Saddles & Surprises | Dutch Diaries Week Fourteen
In light of all I’ve been through over the past year, especially in terms of losing and gaining relationships, my biggest anxieties surrounding what study abroad would look like for me weren’t really about learning how to navigate new places and new cultures or dealing with a language barrier. Instead, I found myself terrified that I might not find those new lifelong friends everyone talks about meeting abroad and even more concerned that I wouldn’t be able to maintain the relationships that were most important to me back home. I was leaving behind life as I knew it for nearly five months and hoping that the people I’d known for only one summer would still be there for me when I returned in January. That thought alone was enough to make me want to bail on the whole crazy thing, and I nearly did, just two days before I was supposed to leave.
Now nearly four months into said crazy adventure, I couldn’t be happier that I overcame those cold feet, and this week in particular proved to me more than ever that I never had anything to worry about. My people back home were very much still there for me, and as far as those lifelong friendships went... well, I met Gabby, and after knowing each other for just a couple weeks, we decided to book our middle-school-horse-girl-phase dream adventure: a weekend on horseback in the mountains of Bulgaria.
The Weekend | Het Weekend
On Friday, at three in the morning, the time for our horse girl weekend had come. Following a frigid hour long walk across the city of Maastricht in the middle of the night, we caught our shuttle to the airport. After that two hour bus ride, we hopped on our three hour long flight, which was then followed by a 30 minute taxi and another three hours on a crowded coach bus before our final leg of the journey, a twenty minute car ride up a dirt road with a man who honestly could have been anyone. The language barrier was at an all time high, so when someone approached us asking if we were going horseback riding, we said yes and hopped in his car. Thankfully, that man really was the owner of the sweet little farm where we’d spend the next two nights.
We were greeted at the property by parrots and a sweet orange cat and immediately served a three course meal entirely comprised of traditional Bulgarian food and grown or raised in the local area. Stuffed and exhausted, we fell into bed to watch a movie around 8 pm and were fast asleep not much later than 9:30.
The following day, we woke up to the squabbling of the peacocks, chickens, and turkeys in the pen just outside our window, and much like the night before, we had a fresh homemade Bulgarian meal awaiting us at breakfast.
Fueled up on jam, fried toast, fresh feta, and tea made from local herbs, we headed out the barn where we’d meet our horses and embark on our first ride, stopping on our way to befriend the farm dog and say hi to the mare and her newborn foal.
It would be the first of two days of riding, with a two hour ride on each side of lunch on day one and a four hour ride in the morning on day two. With virtually no riding experience, I was predictably incompetent. Each ride presented me with its own set of triumphs and challenges, some of which were more unfortunate than others…
The morning ride on day one proved to be the most taxing, as I’m convinced that my horse was purposefully messing with me (which is understandable. I, too, would have messed with the unassuming tourist). When Gabby and our guide, Lubo, would bring their horses to a trot, I would follow suit. However, my horse being a little slower than the others, would fall behind ever so slightly, only to suddenly speed up to a canter to catch up. This, I could handle. However, when we all intended to canter, Gabby and Lubo once again created a little gap between themselves and my horse and I, causing my horse to suddenly take off at a gallop. This, I could not handle.
With a shriek, I ended up on the ground. Weeks later now, my back still bothers me, but I knew I had to live up to that whole saying about getting back on the horse… So I did just that, riding back down the hill to lunch and again in the afternoon. Lubo, who was initially skeptical about spending his weekend with two twenty-somethings who had minimal riding experience, was significantly impressed.
The ride that afternoon, following our three course lunch of course, made it abundantly clear to both myself and Lubo that my horse really was messing with me. Because the horses are allowed to roam freely and are only stabled when they are needed for riding, they know the trails and all the shortcuts back to the stables, where they find their dinner at sunset every day. Now, around 4:00 pm, the sun in Bulgaria started to dip behind the mountains, and those horses wanted to go home. My horse, knowing I lacked the basic skills to put up a big fight, was especially stubborn, turning down all the shortcut trails and refusing to take even one step in any direction that wasn’t toward food.
