Upon Arrival

Dear All,

I’ve finally made it to Varna, Bulgaria, after an amazing ten-day adventure through Germany! ~ btw, congratulations Peter and Julia, again :-D

In Byzantine/Roman terms today I flew over Pannonia, Dacia, Illyrium, Moesia inferior and superior. In all, about a four-hour flight from Berlin but centuries ago that same trek would have taken a week or so.

I was tickled when I landed at the airport in Varna because the first thing I saw was cyrillic writing all over everything. I laughed because I had not practiced any Bulgarian… and it was surely going to show until I arrived at my place of stay. Luckily, English speakers are not entirely unknown so there were a few helpful words to use here and there. But for the most part, my Bulgarian will definitely be up to par by the time this dig is over.

For all those who are wondering, the Balkan Heritage Field School and the Varna Regional Museum of History are putting on this project. Also, Varna is the old port of Odessos on the western side of the Black Sea (Pontos Euxeinos). The church (possibly monastic complex) is located just a few kilometers south of Odessos at a place that has been traditionally called Djanavara. Thus, I’ll be excavating the Djanavara church.

Basic information:
I’m no longer staying at this ubiquitously named “Hotel Astra”. Apparently there are so many people on this excursion that there is no room. So Instead, my driver from the airport dropped me off at some random location in the middle of town in front of a drycleaners and pointed to a building. I did not think I needed to do laundry that bad. But I was not going to argue… it has been a number of days. Seeing that I did obviously not understand the situation, she clarified the location of this Bulgar place of stay. It turns out that I am one of three on this excursion staying here. The rest of the ten or so are at the other, correct, hotel. Just so you all know it’s:

58 Osmi primorski polk Blvd.,
9002 Varna, Bulgaria‎ - 052 681950‎
*That last nine-digit number is the phone number

In an hour and a half I am to meet up with this Balkan Heritage group outside my place and we will be eating a dinner at a traditional Bulgarian cuisine restaurant called Dragoman. MMMMMmmmmmmmmmm, meat and potatoes.

-JGH