting, but I wasn't inspired. Then in came a second one at the same price and we now have a Turkish rug downstairs.

After this experience off to the Bazaar. Over 4,000 shops.

We were hungry so started looking for a place to eat. We found a small restaurant in the bazaar.

"Come in, best food in Turkey...."

The gaffers outside the stripper joints in SF have nothing over these peoples technique.

We were in and sitting at a table facing a menu in all Turkish. No clue what it meant. We were confused and could only order drinks. The water wanted to show me something. I suspected it as a display of their dishes, as we had seen in the other restaurant. He took me to the kitchen, but not much was on display. He tried to describe what he proposed, and it sounded okay.

"Best food in Turkey.... Real Turkish food."

So I said, "yes."

Out came the food. Egg plant, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber, stuffed peppers, salads. It was great! Just the right amount too, not too much as is often the case. Then on came the SECOND course. Plates of meat. Spiced lamb, beef, sausage. We were able to get the idea across that we needed to go and wanted a "dogie bag". Out came the box and the food was bundled up for us to take. Then came the bill. Five and a half million! I could not believe it.

"What's that in USD?", we asked. We must have a poor grasp of the money if that's what a meal costs. He got out his calculator and came up with $70.

"No, that's wrong!", we said. "It can't be that much!"

We only had a couple of million with us and needed to save our cash for Bulgaria. We already knew that they would not accept travelers checks and jealously were guarding all our US cash.

We offered him $30, which was not enough. I put down $20 more and some Lyra and we left. He seemed okay with that but Deborah was pissed! (All my fault of course.)

Well, from now on we ask the price BEFORE.

We told this story to many others and I suspect saved many a further tale of this sort.

Deb and Lizzy were sick the next day. So Esther and I went off to Topkapi Seraglio. The residence of the Ottoman Sultans. Now this is living. Property tax on the place would kill us now, but I don't suppose they paid much then.

One of the points that I found interesting was that the center of live in the palace was a school. This is where all the children of the Sultan was educated. But not just these children. The generals and political leaders were also educated here. And the generals and political leaders were all "young Christian boys". I assume captured and brought here to the school. It was never explained why they were considered the best material for leaders, but this seemed to be the assumption.

In order to feed the 2,000 plus people who regularly lived in the palace there were two large buildings dedicated only to the kitchen. One was a bakery and one was the general kitchen. There were no flues in the place. The pots would hold something like 20 gallons each and it looked like they just sat above the fire, which was in the room and vented through a hole in the ceiling. Nothing more than that, must have been a great place to work ;<.

As the Christians were into relics, so were the Muslims. The room that held the relics was not open to the public. There was the profits tooth and a sword. His armor, some hair and some books. You could see into this room through a window. One of the most interesting parts of the trip for me was this room. Sitting there was a man chanting from the Talmud. There has been someone there 24 hours a day for the last several hundred years. The singing was beautiful, deep, spiritual. This was something I kept finding. A deep, spiritual presence. In the buildings. In the people.

Buildings that had been there for thousands of years. People that had a history that went back much further even than that. I found the same thing in Peru.

Something that I didn't find in Peru (or any other place for that matter!) were Turkish toilets. We actually had people taking photos of the things. We'd use a toilet, and if it was worse than the last one word got around and everybody had to go in. Not often us use it, but just for the experience. For the photo op. They didn't impress me that much having spent six years in the army. The smell was much worse than I was used to, but the idea of hovering over a hole and firing was nothing new.

This being our last afternoon in Istanbul we went back to the hotel to see if Deborah and Lizzy were back on their feet. As they were we decided to go out walking and explore. We had had a poor experience at the Bazaar and wanted to give it a second chance. Also, we wanted to fine the Spice market too. Being sure where everything was we took off.

The spice market was next to the New Mosque, and we knew where that was. As usual there were fountains in front of the mosque in order for the believers to wash. One man was standing up urinating in the fountain. Well, Toto I guess we're not in Washington.

We looked for the market door with no luck, so just went down a street. A small foot note is the number of pet shops we saw. Somehow I wasn't expecting them. Dogs and birds were big. Also leaches. (Now there's a gift idea!!)

At one point we turned and found ourselves right in the middle of the spice market. I have no idea how we got there, but we did.

One of the things we wanted to find was saffron. One shop we walked in offered 5g of pure Iranian saffron for 500,000 tl. We argued the price down to 400,000 tl./5g if we purchased 10 boxes. We agreed to this. That's 4,000,000 (four million) tl. (hell, what's a few million here or there). We also get some apple tea (a national drink) and a little candy. Now, we had been told not to take samples at a shop unless we intended to purchase something there and we were careful not to. Now that we HAD purchased something all stops were pulled. We were offered tea, candy, coffee, drinks, fruit. Hospitality is very important here. And it flows both ways.

We left the market with hats, shirts, tea, perfume and spices. Now off to the Grand Bazaar.

For four people who know exactly where to go we sure took a long time getting lost. In the end though we did find something very special. Down this road that was off some other road there was a sign about Turkish calligraphy. You could get your name written on a card for only 1,500 tl. (About 2 cents!) You had to ask the man at the market, who took you down the side street to a book store and wait for Makheed. Makheed spoke no English, but the store owner was very good at it. The girls wrote their names on a piece of paper for Makheed to use. We discovered that he would also write on an inlaid wooden and mother-of-pearl pack for only half a million (a little over $5). We came back to the hotel with two very special souvenirs for the girls. As we walked back people on the street took the packs from us and admired them. The people at the hotel also admired them. I think we really made a find here.

