A week has almost passed since we made the momentous and epic journey from Turkey to Bulgaria and 40 cardboard boxes still remain to be unpacked and a lot of shifting things around the house to be done, not to mention endless amounts of rubbing down wood and painting. Our journey started at 2.23 am, on Sunday night from Altinkum a tourist destination on the south coast of Turkey. We set off in our car following Phil and Russell in the their van with the contents of our apartment, which included over a 100 boxes and our four lovely dogs.

The journey went well, even the ferry at Canakkale was almost ready to leave, so no waiting about there for us, then the long drive towards the border with Bulgaria. At the border the usual passing over and inspection of passports and Residency Permits were carried out by the Turkish authorities and the inspection of the contents of our apartment which took all of 10 seconds. Then the short drive to the BG frontier, another inspection of the passports took place and then onwards towards the Customs. At this point the Customs Personnel took an interest in the dog Export Papers and proceeded to photocopy everything and then put the official stamp on other documents and also photocopy them as well. After an hour and half had passed we were given the green light with the dogs and we were asked if our boxes contained anything new to which we responded in the negative.

Next thing we know we are in BG and heading towards the first garage to fill up with diesel which is far cheaper than the Turkish equivalent, we also purchased our Vignette at the garage so that everything was legal even down to switching our headlights on whilst travelling. Then onwards towards Elhovo where Russell headed for a car mechanic to fix the water system on his van, half hour later we headed for Yambol, Nova Zagora and onwards to Veliko Tarnovo which meant we went over an awful mountain and zig zagging all over the place.

Veliko came into site and and we went north a short distance towards our village and going over some rather basic roads with holes in it and bits missing so this part of the journey was rather slow. When we got to our village we couldn't find the house, can you believe this after 1200 K's, after 10 minutes of driving around in circles I had to admit to Phil and Russell that we didn't know where the house was. "
What,"
replied Phil, "
no problem,"
I said, and phoned the man we bought the house from to find out how to find it, luckily I got through to him and he told us how to find the house.

So there we are finally at the house at 7.30 in the evening with four dogs and 100 boxes to unload in the dark and all of us feeling completely "
cream crackered."
Half an hour later the boxes were all in the house and me, Phil and Russell are carrying our kingsize bed that we had brought from Turkey up the stairs in our BG house and then having to build it together so Annette and I could get some proper sleep in our newly acquired homestead.

Our many thanks to both Phil and Russell for bringing us to BG and putting up with us!!

Well done, and all the best in your new home.

Welcome to your new home!

what a journey, welcome to your new home and country.

Glad you all arrived safely and without any major incidents.

Welcome to Bulgaria!!

Sounds like a long and tiresome journey.
My grandma lives in Sevlievo and we often visit the region. We love it there, its so beautiful, especially in the Spring.

Welcome to Bulgaria

hope all goes well for you...enjoy your new life

Enjoy Bulgaria our friends that came over from Turkey last year just love it here and they survived the worst winter in years

Welcome to Bulgaria and your new life , glad it all went reasonably well for you so now once the boxes have gone you can begin to live your live.

glad you had a straight forward trip. hope you have lots of happiness in your new home and country.

Annette and I thank you for all your best wishes. We sincerely believe that we will enjoy our life in Bulgaria and make friends with our locals. Since being here we have become experts on lighting the woodburner, things like this were only a blur a couple of weeks ago and only memories of our parents lighting the wretched things in the UK. I still have a recollection of holding a copy of the News of the World tight over the fireplace in an effort to make the fire draw.

We have some more stories to tell of our settling in to life here and the moments of shock and humour which have occurred in the house and in the garden. I will post these in the next few days for your entertainment.

:Great:A piece of cake Itchy - really glad all went well without a hitch, not all you have to do is get yourselves settled in. No doubt we will see you in Silistra on Sat 6th Oct Good luck in your new home.

Oddy

Things have settled down a bit from when we first arrived, a bit more unpacking has taken place, but still many boxes still to empty and items to put somewhere in the house. We didn't have any water for the first 36 hours when we arrived here and that was not nice, didn't try to get water from the well as both of us didn't need the karsie except for a pee and I did mine in the garden, nice eh!! Good job we don't have any neighbours as such.

Annette and I totter around our country estate and wonder how long it will take to get it into some sort of order. I managed to get some Putty today, although any normal person would not think that was much to talk about, here in this former Communist country putty is a rarity and very difficult to obtain. Most of our 11 rooms have windows and the majority have several panes in them, suffice it to say that not one inch of useable putty is contained in any of them. So my job is cut out and get going with this mission and to complete the challenge within a reasonable amount of time and at the same time paint walls, rub down paintwork everywhere and do some electrical work.

The house is like a sieve when the wind blows and the doors rattle and the glass shakes in the window frames, many windows don't have any glass, also any amount of insects get into our house and no wonder with the place having so many places where they can get in, I am sure I saw a herd of wildebeest running through the lounge last week, but I might have been mistaken.

We hope that some time this Summer that we will get the garden come field into some state that we can sit out with a cold drink in the summer and enjoy the refreshing atmosphere of the lovely plants and to appreciate the peace and tranquility which we never had in our home in Didim in Turkey. But in the meantime, last week we had an emergency, as you know we have a field rather than a garden and it is very overgrown and has hay flattened down on the ground, so the ground is thick. In my infinite wisdom I dragged some branches of a tree onto the grassy area and tried to set light to it, but nothing happened except that the surrounding area started to light up. I decided that this was a good idea because if the fire spread over the ground it would burn a load of rubbish undergrowth away and watched as it caught hold and started to burn across the field. Everything was fine for about 10 minutes and then I realised that this fire which was more like a forest fire was spreading too much with the wind blowing it. At this point Annette appeared with two sopping wet towels and we started to beat some of the flames out best we could, but then the fire was spreading towards our next door neighbours farm building and then a friend appeared and he joined in the merry throng beating the hell out of the fire. After a further 10 minutes we seemed to have the thing under control and everything started to calm down including us who had got rather hot in the process.

