Sofia

While the journey here from Plovdiv was quite pleasant, passing mountains and forest, in all honestly there isn’t a great deal to see here. It is only the capital of Bulgaria for it’s proximity to Macedonia which was much sought after in times gone by, though that doesn’t mean the place isn’t likeable, it must be as I am into my third day in the place, though I do plan to leave in the morning and the fact that the hostel is nice helps, as always.

Sofia is a place that is nice to stroll around, there are a few parks dotted about and plenty of shops, and though nothing really stands out as overwhelmingly worth a visit, there are a few nice churches, museums and other buildings concentrated in one area of the place that can last a day, or two at a stretch. There’s been a nice crowd at the hostel so the nights have gone by swimmingly with a few local beers sunk (equivalent of two quid for five 500ml bottles of lager), good conversation and the playing of backgammon.

The plan is to head off tomorrow either heading to Belgrade or staying in Bulgaria and heading north to Veliko Tarnovo, the ancient capital, I really can’t decide what to do and may end up tossing a coin or rolling dice in the morning.

Istanbul to Plovdiv, and beyond…..

I don’t think I was able to do Istanbul justice due to my problems getting online, so I’ll try and make sure my journey out of there gets the full treatment.

I left on Sunday on the midday bus bound for Plovdiv in Bulgaria, a small city that I was only visiting because of a couple of Roman ruins, and the promise of two good hostels which are good places to hole up for a couple of nights – but more on the city later.

There isn’t too much to say about the sights of the journey, apart from tiny cotton patches here and there it was pretty much bare country all the way from Istanbul to the Turkish border, the only real thing worthy of mentioning was the queue of lorries waiting to cross the border, it must have stretched for 5 miles and getting out of Turkey isn’t a quick process – three separate sets of officials checked passports and visas, though getting into the EU seemed far easier, just the one check and the payment of an odd “disinfectant tax” for the bus, though I didn’t see any disinfecting going on.

There was finally something to see once we crossed into Bulgaria, mostly crumbling houses with holes in the roofs and broken windows and massive Soviet style blocks of flats, which weren’t in much better shape. All along the route we saw signs detailing EU investment in upgrading the roads, which is all well and good, but when people are living in conditions like that I can’t help but think the priorities may just be a little wrong.

After arriving in Plovdiv an hour later than planned, due to problems with the bus door not closing properly, I rang the hostel I had been advised to stay in, only to find it closed for a weeks holiday, no problem I had the details of another – I walked around and eventually found it – the only problem being it had long since closed down. So, there I was stuck in a pretty much deserted Bulgarian city on a cold Sunday night in February with nowhere to stay, great fun. After wandering around for a bit in the old town I again called the hostel I had initially planned on staying with and asked if they knew of anywhere else I could try – a name and address of a hostel was provided, and that is where the fun really started. Even if it had been light enough to see street signs they were in the Cyrillic alphabet anyway and, as my only map was in English, this was proving pretty problematic. After walking around for what seemed like an age I eventually decided to ask some locals for help, only for no-one to know where the street I was seeking was. Great. More walking around followed, I pretty much saw all Plovdiv had to offer until I finally found someone who was able to help – the place I wanted was “just around the corner” from where I was standing. I managed to find it, check in and at least I had a roof over my head and a reasonable room, though not the lively friendly hostel with bar that I had anticipated.

That, however, didn’t prevent me from suddenly feeling very hungry – so I set out to find something to eat, only to find everything in the city closed at 1030 on a Sunday night, understandable really, after more walking and a couple of abortive attempts at ordering food from the Cyrillic alphabet menus (the place I found had literally one dish left, which looked horrendous) I was about to take the plunge on a budget blowing hotel restaurant until, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the golden arches of McDonalds. I do try and avoid them but I have never been so glad to see one in all of my life. One Big Mac meal later and I was safely tucked up in bed.