One last thing to do. Several people had taken a Turkish Bath, and they were just down the street. Deborah and I went off to find the place, but it turned out to be one more interesting adventure not getting to where we thought we wanted to go. We did find a shop that made string instruments, and I suppose that's where we were supposed to be.

The last night in Istanbul began with our "Turkish night". We crossed the bridge (going over the golden crescent) and went to a night club... There were some Turkish musicians (who were very interesting), some belly dancers (different, but touristy) and Turkish food (I had better on the street). What was interesting was what happened next.

One of the women in our group has been a belly dancer in P.A. for years. I know her from church and she has directed a couple of plays I have been in. I have had both her sons in school and Youth Symphony, so I know her very well. She was very unimpressed with the show.

"The only thing they had was 26year old bodies and firm tits", she kept saying.

Well, we had all been drinking and she had one of her dancing partners from P.A.. Her husband plays tabla and had his instrument with him. It was decided that there would be belly dancing lessons on the roof of the hotel for any takers. About 20 women (all American) and a couple of men went up with her. She began to run a class with the women. We men were told that our "gonads were in the wrong place", but we could watch. I've always liked Kathy, but watching her (tipsy) late at night up on the roof of the hotel taking these women through her exercises (with many comments about how this particular movement could be used in bed too) as they got wilder and wilder was quite a memory for me.

At one point our guide came up to see what was up. He watched them work. Listened to all the sexual advice going around. Heard the jokes about cutting tennis balls in half and using them for birth control in a pinch and turned to me.

"We Europeans all think of you Americans as being sexually up-tight", he told me. "I have never seen this side of you."

I told him that in fact as a nation it's one of our biggest problems. But that we did *talk* big.

"Oh", he said. "Then it's all talk..."

I told him "yes" and he nodded. That he could accept.

The next morning we were off to Bulgaria. We had known from the beginning that we would have trouble in Bulgaria cashing travelers checks. They would accept cash, but only if it was crisp and clean (counterfeiters must just LOVE Bulgaria). We had been keeping a reserve of cash to use when we crossed the border, but had lost some of that in the Bazaar. We had about 50,000 drk from Greece and hoped to be able to use that too if needed.

We loaded the busses and pulled out. How a full size buss can navigate down those streets I just don't understand. But when I was in Mexico I saw the same thing (sometimes even MORE amazing feats were performed for us there).

So, on we go to Bulgaria. $200 in my pocket with a family of four and six days of Bulgaria to make it through..... We'll see.

The most noteworthy thing about heading north from Istanbul is that the roads kept getting worse. And worse. And worse....

We had been told to bring a sack lunch with us for the border. After crossing out of Turkey we all sat down and ate. Our guides were busy bribing.... er, discussing things with the guards over at the buss. Once we cleared Turkey we moved onto the Bulgarian border.

Much to my delight there was a bank there that would cash travelers checks. We all jumped on the opportunity. As people started to check their paperwork they noted that there was a $3 charge on cashing a $20 travelers check. This seemed a bit high to them. The progress was VERY SLOW. In time I got up to the window and cashed a $100 check. The charge for this was also $3. Seemed they were charging $3 per check. Good thing to cash big ones.

In Bulgarian money (lev) I received a stack of 100 100lv notes, almost 100 200lv notes and several smaller notes. In all I had a stack of money about three inches tall. About all I could fit in my pouch!

When I got back to the bus it was clear that our guides were fighting with the Bulgarian guards. This was not a good sign. We had been waiting for some time and were wondering what the hell was going on when we were informed that we would all need to pay a $22 "border tax". That the tax had to be paid in US paper (in good shape) and had to be paid in the next five minutes. Well, to me that meant $88 out of my $200 supply....... We all paid up and I ran back to the bank. If I could cash another $100 that would make up for the loss. Well we had already cashed something like $1,000 that day so the bank was out of money. Bank closed for the day.

We were assigned our "official" guides and sent on our way. Not a very good beginning, but at least I understand the alphabet....

Most of our time on this trip was spent in Bulgaria.

I understand that 40 years ago it was one of the richest countries in the Baltic. It's economy was four times as strong as Greece. Bulgaria was the vacation spot of Europe. What I found on this trip was the most corrupt, bankrupt country I have ever seen.

At the end of WWII Bulgaria was in the hands of the Soviets. After 30 years of Soviet rule the population was clearly divided into two populations. The first was made up of those about my age and younger. They all grew up in the communist system and basically sat around waiting for things to be done for them. In Greece you would go into a shop and the owner was there to help. In Turkey you would just walk past a shop and the entire staff would come out to pull you in. Escaping from the owner was the problem there. In Bulgaria you would walk into a shop. The owner would be there reading a newspaper and ignore you. If you bothered them by asking a question or offering to buy something you were made to feel like an unwelcome guest.

On the other hand the older people were all out on the street selling all sorts of things. Lots of lace work, medals from the communist times, cameras, clocks, icons, just about anything and everything. It was like there were two totally separate populations living there.