After the sudden accelerations, little tumble, and instances of equine stubbornness, I found myself with an all new horse on day two, who proved to be much more manageable, but a fan of veering off the trail just enough to have the tree branches on the side of the trail whip me in the face.
Still, I managed to keep my smile throughout (most of) my struggling, prompting the resort staff to ask if we ever took a break from smiling and just how many hours per day we spent laughing. Apparently the staff figured out what we already knew: when Gabby and I take on any new adventure, we always find some sort of shenanigans to keep ourselves amused.
But then again, with the amazing things we saw on our trail rides (and the endless jokes about my impersonation of Humpty Dumpty on a horse), how could we keep ourselves from smiling. It’s not every day that you find yourself in the private chapel of a monastery on a mountaintop with views overlooking what seemed in that moment like the entirety of Bulgaria.
Come Sunday afternoon, we were hard pressed to leave our little rural mountain heaven. We had some city sightseeing to do, and luckily, Lubo offered to take us back into the city himself. We weren’t about to pass up a ride.
Monday | Maandag
Our Monday spent in Sofia before our flight was in a word, colorful. Out of all the places Gabby and I have been, we both agreed this was the most unique. Sure, the sidewalks were in disrepair (I’m talking death traps) and some of the buildings seemed a little run down from the outside, but we quickly learned that what you see on the surface is absolutely not what you get when you dig a little deeper. As soon as we opened the door to our AirBnB apartment building the night we arrived, we realized that nothing was as it seemed.
Exploring the city on Monday confirmed just that, as we found ourselves discovering a vibrant and diverse culture and history. The city had grand cathedrals, mosques, and synagogues that rivaled even the most famous we’d seen in our travels up to this point, and even though we managed to cover quite a lot of ground in the one day we were there, it seemed like we didn’t even discover half of the surprises Sofia has in store.
But, like all things, our trip to Bulgaria had to come to an end. I had an important presentation to give on Tuesday, after all.
Tuesday and Wednesday | Dinsdag en Woensdag
And let me tell you, that presentation did not go well. School in Maastricht had been going so well up to this point that I was probably bound for a misstep at about this point in the semester, but that didn’t make the disappointment of bombing my presentation any less upsetting. I spent the rest of that class period sulking quietly behind my computer screen, wishing my people back home were awake so I could vent to them over text. When I finally got out of class twenty minutes late, effectively giving me only ten minutes to make it all the way across town to my next class. I was stressed and met by Gabby at the door of my building, who had told me earlier that she was dealing with a personal emergency and needed to talk between my classes.
Gabby lied, and I didn’t make it to Dutch Art History that day (sorry, Mom).
Instead, Gabby met me outside my class, bringing with her the one person from home that I was missing most of all (again, sorry Mom). Turns out that personal emergency was my crazy, amazing boyfriend who flew all the way across the world to surprise me. Once it finally kicked in that he was actually here— and let me tell you, sometimes I’m still not sure it was actually real life— I got to showing him my new little town, fit with a visit to my favorite cafe (the one with the Australian shepherd).
On Wednesday, due to his early flight home the following morning, we hopped on the train to Amsterdam, deciding to play tourist before he had to leave. Despite a little disruption on the tracks that made our journey take an extra hour and knowing that I would soon have to say goodbye again, the little time we did have together was absolutely everything I needed.
Thursday | Donderdag
When, on Thursday, that time to say goodbye actually hit, and I found myself standing outside Schiphol airport security with the sweatshirt I stole from him nestled safely under my arm, alone, all those fears I had about losing those newer relationships I made before I left disappeared. So, I went downstairs to the Schiphol train station and headed back to my home away from home, back to class (see, Mom, I made it to Dutch Art History 50% of the time this week!), and back to study abroad life as usual.
