I felt like I needed a break to relax a bit, so I rented an Airbnb and stayed here for nine days.  I immediately felt the Parisian vibes walking around the city.  I later learned that after the city burned down, they wanted to rebuild to look like the most beautiful city in the world...  Paris!  I met several Romanians who speak French as a second language, so I got to use a few words I remember from school a long time ago.  I had a local grocery store and a subway card, so I started to feel like I was settling into the city.  The communist tour here was interesting, learning about the fall of Ceausescu and his execution on Christmas Day in 1989.  This book was interesting to learn more.

This was a bit of an adventure - I was worried I was going to lose my passport for a bit.  I took the train from Sofia to Ruse (on the border), and then had to switch trains.  They checked passports before getting on the train by collecting them from people on the platform, taking them to the office, and then coming back to the platform and just calling out names.  Luckily, I got my correct passport back right before I boarded the train.  Once we crossed the border again, we had passport control with a Romanian official who looked at each passport individually.  The officer who checked mine said I would need to quarantine for 10 days unless I was vaccinated...  Yay!  I am vaccinated, so no need to quarantine!  I arrived in Bucharest with no hassle.  My hostel was a five minute walk from the train station, so that was nice and convenient!

I only visited two cities in Bulgaria, but Plovdiv was my favorite.  It is very cute - an old town with cobblestone streets, an entertainment district with restaurants, bars, and cafes, Roman ruins, street art everywhere.  It was the European capital of culture in 2019.  The hostel I stayed in here was the prettiest hostel I've ever stayed in.  I met some good people at the hostel, we stayed up late talking and sharing travel stories.  If you go to Bulgaria, go to Plovdiv.

There was a cafe next door to my hostel.  I ate there twice.  The first time I was at a table by myself.  A guy came by and asked if the other chairs were free.  I said they were, thinking that he would take them to his own table.  Well, he sat down with his two friends.  It was a small table.  They were there to drink coffee and smoke and talk to each other.  They did not interact with me at all.  I ate a full meal while they drank their coffee and then left.  It was unusual to me, but I thought it was a Bulgarian custom.  When I described the situation to other Bulgarian people, they thought it was weird also, so I guess it was just these people....  but it almost  happened the second time I ate here also!  I was alone, again, and three older ladies came in.  They were about to sit with me until one of them found a table that could accommodate all of them.  My whole time in Bulgaria, it only happened at this one cafe.  It was a good memory I will remember.

I ended up spending some extra time in Sofia just to slow down a bit.  It was too long.  I liked the hostel where I stayed - it was nice to socialize with people since most of the places I stayed in Turkey were solitary.  I enjoyed the Sofia walking tour and the communist tour - they were interesting, and I learned a lot.  The communist tour I went on was the same one that John McCain did several years earlier (he did it as a private tour).  Communism is still a controversial topic in Bulgaria.  There is a communist party that has seats in government, and there are people that feel very strongly on both sides.  However, the country tries to hide its communist past.  It is not taught in schools, and the history museum doesn't mention it.  It is only a small non-profit group that is trying to expose the communist past.  It was a dangerous and scary time, with secret police, neighbors who spied on you, and limited options for international travel.  However, I do think it is important not to forget the past, just to make sure those mistakes are not made again in the future.  They have a piece of the Berlin wall in the city, and they have a monument honoring the lives lost during the communist regime.  The problem is that if I tell Americans that I went on a communist tour, they assume that I am promoting communism.  JOHN MCCAIN DID THE SAME TOUR.  I WENT ON THE TOUR ONLY TO LEARN ABOUT THE HISTORY.
Generally, I found Sofia to feel a little dreary.  The people were nice, the city wasn't completely terrible.  It just didn't feel "uplifting".  If it wasn't the middle of a pandemic I would have explored the nightlife a little more.  Maybe that would have been a fun side to the city.

The beach in Bodrum was beautiful.  The water was soooooo blue.  Antalya is a beautiful city with yachts, an old town with cobblestone streets, and ancient roman ruins.  I went to a hamam (Turkish bath) in Antalya.  I'm glad I did it here instead of going in Istanbul.  It wasn't crowded, and it was cheaper.  Supposedly it was a few hundred years old.  It didn't look like it from the outside, but the inside definitely felt like an old place with lots of marble.