While the communists party is out or power everybody agreed that the old leaders just moved into the socialist party (in power now) of the mafia (really in power now).

Our first concert was in Burgas. Burgas was also our first overnight stop in Bulgaria. On the way there we stopped at a tourist destination for lunch and our first experience with Bulgarians. We bought some lace there, got a map of the country, explored some ancient Roman walls. Then off to Burgas.

But first one more stop at Apollonia. Bulgaria has a long and beautiful history (excepting the last 50 years....) Apollonia is a small town built in the old tradition. I have talked about the architecture in Greece and Turkey. In Bulgaria it is the same for the most part. The exceptions are in the older parts of the cities and here in Apollonia. Here the buildings are constructed all of wood, except the roofs which are stone. This is very unusual. The "shingles" on the roof are stone blocks about 1 inch thick and a foot square, laid out just like shingles. The entire city was water powered. There was a stream running through the town and every building had a large pipe going from the stream to the building. Looms were water powered. The mill was water powered. There was a wood working shop and the lathe was water powered. One building was for washing clothes. The "washing machines" were all powered by the force of the stream. All the traditional arts were represented here. It looked like the artisans lived in the town too. I'm not sure how much was show and how much was museum, but this was one of the more unusual places we visited.

Once through the town we stopped to eat. Well, we stopped anyway. I went into a restaurant to find nobody spoke any English. They had menus, but didn't have anything that was on the menu. Some food was to be had, but nobody was very interested in providing service. After about 45 minutes I went into the kitchen to find somebody to order food from. An attractive young woman followed me out. I went over to a friends table, pointed at what he had and said "tree". (At lease my Russian numbers were working.) She grinned and shook her head. Then returned to the kitchen. I didn't know what was going on, so just sat down. In time out came drinks and plates. Then the food.

Now before I left for this trip I did some reading up on the area. Seems that in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria one nods their head "no" and shakes their head "yes", but I had never seen that custom used. Until now. Her shaking her head back and forth meant that she understood and would get me the food. We ate at last and then got onto the bus.

Burgas is a large city on the coast. We got all our stuff off the buss and then checked into the hotel. For the first time on this trip we were in a hotel where the doors did not lock unless you used the key. Most every other place the door was always locked UNLESS you used the key (like in the US). This will become important.....

There were two main walking promenades in town and both were adjacent to the hotel. Our first exploration led us down one of these streets.

I was able to read most of the signs being familiar with the alphabet from my Russian studies. But the more I tried to use Russian words the more I became aware that Russian and Bulgarian were two different languages. Even though many of the words are spelled the same Russian pronunciation did not work.

One sign was easy to read though.... Large, red and in plain Latin.... "Sex shop". Guess they catered to Americans (?).

Here we started to find our first "American" restaurants. They usually served pizza (very good) had waitresses in VERY short skirts (ala the 60's) and offered you Coke to drink. At the end of the walk we came to a park. The park was full of war memorials. Bulgaria was very big on statues. Statues to poets, politicians, solders, just about anybody. This park was typical of what we saw in Bulgaria. Lots of statues. Lots of statues to, for and about the Russians. Which at the time seemed odd to me (more about this later though). Past the park was the sea. Polluted, smelly, oily, dark, stormy. We then walked back to the hotel to eat.

Throughout our trip we had continental breakfasts offered every day. For some reason in Bulgaria the supper was also part of the package..... but only in Bulgaria (wink, wink, nod, nod..). I rather liked their suppers. Always a salad (tomato, cucumber) and then something small. So often restaurants just serve too much. But not here (wink, wink, nod, nod...).

When we got to Burgas we picked up our final orchestra member. Her name was Petya and she lived in Sophia. Her first question was how she could get out of Bulgaria so she could study in the U.S. She was really cute and was going to act as our artistic go-between. In fact she is the one who had set up all the concerts from the Bulgarian side.

That night we met an important side of Bulgaria.

Some of the women were awakened by a man in their room going through their things. They chased him out and went back to bed. The next morning we discovered that our visitor had also hit other rooms. Two other woman found him in their rooms and three of the high school kids lost all their money and passports.

We reported this to the hotel and they notified security. Then one of the women identified the man sitting in the hotel. Security went over to him, checked his ID and that was that. He just walked off and sat down in the restaurant for breakfast. He seemed to be real familiar with the hotel.

Recall my mentioning the doors without locks? Recall my mentioning the mafia. Seems that after the Communistic left the country this hotel was up for sale. It used to be the finest in the city. Several interests had put up offers and they were all being considered until a mysterious fire destroyed the first two floors. Then everybody but one withdrew their bid. That one had known mafia connections. Now about those robberies......

I had discovered several posters around advertising our concert. (Brought three back with me BTW.) When I mentioned to our conductor that I had found some posters about us out on the street he wanted to see them. We both went out and he was happy to see hundreds of the posters lining the street. He was interested in seeing the rehearsal hall so we both walked over together. One door was open but the lady watching the door would not let us in and knew as much English as we knew Bulgarian. As we were leaving we spotted a man working in one of the rooms. His window was open and he looked up at us. I tried some Russian and he responded. We were able to get some understanding of who these two Americans were and why we were trying to get in. He came around and gave us the grand tour. Nico (our conductor) liked what he saw, but our guide seemed surprised that we would be coming back that afternoon for a rehearsal. I was clear he understood that we were coming back and equally clear he was not expecting us.

