Our 101st Country (FINALLY)

if you're new here we spent the first four years of this channel documenting our journey to 100 countries in december of 2019 we stepped foot in our 100th country of fiji and just a few short months later the world shut down kovid 19. traveling by plane has become synonymous with one word cancelled and that brought us back to the u.s where we spent the next two years living full time out of our converted sprinter van it's leaky after visiting an average of 25 new countries per year it's now been two and a half years since we've set foot in a new country but that's about to change tomorrow we are traveling to our 101st country the only catch is we don't know what country that's gonna be yet all right i picked one i actually can't believe i pulled this one bye bonjour from perry this is not our 101st country we're actually here back in 2017. we were just little travel babies we're currently on our way to meet our friend nathaniel who is going to help us choose our 100 first country [Music] [Music] [Applause] so what we're going to do there are 10 countries that we have not been to in europe monaco albania kosovo moldova north macedonia bulgaria romania serbia belarus and andorra we're going to put those 10 countries on sheets of paper into something that you have laying around this apartment and you are going to reach your hand in and choose our 101st country it would be my honor i do the double pole so there's no cheating yeah you think i'm going to cheat i don't know nathaniel we've only known you pull your own is there a country right now that you particularly feel like going to based off of i don't know photos you've seen or anything that you've come across honestly i know so little about these 10 countries which one do you know the most about bulgaria is where my mariah's family is from so i really want to go there i think that's my vote for the one i want to go hang out with my family my heart's pounding right now eight nine ten i found out are we turning around for this yeah you guys face away okay i want to hold your hand hi lana oh the panel's here too all right i picked one okay wait i'm gonna put the bucket don't look yet okay that is the country i actually can't believe i pulled this one how do we do this i don't know this is a big moment okay stand right there where right there okay wait watch this is so chaotic three two one bulgaria [Applause] is your 101st sophia is the capital right that's where i should be looking at flights to oh this is perfect air france tomorrow at 4 pm amazing and it's direct oh we have like 24 hours hey nice choice it looks like we're leaving tomorrow at 4pm [ __ ] it [ __ ] it [ __ ] it uh are you coming well the thought did definitely cross my mind if that's cool with you guys i think so really i don't know yeah yeah is this cool with you guys yeah i think we're doing it let's do it why not we met a few days ago i know i have two nades in my life here's been referring to us as karen nate square okay i gotta go i have to go oh my god okay i'll see you guys later bye he's literally running all right i'm hustling right now this is my last chance to get film rolls before we go [Music] oh let me zoom this out there we go all right we're literally trying to figure this out right now we're like okay now what now we're going what are we going to do there what are you doing learning bulgaria that means hello and it's not going to be easy to read it's like 3g there's a number from the time we figured out we were going to the time that we're leaving tomorrow we have 24 hours to play on this trip cafe coffee so we're going to bulgaria tomorrow bulgaria all right let's see in the morning yeah i i'm saying i can't even talk we're going to bulgaria tomorrow really crazy real quick we want to say a big thank you to betterhelp for sponsoring this video therapy is a tool that i really believe in and i love getting to talk about it and not only has better health the world's largest therapy service but it's 100 online which means you can talk to your therapist anytime from anywhere no scheduling needed the way it works is first to take a quick quiz and answer some questions about yourself and that way better help can best match you with your own licensed professional therapist who can best suit your needs and preferences so ideally you get matched with a therapist who specializes in whatever you're going through which is pretty cool then you can start communicating within 48 hours and that can be by messaging having a phone call having a video chat however you feel most comfortable if for some reason it's not working out with your therapist better help makes it easy and free to switch to someone else so if you're ready to join almost three million people taking charge of their mental health you can get 10 off your first month at better health by clicking the link in our description below which is betterhelp.com forward slash k and n that's better h-e-l-p for sure thank you [Music] uh he asked me what terminal in french and the answer is which is to eat well said obviously yeah let's see okay bye we're going to bulgaria today i just can't believe it i've said it like 50 times we're going to bulgaria she has said that like 800 times hello in this latest episode of karen nate travel the world we have to figure out what what we're doing what the plans are we have no nothing booked for tonight you're so good at this i'm just not going to talk and you can just narrate the trip for me oh beautiful look at this chicken chips i think at this stage right now we're in the transition phase between are we going to bulgaria to okay we're going to bulgaria i am feeling road trip vibes how do you feel about hiking this is what i'm working with white shoes are not meant to stay white