Unlike any other part of our travel adventure, the trip to Bulgaria was burdened with countless expectations, hopes and even fears. Will I be able to share with Misha the place I was born and raised in? Will he appreciate and understand it? How will I negotiate our meetings with friends and family?
No question could prepare me to the mild shock I felt when we first stepped out of the airport.
Here I was on my land, surrounded by familiar sights and sounds, coming to a home which used to be mine, a home inhabited now by strangers, but a key to each I still held. Yet, I was standing at its doors completely new, with a tangible proof of the new life I had lived somewhere else. Having Misha visit Bulgaria with me was like connecting or even reconciling my past and present, my life of childhood and study with my immigration to Canada and my adulthood.
I couldn't help the feeling of us being teleported from Toronto to Sofia in some kind of a science fiction movie.
A lot of my fears were not entirely groundless. In the heat of July, Sofia was far from the elegance and splendour of Rome and Venice. The dust of the new construction sights, the graffity, and the busy streets (which I loved to wander as a student) naturally did not appeal to Misha, though he did make a heroic attempt to go on a photo shoot :-) His fatigue from our endless travel for the last month made him see even the comfortable coach rid to Shumen as unbearable. The last I learnt when a month later he compared it to the dilapidated bouncy overcrowded bus we took from Shimla to Dharamsala.
On the other hand, the much apprehended meeting with the family (the old "will mom and dad behave themselves?" :-) went wonderfully! My parents gave us much space and freedom and even the family celebration in our honor left warm memories.
The few days we spent in my parents' house were full of leisure, tasting of village quietude and evenings in the garden under the stars.
Two impressions staid with me: a deep gratitude for my parnts' warmth and for the home they kept for me and for my loved one, and a strong determinataion :-) to give Misha a second chance to appreciate Bulgaria.
For Misha's impressions on Bulgaria and more, see http://journals.worldnomads.com/misha/