When it was time to go to the rehearsal we all got on the bus with our instruments and were off. We arrived at the rehearsal site, but not the same one Nico and I had visited earlier in the day. Now I came to understand why the man in the concert hall seemed so confused about our returning. Beside the obvious troubles I would have been having with the Russian language.

Here I ran into something here that would be a major part of my experience in Bulgaria. Next to the concert hall was a Bulgarian Orthodox church. Even though it was very old and not in the best of shape it was beautifully, holy and a part of the life of the city. In the narthex of this (and every) church had a small shop in it. One could purchase small icons, crosses and candles here. In the main part of the church were many candelabras. The tradition is to light a candle there for someone living. On the floors were trays of sand. In the sand were candles for the dead. Lizzy and Esther would light many candles on this trip.

Even though this was not one of the most magnificent churches I was to see the art work here was beyond anything I had seen in any church anywhere else.

The concert went well.

In the evening another free, small supper.

The next morning I went down to get some mints. The store had some for 60 lv. I had a 100 lv note that I used to pay for the mints. She was unable to give me change. She just didn't have that much. Now this is a major hotel. I purchased 30cents worth of mints and the store didn't have 20cents in change. Welcome to Bulgaria.

We loaded up the bus and were off.

Remember the small suppers? Well it turned out that we weren't supposed to be getting them. Somehow our regular guides (from Italy) were always held up until the Bulgarian guides had supper all set up. The tour company had paid for the $11 suppers for us and we were served the $5 suppers. The Bulgarian guides made a point of getting there first and changing the order. Pocketing the difference. Welcome to Bulgaria.

I don't blame the guides though. The average income in Bulgaria is something like $20 a month. These guides got over $100 in tips for the 6 days they spent with us.... Plus whatever income they received from the state. I'm sure in order to keep their jobs "favors" were required of them by ..... need I say it? The mafia. It's just the way it is.

Well we're off. Our Bassoon player left his instrument on the sidewalk when we drove off. It's still there. But he hasn't realized that yet.

Our second performance was scheduled for the city of Varna. As a city went Varna was more run down the Burgas. Once we got out of the bus and checked into the hotel I went for a walk. Every city we had been in so far had been on the coast. This would be our last chance to see the sea as we would be going inland after this performance. I headed west until I got to the beach. However there was a wall between the town and the beach. I just headed north thinking I would be able to get around it. Not so. It just kept going as far as I was interested in walking. There were places where you could go in and eat, but the wall seemed designed to keep people off the beach.

Most of the places we visited were a lot less concerned about litter than we are in the US. The Varnans had decided that this was a problem if they were to attract tourists. The beach was a point of concern for them. Every day people would visit the beach and by evening time it would be hard to find the sand. Paper, cans, all sorts of junk covered the beach. This never bothered the locals, but they found out that outsiders were bothered by the mess. The wall was a part of the solution. You were able to get to the beach, but needed to pay a small fee. Something like 20lv (10 cents). During the evenings workers would come to pick up all the litter and then rake the beach. Yes, RAKE the beach. The next morning the sand was clean, level, spotless and raked. I guess if you're going to do it you should do it well.....

About now we have figured out that a bassoon is missing. We are sure that it was stolen. Mafia plots abounded. We had already had such a good experience. Still.... it's worth a phone call. Turned out that the hotel had the instrument and wanted to know what to do with it. Now a bassoon is worth about $3,000, so the parents of the boy hired a taxi to drive back, pick up the instrument and return to Varna. The instrument was returned on time.

The performance went well. We had quite an audience here. The performance was on quite a modern stage too. All went well, but I've never been so tired after a concert in my life.

For the past week I had been getting up at 5am to get out on the streets and walk. Meet the sun and people as they came out in another country. Evenings usually went to about midnight. Or at least after the first few nights when it was more like 3am. Can't imagine why I was starting to fag out. Must be the air. Air quality was quite poor and everybody over there smokes. Yep, that's it.... the air.

The next morning I had breakfast with a Greek Cypriot (sp??). He started talking to me about the history of his country. I knew a little, but not much. What interested me is what happened the next few days. Earlier that week several bikers (I was never sure if they were motor bikes or pedal bikes) from all over the world had gotten together in Paris. They intended to go to Cyprus and try to cross over into the Turkish side in protest. They knew they would be stopped and perhaps arrested. He suggested that I follow the news over the next week.

Something was up..... By the next day two Greeks had been killed and several UN soldiers shot. Every time I turned on the TV for the rest of the trip I was shown one more shot of somebody being killed at the border. No mention of the bikers, but something was happening. I still haven't figured out if it was some sort of anniversary. When I came back stateside I couldn't find anybody who had even heard about it......

Now we had an interesting situation developing here. There where three people on the trip who were obviously traveling together. None of them played in the orchestra and we didn't see much of them during the day. The trio was made up of two women and one man. The man and one of the two women had been very touchy-freely for the entire trip. However he roomed with the other woman. Not my business, but.....seemed odd somehow.

