Central Hotel Mamaia

... town.  

On my way to Bulgaria I cursed a bear of a man called, unfittingly, Mimi.  Mimi had convinced me that the coastal road to Bulgaria was quiet.  How wrong he was!  He was, however, right about a bag being full of live ducks.

I took the first opportunity to leave this road of doom, cruised south westerly and entered Bulgaria untwarted at a quiet border-crossing town which translates into English as Black Water. 

... booking so that was our first priority. We found one fairly soon which is fairly new and not too far from the sights. Unfortunately the sights are pretty ordinary with only a few interesting buildings. Constanta has a huge port but it did not seem to be very busy. The city seems very run down and neglected and in also fairly expensive for accommodation. It is right on the ocean and there is quite a large beach (not very picturesque though) near our hotel.

... hotel and booked coffee body wrap treatments for today.

This morning it was hot and foggy when we got up. We walked down the beach strip and found some fun little shops and most importantly gelato. There is also a gondola that runs the length of the strip and beyond; we aren't entirely sure where it ends.

I went for my treatment today and was let down. They didn't have any coffee and I didn't have much else to choose from so I took a ...

... went by and we boarded the bus. I was the only 'foreign' one on board, the rest were either turks or gypsies. Once the bus took off everybody lit up their cigarettes and started smoking. I couldn't wait for this trip to be over with. Had our passports checked at my first Passport Control and then we were over the border into Bulgaria.

... the Brits are starting to discover the place and are everywhere. I didn't get my feet into the Black Sea this time, but they have been there before. I rarely swim in California coz I don't like not being able to see what is beneath me, but since there are no harmful fish in the Black...and no tides, I like swimming there. The water temp was just 19 tho, too cold.

POLSKI: Do Constanzy przybylismy po 16tej, ale ostatnie osoby - Zajac i Szeryf, dojechali dopiero po 19tej. Siedzielismy w ruinach i gadalismy, czekajac na nich. Gdy wreszcie dotarli, pojechalismy do Mamai (miejscowosci na obrzezach Constanzy) na nocleg. W autobusie miejskim kieszonkowcy probowali okrasc Zete, ale dzieki Arkowi, ktory zauwazyl, jak juz wkladali reke do torby, nie udalo im sie. Byli na tyle cwani, ze gdy podnieslismy alarm, probowali z nas zrobic ...

After a few days we managed to get to Internet and bring you all up to date what we've been up to (well most of it anyway :-) ). It was unbelievably hard to get an Internet cafe with CD ROMs in this city. Roxy's home town was heaps good - it's like we are on a different planet here. From Sunday lunch time we have been on the seaside here in Romania (Black Sea). The weather has been very warm (even hot). I don't want to rub it in to all those in ...

... to show us the way to the bus stop!!!! I thought how the hell did he get here? Anyway we walked back towards the bus and he followed and there were the same guys from the police car asking us if he was bothering us. We said "no" and they started asking us!! for ID and to empty our pockets, asking if we had cocaine etc. Wondering whether these guys were legit or not we decided to conform and they took our money ...

... by the language here. How the hell does a Romance language survive in an isolated country, when the next nearest Romance language speaking country is all the way on the other side of Europe...it's an interesting prospect to say the least. I have to say, standing on the beach of the Black Sea was a soul-stirring experience. Looking out in the endless sea, knowing that on the other side starts the lands of the "Stan's"...and that after that Asia...wow. It's difficult to ...

Well, there isn't much to say about Romania. There also wasn't much for us to do. So what we did end up doing is just headed to the beach on the Black Sea, and snap a photo or two. Constanta was kinda odd, it seemed like it was trying to fit into the rest of Europe, but wasn't doing too good of a job at it.