Having seen that Plovdiv wasn’t all that great the night before I got up earlier and saw the sights in a couple of hours in the morning – the Roman Ruins were grafitti and litter strewn and neglected, the Mosque was being renovated and the Theatre of Ancient Phillippopolis was closed to visitors, so I could only see it from the outside – though that was enough. I’m sure the place is nicer in season when you can linger a bit and more is open but a winter morning destination it isn’t, so by 1 o’clock I was happily sat on a bus to Sofia, which was a much more pleasant and scenic journey that that from Istanbul (passing a forest and mountain range), I don’t want to hog the hostel PC so more to come about Bulgaria’s capital at some other time.

A bit more Istanbul

Well, as I didn’t have enough time/couldn’t be bothered, to update my blog I was there I’m going to have to write this in a bit of a guidebook style, so here goes….

The Sights

The main sights in the city were well worth seeing, they are all located quite close to each other in the Sultanahmet area which makes the place seem a bit like Disneyworld. The Blue Mosque wasn’t too much to look at from the outside but inside was a different matter, full of interesting architecture, artefacts and stained glass windows, while the Haiga Sophia was probably the opposite. I was a little disappointed in the Topkapi Palace as parts were closed for renovation, but the museums and things I did see inside were nice, it was a shame that they seemed to be digging up most of the gardens though.

The big bazaar’s were something else, thousands of shops, extremely busy and full of traders trying to get you to come their way, I spent hours wandering around them, and I wasn’t even buying. I’m sure you could probably spend a few days in them if you were so inclined (eg female)!!

The People and the City

The real parts of the city were, to be honest, pretty much like any other major western city – a defined shopping/trendy district and more edgy places as you got out. On a couple of occassions I headed over to the lesser seen Asian side with people I met in the hostel and the people were fantastic. Me and a girl got lost as we looked to find a hill that was supposedly Istanbul’s highest to get some views of the city and, after going into a pastry shop to ask for directions, we were led to the correct bus stop which was about ten minutes away. We got on that bus and it transpired that we had to change to another bus, the driver didn’t charge us and stopped the bus to point out where we had to get off and wrote the correct bus number and destination down in Turkish. When the bus came we showed it to the driver to check and he again let us on without paying and took us to the right place. The views were, unfortunately, disappointing – mainly because of the weather. We were led to believe there was a nice cafe and terrace up there but we could find no sign.

Me and a couple of lads I met also headed over that way for a bit of a walk around and ended up in a, totally unmarked, cafe drinking tea and playing cards for a few hours. It was a very authentically Turkish place, full of men playing different kinds of card and other games and very smoky, no alcohol was served and no women were present – I doubt they were allowed but people were friendly in there even if there was a massive language barrier.

We decided to head off to watch Galatasary on the Friday night and were shown all the way there by a couple of Gala fans we saw at the tram stop, this involved 3 tram changes and them waiting for us to get tickets etc. Once we got to the stadium they got the tickets for us and led us to the far end of the stadium to show us where to go. The football was crap, to be honest, but the atmosphere was superb. Despite being Westerners we had no problems, believe it or not we didn’t get stabbed or anything – and we were in the most lively section of the ground – it was certainly a change from the way most English grounds are now and all for 4 quid!

All in all it’s definitely a place I would suggest going to if you have the chance, the only slight drawbacks are the people hassling you mainly around the tourist sights – but even that wasn’t as bad as I was led to believe. It’s quite a cheap place and yet to be over-run by weekend breakers from the UK, so anytime now is probably good to go!! The hostel I stayed in was also very good and there was a good crowd of people in, which helped the nights go by with a swing – I was tempted by some of the exotic locations people were heading on to, but I managed to drag myself away to Bulgaria as planned.

Istanbul

Well I leave Istanbul in the morning to head to Plovdiv in Bulgaria and it’s been a very enjoyable few days here and this is a city I would reccommend to anyone.

I don’t really need to go on about the well known sights here like the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya, but they are both spectacular places, even if the Blue Mosque is a little underwhelming from the outside.

Once you get away from the scammers and touts around the popular places the people really make the place, very friendly and always going out of their way to help you out, which is very different from the image that is often conveyed. There is also a well developed hostel scene and I’ve possibly met a bigger cross-section of people, with a diverse set of travelling plans, than in any hostel before.

