1. The roads in Boston really aren’t that much better than Bulgaria. For all the moaning I would do over the crappy roads in Bulgaria – driving around Boston this past weekend made me realize that Boston has a ways to go as well. Bulgaria may have the advantage here since at least they don’t have ceiling tiles that fall down and kill people in their tunnels. Advantage: Bulgaria

2. Trucks. Bulgaria – not so many. USA – everywhere. Despite Massachusetts probably having one of the smaller per capita truck ownership rates in the country, there sure are a lot of F-150’s driving around. Just in terms of burning less gas I’m going to have to say – Advantage: Bulgaria.

3. Expensive booze. At the bar Friday night people were ordering simple mixed drinks that cast $8 a glass. And I thought my $4 beer was outrageous. Compare that to a $3 mixed drink in Bulgaria. Advantage: Bulgaria.

4. Ethnic minorities. Bulgaria – not so many. USA – everywhere, even in Massachusetts – AKA whitey-land. The bar I went to must have been at least 30% Asian – then again we were 3 blocks from MIT so I guess that kind of makes sense. The corollary to this is that there are plenty of ethnic (i.e. Mexican) restaurants. Mmm, mmm good. Advantage: USA

5. Runners. Bulgaria – no runners. USA – runners everywhere. I look out my window and everyday there are people running by the house. Even at 9pm Friday night in Boston there were lots of people running along the Charles. Yea for physical fitness. Advantage: USA

6. A city skyline you would want to take a picture of. Boston – beautiful city skyline. Sofia – not so pretty (if you can even see it through the pollution). Advantage: USA

7. College football. What I watched all day Saturday. Advantage: USA

8. The biggest plasma screen HDTV I have ever seen. My friend Bill has a magnormous TV at his place. No one in Bulgaria had one even close to its size. No one in Bulgaria has $4K to spend on a TV. Of course I had to test drive it by watching Top Gun. I give it excellent marks. Advantage: USA.

9. Cheese. Bulgaria – 2 types of cheese. USA – many types of cheese. I like cheese. The corollary to this is nachos. Nachos go well with college football. Advantage: USA

10. Smokeless bars and restaurants. Boston/Cambridge – smoke free. Eastern Europe – hidden under a cloud of cigarette smoke. This was the first time in many months I was able to breathe properly while sipping my beer. Oh how I like smoke free laws. Advantage: USA

11. Old Navy commercials. I almost forgot how stupid these commercials are … almost. Advantage: Bulgaria.

12. Water in the toilets. Bulgaria – not so much water. USA – swimming pools. I never really noticed how much water is in most US toilets until I came back. I’m not convinced I like all that water in my toilet. Advantage: Bulgaria.

It looks like the USA wins this one, 7-5.

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The first stop was Bansko. I booked us into the Kempinski hotel since my parents were paying and I got to choose the hotels. They actually had a good “Pay for 2 Nights Get the 3rd Night Free” deal so it wasn’t that bad. The key here is we got free use of the spa (pool, hot tub, sauna, etc.). Of course, although the Kempinksi is a 5-Star hotel – regardless of its international reputation – it’s still a 5-Star hotel in Bulgaria. Accordingly, the electricity went out several times. They had a backup generator, but strangely none of the room bathroom lights were hooked up to it. Good thing I wasn’t using the facilities during any of the outages. The lights in the spa, however, were hooked up to the generator so we see where the priorities lie. Also the shower didn’t drain properly and the bathtub drain was broken (there was a seperate tub and shower in the bathroom). In the Kempinski’s defence, the staff fixed the problems when I complained. We used Bansko for the staging area for visiting Southwest Bulgaria.

On the way to Bansko we stopped at Rila Monastary – my 3rd trip there. The next day we went to Melnik which I had never been to. It is a quaint little village which is becoming less and less quaint as more and more building is happening there.

During the Melnik trip we decided to see another monastary about 10 km down the road. We came upon a church which I thought might be the monastary. We got out, looked around and when we got back into the rental car it wouldn’t start. I had rented a diesel VW Polo for the trip. We were on a hill so I tried coasting down and popping the clutch to no avail. We made it down to the small village at the bottom of the hill by coasting. The car would try to turn over, but when I turned the key none of the instrument gauges moved including the gas guage. I thought perhaps the gauge was broken and we had run out of gas. I talked to a local guy in town and he called someone in Melnik to bring some diesel out to the car. An hour later he showed up, I poured in the gas and the results were the same. The car would try to turn, but wouldn’t start and the instrument panel wouln’t light up. At this point the town started to get interested. Before long we had 5 guys all trying to figure out what was wrong with the car. We pushed the car up the hill a couple times to try and pop the clutch – all in vain. Finally I called the rental car company to complain and they said I needed to lock and unlock the car before it would start. Sure enough this was it. If you left the car unlocked for more than a few minutes some kind of security feature would activate that wouldn’t let you start the car until you locked them unlocked the car with the automatic RF lock.