Seemed the man had proposed to one of the women (not the one he roomed with) when we all were in New York. The decision had been made to have the wedding in Sophia. Some people get married and then go on their honeymoon. They went on their honeymoon and then got married. C'est la vie. BTW the woman he roomed with turned out to be his daughter. So now we have a wedding to do. We are an interesting group to travel with.

I find that in my life I keep gravitating towards two things. Music and the church. I have often wondered why. While I have always found music important, it has never been easy for me. While I am active in the church I'm the last person to defend many of it's teachings. So why are these two things important to me. After thinking about this for the past thirty years I keep coming back to the same point. History. Both music and the church have roots deep in history. I gives me a foundation to stand on in the present and a place in the greater picture. This seems important to me.

I have spent a bit of time in Latin America in the past. Mexico, Peru and Bolivia. I really felt I belonged in those countries. Because of the sense of history. You are in a society or in a city with a deep history.

We were now moving into a part of Bulgaria with history. Most every city we had been in so far had been built in the past 50 years. Istanbul and parts of Athens were the exception. But almost every other building was constructed in the cement and brick technique I have mentioned before. We would not be seeing much of this type of building for the rest of our stay in Bulgaria.

We leave the sea and go into the mountains.

Our first stop is the ancient city of Veliko Turnovo. During the "Third Kingdom" Veliko Turnovo was the capital of Bulgaria. When the Turks took over Bulgaria they took it over from the three brother kings and they conquered them here in Veliko Turnovo.

By the way, remember all those statues and monuments to the Russians. It wasn't because of the occupation after WWII. It was because the Russians drove out the Turks. A very clear division is made in the mind of the Bulgarians between the Russians and the Communists. The Russians are good, the saviors of the country. The liberators from the Turks. The Communists are not seen as good guys in anybodies eyes.

Just outside the modern city was the ancient walled city. Our first adventure here was to explore the ancient city. As was the case in most every city we had seen the fortress was built on the top of the tallest hill. Surrounded by walls. In the case of the ancient city of Veliko Turnovo there also were cliffs on three sides. The one entrance to the city accessible by foot was controlled by a draw bridge.

We crossed over the draw bridge and into another world. A world of castles and dungeons. As we walked through the walls there was a man with a puppet show. Now you have to understand that these puppets were about four and five feet tall. While he played guitar the puppets would dance. One was hanging on wires suspended from the top of the wall, about 20 feet up. At one point in the show the puppet "jumped" up to the top of the wall and then slid down. Quite a show. The kids loved it.

We walked along the wall until we came to one of the towers. This was the tower in which the last king of Bulgaria was held by the Ottomans. He killed himself jumping from the tower. Deborah has a picture of me standing on the same tower. I don't know if she wanted me to jump, but she did want me to stand on the very top for a picture.

Up on the hill was a church. This church was a new church constructed in the last few years. We worked ourselves up the back side of the hill and up to where the church was. After counting noses we realized Lizzy was missing. Somehow she had taken a wrong turn and was happily going down the hill. We went back to rescue her and went as a group into the church.

I wish we had some pictures of this church. We could not take any and could never find any books about it. The architecture of the church was very traditional. The large dome....the colors.....the walls....large doors. Just what you would expect. But the paintings inside were all of this century. Same themes you would expect in a church but...... some of the must incredible 20th century art I have every seen.

Using motifs of the church the entire history of Bulgaria was there on the walls. If you know Diego Rivera (Mexico) you have an idea of what was before us. It was astounding. Picasso, Rivera, the church and the history of Bulgaria....all in one place. This was truly one of the most beautiful places we had seen.

One of the optional tours was a "light show" at Veliko Turnovo. We had been hearing for months how this show was a bust and not worth the time. We did not sign up for it but Deborah and I decided to walk back to the old city later that night. For the walk as much as for a chance to see the show. Colored lights, as well as strobes had been planted all over the city. On the walls, in the field in front of the wall, in the city. As they story of the siege of the city was told the movement and fire of the opposing forces was told in the movement of the lights. Very well done!! Our advice was bad. I'm glad we went back for the show. It's something I would not have liked to miss.

However....on the way back.

We were told the first day that it would be hard to get lost in town.

Well, as we were going back to the hotel....Deborah and I.....and all our money....found our way down a very dark street. In a very bad part of town. With no idea at all where the hotel was. With no idea at all how to communicate with the natives and not any clear idea that that would be a good idea. Every street wise red light I had in my head was going off. Not a good place to be. We back tracked and got back on the right road and on to the hotel in time. But I would have been all the happier for NOT having THAT experience......

The capital of Bulgaria is Sophia. We would spend three days here. Two concerts behind us and a wedding yet to perform.

Elizabeth had given up the international harp festival (in Tacoma) for this trip. However, before leaving for Europe she had had one lesson with a young harpest from Bulgaria who had come to Seattle to do a recital. Here home was Sophia. We were armed with her phone number and address for when we arrived in Sophia. Our hopes were to contact her there on our way through.

Sophia was the home of our two Bulgarian guides. Except for during meals we saw very little of them, which was okay by us. The violinist we picked up in Burgas also lived in Sophia as did a woman we had met in Seattle. Our home in Sophia was the Hotel Rodnia. Not the fanciest hotel in town, but one of the fanciest I had ever been in.

