Bulgaria at last

 Bulgaria

Ah yes, the second part of my Balkans adventure. This time in Bulgaria! The furthest South I’ve ever been, and the furthest East, arguably even on the border of Asia Minor. Now, the lesson to take away from this is that everything that happened, happened for one very good reason: that I am exceptionally cheap. Any and all expense was saved. That’s the moral of this story, in a way: had I been willing to spend more money, then a lot of this lunacy might have been avoided. But I didn’t, and I’m sure it’ll make for a wonderfully enlightening read, for my mother and the roughly two people in the world who find me funny enough to have clicked on this link.

So, Bulgaria. South-Eastern Europe, Orthodox Christians, Cyrillic alphabet, and the people shake their heads to mean “yes”. These were pretty much the things that I knew about Bulgaria before I went there. That’s actually a slight exaggeration, because I’d later read that Bulgaria was the only Eastern Bloc country to have voted in a Socialist government after the fall of Communism, at one point in 1996 had only enough money to cover nine minutes of imports, and had had its former Tsar elected as Prime Minister in the mid-2000s. I had a couple of Bulgarian friends when I was in Poland, and one of them once said to me that “we have the best points of the Southern Europeans, and the best points of the Eastern Europeans”. How could I refuse a little look at such a promising place?  It turns out that, when you fail to plan, you plan to fail. My major failure whilst planning was trying to do everything on a shoestring. This will become painfully apparent.

The first penny-pinching failure was when I decided that mid-March was the time to visit. I presumed that, being a good way South, March would be warmer than in the UK, and I would have a gay old time, frolicking in the Black Sea, and getting a nice tan. My experience in Romania, with its 30cm of snow, suggested otherwise, but by that point, it was too late. My other failing was to visit a seaside resort town out of season. I thought March would be early in the season, but sadly no. it was decidedly not in season.  So, we’re up to two major failures of planning and economising, before I’d even left my living room in the UK. 

Here's the Danube on a nice day. Brexiteers: you'll never see it. Nor will I. I wonder
how you sleep at night.

Anyway, for the third failure, I had hardly looked into travel from Bucharest to Varna. In season (late April to about October), there are plenty of travel opportunities. I was, of course, trying to do this out of season. It turned out that I had exactly one option open to me: Pegasus buses! The bus to Varna left at 4am. I say ‘bus’, but what I actually mean is ‘minibus’. 4 am is a horrendous time to travel: you can’t really stay up for it, and you can’t get enough sleep for it. I had to wake up at 3, with my poor long-suffering Romanian friends, having had about four hours of sleep. We stood in the snow, freezing and sleep-deprived, my toes numb in my canvas trainers, until the minibus puttered into sight. One of my Romanian friends sorted out my ticket, and I paid the driver, who put my bag in the boot. We got in the bus, and he then asked for my passport (‘pisspot’, actually, but there we go). It was, of course, in my bag, which was in the boot. I’m no expert, but I would say that the steady stream of Romanian that the driver came out with as he exited the cab to get my passport was probably cursing. He needed my passport because, it turns out, Bulgaria has passport control, after a fashion, which was a rather unwelcome vision of my future as a non-EU citizen, which I’m actually dreading more than my own death. Thanks, Brexiteers. I hope you all choke on the ‘control’ that you get over your country, because it sure isn’t my country anymore.

Anyway, I fell into a kind of fitful sleep, waking up every so often. By some miracle, I woke up and checked Google Maps just before we crossed the Danube. I honestly couldn’t believe my luck.  I forced my eyes to stay open, and looked out of the window, but didn’t see anything much. I knew it was there, though. Why would the internet lie to me?! And no sooner had I shut my eyes after that excitement, we pulled into what appeared to be a desolate, yet brightly lit, concrete-built petrol station. It turned out to be my first taste of Bulgaria: their passport control! It looked uncannily like the coach station at Frankfurt Hahn airport, actually. There was a man in a uniform sitting in the little booth, who flicked through the handful of passports that the driver gave him, then threw them back into the cab and waved his hand to show that we could pass. I was in Bulgaria! I celebrated by falling asleep again. 

