The unpronouncable Veliko Tarnovo was the pre-Ottoman capital of Bulgaria, which means it has a huge fortress on a hill. I'm a sucker for shit like that. Inside the fortress is a church, and inside the church are a bunch of murals that look exactly like what I think El Greco would paint if he were reincarnated as a graffiti artist. I got all excited and took tons of photos (which are a pain to get off my memory card, sorry). And then I took myself on a little death march (it's not really travel without at least one) over a scary bridge and through the woods and past a pond full of the loudest frogs I've ever heard to Arbanasi, a tiny little town of rich people and churches. Imagine wrapping the entire inside of a nondescript building with icon-themed wrapping paper; that's what one of the churches was like. When I walked in, a guide was telling some people in Spanish that "the Turks would not allow any beauty, so they had to hide the beauty on the inside." The death march didn't have a lot of shade, and my hair was up, so now I have a red neck.
The more I write this, the less coherent it gets, but, the other memorable thing about today was Nikolai the waiter saying that "Chicken and fish are not real meat.... Chicken, fish, and women must be eaten with hands." I'll leave it at that.
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