so oh no basically last night i looked at all the cool stuff there was to do in bulgaria and now we just have to pare it down to a realistic 72 hour period so i booked this let's do it we spent 30 seconds looking at it there you go and confirm and pay we have somewhere to sleep today i wasn't worried i wasn't too worried one thing i've been thinking about this morning is just how grateful i am that we're able to do this choose a country and then show up there within 24 hours without having to worry about testing or restrictions or it's just the beautiful place that the world is in these days and something that i definitely took for granted our first four years of travel trying to learn some bulgarian phrases so we can be well accepted when we get there that's what i read on the internet so what do we think hello nathaniel knows like 40 languages no or something like that he learns them in like a day and then he's fluent it's always worth it to learn a few words or phrases i mean you're really good at this people perk up when you use even one word in their language it's it's a sign of respect so say it costs us nothing it's a beautiful word and i'm sure people will be like cool this is the last time i am waiting in line at the gate as a person who's been to 100 countries that is such a funny way of putting it still practicing my bulgarian dilbarden doverden doverden oh this is a good one yo hey ho doverden [Music] this feels a bit surreal stepping into a new country this used to be just a part of our everyday life this is our 40th country we are flying to our 95th 96.99 country number 100 all right it needs to be really meaningful this is a moment this was our life for four years [Music] i can't believe i'm not crying honestly we got our bags and now we're getting our rental that's really fun 101st country is kind of cool but this is my 41st and that's cooler what should we eat tonight in sofia i think so and what should we eat there water this is just a salad this is what the internet really wants to know though what it's like to travel with us what was that this is your very fast walking like i can never keep up with you i'm always like trailing with i'm like where did nate go i told anything i've been like training for this for years like i had to learn literally day one that at the airport we walked quickly really all the time especially oh really all the time all right we're used to it welcome to my new life chasing nate to our gate [Music] every single time b4 which one oh the noble steed is this an suv though this is like a car with a slightly higher roof this is an suv in europe [Music] this is so much fun we're in bulgaria where's the excitement people hold up we're in the street guys this works in my neighborhood it doesn't work here i think you're actually right we're lost third time walking up the street this looks so inviting if you cut something with knife please do it with only the wooden boards in the kitchen what what are the instructions for getting inside those are the instructions it's all in code darling oh my goodness that just made my night clue number two down the lock box it's like a block down the street from the door what's the code number three go please [Music] it smells like an award wow oh my gosh the contrast of the outside of this building in this room it's amazing okay so in here we have kara and i's room on here's where ned squared sleeps the dining room nathaniel's room look at this table i love all of it i would live in this apartment after getting some food in our bellies we went on a little bit of a scavenger hunt to find a speakeasy we had been told was at the end of a dark alleyway i think i should pull this door yeah pull the door we try to open this door quietly no there's no way let's get out of here according to google maps it's here is this what traveling with you guys is because it's taking it's getting it's gg it's almost midnight it cares just going around pulling random doors i thought you weren't leading me astray i was one alleyway off i have no clue what we've ordered but it's with the guy that rented us the car recommended also this bar that we've come to is like a speakeasy that's why we're having so much trouble finding it and it's only lit by candlelight [Music] oh my goodness i just got kicked [Music] good morning we only have 72 hours here in bulgaria because in just a few days we have to fly to finland for this very unique event called the wife carrying world championship we're winning since we're only here for a short amount of time the goal is to squeeze in as much as possible so let me share the game plan with you time to tell you guys the game plan we um watched all of ryan trans videos so this morning we are going to explore the city of sophia and then later today we're going to drive south into the mountains in hopes of sleeping at a monastery tonight and then the next morning we'll wake up hop in the car drive all the way across the country to the black sea and spend as much time on the coast as possible before having to drive back here to return the rental car and then fly to finland [Music] oh my gosh is that one piece very excited about one of these things so apparently a traditional breakfast in bulgaria consists of bonitsa it's layers of fila dough with egg yogurt and feta cheese and in the morning and in the mornings they drink this fermented drink of some sort that we're about to taste for the first time i believe it's like a creamy cold drink i'll let you guess which one i'm excited about oh my gosh [Music] it tastes like cream corn moving on look at this flaky dough we ordered three without knowing that they were this big but i'm not satisfied it looks like that's for three people oh my gosh it's so good the feta cheese oh wow it's perfection