This is the most retarded accessory to a car I have ever seen. How often do I get out of the car to go to the bathroom, get gas, look at something beside of the road, etc. – all things that don’t require me to lock the car. The answer, as I learned, is often. Well, I had to lock the car if I did any of these actions or it wouldn’t start. The entire rest of the trip had me constantly get out and lock and unlock the car before it would start. What happens if the battery in your little keychain lock dies. You’re screwed is the answer. Another example of how technology makes things worse rather than better. Not to vent entirely at VW – of course the rental company didn’t tell me this key piece of information. Of course they didn’t put the car manual in the car. Typical Bulgarian customer service.

We spend one day at Bansko and drove up to the ski area. They are building like crazy all over Bansko. What was once a small town is rapidly turning into a huge resort. Even from when I was there this past winter there are dozens of huge new apartment complexes going up. Up on the resort they were working on new trails and facilities as well.

From Bansko we drove to Plovdiv through an impressive gorge. On the way we must have passed through one of the Muslim regions on Bulgaria because we passed several small towns with mosques.

We spend the afternoon at Plovdiv then drove back to Sofia.

The next day we headed off to Veliko Turnovo. We stayed in the Gurko Hotel which I have heard good things of and all were true. Our room was on the top floor and had a great view of the river.

After VT we headed to Varna for a night. It took us a few minutes to find the hotel, but eventually got there and, again, had a great room with a view of the large Cathedral there. We walked around some of the extensive pedestrian streets of Varna before walking along the Black Sea shore for a while. We managed to see a wedding happening in the Cathedral while we were visiting. Interestingly, they didn’t close the Cathedral to visiters during the wedding so crowds of people were coming and going during the ceremony.

The next stop was Nesebar for a couple hours before continuing on to Sozopol where we were able to stay free in my landlord’s apartment. This was my 4th time to Sozopol, but my first in the off season. The town was nearly a ghost town with almost every shop and restaurant closed. It was very strange to see the town like this. The apartment was near a soccer field and we were able to catch Sozopol play Nesebar. Nesebar had the upper hand in that game.

Finally we drove back to Sofia and spend a day visiting several churches, the art museum, the ethnographic museum and a few shops for my mother to buy misc. Bulgarian stuff.

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I think I was invited because no one wanted to drive and I didn’t mind driving the 5 hours to the coast. We left Sofia on Friday around 5:30pm. Our destination was Ravda, one town south of the ancient village of Nesebar. Interestingly, this is the same small town I had been for our Sagitta off-site meeting in June. We wanted to get to Ravda before it got too late because today was Venelin’s birthday and we didn’t want to miss the festivities.

Venelin arranged to have us stay in the same apartment complex his family was staying in. It was very nice of him to arrange all our accommodation for the weekend. The apartment was reasonably priced as well – 50 BGN (~$35) per person for the whole weekend.

We made it to Ravda and joined Venelin and his friends and family at a bar/restaurant on the beach. We were just in time for the champagne and cake (whew!). We were outside on the patio, but inside there was a wedding reception going on which was fun to watch through the windows. 90% of the time only the bride and groom were dancing. Only when the traditional circle dance songs came on would everyone join in. We hung out with Venelin and his peeps for a bit then headed to bed – ready for some windsurfing the next day.

We headed down to the beach late morning to check out the scene. Shelly and I were pretty gung-ho about trying windsurfing (the first time for both of us), but the others were a little skeptical. A guy Venelin knew ran an windsurfing equipment rental shop on the beach so we were able to get some boards to practice on. In most sports, when the pros do it, it looks easy, but when you try it’s really hard – windsurfing is no exception. Despite some excellent instructions from Venelin, the first day involved a lot of falling in the water – usually before I was even able to get the sail up. Eventually I started to find my balance and was able to get the sail up without falling 50% of the time. I still had trouble angling it to catch the wind however. All our lessons were done late morning/early afternoon before the wind picked up. It was hard enough with just a slight breeze, let alone a gusty wind blowing while I was trying to balance and raise the sail up.

