I finished by the aspect of the street simply earlier than pulling into the tiny city of Balgari, Bulgaria to be able to skip to the subsequent music on my iPod once I seen a person herding a number of dozen goats and sheep on the hillside to the left of me. I hoped to stay unnoticed by the herder, however I may inform he had seen me and that we was transferring in my course. I may inform that he wished to speak! So I eliminated my ear-buds and approached the person. He stated one thing to me in Bulgarian and I then let him know that I converse English. “Ugh” the person replied, earlier than asking me if I spoke German or Russian. “I converse just a little German,” I replied to the person (I stated that in German after all)… and so our dialog started.
The sheep/goat herder requested me the place I used to be from, the place I had come from, the place I used to be going and a complete host of further questions. Then he informed me to remain the place I used to be whereas he hobbled over to a close-by tree and plucked down a big inexperienced tangerine sized pod. Utilizing a rusty outdated knife, the person reduce the pod open and pulled out what I acknowledged to be a walnut shell.
I hate to confess this, however I don’t suppose I had ever really seen walnuts rising within the wild earlier than this second. I’ve at all times seen them of their shells on the grocery store or with out the shells in any respect in a plastic bag of some sort. However right here they have been, rising on the tree proper in entrance of me, out right here in the midst of Bulgaria, and I used to be being fed these tasty treats by a unclean outdated man who, like me, spoke just a little little bit of German.