tags: in-the-flesh
---
+Note to the reader: we are not going to talk about Варна, nor
+(technically speaking) about Каварна. In fact, we're not gonna talk
+about Варна at all, we're gonna keep her out of it!
+
+So in short, this September began with a trip to the Bulgarian seaside,
+where I plunged into the salty waters belonging to ye olde
+[Black Sea][mangalia] and let myself taken away by the waves for a while
+there. One living in southern Romania usually chooses Bulgaria for such
+trips because, for one, the golden sands or whatever are close enough to
+the Bukreșian shithole; and for the other, because the Bulgarian
+littoral is much [cheaper][logz-1910106] than the Romanian one, despite
+the difficulty in finding sand to lie on, most of Bulgaria's sea opening
+consisting of tall rocky cliffs.
+
+Thus most of this post will consist of sea shots, like this one:
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-01.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-01-thumb.png"> </a>
+or this one:
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-02.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-02-thumb.png"> </a>
+or these other ones:
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-03.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-03-thumb.png"> </a>
-<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-04.png"> <img align="middle"
-class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-04-thumb.png"> </a>
-
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-05.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-05-thumb.png"> </a>
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-06.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-06-thumb.png"> </a>
+<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-12.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-12-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+Well, there's also a castle tower in this last one, so as to not bore
+the reader. Also to keep the reader scrolling -- I heard that's the new
+cool business nowadays bringing tons of those benjies in the purse,
+keeping folks swipin' on their smartpnojes -- I present to you some sky
+shots, now also with birds!
+
+<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-04.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-04-thumb.png"> </a>
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-07.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-07-thumb.png"> </a>
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-09.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-09-thumb.png"> </a>
+Above: a nighttime shot of the sea *and* the sky, because I can. Below:
+a map of Dobrogea, including its southern part -- known among
+Romanian-speaking folks as the Cadrilater, nowadays part of northern
+Bulgaria -- lying on the ceiling of a restaurant in Balchik. The map's
+likely pre-1900, judging by the script denoting Bucharest and other
+towns; then there's other weirds, such as a "Giurgiz" at the north of
+Bucharest; and a "Csernavoda" at the south of Russe[^1]; and then
+[Mangalia][mangalia], Murfatlar, Cobadin and Tuzla all seem to be
+correctly depicted; heck, even that [old one][citadel] is on the map,
+yet nobody seemed to give a fuck about Constanța at the time? Well!
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-10.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-10-thumb.png"> </a>
+I was joking back on the road to Kavarna that I'ma retake the Cadrilater
+back, but joke or no joke, it seems that everyone in Balchik already
+speaks Romanian -- owing, no doubt, to the main attraction there, the
+royal castle belonging to Ferdinand and his Maria. As far as I can tell,
+the woman had taste: just look at that tower in the photo above, and,
+say:
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-11.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-11-thumb.png"> </a>
-<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-12.png"> <img align="middle"
-class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-12-thumb.png"> </a>
+<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-15.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-15-thumb.png"> </a>
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-13.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-13-thumb.png"> </a>
+Above: a tortoise, after being disturbed by yours truly, had the good
+manners (or perhaps it was only the curiosity?) to take its head out and
+pose for a photo. Below: an old man with a gray hair in the shape of a(n
+even older) lion, opens its mossy mouth and, similarly, poses.
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-14.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-14-thumb.png"> </a>
-<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-15.png"> <img align="middle"
-class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-15-thumb.png"> </a>
+<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-18.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-18-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+The statuette above is just amazed of something. Below, I'm going to
+further bore you with a set of flower shots. What would be a Tarpitian
+photopost without a set of flower shots? It wouldn't be a *proper*
+Tarpitian photopost, I tells ya.
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-16.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-16-thumb.png"> </a>
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-17.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-17-thumb.png"> </a>
-<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-18.png"> <img align="middle"
-class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-18-thumb.png"> </a>
+<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-20.png"> <img align="middle"
+class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-20-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+... in which I discover that my stock camera lens can take decent macro
+shots if properly whipped. Below, a garden:
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-19.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-19-thumb.png"> </a>
-<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-20.png"> <img align="middle"
-class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-20-thumb.png"> </a>
-
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-21.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-21-thumb.png"> </a>
+Above: a plaque with some dude's name on it. Y'know, it occurs to me
+from the mediocre hotel service that the main difference between
+Bulgarians and Romanians are that the former are at least trying to be
+helpful, while the latter are just fucked in the hea... wait, haven't we
+heard [that][klausenburg] before? Numerous times, I've stopped counting.
+
+Anyway, no other difference between the two people other than the
+language. Thus I've used this trip as yet another occasion to expose
+myself to Kiril's writing, which means that by now I should at least be
+able to read Stan's Russian quotes a tad faster. No one said anything
+about understanding them, though.
+
+Below: Dobrogea, be it the Romanian or the Bulgarian one, is full of
+these.
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-22.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-22-thumb.png"> </a>
+This is where I stop and ask the dear reader to switch their attention
+back to photos "-03" and "-05", y'know, "these other ones" in the beach
+photosession. The beach isn't the star of our photos there, you see,
+it's Cap Caliacra -- also shown in the map at "-10"; you are keeping
+track of this, are you not? So here's a bunch of pieces from the other
+side:
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-23.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-23-thumb.png"> </a>
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-24.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-24-thumb.png"> </a>
+So since we were at the cape, we went at the famous Dalboka mussel farm,
+where I initially said I'd have some pork and ended up having some
+decent and quite cheap mussels. Definitely worth trying, though if
+you're going to go there during the colder seasons, I'm warning you that
+the road to the farm turns into a steep slope at some point, so you
+might want to go there with a proper car.
+
+We conclude this story with a very neat photo of Dalbokian shores, taken
+with the girl's phone. From what I see, they manage to pack pretty good
+cameras on these pnojes nowadays, yes-yes, with Sony sensors, I
+expect. What's surprising is that they manage to fit decent lenses in
+that small space, which... well, still no match for a DSLR *yet*, but
+who knows.
+
<a href="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-25.png"> <img align="middle"
class="thumb" src="/uploads/2019/09/cadrilater-25-thumb.png"> </a>
+
+[^1]: Which has nothing to do with the Cernavodă where they recently
+ built the nuclear power plants. That one's depicted on the map as
+ As-chioi? Anyway, there's a Chervena Voda near Ruse, but what, did
+ the blackwater turn red in ten decades, or what?
+
+[mangalia]: /posts/y05/08e-mangalia.html
+[logz-1910106]: http://logs.nosuchlabs.com/log/trilema/2019-04-27#1910106
+[citadel]: /posts/y04/068-the-story-of-the-citadel.html
+[klausenburg]: /posts/y05/07d-klausenburg.html
projects / thetarpit.git / commitdiff