A big bugbear here though for me ıs the terrible state of net connections and keyboards, hopefully I’ll get somewhere soon so I can go into a bit more depth about things.

Merhaba

That means Hello in Turkish – which is yet another language I have now mastered!!

Just a quıck blog here, Istanbul is superb and, needless to say, I’m having fun – but there is no way I can update my blog properly using these f***ıng keyboards!!

I’m Off Again

Well, the last two months since I returned from Spain certainly haven’t been the most fun of my life. I can’t be arsed going over old ground, but I can safely say I am very much looking forward to hopping on the London bound National Express coach tomorrow, before heading to Luton to fly to Istanbul first thing Tuesday morning.

The rough plan is to start in Istanbul and work my way up through Eastern Europe, possibly finishing up in Tallinn, I think I’ll be away for about six weeks or so but nothing is set in stone whatsoever – it could be more, it could be less and there are all sorts of things that could affect the trip. I haven’t decided for sure where I am going after Istanbul yet, so anything could happen.

I have to say that I am really looking forward to this, not just because I’ve been stuck in Bradford for too long, but in a way I think I’m getting “out there” a bit, I should see some places very different to what I’ve seen before and hopefully I’ll meet people with interesting tales to tell from places a bit off the beaten track – then again I might not, I suppose thats what makes it so interesting.

So, depending on what floats your boat, this blog might actually contain something interesting over the next few weeks, if I can master the strange keyboards I’ll no doubt encounter that is!

The Hatchet Job

A Friday night spent in the pub watching some Rugby League, followed by a curry and bottle of wine at home watching a film with good company sounds good doesn’t it? Well, not when the film in question was the remake of The Italian Job.

I’m a big fan of the original, I’d probably say it’s one of my favourite films, but the “modern” version isn’t worthy of the name at all, in fact it’s a shocker. Then again that is my opinion of a lot of cover versions and remakes, so I guess I shouldn’t be that suprised.

Growing Old

I’m a bit of a grumpy old git at the best of times, but even moreso at the moment after the last couple of days when I’ve realised the years are advancing rapidly, and I’m not as young as I once was.

First up was yesterday, I went round to my grandparents and, as I walked back to the bus stop a teenage girl I walked past said “well, aren’t you going to say hello then?”, I was confused for a moment until she introduced herself as the girl I used to live next door to, she must be about 14 now, and she talked about going to the pub at the weekends, but I remember her as being about 4 or 5 when my gran used to look after her in the morning before she went to Primary School and, without fail, she’d come into my room and wake me up at some godforsaken time of the morning like 730 as I tried to avoid getting out of bed and going to college.

Secondly I went to the train station this morning so I could pop into Leeds to do a spot of shopping and realised my Young Persons Railcard has run out, so there we have it, I’m 26 and not young anymore – and now I’ve realised just what a rip off full price train tickets are.

I guess I better start working on careers, a pension plan, and settling down. Maybe.

Bye Bye Colin

It was at Saltergate watching City play Chesterfield on April 2 2005, when I decided Colin Todd wasn’t the right manager for the club. There were six games left of his first full season in charge, we were safe from relegation and had an outside chance of making the League One play-offs playing a team who seemingly had no intention of trying to win the game. Surely an ideal opportunity to take a chance and push on for a win? Not for Colin, with the score at 0-0 going into the last fifteen minutes he took off a winger (who had been our only creative outlet all game) for a full-back. He showed no ambition, Brian Clough (who knew a thing or two about management) cited that as a reason that Todd would never make a good manager, and it was a trait that shone through in his almost three seasons in charge at Valley Parade, his comments in my previous blog entry being a prime example.

No-one can say that being in charge of Bradford City has been an easy job in recent years however Todd did himself few favours during his reign, the odd dodgy signing and bizarre tactical decision I can live with, but they repeated themselves over and over again – he seemed unable to learn from any mistakes on that front, had a ridiculously arrogant attitude to any criticism and seemed to hold supporters who dared to criticise him in contempt – famously telling the travelling supporters at Gillingham to “fuck off” after they booed him off the pitch following a tame, passionless performance and defeat. when he had yet again done nothing to try and change things round.