I woke up as we pulled into a shopping mall car park. I stumbled out into the Bulgarian cold, and looked around. I could have been anywhere. The mall looked like every other shopping mall in Europe. I wasn’t completely sure that I was even in Varna, until I asked the driver. I lit a cigarette, consulted Google Maps, and started walking into the centre. On the one hand, all the shop signs were in Cyrillic, so I was definitely in the right country. On the other hand, the footpath seemed to be closed on both sides, with a lot of serious-looking earth-moving machinery trundling around. I had literally no idea how to pass, until I stood and watched the locals wander out into the road, towards the oncoming traffic, to eventually rejoin the footpath where it wasn’t being dug up. I didn’t think that I was in a particularly nice part of town, so I couldn’t believe my luck when I found what appeared to be the bus station! I went in, and it was a bit like a bank crossed with an indoor market. There was a café, a few shops that sold bizarre tat, and a few windows that clearly belonged to separate companies. The woman in the first one didn’t speak English, and the man in the second one told me that his company didn’t cover buses into the centre, and could I please go away now, thank you. Varna is, I reiterate, a seaside resort, that requires tourists for its economy. And I was, to be fair, there at the wrong time. So I decided to walk to the centre, with my phone out in my hand, in a bad neighbourhood in Bulgaria, looking 100% like a tourist, where nobody in the world knew exactly where I was. You can tell that I have a wonderful instinct for self-preservation. 

Here's the picture for the toilets. I knew I
was in Bulgaria

I then happened upon what I suppose must have been a kind of Soviet-era attempt at a shopping centre. There were a huge amount of shops, but all of them in discrete two storey buildings, like a charmless housing estate. There was all the stuff that you’d expect to find in a shopping district: second hand clothing vendors, cafes, kebab establishments, pet shops, even tanning parlours. But because the streets were so narrow and full of people, and the buildings so low, it had the feel of a Brazilian favela. In fact, I thought of it in my mind as the favelski. I probably should have spent longer looking around, but I wanted to get my bearings, and browsing a slightly scary shopping slum wasn’t my main priority, especially not after about 3 hours sleep.  Eventually I turned the corner into the main square, and my goodness, was it worth the walk. 

I was torn between visiting Varna or Sofia, but the cathedral was what swung Varna for me. When I finally saw it in real life, looming over the square like a force of nature, I stopped dead. It honestly took my breath away. It was just so different to anything I’d ever seen before. I just stood there, lit a cigarette, and looked at it. It manages to be both pretty and imposing. It was like finding the Koh-I-Noor on Margate beach: just so utterly incongruous and beautiful. I ended up walking around it two or three times, just trying to take it in. it really is a sight worth seeing. I actually went inside, and, of course, was confronted by a little kiosk selling religious icons and suchlike. I presume that the story of Jesus going nuts at the traders in the Synagogue for being capitalist pigdogs didn’t really make it into the Orthodox Bible.  I crossed myself in the Orthodox way, in case any nuns were watching and could smell Catholicism on me, and opened the second set of doors into the nave. My goodness, but the interior was just as incredible as the outside. For the first time, I felt like I’d left the West and properly gone to the East. I honestly wasn’t prepared to be faced with a sight like that before breakfast.