After some initial work on a wide beginner board I switched to an intermediate board – mainly because there was only one beginner board, not because I considered myself an intermediate. After a couple hours I was quite proud of myself at getting up a couple times and actually doing a little sailing. We quit after a couple hours since the wind was picking up and my hands were starting to get sore from hauling the sail up over and over.

That night the four of us headed to Sunny Beach to check it out and get some dinner. Sunny Beach is one of the main tourist resorts on the Black Sea coast. Basically this meant that the resort was mostly people from the UK. I heard very few people speaking Bulgarian. The main area of the town is a long pedestrian strip with restaurants, shops, bars, clubs, bunji swings, and all the other stuff you would expect to find at a tourist resort. We spotted a Tex-Mex place and all got excited to get some pseudo Mexican food for dinner. We kept the Margarita’s flowing (well, except for me since I was the designated driver) and ate our below-average quality Tex-Mex food. Still, living in a country completely void of Mexican food, it tasted good enough. We then checked out the beach area and stopped at an outdoor bar before heading back to the apartment.

The next day I was ready to go for some more windsurfing. Again Venelin (and his impressive patience) walked Shelly and I through the steps. Before the wind picked up I was getting pretty good at picking up the sail and actually sailing from one side of the beach to the other. However, once the wind started to blow I was having problems staying on the board because of the chop.

After a couple hours relaxing on the beach we headed back to the apartment, packed up our stuff and headed home. Traffic was pretty bad coming back from the beach, but at least it was moving. We still made decent time back to Sofia ready for a good night’s sleep.

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After our dinner I walked home with both of them to scope out their apartments. Both apartments are very nice inside. Ian has a nice large multi-room apartment which will be great once the bedbugs are removed. It seems like all the apartments that VEGA found for us have been great (bedbugs aside). Of course, before coming to Bulgaria I was living on my friend’s porch (enclosed, but still a porch), so moving into my new apartment was like moving into a palace. Megan got the Ritz-Carlton deluxe shower with the multiple shower heads in the wall that sprays your whole body. When we checked it out her apartment the lever controlling the additional shower heads wasn’t working, but Delcho managed to get it up and running – completely soaking himself in the process.

Both apartments are in great locations. I’m a bit envious of that – then again, I have my beloved City Center Sofia mall (and associated food court, movie theater and supermarket) near me. Ian is close to the popular bar called “Blaze”, although we all call it “Smoke and Mirrors” because it is always really smoky and every wall is covered with mirrors. He’s also a short walk to Flannigans (i.e. one of the few places in town serving Guinness) and to the tasty pizza place Krivoto. Megan also has a prime spot near the corner of Gurko and Rakovski. She’s an easy walk to everywhere in the center and, as several people have enthusiastically mentioned to her, a short walk from Onda’s coffee shop.

Warning: (Another) Ondas Rant – Onda’s is the Bulgarian equivalent of Starbucks but without the Starbucks quality. I don’t like coffee and Onda’s non-coffee products are not good at all. The chai latte – uggghhh. The hot chocolate is essentially Hershey’s chocolate squeezed into a cup and warmed up … put some milk in it, already! I keep looking for ice cream to pour it over when they serve it to me. Even their sandwiches aren’t that great and they come in the triangle shaped, plastic sandwich containers I associate with gas station sandwiches. So, I guess if you like coffee, you’ll like Onda’s, but I’m holding out for a good tea shop or, better yet, an Au Bon Pain.

It’s a little strange to be on the other side of the coin being the “seasoned veteran”. When I arrived, Maury, Andrew, Karen and Rich were the incumbents and we were the new arrivals. They proved valuable information sources in my first couple months here and I’m sure the four of us will be the same to the new volunteers.

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My birthday dinner party.

Climbing up a tower in Tsaravets. Notice the safety features installed on the structure including wide steps, outside safety railings and warning signs. OSHA would be proud.

Tsaravets fortress in Veliko Turnovo

The three of us on Shipka Pass

Monument on Shipka Pass

View from the Hash House Harriers run.

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Within hours of Jen and Jeff arriving in Bulgaria last Saturday (July 8th) I carted them to the AmCham (American Chamber of Commerce) 4th of July party (held on the 8th of July to fall on a weekend). This gave them a “soft landing” to Bulgaria by carting them to an event full of Americans. We soon got right into the heart of Bulgaria. I rented a VW Polo for the week so we could drive around and see some of the country. VW Polo’s are great cars for driving on mountain roads. They are small, agile, and almost guaranteed to get the backseat driver sick when driven properly (like a rally car). In fact, I earned the name “Rally Car Ryan” for the week due to my very professional driving skills …. err something like that.

