Where the streets have no name

Sometimes I do want to run.
Sometimes I do want to hide.
I'm trying to tear down the walls that hold me inside.
It might be nice to reach out and touch the flame.
But the most important is, that I've spent the last two days in Dobrostan, where the streets have no name.

Yesterday evening I took a little walk in the village (it's not very big, 49 inhabitants) and I just had to sing! The happiness had to come out in some way so I pretended I was Bono in the thick fog in the mountains and just danced, danced, danced in the rain!

I left Sofia this Thursday after a couple of very nice days. Me and my new friend Iven went to the amazing Rila monastery in the mountains outside of Sofia and had a really good day. The same evening we enjoyed the company of a group of Bulgarians in the bar at Art hostel. It actually ended up with a scheduled date for me. 23rd of August (my 25th birthday), outside of the Opera house in Sydney. I'll be there!

I left Sofia by car with "Naso" (my swedish-speaking friend from the train) and his friend "Rosen" and after two hours we arrived in a small town called Asenovgrad. After that the funny part started for real. 25 minutes later and 1.000 metres higher above the sea level we arrived in a small village called Dobrostan ("the good town) and I was amazed.

The air is so clean.
The view is so great.
The sound is silence.

Were invited for a Bulgarian lunch at the house of Nasos parents. That includes a lot of home-grown food from their garden in many different ways, and of course a couple of glasses of Rakia. Since I'm not a raw vegan (yet) as Naso and the others in his house, Nasos mother thought it would be better for me if I had lunch with them. It was sometimes hard with the language, but they spoke to me with their hospitality and that's more than enough for me.

After that we walked to the house where Naso lives with his brother, his brothers girlfriend and the lovely dog "Roro", and we spend some five or six hours drinking tea from one of the best producers in Taiwan. Just laying there on the floor, drinking tea, talking and doing absolutely nothing, I felt alive.

The coming day were quite similar to the one before. Nasos brother showed me around in the big garden where they "produce" all their food. They are trying to make this process as natural as possible and I've learned a lot of interesting things about plants, nature and the connection between all of it. They were all very interested in my time in the "Globala Gymnasiet" (upper secondary school in Stockholm) and we made some kind of interview for the newspaper of a Bulgarian vegetarian association about my time in this school and what it gave me.

Two wonderful days in the mountains, but now it's about time to move on again. Back on the train and tomorrow I'll wake up in Istanbul. It's very hard to write down what I've experienced and what I feel, it's just to much right now, in a good way... but I hope that this is better than nothing. And here are some pictures:


Dobrostan - Which actually means "the good town"


The house I stayed in


The spring is in town


Nasos father rolling cigarettes. Menthol cigarettes with home-grown mint


The old bus that took me down again