Arriving in Vegetarium

Hello everyone and welcome to my journey to and within Vegetarium!

I cannot believe it’s only a week since I arrived, it feels way longer. Maybe it’s just that I already learned to much or maybe it’s more about the lovely people here who made it so easy for me to settle in, I don’t know.

However, a lot has happened in the last days. It already stared when I left Cologne on the morning 26th of august and arrived in Vienna in the evening. Such a beautiful city! Maybe a little bit crowed by tourists but full of beautiful architecture, cultural events and surprisingly good access to public swimming spots.

After two lovely days of exploring Vienna and it was already time to say goodbye and to take the train to Zagreb. A direct train, easy I thought. Well, I was wrong. Due to unknown reasons the train route in front of Graz was blocked, hours passed until the blockade was able to be removed and instead of 22:20 it was almost 1 am when I finally arrived in Zagreb. However, I was lucky, not only did I book a hostel with a 24 hour reception, but I also meet a very kind receptionist who felt sorry for me and allowed me to stay in a single room for the same price.

From this moment on I was lucky. Even the part of the journey I was concerned of, the night Flixbus from Zagreb to Sofia, went quite well. After a seat switch, I had two seats for myself, the border controls went quite smooth and we even arrived more than two hours earlier in Sofia than expect. With the help of a nice Bulgarian man, I met in the bus I was even able to catch the 7:35 Bus to Svoge, so I ended up being there so early, the other Vegetarium members which wanted to collect me with the car weren’t even there yet.

This however provided me with a nice challenge, communicating with some of the locals who didn’t speak English, while I couldn’t speak Bulgarian. I took me a while but after some attempts, I managed to get a tea, gained access to a toilet and was able to leave my luggage so I could go for a walk. Patience and creativity pay off!

After such a long an adventurous journey, arriving at Vegetarium felt almost like coming home. After a warm welcome, I was given time to rest, to explore and to settle in.

This process continued over the last days, after exploring and mainly assisting others with their tasks, Nikita, another new volunteer appeared and we started the process of learning all the tasks and little things which worked together to maintain such a project as Vegetarium. From community tasks such as cleaning and cooking to green skills and all it takes to take care of a permaculture garden.

I was also given the opportunity to directly do some gardening tasks, such as harvesting tomatoes and cucumbers from the greenhouse as well as planting new seeds for the winter vegetables.

What a cool way to start the project!