My Sunday Evening with Ian

Now to the real fun!

I walked around this ghost-town looking train station and noticed a Mercedes pulling in to make some deliveries to neighbors, it seemed. I was looking for Ian, who was to meet me that evening. Walking around for about ten minutes, I started to wonder whether or not the Brit had received my last text message, stating my tardiness. Then towards one direction a scrawny gentleman, who did not appear Bulgarian, approached me.

“Are you John?” he says in his British accent.  I was relieved that this was the person I was meeting. So we decided to go have a beer, and eat some Bulgarian cuisine in the village restaurant. We got to talking for a few minutes, and were discussing languages, when he says, “well I thought you would have French as a 2^nd language being from Canada.” I was not sure if I was to feel insulted by that one or not, so I shrugged the mistake off, and explained that I am nowhere near from Canada.

It seemed that Ian had his computer stolen a few days ago, so he wasn’t even sure who I really was, with the exception of my first name. This little village seems to have quite a bit of drama of its own at the moment, and my ears were worn down from taking all of it in. A few kilometers later, and I came to the realization that this man may talk more than anyone else I know in this world. I have been around quite a few talkative people, but this dude tops them all. I have a feeling that the good Lord sent me to be a temporary pair of ears for the man.

 Now this place is four kilometers from the train station.  During that four kilometer hike, you are also climbing a few hundred meters too. Getting to this CROP farm was a hike that I had not been anticipating. Somewhere along the hike we met Maggie. Maggie is the donkey that Ian owns. The donkey is probably treated better than most people’s dogs are treated here. Maggie led us, if you want to call it that, up the hill and on towards the houses that make up this CROP farm.

I was shown to my guest house, dropped my belongings off and made my way to the main house. Though it was dark, we were both hungry, so Ian went to his garden to pick up some veggies to make us a salad, to go with some Turkish style oats for a late night snack. After pulling late night duty at the hostel, it was an act of God that I was able to handle this man’s talking to me until midnight.