That evening Annette and I were sat down eating and she said "
I don't know how to tell you this,"
I said "
what do you mean"
and she said "
well, you know when you were beating the fire, I believe you got too close to the flames, because you have singed both eyelids and your right eyebrow!!"
So there we are, another one to right up to experience, never start a fire unless you know what you are doing!!!!!!

Following my desperate attempt at clearing the garden come field, we had three locals arrive today to give the field a good clear out. After 30 mins of peace and quiet someone produced a lighter and the next thing we know there is six fires raging out there. But as they were farmers we let them get on with it in the knowledge that they knew what they were doing, a big fire started up next to our neighbours outbuilding and one of the locals positioned himself in a way to oversee this fire billowing all over the place. Sure enough the building never caught fire and the next thing fires were started near the house to burn out scrub and they started to spread toward the fence and fully grown trees, but they were all saved and the day ended on a happy and peaceful note. They are back tomorrow to get the rest cleared and bring three others with them to dig out and cut out stumps in the field, we look forward to the finished product which should see a nice flat field covered in grass, perhaps not this year though.

So there you have it, another episode in life, another experience to write down as done it, got the T shirt, even at my age things happen which I have never known before. We truly look forward to a time when we can sit down more and relax, but then there would be nothing to tell you would there?

itchyfeet wrote:

Things have settled down a bit from when we first arrived, a bit more unpacking has taken place, but still many boxes still to empty and items to put somewhere in the house. We didn't have any water for the first 36 hours when we arrived here and that was not nice, didn't try to get water from the well as both of us didn't need the karsie except for a pee and I did mine in the garden, nice eh!! Good job we don't have any neighbours as such.

Annette and I totter around our country estate and wonder how long it will take to get it into some sort of order. I managed to get some Putty today, although any normal person would not think that was much to talk about, here in this former Communist country putty is a rarity and very difficult to obtain. Most of our 11 rooms have windows and the majority have several panes in them, suffice it to say that not one inch of useable putty is contained in any of them. So my job is cut out and get going with this mission and to complete the challenge within a reasonable amount of time and at the same time paint walls, rub down paintwork everywhere and do some electrical work.

The house is like a sieve when the wind blows and the doors rattle and the glass shakes in the window frames, many windows don't have any glass, also any amount of insects get into our house and no wonder with the place having so many places where they can get in, I am sure I saw a herd of wildebeest running through the lounge last week, but I might have been mistaken.

We hope that some time this Summer that we will get the garden come field into some state that we can sit out with a cold drink in the summer and enjoy the refreshing atmosphere of the lovely plants and to appreciate the peace and tranquility which we never had in our home in Didim in Turkey. But in the meantime, last week we had an emergency, as you know we have a field rather than a garden and it is very overgrown and has hay flattened down on the ground, so the ground is thick. In my infinite wisdom I dragged some branches of a tree onto the grassy area and tried to set light to it, but nothing happened except that the surrounding area started to light up. I decided that this was a good idea because if the fire spread over the ground it would burn a load of rubbish undergrowth away and watched as it caught hold and started to burn across the field. Everything was fine for about 10 minutes and then I realised that this fire which was more like a forest fire was spreading too much with the wind blowing it. At this point Annette appeared with two sopping wet towels and we started to beat some of the flames out best we could, but then the fire was spreading towards our next door neighbours farm building and then a friend appeared and he joined in the merry throng beating the hell out of the fire. After a further 10 minutes we seemed to have the thing under control and everything started to calm down including us who had got rather hot in the process.

That evening Annette and I were sat down eating and she said "
I don't know how to tell you this,"
I said "
what do you mean"
and she said "
well, you know when you were beating the fire, I believe you got too close to the fames, because you have singed both eyelids and your right eyebrow!!"
So there we are, another one to right up to experience, never start a fire unless you know what you are doing!!!!!!

Following my desperate attempt at clearing the garden come field, we had three locals arrive today to give the field a good clear out. After 30 mins of peace and quiet someone produced a lighter and the next thing we know there is six fires raging out there. But as they were farmers we let them get on with it in the knowledge that they knew what they were doing, a big fire started up next to our neighbours outbuilding and one of the locals positioned himself in a way to oversee this fire billowing all over the place. Sure enough the building never caught fire and the next thing fires were started near the house to burn out scrub and they started to spread toward the fence and fully grown trees, but they were all saved and the day ended on a happy and peaceful note. They are back tomorrow to get the rest cleared and bring three others with them to dig out and cut out stumps in the field, we look forward to the finished product which should see a nice flat field covered in grass, perhaps not this year though.

So there you have it, another episode in life, another experience to write down as done it, got the T shirt, even at my age things happen which I have never known before. We truly look forward to a time when we can sit down more and relax, but then there would be nothing to tell you would there?

Don't give up we have been there but not quite as bad as you are having. Fortunately our house was renovated in most places before we came over, at a cost of course. But the garden was not part of the deal. :Very sad:Nice to hear that the locals are helping, that is a major bonus. You will find that the more you do yourself the more they are prepared to help. Nice here aint it

for the update and delighted to hear you are taking everything in your stride, it is small steps at a time. By the summer you probably won't even know the place. :Good luck:to you both. I look forward to hearing all about you experiences

Oddy xx