i wonder what sofia's coffee is like [Music] it's official bulgaria's coffee is cara approved [Music] so we've come to this big park in the middle of sofia and i'm struggling to put it into words but in a way i feel like it almost tells a story on one side of the park you have this old communist era building and then on the other side of the park you have billboards for mcdonald's coca-cola and kfc it's just a very interesting contrast [Music] i'm falling more in love with sophia every single second everyone's just out and about on a monday afternoon i'm just so happy i don't know if i would be this happy anywhere we are because it's a new country but i do feel like sophia is special and i don't want to leave it's amazing how much history you can see just from this one spot i'm currently walking through the remains of an old roman city that they found underneath the streets of sofia there's also a mosque another building from the communist era and then the statue of sofia herself i know very little about the city but you can tell there's such a diverse history here it concerns me when there are 12 different cuisines on the same menu we have fried rice spring rolls grease fried chicken seafood burger fish ribs and sushi so the guy at the rental car place last night told us to eat at this restaurant this is the most people i've seen in a single restaurant the whole time we've been in sofia it's packed wow are we rolling yeah we've heard a lot about this salad it's called it has tomatoes cucumbers onion and shredded cheese on top i don't know if it's because i'm just so hungry but this really is the best one ever nathaniel one out of ten i'd give this like an eight and a half which is a great score we're balancing out our salad with a little fried cheese wow i'm having about now okay one more dish real quick oh yeah soup time baby this is called tara tour this is the dish that maggie from the park recommended it is somewhere in bulgaria and here the best dish is called tarator it's cucumber soup with bulgarian yogurt and cucumbers you work on that and i'll keep working on this cheese quick fun fact i don't know if this is a controversial subject apparently there was a scientist in 1905 who was bulgarian who discovered the bacteria in milk that makes it go bad and turn into yogurt for the first time and they named it after bulgarian so instead of greek yogurt being you know what everybody's heard of it should be bulgarian yogurt so i don't know it's just what i read this is like an entire bulgarian food tour all at one table you got this nice stressful exit i thought it went pretty well [Music] wow so far driving in bulgaria has been a breeze except for the very sketchy intersection that we had to go through leaving sophia go in this guy guys i mean i've just been up here it's been enjoying my passages now that we've gotten out of the city it is so beautiful and green and mountainous so i was sad to leave sofia because i was really enjoying it but i'm really excited to get to see more of the country we are currently driving two hours south to the ryla monastery where we've heard you can spend the night but the problem is you have to call the brotherhood in order to book it but they only speak bulgarian so we're gonna go with the strategy of showing up and hoping for the best are we here this looks like it wow look at that mountain [Music] your knees and your shoulders have to be covered to go into the monastery and the daniel came to bulgaria with only shorts he's saving my butt right now i gave him a dirty pair of sweatpants how do they work i feel good i feel good i feel more respectful so do they stink ah i didn't sniff but i'm taking your word for the fact that they're clean then i hope i'm not wearing dirty pants right now this place is absolutely stunning even if we don't get to stay the night here it was totally worth the drive we haven't even been in the monastery yet but just the mountains surrounding this place are absolutely incredible do you have any rooms available tonight yes so asking to stay here felt like a very normal request and based on the amount of keys that were hanging on the wall i think there were plenty of rooms available so we have one room for ten dollars per night per person and this very friendly security guard is showing us to our room ah perfect is anyone else a little nervous i have no idea what to expect no i'm no i mean i'm in heaven right now i love the energy of this place so peaceful so quiet a brilliant change i feel like from a big city yeah we have our own bathroom oh this is uh we're taking our relationship to the next level this is awesome i love these old windows there's a river running right by the monastery and it just echoes off of all the mountains that are surrounding us and just creates this beautiful white noise it's so peaceful here quick bathroom tour is a wet bath which means the shower floor is the same as the rest of the bathroom floor but it looks like there's hot water toilet toilet paper sink it's just all about expectations we thought we were gonna have a shared bathroom because that's what we've read online so in fact we have our own little private bathroom right next to our room it's great another thing that's really special about getting to stay here is that you can't go up on any of the top floors if you're just visiting as a tourist the only way to get up here is if you're staying here and there's just nobody else up here in a way this place kind of feels like a castle or a fortress that's completely encircled by these huge rock walls and the whole complex centers around this one beautiful church in the middle [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] something for the rings do you have wine white and red red red good choice [Laughter] can