Ephesus was probably my favorite place for ancient ruins.  It has the third largest library of the ancient world, the only one still left.  The city is mostly intact, so you can really get a sense of what it looked like so long ago.  This is the same Ephesus mentioned in the Bible, St. John came here, as it was the capital of Asia Minor, and he looked after Mary in her old age.  According to legend, the house where Mary lived and died is here.  
The modern town here is Selcuk.  I stayed in a guesthouse run by a Kurdish man.  He had Kurdish Syrian refugees for neighbors and the terrace had an amazing view of Selcuk castle.  It was nice for eating breakfast or sitting in the evening hearing the Muslim call to prayer and watching the city.  He took me to the beach on his motorcycle.  Riding along the Mediterranean is one of my favorite memories of the trip.  The beach had Muslim women fully covered and women in bikinis and everything in between.  You can see the Greek island of Samos from the beach.  Unfortunately the international ferries were not running due to Covid.
The town has ancient Roman or Byzantine aqueducts in the center of town.  It is walkable, there is a huge Saturday market, cafes, teahouses (only men go to teahouses in Turkey).  It felt like the small Italian towns I've been to in the past.  In the evenings, people gather and walk around the town and socialize outside.  It's a nice feeling of community.

This was amazing.  The city of Troy.  Who knows if Helen was real.  The horse was probably not real.  But Homer was almost certainly there, as his descriptions match the city and landscape perfectly.  The site is very interesting to see the different archaeological layers, the walls are 20 feet thick, and there are still Roman water pipes in their original position.  This was one of my favorite days.  It was also a very pretty journey.  We drove past miles of sunflower fields and crossed the very vivid blue Dardanelles Strait.  I learned more about Gallipoli this day from some Australian tourists and why it is so important to Australia.  In the future I would like to see Gallipoli also.

I use a fast-acting insulin since I use an insulin pump.  In most of the pharmacies around town, they only had this form in a pen.  I need it in a vial so I can refill my pump.  I had to ask around to find it - a guy working at my guesthouse recommended a clinic.  They didn't have it, but they recommended a pharmacy near the university.  When I got there, they had to order the vials, but they would arrive in two days.  In the meantime, he gave me an insulin pen for FREE (with the correct type of insulin, just not as a vial....  so I did use this for my bolus.  Insulin pens in the US are about $100 each with no insurance, and the pharmacist here gave it to me for free because he felt bad that they had to order the vials).  I went back two days later, and picked up four vials of insulin for $12.50 (US dollars) each.  With no insurance and with no prescription.  In the US, a prescription is required, and with no insurance, they are $300 each.  I understand that the insulin would be free for Turkish citizens since they have universal health care.  However, I did meet someone later with a child with type 1 diabetes, and with the language barrier, I'm not sure if his son is not using a pump, or if he is not using a continuous sensor because of the cost. 
So, from what I can see, the basic need - insulin - is more affordable (free) for Turkish people as the price is not controlled by a pact of insulin manufacturers as in the US and healthcare is not tied to your employment status.  However, more advanced diabetes technology may be more difficult to obtain than in the US (although it is really only available to insured patients in the US).  Also, it seems the logistics are better in the US, as Novolog and Humalog (fast acting insulins) are pretty typical and can be found at any pharmacy instead of relying on specialized pharmacies near a university.

Outside of Sultanahmet, men are not aggressive and the city is fun and lively.  People were very nice and friendly and helpful.  Istanbul has a lot if interesting history (a lot of it is in Sultanahmet, you just have to get used to the men there).  I needed to pick up insulin in the university district.  This was my first time to a new part of town, and I couldn't believe the difference.  I stopped for lunch at a cafe, there was no harassment, prices were quite cheap, and the food seemed better.  The server was excited about buffalos in the US, and he taught chess to children.  He gave me a copy of his book that he wrote that he uses to teach kids (side note:  I do know how to play chess.  I learned in sixth grade.  I feel the need to explain that here because I know that sexist men reading this will assume that I don't know how to play).  It was nice to experience a new part of the city, and this was the first day I didn't feel like a target here.
I really liked the Beyoglu neighborhood.  It felt very European, but there are lots of cute shops and cafes and bars, and the shop owners are not harassing you off the street.  This is where the medieval Galata Tower is.