Bulgaria now. Took us 2 hours to get over the Turkey-Bulgaria border. First of all we drove straight past the official traffic lane that took us past the passport booths. Turning around we could only find the 'Turkey registration line' - after another lap we were told to go through that lane. So passports checked, then waved through a couple of checkpoints, then got to final one out of Turkey and told 'Sorry, computer problem. Go back'. So back we went to the 'computer' lane (ie. the car registration lane)... Then Bulgaria border - first of all we got roused for taking a photo of the Bulgaria Republic sign then passports were checked. Then we were told we needed Green Card insurance for Bulgaria. We tried to get a few quotes but the first guy, who quoted 30 euro, got annoyed and had a yelling match with another insurance agent (who'd told us 9 euro) who then told us we'd have to go to the other guy coz he wouldn't sell it to us.... We thankfully found another agent who was lovely and it cost us 8 euro. So we were right after that. Well after getting our car checked for abducted children (my bag was the fattest so I had to take it out and open it. I quickly told 3 yr-old Martha to shut her mouth so she wouldn't be found...) we found really cheap fuel - must've been some 'tax-free-no-mans-land' and we were off.

Drove through lots of farmland seeing not much before we arrived in the cute, artistic town of Plovdiv. After getting a bit lost while looking for a guesthouse (mainly thanks to very few street signs and the ones in existance being in the Cyrillic alphabet) we pulled over. Luckily a Bulgarian teacher and his student from London were looking out our UK car. Boris was very helpful and we eventually found which direction to go. We got to another few confusing streets where we just stopped at the intersection and talked about which way to go, waving our maps around. A bloke then knocked on our window and him and his wife asked us if he could help us... They then lead us in their BMW to the hostel on the other side of town - very kind of them!

So Plovdiv - great little town. It's an art and culture hotspot with art galleries, music schools, old poets' houses, and museums all over the place. We had some great gyros for (this was their name in Bulgaria too) and the best icecream in a while (only 1 leve ~ 90c AUD for a huge scoop). There were trendy people everywhere in the main pedestrian mall and I was so happy to see a Christmas tree and lights. There were beautiful Christmas carols playing too (in English). We also had great coffees at a cafe in the mall (1.70 leve = cheap!). Probably one of the coolest things was hearing about a 5-level second-hand shop nearby. We checked it out on our drive to Sofia and Lei managed to find a work outfit (pants and top) as well as a big coat for the UK winter. I picked up an Esprit blouse and a cool jumper... Very cheap and it's going to be great to have some different clothes as I'm getting REAL sick of the ones I have!

Off to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria next.