One more sleep till turkey!

Our stay in Kostenets a couple nights ago was probably one of the most memorable days for me. On a personal level I was quite sick for most of it so there is that memory, but there is also so much more. The ride itself finished with 15km downhill right into the town we were staying in which is absolutely the best way to end any riding day. You cannot help but to be in good spirits after that. Then we were greeted by some extremely amazing hosts who not only graciously let us stay in their kindergarten, but also brought us a local food dish to sample and a bunch of raspberries for dinner. I should also mention that our dinner was likely one of the best we have made for ourselves on the trip: grilled Panini! There was then a great 2 hour internal discussion about development that followed and I think everyone slept very well after such a great day.

The next day into Plovdiv I joined together with three others to form a 'medium to slow' pod. I still wasn’t feeling 100% and everyone else just wasn’t really ready to ride fast, we all just wanted to take it easy and it was an 80km day so it seemed to make sense. Now back home whenever I say I’m going to ‘take it easy’ almost the exact opposite happens, and apparently even when in Europe the same thing occurs. Instead of ‘taking it easy’ our pod rode the entire 80km in about 2 hours and 45 minutes without taking our feet off the pedals once. We didn’t have to stop for a traffic light, there were no nature or snack breaks, we just rode directly from Kostenets to Plovdiv. It wasn’t even close to intentional, but the day just started off with a big downhill and we never stopped rolling after that. Really I think the lesson here is that I need to come up with a better expression for not wanting to do something as hard and fast as possible.

Yesterday in Kirklareli was our day off and I think I am in a similar boat to many people on the trip in that I didn’t want to do much of anything. Most nights we arrive in a town between 4pm-9pm and have either that night or an hour or two the next morning to see its sights and then move on and it gets exhausting. Every now and again you just need some time to do nothing and yesterday was one of those days, for the most part. We did have a very productive meeting about what we want to get out of the last week of the trip and had a lovely traditional Bulgarian dinner with our host (complete with dancing) but even that ended quite early for the most part. I know I’m really looking forward to being in Istanbul for a couple days and not actually moving before I set off on the rest of my travels post trip.

As sad as it is for the trip to be winding down it is also very exciting to be reaching the end of this great adventure. Tonight is our last night in Bulgaria and then it’s on to Turkey. What should be especially interesting is that we will be hitting it right as Ramadan starts. A pretty cool time to be visiting.