The first order of business was to borrow camping equipment from my boss because our trip included a couple nights camping. However, this required a swap mid-country since my boss was on his was back from the sea when we were heading out into the country. We managed to coordinate the changeover near Stara Zagora (where we also stopped for lunch) then headed north to Veliko Turnovo (henceforth known at VT).

Our way to VT took us through Shipka Pass where a large monument stands with incredible views over the surrounding countryside. The monument was erected to honor those who died defending the pass during the Russo-Turkish War in 1877-1878. The Russians took the pass with the help of Bulgarian volunteers and proceeded to defend the pass from 30,000 Turkish soldiers despite being outnumbered 5 to 1. After a bit of picture taking at Shipka we continued on to VT.

I’ve already written about VT in one of my previous blogs so I won’t rehash old information. The only difference is that we stayed in a hostel (aptly named Low Costel Hostel) in the middle of town. The hostel was recently opened by a British guy. The hostel was small, but nice. We had the 6 bed bunk room to ourselves which was nice. The top floor of the hostel was a cool open area with a full kitchen and sitting pillows where we were able to relax and play some cards with the owner for a couple hours.

The next day we took another road back through the mountains (where I was again able to practice my rally car skills) and headed to Sozopol. Again, you can read about Sozopol in one of my previous posts. Instead of staying in Sozopol, we stayed at a campsite a couple km south of Sozopol called Kavatsite. The whole region was pounded with rain and floods only a week or so before we arrived and the beaches at the campsite fared better than the beaches in Sozopol so we chose correctly. We spent two nights at the campground. The camping experience is a little different from the US camping experience. There are no fires, but the campsites have electrical outlets you can plug into. So, instead of playing cards by the light of the campfire, we played cards by the light of a lightbulb (and a bright one at that). Wednesday was “Vitamin D” day (also called “Skin Cancer Day”) where we spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun and swimming in the (quite warm) Black Sea.

On Thursday morning we packed up and headed back inland – to Plovdiv. I had been to Plovdiv before, but I had never driven so I wasn’t sure exactly how to get to the old town. We drover around lost for a few minutes before I decided we could just walk to the top of the hill with the Russian soldier monument and see where the old town was. This plan worked (well, basically, we still had to make one stop to ask a policeman). We spent the afternoon walking around the old town part of Plovdiv while Jeff took dozens of pictures of crappy, falling apart buildings.

On Friday we drove down to Rila Monastery. Another great thing about the Polo is the great gas mileage. I was able to drive down to Rila and back (1 hr. 45 min. of driving each way) and still have the gas tank needle read “Full” meaning I could in good conscious return the rental car with the required full tank.

Friday night I had a surprise birthday dinner at Motto. Joel made the extra effort of walking over 10 blocks with an unboxed birthday cake (the cake company didn’t have boxes big enough for it) to the restaurant. The cake was Viennese chocolate and was pretty darn good.

Saturday afternoon involved a lot of souvenir shopping (or crap shopping, as I prefer to call it). Jen bought a nice load of crap to bring back with her to America. After a mid-afternoon nap we headed off to dinner then to the first of two parties. Party number one was a house party unrelated to my birthday hosted by one of the Hash House Harriers. We only stayed for a short while there. The next stop was the club Alcohol. Here we stayed until the wee hours of the morning before returning to collect Jen and Jeff’s bags and send them off to the airport – without any sleep (hey, they can sleep on the plane, right?).

All-in-all an excellent week and a great birthday. Pictures will be posted soon, but they’re spread over several cameras which are now located in different countries so it may take me a few days to consolidate them.

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Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 12:19:50 +0300
Subject: Information Needed for the Embassy’s Emergency Preparedness

Dear American Citizen,

As part of Embassy’s efforts to be prepared to provide assistance to the private American community in the country in case of an emergency, we need to know what resources within this community we may rely on. This is why we would appreciate it if you would tell us whether you have skills, such as languages other than English and Bulgarian, special expertise (for example, Engineer, medical doctor), as well as handy possessions (radios, helicopters, etc.) If possible, we would be grateful if we would receive your reply by June 27.

Best regards,
*important embassy person*
U.S. Embassy Sofia

As an American citizen dedicated to helping my fellow country-persons I crafted the following reply:

*important embassy person*,

Of course I have a helicopter – all Americans in Sofia have helicopters! How else can we be expeced to fly between our Lozenets apartments, the office, and the multi-billion dollar Americans-only invisible mansion near Varna?

