Plovdiv

After our night train, and exciting border crossing we arrived in Plovdiv moving a little slower. We decided to drop off our stuff and then climb this hill, at the top is the Soviet Liberation monument. Death to Fascism! We wanted to check out the town, and get our bearings. At the top we could see all around, and the views of the surrounding mountain ranges were nice. There was a little old man up there, and I was impressed with his hiking skills, as I was a little winded! He started talking to us, asking if we were Romanian, German, Russian? He didn't speak any English, but was more than happy to chat along in Bulgarian. We just laughed and shrugged. Then Ann remembered that Jen had been carrying along a Point-It book for our whole trip, and we'd never had need to use it. It is a little flip book with pictures of everything, so that you can "point" to whatever you need. So, from the map in the back we sort of explained that we were American. He was so happy, and just wanted to keep on talking. We're not sure of the conversation, but somehow we came up with the fact that he was a professor and his friend was an electrical engineer. They pointed out all the other things in Plovdiv, and gave us lots of other information. I practiced a little Bulgarian, hello and thank you, and got some pronunciation tips.
We shook hands and said goodbye, and congratulated ourselves for finally making it off the Lonely Planet track!