Our first organized exploration of town began at one of the local churches (naturally). For the first time during our stay in Bulgaria the guides were really concerned about the potential of theft. Everywhere we went there were roving bands of kids, and this worried them. (Theft was a problem in Bulgaria you see...)

After we came out of the church we began to work our way down the main street of Sophia. We went by the art museum, the university, several shops and "flea markets". Elizabeth was really interested in the building with the "plumber's plunger" on it. She had never seen anything like that on top of a building. It did look odd.....

When I got closer to the building I could see that it had also been on fire. A very HOT fire. The stone on the side of the building was charred and crumbling. Didn't look to me much like anybody had tried to restore it either. The guide told us that that used to be the headquarters of the Communist party. At one time a large red star sat on top of the building, but now all that was left was the pedestal (plumber's plumber) that the star sat on. It was taken down by a mob after the fall of the USSR. The building was then gutted and burned two weeks later.

This brings to point a central point I kept running across in Bulgaria. A point I don't think Americans can grasp very well. The Russians were heros to the Bulgarian people. There were shrines and statues all over the place honoring the Russian soldiers, Russian poets, Russian sailors, Russian people......anything Russian. But Communism was another issue. Never did I see any Russian monument attacked or dishonored. Any and every Communist monument was sacked. I think we tend to see Russians and Communists as the same. These people certainly did not.

After we finished the organized tour we had several hours to spend in town. Esther opted to go to the orphanage which our friend Gay helps with. Gay plays 'cello in the symphony. The reason we had come to Bulgaria was her connections here. All the proceeds of the concert were going to the orphanage and most of us had brought something into the country to leave with them. We had brought a load of drugs (cold medicine) packed into Esther's 'cello case. The rest of us (Morgan-Ellis') went back into town to explore.

First we wanted to try to call Elizabeths one lesson harp teacher. In Bulgaria (and Greece, and I assume Turkey) one purchases a "phone card". Good in only that one country. When you want to call you insert the card into a phone and it displays the credit left on the card. As you talk (or dial) you can see this credit being used up. We bought a 500lv card and tried to make contact. No luck...so on to town.

We went back to the church we started with earlier in the day. Just outside of the church was a bazaar where many old women were selling lace. Elizabeth just had to get a lace vest. She purchased it with her own money and has in fact worn it several times since we returned. Across the street were rows and rows of stalls selling "junk". Well antiques. Cameras, books, icons and all sorts of Communist artifacts. Awards, ribbons, weapons, medals, certificates, pins, KGB watches, bayonets, military insignia....you name it. I assume these are things not anymore valued by the owners and perhaps of some value to the tourist.

Before we left the area an old man with a Bulgarian violin and dancing bear came out. The poor pathetic bear was in horrible shape. The old man wore traditional dress and played a type of violin we often saw in Bulgaria. He would tug on the nose ring of the bear and force it to "dance" while he played his violin. I believe we took some pictures of the show, but then we left....

Just down the street was St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church. This is, I understand, the only Russian Orthodox church in Bulgaria. Once again the dome, the ornate paintings all over all the walls, the old women selling candles and small icons (I have one sitting by my computer now...), the trays of sand and the candelabras. This was, however the smallest of all the churches I was to see. It was build for only one man, and was just about that size, yes it would fit one very nicely....

We worked our way back to the rondevous point, tried another phone call (which failed) and caught the buss back to the hotel.

I love to look into churches. There was a small orthodox church just behind our hotel in Sophia. The next morning I went exploring. (I always like to explore...) I was just like any other I had been in. Large ornate doors. Small vestibule where you can purchase candles, icons, pictures. All sold by old women behind a window. Beyond that was the church proper. Inside the walls were covered with paintings. A large dome, also covered with paintings. No chairs or seats, a large open area. Many stations of workshop. Trays of sand and candelabras. A large gate at the front of the church. Covered with gold and icons. Three doors in the gate. One large one in the center and one small one on each side. There were three or four people from the city lighting candles or meditating at an icon and a priest (is that the correct term?) at a lectern.

All these people were common folk. This was not a major church. Just a small neighborhood congregation.

The man at the lectern began to sing.

Sing is not the word though..... This was a Bulgarian Orthodox church, but if you have ever heard a Russian bass you have some idea of the power and range if his voice. He was chanting from a book on the lectern. His voice and conviction came from centuries of devotion. The calm recitation from thousands of years of unchanging liturgy. As I listened I was transfixed. I know good music. I have listened to many of the finest performers known in the west. I have never heard the likes of this before. The timelessness and depth and power and soul of this music was beyond anything I had ever heard before.

Bartok traveled through Hungary and Rumania collecting folk songs. He took these recordings and based his work on these traditional sounds. If you know Bartok at all and heard this man sing you could hear the foundation of everything he wrote.

This was the most fantastic music I had ever heard. I was torn between running to tell the others and staying to listen. The line..... The cadences...... The agelessness..... The depth of soul....

After a few minutes a second voice joined him. This time a high tenor. But from where? Was this god? The sound was high and seemed to be coming from all around (hard walls and domed celings...remember?) As the antiphone between these two men developed I came to understand that the new voice was coming from behind the gate.

