Leaving Ukraine – Road trip Part 1 (Poland to Bulgaria)

 

After more than two and half years working in Ukraine, and another three months working across the Polish border, the Diplomat and I have completed our assignment in Ukraine. An assignment like no other, marred by a global pandemic and brutal war. This is not how we wanted to leave. The emotions are too high and too raw to express here, so I will simply say that we have left physically. Mentally, we will remain in Ukraine until the war is over.

Our first task upon departing was to drive to Bulgaria to see Son and Grandma and to offload the two Silly Cats. (To catch you up on the past 3 months in one sentence – since the start of the war, Son has been in Bulgaria with Grandma, going to school, and the Diplomat and I, along with the Silly Cats, have been holed up on a hotel in Poland).  Our fully loaded car - 4 big suitcases, 2 small ones, one box with wine, three plastic bags with random stuff, one purse, two Silly Cats in carriers, one litter box in tow, and a giant tennis bag – was the envy of any self-respecting nomad caravan. Our route would take is through Slovakia, Hungary, and Serbia before crossing into Bulgaria:

Any ambitions we harbored about making it in two days were quickly dispelled by the two bleating cats from the back seat, who would meow in remarkable unison every hour or so for 10 minutes straight after which would again fall into irritable sleep. As a result, we overnighted in Hungary’s Kecskemet (mostly because I enjoyed saying “Kecskemet” every five minutes) and in Serbia’s Belgrade.

In case you wonder how one drives around with two Silly Cats, it is easy. For one, they hold their bathroom needs and refuse to eat. To test that theory and show my humane side, at a rest stop in rural Slovakia, I took the vehemently meowing Emotional Cat to the bathroom, and unpacked his litter box, which he scoffed at and went on the inspect the suspicious spots on the walls. After unsuccessfully trying to cajole him to use the litter, he was promptly and unceremoniously brought back into the car and the experiment never performed again. It seems that most hotels nowadays allow pesky pets to stay along with their owners, so we would unleash the beasts in the hotel room, set up the cat food and water in the bowls, pull the litter box from the giant trash bag into which it was packed, and put some sand in it. In one хour, all cat business would be done and the two silly creatures would be chasing each other comfortably all around the hotel room but mostly in the bathtubs.

In Belgrade, we stayed at the spectacular Metropol Palace, which features an equally spectacular spa. After driving around 1,000 km, we decidedly enjoyed a swim in the glittering warm pool, with a brief visit to the wet sauna and the ice room. The night was appropriately capped with a dinner at the Madera restaurant, in whose beautiful and cigarette-smoke filled garden we sampled Serbian rakia, and ate cevapi and a giant pleskavica. The next day, the Diplomat was stopped by an amused Serbian traffic cop for speeding quite a lot above the speed limit but then let go with a smile and a reluctant admonishment not to do it again. Penitent, the Diplomat crossed the Bulgarian border and promptly got stopped for speeding AGAIN by an equally amiable Bulgarian cop. Which is all very odd given that, generally, the Diplomat drives like a 75-year old lady. It may have been the bleating cats…

We got to Sofia without much further incident and spent two happy days with Son, Grandma, and the Silly Cats who broke only 2 porcelain things in Grandma’s house by the time we left. We are eternally grateful to Grandma for agreeing (not particularly enthusiastically) to care for the frisky beasts while we continue our gallivanting around Europe for the next one month. Our next destination – Montenegro.