we get the fried potatoes with white cheese okay monastery bread looks okay okay okay if you like favorite the best choice this one is this one [Music] this is turning into my favorite thing we've done in bulgaria really so we've come to the only restaurant that's behind the monastery they said it closed at nine it was a little after eight and we walked up and saw a man and woman and a rabbi sitting at a table with a bunch of beers it sounds like a joke of a joke what did the rabbi say to the woman not funny and so we just kind of stood there for a minute like gathering our thoughts i mean okay where are we gonna go i have no idea what's going on i get uncomfortable in situations like that so nathaniel is uncomfortable i'm hungry and i'm just like wondering if there was a miscommunication maybe are you hungry yes yes [Music] yes i've been trying to say thank you and he's like don't make me yet oh no we have this yummy cheese dip and fries with cheese whoa baby what did you order there whoa thank you wow oh god don't forget don't forget thank you thank you thank you okay oh what a funny dinner that might be the most memorable part of this entire monastery experience thank you so we discussed the game plan the game plan over breakfast this morning and we decided to change things up we realized it was going to be a six-hour drive from here to the coast so we decided instead of going all the way across the country to the black sea for less than a day at the beach we just head further into the mountains how did you just killing yourself i just don't even know the drama of the moment she's gathering your thoughts i want you i want everyone to know that right now cara is gathering her thoughts give her a moment okay the beauty is just too much i'm speechless so all of a sudden we've driven i don't know 30 minutes away from the monastery kind of in this shaded road and we came out from the trees and it exposed this gigantic beautiful mountain mountains on all sides it's just so green and majestic so we had to stop and get the drone out q drone montage [Music] how cool does our little car look on this road right now best drone shot ever i don't know about the best drone shot ever but we're just really putting nathaniel to use this trip all right we stopped for a quick lunch on the way into the mountains we just went a tiny bit off the main road and i think we found ourselves at the most local restaurant we've been to all the ones we also learned that we've been saying thank you wrong the whole time so maybe that's why nobody has really crazy i mean usually people are very reactive to this kind of thing so either we're saying it wrong or i don't know what's going on but they just are not reacting to us saying thank you to them in their language anyway the prices at this restaurant i think are also very local this huge glass of bulgarian wine which is fabulous by the way one dollar this bowl of traditional bulgarian bean soup one dollar and this gigantic chopstick salad is 220. we also have a huge basket of bread wow the broth is like thick and hearty i'm not like the biggest bean soup fan out there but this is this is good that entire meal for three people was 27 bulgarian lips three wines three coffees three waters three soups and three salads and you got a dessert and we got bread in all of our travels i think that is the cheapest meal we've ever eaten what has happened oh this one's been left that was interesting our next plan was to drive further into the mountains because we had read about this chairlift that takes you to a beautiful hiking trail around seven mountain lakes however pretty sure we're lost oh gosh how so i just put uh like seven lakes chairlift in my maps and it's taking us on this like one lane mountain road that is very it's falling apart yeah i'm just not sure if like this really touristy thing would include this drive did we ever figure out if there are bears in bulgaria i think for sure yeah we still have nine minutes 4.1 kilometers according to the map oh that looks like an off-road uh g-pro does it want to go straight here because we're not doing that yeah it does everything was going so smoothly today how do you say uh-oh in bulgaria set let's hit the road we may get to go on the side capture half a mile turn right oh so we just came up this super sketchy road for no reason at least this wasn't as bad as the detour that it took us on in mexico what in the world there's no way right [Music] all right and we're off thank you they um we're very serious about their job getting us on this chair safely all right it's literally squeezing me so hard i don't care up the mountain we go nathaniel have you ever ridden on a ski lift no i have a fear of hiding oh no did you know he had a fear of heights yeah we watched one of his videos where he got talked into jumping off a cliff with yes theory you're doing great how are you feeling it daniel not good i think i'm just gonna close my eyes i think he's distracted this is called distraction yeah hello don't learn this is so funny usually on a chair lift we're skiing and nobody's coming down and so you don't have this awkward like long slow passed by someone but it's actually pretty cute because a bunch of young people are coming down and they're practicing their english and we're practicing our bulgarian hello hello hello dobarden oh that worked it worked go right in nope maybe they're not bulgarian hi oh so nice wow look at that i feel like we're in a painting right now like this does not look real you did it here get out of the way of the chair and get out of the chair are you okay we've made light of this but he just conquered a real fear he really did i always forget how much i love the ground when i leave it good work though for real for real worth it worth it