As you rightly surmised, I also keep it because of eminent danger from the Bulgarian people. The ATAKA members are pushing the upper limits of Bulgaria’s average life expectancy and will soon have nothing to lose from a concerted attack on American interests. We all saw the full strength of their organization during the NATO meetings.

As such, you may rely on my helicopter to provide assistance to the American community in case of an emergency. It’s pretty easy to find because it’s friggin’ huge (sometimes creating problems when I try and land it on my balcony). It basically looks like the Russian gunship helicopter from Rambo III. In fact, it is the Russian helicopter from Rambo III – my family is friends with the director. So, just give me the signal – I’ll start the engines, unlock the weapons systems and we’ll be good-to-go.

I also noticed you were looking with citizens with radios. I have one of those. I usually have it tuned to “Radio Edno” but sometimes I scan around during that annoying classical song the play at the top of every hour. It’s very heavy – probably made out of vacuum tubes – so would probably work well as a blunt weapon.

As a triple bonus I’ve been speaking Pig Latin since the age of 7. I am willing to translate to avert any potential crisis from native Pig Latin speakers.

I am always prepared to help my fellow citizens out.

God Bless America,
Ryan

Reader notes:
- Lozenets is a high priced area of Sofia where many expats and diplomats live.

- Varna is a city on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria well known for its surrounding beach resort areas.

- ATAKA is an extreme nationalist political party made up of mostly old people longing for the good-old (communist) days when they were paid to sit around and do nothing. They blame America for all their marrital and dental problems.

- Rambo III is a movie where John J. Rambo is sent into Afganistan to rescue Colonel Trautman from the Russians. A good chunk of the movie consists of Rambo running away from a Russian helicopter gunship. Despite the gunship unloading about 80 missles and 20,000 rounds of ammunition, Rambo is able to escape without a single injury. Eventually Rambo gets tired of running from the gunship and shoots it down with a Daisy pump BB-gun he finds under a cactus.

- “Radio Edno” (translated, Radio One) is a local mix radio station that always plays a classical music song at the top of every hour (although the “classical music” song is usually something like the theme to Star Wars)

- Pig Latin is a “language” made by putting the first letter of a word at the end and adding “ay” (thus “donkey” would become “onkeyday” in Pig Latin). This is a very popular language in America for 7-10 year olds.

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We arrived at the stadium in the middle of the (mediocre) opening band. To get into our section, we followed a sign with an arrow showing out section number. The arrow was pointing up which I assumed meant go straight. As I found out, I really meant go right. Very intuitive. All this basically meant we went in the wrong entrance and were separated from our section. We finally had to be escorted through some barriers to get to our section.

We bought tickets to the VIP section, not because we wanted them, but because they were the only tickets left on the second day of sales back in January. In Bulgaria ticket sales go backwards – cheapest to most expensive. Our tickets were 50 BGN (about $30), but we found out from a Macedonian sitting next to us that the tickets were 50 Euro outside Bulgaria. Sitting in the VIP section meant we had seats in the stadium seating rather than standing on the lawn. Of course everyone stood anyway so it didn’t really matter. So, we were supposed to have seats, but by the time we got there all the seats had been taken and so had most of the standing space in the aisles. We managed to find some space near the fence separating the VIP section from all the heathens on the lawn. The VIP section also theoretically got us free drinks. However, when I saw the line to the bathroom, I thought it would be best to keep my bladder empty lest I miss half the show waiting in line. On our way out I took a peek in the bathroom. There were not separate men’s and women’s bathrooms – it was all one with four separate stall. What I saw in the bathroom cannot be adequately described in words. Let’s just say there were some makeshift rafts made out of boxes, plastic grates and whatever else was nearby to keep the visitors from wading in … well, you know what. You’d think that Turkish (squat) toilets wouldn’t have this problem, but it sure was a problem last night.

The actual concert was very good. The crowd was very energetic (they had been waiting since January for the concert, after all). Apparently this was one of the first (if not THE first) concert to make use of large scale lighting special effects, video screens and such. Most of the stuff was new (i.e. post-Violator, the last album of theirs I bought), but they did crank into a few of their older songs near the end of the show. The crowd seemed to know the words to most of the songs – probably in the same way I know the words to La Bamba without knowing a lick of Spanish.

We strategically poised ourselves near one of the exits for a quick escape as the show was ending. It was to our favor because we were able to quickly catch a cab and be home in time to watch the end of the Argentina-Netherlands game.

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