https://rhiaro.co.uk/ @rhiaro@toot.cat

If you read and enjoy my travel posts through my website or Mastodon* and you are planning to travel to somewhere I've been and you can't afford an actual travel agent and you find travel planning too stressful or time consuming to fit into your life, I would be delighted to share advice.

My specialties are land and sea (not air) transit, especially long distance European buses, and finding vegan food. I'm happy to also help with general stuff to do, and even more in-depth help with planning and realistic budgeting if you want because I actually love wasting away hours and days researching travel stuff.

#rhiarofreetravelagent

*or a feed reader you built yourself or another decentralised service

https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/07/mastodon-travel

TFW you have a village name that is four words long and it's definitely not because it's #nanowrimo I swear..

(it's canonically a literal translation of the location of the village relative to the nearest big settlement.)

(it's because of nanowrimo though)

https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/tfw-nano

Week in review: 4-10 Nov. #travel in and around Varna, did Co-op stuff, stayed on top of #nanowrimo, then moved down the coast https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/week-in-review-2

Posted 19 photos: Moved down the coast from Varna to Obzor, a small resort town with nobody in it and where I can hear the sea and not traffic. #travel https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/photos-obzor

Posted 88 photos: A day out in Varna. Museums, old stuff, cool maps, lots of history, beach sunset. #travel https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/photos-varna-6

My new place has a smart TV with Netflix, but I think it must also be connected to the #NaNoWriMo API or something..... it won't connect, even when the TV's network connection is fine, netflix isn't blocked on other devices on the same network, YouTube and Amazon Video connect fine... Netflix won't even let me log in, just says there is a problem. So obviously it knows my wordcount is under. https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/netflix

Posted 38 photos: On a hill near where I'm staying is an enormous concrete monument to Soviet and Bulgarian Friendship. The views from the top are good. I sat up there to write for a bit, and I caught a nice sunset. #travel https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/photos-varna-5

The moon kept waking me up last night. It's almost full, and was blazing through my window with the light of a thousand suns. Then I kept having moon-related dreams. https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/moon

Posted 26 photos: A wee jaunt into the town center for cake at Food For Love, then enjoying the sunset from Varna pier. #travel https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/photos-varna-4

Posted 40 photos: afternoon trip to Galata... Unable to resist the the lure of the headland I can see across the bay from my balcony, I took the bus to the nearby town of Galata. The route isn't really walkable, as it involves a giant highway roadbridge across the bay. I had the impression Galata was kind of fancy, but the parts of it I saw seemed run down. I walked to the tip of the headland, which had a completely abandoned concrete viewing platform that was falling into the sea, and an old lighthouse. It was very cool. Then I headed around to the nearest beach, climbing down a thousand steps through a hillside wooded park. The autumn colours are in full swing, and the sun was hot. There were only a few other people around. I sat on a rock by the sea to write. #travel https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/photos-varna-3

If the #nanowrimo site says it it must be true!!! https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/if-nano

On a related note, fantasy world building is *so hard* how do people remember all the stuff they made up?? I'm trying to take notes every time I pull a new country/food/animal/side character out of the air so I can reuse things and be consistent but wow it takes a lot of work. #nanowrimo https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/world-hard

#nanowrimo TFW you don't remember what you wrote about a character seven years ago but you just need to keep writing right now to move the story on, and then when you go back to check you've managed to keep complete continuity entirely by luck. (Or my subconscious firing better than I thought. But I can't remember the names of animals or countries I invented like yesterday so? I think it's luck.) https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/continuity

#nanowrimo Writing with a pen and paper is helping a lot with getting the words out this year. And has fewer distractions than the laptop. Two A4 pages is reliably 750 words, so that helps too. Two pages three times a day, I'm all set. https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/writing

#nanowrimo Ugh I finally get on top of my word count and DING DONG the day rolls over and I'm back where I started?? What on earth who came up with this https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/ugh

Posted 69 photos: Yesterday's day out to the Aladzha monastery, then a beach walk from slightly dystopian Golden Sands to Sv. Konstantin & Elena, and the Botanical Gardens. #travel https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/photos-varna-2

#nanowrimo

I can write 750 words before breakfast*

* Breakfast has been rescheduled to noon

https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/write-750

Would be fun to keep track of wikipedia pages I open during the course of #nanowrimo. https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/wiki

Bulgarians who don't speak any English when you need directions or to know how much something costs tend to suddenly have enough vocab and perfect grammar when they realise they can laugh at you about Brex*t. #travel https://rhiaro.co.uk/2019/11/bulgarians