Now in any church in the west does it a service is short (maybe an hour) and well attended. You come when it begins and leave when it ends. Orthodox services may run six or eight hours. You come and go as need dictates. Here is the most beautiful music I have ever heard, there are about three other people in the room with me and they are ignoring the performance.....!

The large door in the gate opened and heaven flowed in. While the main part of the church was painted and dark the part behind the gate was all covered in gold and very well lit. It truly was as if the gates of heaven opened.

The tenor came out carrying the elements marched around the room as the two men sang and then returned behind the gate. Nobody took notice of a thing he did. There were, however perhaps a couple more people by this time.

I had run back to the hotel a couple of times to try to find Deborah or any of the kids. They were really missing something here. No luck! I returned.

After the tenor finished his presentation of the elements he returned behind the gate. The music continued for over an hour. The tenor never returned. As more and more came into the church and some left to go on with their daily activity nobody except me seemed to see the splendor before them.

This truly was the high point of the trip for me. The piety of the common folk. The beauty of the tradition. I had seen this before in Mexico and it had touched me there too.

The other memory I bring back from Sophia is that of the dogs. Everywhere dogs. Just roaming the street. Thin, lifeless, hungry dogs with puppies following them. I don't think I saw a single adult dog that walked on all four legs. One had been hurt beyond use on all of them. Cars I guess. They like the cantor seemed to be just ignored. Part of the life of the city......

This was the afternoon of our wedding. The night before the couple had both gotten food poisoning. Both stayed in bed and were attended all day by one of our party who was a doctor. By the afternoon, when the service was to be held they emerged from their rooms and took the limo to the park. We all took the buss.

Given the people involved you can understand that there was no lack of music for the performance.

We went to a large park in the center of the city. Under a statue of flying doves the ceremony was held. Several townsfolk stopped to come over and see what these strange people were doing. Being in English they likely did not understand anything said, but they were a part of this event none the less.

Two police officers stopped and watched from atop their horses. I wonder what THEY thought.

As usual there were popcorn stations all over the place and many of the kids had bought popcorn. Lizzy got the idea to save some to throw at the couple as they left the service. Problem was that they didn't pay enough attention and the service was over and the couple were gone before they had noticed. So after this strange service, in this strange language these strange children started running after the couple throwing popcorn at them. Must have made quite a sight for the locals.

We made the paper AND the local TV station.

The members of the orchestra had all chipped in about $3 each in order to get them a wedding gift. For that much we rented the limo and set them up in the honeymoon suite at one of the most exclusive hotels in Europe. But the groom had just gone to bed. HE WAS SICK!!!

So we had a funeral.

The flowers from the wedding were gathered up and his bed was laced with them. Groom in the center.

The musicians came in the room playing durges and mourners were present. All this was put on video and presented to the couple. Not our first choice, but they will remember us by our gift.

A wedding cake had been ordered for the reception, which while not attended by the groom WAS attended by the bride. Problem was that in Europe they have no concept of what we would call a cake.... After trying to describe to the baker what a cake was we were presented with what best would be described as a twenty pound chocolate brownie with about a half an inch of VERY sugary cream cheese frosting.

Not quite a classy as a loose rooster in the reception, but it worked......

During the communist occupation of eastern Europe, Bulgaria was designated as the computer center of the Soviet Union. This would be where the people would go for training. Here is where the computers would be designed and built. It was interesting for me to find (for the first time since leaving Athens) some computer shops. There was an Apple dealer just across from the old Communist headquarters and the IBM dealer was across from our hotel. I had to check them out.

The Apple dealer seemed the most up to date place I saw in Bulgaria to get your film developed. They had at least five different types of film and several cameras. You could also get two types of answering machines for your phone. So much for Apple.

IBM did have more. There was one computer on the shelf. A pentium 100...with a modem. Also two xerox machines. It WAS more high tech. than I had seen any other place....

We continued trying to call Lizzy's harp teacher. Using up time on our card....but never did reach her.

The last afternoon in Sophia I was taken to the Woman's Market. I kept being surprised by many of the women on the trip. I kept being taken places because they need a man around. (Like this seems to be an issue home.) I became a regular escort service. Perhaps I'm old enough that they saw me as safe. Perhaps I'm such a clean cut guy they see themselves as "safe". Whatever the reason I find myself in the Woman's Market looking for cloth.

One disappointment I had in Bulgaria was the total inability of me to find T-shirts with Cyrillic on it. I could get Micky Mouse or about any shoe company advertise on it, but nothing in Cyrillic. We had the same problem with books. There just were none for sale there. I did find one the last day, but we didn't get it (for which we are still kicking ourselves). But, on this trip I was on the make for ANYTHING I cold wear with Cyrillic. My experience just once more reinforced how much of the stuff for sale here is dumped from the US.

We did find the cloth. Also got some fruit and then came back. On the way back we stopped at a Synagog being built in town. It was a beautiful building being reconstructed by donations from the Jewish community in Sophia. Which I would suppose is very small. The project had been underway for many years.