i think this will be really cool cute wow it is so beautiful up here the chair left has brought us up to the top of this mountain range and there are seven alpine lakes up here there's a five hour trail that should take us to all seven of them and uh there's four and a half hours until the sun sets so we'll probably be hiking down in the dark and the cold i think we've made a poor choice of of clothing but nathaniel only brought shorts so i thought i would join him in his misery [Music] the views from up here are absolutely incredible i'm sure the beach would have been amazing but i'm kind of glad we ended up here yeah and i'm third wheeling this whole trip so this is me shooting the shot if you just dropped me here and said where are you i would probably say switzerland maybe like colorado austria germany novel it's crazy how many people were at the base as we were driving up and now we have this place all to ourselves that's because the last gondola back down the mountain was at 6 30 and we had missed it meaning the only way to get back to our car would be to hike an extra two hours down the steepest part of the mountain there's only one thing that i'm a little disappointed about we had agreed as a group that we would do a polar plunge in one of these lakes because it's all snowmelt it would be absolutely freezing but according to the signs on the way in that's against the rules we can't even graze our goats i don't i don't know if we all agreed on this baller plunge okay i'm not sure if there was a vote but i probably would have done it if you guys didn't i was 100 convinced that we could talk nathaniel into it i'm not sure we need to go all the way up to that one because that's where it came from oh okay all right we still have three hours of sunlight do we really yeah no not three hours because it's gonna be behind that we still haven't about three hours this does look like we have about five minutes yeah this is what it's like to travel with karen nate it's just like i like tricky situation after tricky situation how much more memorable is this gonna be if we hike down in the dark getting eaten alive by mosquitoes all right let's just keep going but i i i sense things are gonna get crazy pretty soon the sun is about to go oh uh-oh which would be very unique okay that's a new uh i'm down to go i'm i'm good to go back really yeah it's getting cold the sun is officially behind the mountain and behind the clouds the wind is picked up that white building way off in the distance that's the gondola and then once we get there we still have at least an hour hike back down to our car i think the rest of this hike is going to be pretty flat really beautiful though we go down into the valley here and then we come back up on the mountain right there i'm quite a ways behind the group but we just saw a lightning strike in the distance and then immediately heard thunder in the distance not being very far everything's going way too smoothly on this trip so far so maybe this is the the big moment that's going to make us really remember it forever [Music] oh this is crazy we're almost back to where the chair lift goes down not that it's running right now but there's also a hotel at the top of the chairlift we figured we still had an hour or two down the mountain it's just starting to rain the timing could not be more perfect because we have to make a decision now of whether or not we're going to keep going down i'm sure we could offer a few levs you know to drive us down i mean i don't know how committed we are to getting out of here but throw that out there i kind of love it when things don't go as planned helps create better memories is it possible to get a vibe okay if nothing works out we can have alcohol well this is insane look at this cloud just overtaking right now are you kidding me we were gonna walk down in this if we would have been like 30 minutes ahead of schedule we would have been happy awesome okay we ended up getting a meal at the lodge and now um the guy who owns the lodge his friend is taking us down the mountain in his jeep so as well that is well i guess um oh my goodness wow this was your idea nathaniel yeah i know i just want to throw it out there that we have no idea who this guy is he speaks little to no english there are no windshield wipers and it's not only raining very hard but the windows are also starting to fog up all right safety first everybody get your seat belts on yeah i don't have one if i'm honest this is what i wanted out of bulgaria okay all right this is a good time to remind all of you to like and subscribe to the video if you haven't already also leave a comment down below if you'd like to see me in future videos harass them okay oh i think he's texting his girlfriend you don't see you can't see got the drive memorized it kind of feels like the jeep is going to flip or drive off the side of the mountain incredible i'm so impressed thank you so much who has the keys this isn't our car this is not our car you have the keys yeah where are they okay they're in the bag okay we survived the drive down the mountain that's pretty much it for bulgaria from here we drive an hour and a half back to sofia and tomorrow morning we get on an airplane and we fly to finland oh wow 101. what a treat we stayed for three days i'd have been more than happiest day for three weeks three months well gary's been amazing country 101 get the keys

Channel: Kara and Nate

Views: 1,578,784

Keywords: travel vlog, world travel, travel couple, full time travel, travel vlogger, husband and wife travel, couple vlog, nathaniel drew, sofia, bulgaria, bulgaria travel, bulgaria travel vlog, rila monastery, rila lakes

Id: Tj7LlrSW2-s

Length: 38min 46sec (2326 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 27 2022