On May 7th, I left Bucharest on an overnight train to Sofia, Bulgaria. I arrived in Sofia at 7 a.m. on May 8 (two hours later than expected). Again, this is a difference between eastern and western Europe. In France, Germany and Austria, I could estimate train arrival times by five minutes. This is not the case in Romania and Bulgaria.
The train terminal in Sofia was the most confusing one I’ve seen yet. I looked around and could not find a ticket window. I could not find an ATM. I could not even find an information booth. It was raining and cold. I hadn’t read my Rough Guides’ description of Sofia, but something told me that it was as sobering as the synopsis of Bucharest. I stood in the train terminal, completely confused, wanting to be anywhere in the world but Sofia.
That’s when Franz #58 materialized and said, “What you need?”
I stood there for a minute trying to figure out his ulterior motive.
Franz was staring at my expectantly. “What you need?” he repeated.
That’s when I decided I wanted out of Sofia. I just wasn’t sure where to go. My mind started shuffling through the options. Belgrade? Plovdiv? Istanbul?
“Tickets?” I asked, meekly.
Franz stared at me, uncomprehending.
A light bulb went off somewhere in my noggin. “Greece!” I blurted out. This was a word that Franz understood. He motioned for me to follow, and I accompanied him upstairs, where there was a booth selling bus tickets to Thessaloniki.
Twenty minutes later, I was on a bus to Greece. It was quite surreal. There was a verbal dialogue going on in my head. The dialogue went: “OMG, I’m going to Greece! OMG, I’m going to Greece!” When we crossed the Bulgarian-Greek border four hours later, the dialogue shifted to: “I’m in Greece, bitches! I’m in Greece, bitches!”
One reason why I enjoy taking local transport (buses and trains as opposed to planes) is that you get to see more of the countryside. The Bulgarian countryside was hilly and covered in bright green, moss-colored trees. But when we crossed the Bulgarian-Greece border, the landscape started to look a lot like northern California. Openness, hilliness, dark green scrub vegetation, and vineyards, like something you’d see outside of San Fransisco or Berkeley.
The bus dropped us off at the central bus terminal in Thessaloniki. Someone, I think it was my dad, told me that the adage “It’s Greek to me” is true. There are not many English speakers in Greece and the Greek alphabet does not have the same characters as the English alphabet. This makes it doubly difficult for tourists to communicate with locals.
While I’m not sure about statistics, my experience thus far has confirmed that a fair number of people in Greece do not understand English. This created some problems at the bus terminal. I had no idea where I was in relation to the city center and no one could tell me how to get there.
I bought a pack of gum and sat on a bench for 10 minutes, chewing. I ate the entire pack in one sitting because I was agitated. I didn’t know how to get into town or where to stay once I did.
I finally found a lady in an official-looking uniform who understood English and explained that Bus #31 would take me downtown for $0.90 Euro. At that moment, one of the automatic doors opened, a breeze rushed into the bus terminal, and I caught a whiff of myself and gagged. At this point, I’d been traveling for 18 consecutive hours and I smelled like shit. I’m sure I looked worse. My hair felt incredibly greasy, like someone had dumped a bucket of Crisco over my head. It was time to find a hotel and take a shower, pronto!
I bought a map of Thessaloniki and got on the bus. The map was in Greek and I couldn’t figure out where we were or what route the driver was taking. I got off at a stop that seemed “central” and was lucky to stumble onto an inexpensive hotel within five minutes.
I showered for what felt like forever and proceeded to take an evening stroll along the Aegean Sea.