Remember the mafia? You could usually tell them by the big tough men with cell phones. Well, there was a real classic in the hotel when we got back. A real BIG mother. With this flimsy blond hanging on him. I didn't give it much thought at the time. But ran across him again that evening. This time with three ladies. Must say their sense of fashion was not like any I had seen locally. Tight leather mini skirts, Leather vests, nothing under them (nothing manmade in any case) and unbuttoned. They were lounging in the lobby and being kept an eye on by our man.... I guess they were there for some fashion show.

Since leaving the US I had heard about the monastery to the south of Sophia. The next morning we were to head back to Athens with only one major stop left. Rila Monastery.

When we left Sophia we headed for the Rila Monastery. The monastery is south and up in the mountains. It was first a church, but over time had a large wall built around it to protect it. There were just seven monks living in the monastery yet. One of the things they were known for was their wine. Just outside the walls was a store where many of our group loaded up with "products" from the monastery. Then south and back to Greece.

We spent our next night in Delphi. Delphi is a small town just outside of the ancient site of Delphi, the city of the Oracle. We toured the ruins the next day and then stopped at Sun Beach. At the end of this trip there was A LOT OF BUSS RIDING!!

Then on to Athens.

I had spent a lot of time looking at art, history, churches... It was time to just have fun. Four of us went off to the islands for the last day. Deb and the girls stayed behind so they could go to one last museum. I went off to spend the day in the sun.

Gay is very advantageous. I knew any trip with her would be worth the time. The four of us set out early in the morning. We had to get to the docks, but we didn't know which one. We had to catch a ferry, but we didn't know which one or when it left. We had no guide and didn't know the language. The people we would be dealing with would know little if any English. So off we went.

She had heard of this island we just HAD to visit. Nobody knew which ferry got us there, but we knew it would be in the water, so we caught a taxi to the waterfront. We kept saying the name of the island whenever we met someone and followed the gestures of anyone who pointed. When we got into an office and said the name of the island a woman asked how many and then offered us tickets. We paid her some money and then started asking where the boat who's name was on the ticket was. Got to the boat just as it was leaving. Found four deck chairs and set up camp, waiting to see where the boat went.

When we arrived at where we were going (and this was the first time we knew where we were going) we found ourselves on a very touristy island. I fun first stop, but not the island we wanted to get to. The island was home to a large number of very classic looking fishing boats. Most of which were homes to the owners. All were shops. You could buy fish, or flowers, pottery, art, baked goods or octopus from these boats. Yes, octopus. Many of the boats had small octopuses hanging from the ropes on the boats. Very tasty looking.

But this was not the island we wanted to get to.

We found a small boat that went to the island, but would not leave for about three hours. We got tickets on this boat and then went to the small beach the island offered. The sun was hot and the water very clear. We had a nice time, but wanted to get onto this other island that was supposed to be really great.

In time the boat left. With us on it.

When we arrived we found a small, isolated island that had to be where all the posters and post cards are made for the Greek tourist agencies. It was really beautiful. The sun was bright and hot. The water clearer than any I have ever seen before. We found our way through a small town and arrived at the beach.

This beach is what one dreams about when once thinks of a beach. Not a Washington beach my any stretch. The sand was clean and hot. There were stands along the beach where you could get bar-b-qued octopus. The water was warm and clear. Those on the beach who had ANY clothes on had on very few. Soon we found ourselves in the same condition.

One of our company went to another beach because she liked rocky beaches. The other two women and myself found a spot to lay out our towel and took turns swimming and watching all our stuff. I have never been in water like this before!

We kept switching between swimming and a very open conversation about our lives. It started out with "Why are all men such jerks!" And moved from a discussion about relationships between men and women to a discussion of the twists and turns my life has taken in the past five years. I will out outline the discussion here. Some of you already know about it, some of you have been a part of it, and the rest of you don't need to know. (sorry...) But it was a very good experience.

Well I kept feeling the glow growing. Not sure if it was a glow from the discussion, the wonderful time I was having, the wonderful company I was in, of just the general situation I was in. I was experiencing the perfect Greek holiday!

After a few hours we left to have lunch and got on our boat to return. I was feeling not so good.

The boat back to Athens was a large fishing boat decked out for passengers. One of my favorite souvenirs of the trip was a post card I bought of a very similar boat with a beautiful woman on deck. Bout sums up the trip.

When we got back to Athens the decision was made to take a bus back to save money. But nobody knew which bus or where to get it. All we knew was we would need a ticket that you could buy not on the bus, but on the street. Tickets in hand we were off to find the bus. I was not feeling very well and was fading. After about an hour of running around looking for our bus we gave up and flagged a taxi. I was about ready to do that on my own anyway. I wanted to get back before I got really sick.

When I got to the hotel I started to figure out why I wasn't feeling so good. All day I had eaten next to nothing and had one royal sun burn.

I tried to find something to eat on the street, but it was too late.

Went up to by room and got in bed. Laying naked on top of the sheets was about all I could take. What would it be like on the flight back?? When Deborah came in and saw my condition her only comment was, "Good, you deserve it!" and left the room. Such is the price of the free and easy life. Esther brought in some cold pizza from their supper and I feasted on it. It was a well appreciated meal!!!

When I got up the next morning I had a great tan, but felt fine..... Guess the problem was lack of food more than anything. We got everything packed and arranged for the trip back. Other than winning about $20 in Las Vegas (at the air port) there is really no great adventure in that.

Fine