Blame was a big thing with the man, and for me it created the wrong attitude around the club. Todd always had an excuse when things didn’t go to plan, and this excuse never, ever, involved looking at himself. The club has no money, it was the ref, it was the players, it was the fans, it was the opponents…. you get the picture, the only sad thing is that he has lasted so long. The reason for that is the ludicrous 4 year contract given to him by Julian Rhodes, after a good start to his first season in charge. The good start was a Todd speciality – we’ve had decent enough players throughout his spell, it’s just that he has a tactic for the season that he sticks to rigidly, and it’s just a matter of waiting for someone to work out how to overcome it.

The previous two seasons this has involved relying on a rapidly deteriorating geriatric striker, this year it was “pass it to Jermaine Johnson” and, embarassingly, it was Peter Jackson and Huddersfield who burst our 2006/7 bubble, letting us have the ball but packing the midfield and starving the winger of possession, while hoping to nick a goal on the break. The tactic has been copied successfully by others since. When Wacko Jacko is your tactical superior things must be bad.

At this level of football, and with the economic reality of the sport nowadays, you have to work with what you have got and try and improve them, damningly I can’t think of one single player who has got better while Todd has been in charge, but I can name many who have gone the other way, in particular the younger players, on one of the BCFC messageboards we call it “Todderisation”. He’s had that effect on me too, up until a couple of seasons ago I would be at every home game and most away, at times now I can barely be bothered to turn on the radio when we are playing. I can’t blame it all on him, there are numerous things that have turned me off the game – but his management and style has certainly been a contributing factor. I’m actually now looking forward to going to Valley Parade on Saturday, and the thought of it hadn’t even entered into my head before todays news came through.

So to the future, although we are currently embroiled in a battle to stay up and are far from the greatest team in the world, there is enough talent at the club to indicate that we should be doing a lot better than we are and should stay safe. Because of the current situation I’d probably prefer us to go for an experienced head with some knowledge of the league and the situation, just to tide us over until the end of this season or, at the most, until the end of next.

In the longer term I think we need a young, driven up and coming manager looking to develop and prove himself which should get a buzz going around the club. This type of manager has done well in the lower leagues in recent years and would make a pleasant change from the “just another job to top up the pension before I retire” brigade that Todd represented. Someone with some sort of link to the club would be ideal and, given that Stuart McCall is probably out of our league, I would like to see Peter Beagrie get a shot.

I’m not going to worry too much about that now because, at the end of the day I’m just glad he’s gone, I really don’t think anyone could do much worse.

Sporting Miracles

If you’d told me ten days ago that England’s cricketers would have ended up winning the Commonwealth Bank Series I’d have laughed you out of the room but, somehow, thats what we ended up doing. It’s small consolation for the Ashes humiliation, but it’s always nice to put one over on the Aussies, moreso given the stick we’ve taken from them over the last few weeks. Let’s just hope we continue this onto the World Cup and not do the typical English sporting “thing” of resting on our laurels.

I’ll confess to a little bitterness that I was stuck here and not putting into action my half plan of going to the Melbourne final then taking the overnight bus to Sydney for the second. Then again no doubt we’d have got a good hiding if I’d been there.

While that might not quite be a miracle, I feel it’s going to take one to preserve Bradford City’s league one status. Another defeat yesterday leaves us just 3 points above the drop zone, some teams below us have a game in hand and we are on a shocking run of just three wins in twenty games. Then again when the manager adds to his bizarre selections and substitutions by coming out with pearlers like “you can’t try and attack when you are down to ten men” what hope do we have? I must have imagined the numerous cases in football when teams with ten men have fought back to win or draw games. The game a few years back where we fought back from 2-0 to draw 2-2 with Burnley with only nine men must have been a particularly lucid fantasy. Todd stays, City go down, simple as that.

So, after one maybe miracle and one needed miracle there is an actual one, Atlético won a home game. I need a lie down.