Here's my picture. There will be better photos

After I’d calmed down and visited a little café for some black coffee, I then decided to try and find my accommodation. I’d chosen an establishment that claimed you would “visit, check, and stay longer than you expected!” That sounded creepy as hell, so I went with it. I tend to book accommodation whilst I’m drunk. I read its name as the Yo-Yo Hostel when I booked it, and thought that was a remarkably good name for a hostel. You go there, you come back, just like a Yo-Yo! It was almost as good a name as Hostel Mostel in Sofia. I got there, and it turned out that I’m illiterate when I’m drunk. It was actually the Yo-Ho Hostel, and had a pronounced pirate theme. I sighed, signed in, paid the man, and was then treated to a 20 minute rundown of the sights and attractions of Varna, complete with a photocopied, hand-drawn map that I later discovered had only the vaguest resemblance to the actual city streets. It was lovely that he cared enough about my stay to make sure that I knew where the aquarium and the best clubs were, but I was swaying with tiredness and hunger, and I honestly just wanted him to stop talking and let me either sleep or eat something. I didn’t take a word in, and, having dropped my meagre possessions off in my room (a 12-person dorm, that only had me in it), set out for breakfast. The best bit of my brief sojourn at my home for the next few days was finally discovering what the receptionist meant by “walker”. It turned out that he was trying to say “locker”. I was actually vaguely disappointed, since I thought he meant I had the use of a complimentary Segway or something. 

The cathedral on a better day.
If you want a huge amount of these images, then you can have them. I dare you.

I left the hostel, and wandered into an Italian restaurant. The weather was warmish, and I was in an exciting new city! I would have had Bulgarian food, but I found the Italian place first, and I was in danger of passing out from hunger. I walked in, and was interrogated by a Bulgarian man for about two minutes. He asked me many questions, but didn’t wait for an answer. Eventually he paused, and I made the internationally accepted gesture for ‘food’, and smiled. “English,” he sighed, with a grimace. He rolled his eyes, shooed me to a table and threw a menu at me. I ordered a pizza that had chilies on, and something that I had never heard of: salintzani or some such. It turned out that that was tiny slices of sausage. I’m vegetarian, but by that point I was so hungry that I didn’t care, and I hadn’t knowingly ordered meat, which absolved me of any dietary sin. I also ordered a beer. It was about 11am, but I had been up for about 8 hours by that point, I was on holiday, and I was also on a drinking holiday. Pick an excuse, any excuse. 

I then decided to make my way down to the beach. I had seen the North Sea, the Irish Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. You’d better believe that I was ready to add the Black Sea to that list! And the town that I walked through was remarkably pleasant. Big wide streets, grand architecture, a nice mix of age demographics, and I could even forgive the palace-sized casino that dominated one of the streets. I eventually made my way into the Sea Garden, which I was promised was a lovely walk. In the pictures, it had palm trees, and I have a real weakness for palm trees. On closer inspection, they were potted palm trees in the pictures that I saw, which are rolled out for summer, and I was, of course, in Varna out of season. But still, it was a pleasant footpath, with its independent restaurants, abundance of trees, and the Black Sea rolling off to the side. The weather wasn’t brilliant, but I could see how the sandy beaches could be considered golden in the right light, and the swell of the sea was gentle, despite the wind. I wandered down for a mile or so, before turning back. I wandered along a little jetty, made friends with some swans (that’s expert-level animal husbandry, by the way. Even I was impressed with that feat), and sat on the beach for a while. I even dipped my toes in the water. It was bloody freezing. 

The Black Sea. Looks more grey to me, but there we go.

I eventually ended up in the harbour, which was remarkably industrial. It was good though, standing up by the lighthouse (where I don’t think I was meant to be), seeing the Black Sea all around me, with the wooded hills looming down over the city. I walked past some Roman ruins (complete with a litter of stray kittens), the Marine Administration, and the Musem of Varna. That was shut, to my disappointment. It reopened in May. Seaside towns out of season, man, they’re killers.

It was time for the pub. I ended up in a place called Saloon. Visiting that bar was the best decision I made whilst out there. You could smoke inside, for one thing, and the barman played Oasis on the stereo. He spoke perfect English, and a man that I thought was the owner came in, put a big block of cured bacon on the bar, cut me a slice, and made me eat it. You don’t argue with a man who has a big knife, especially when there’s a big (free) lump of traditional bar snack on the end of it. The barman gave me some frankly excellent local lager, and swapped one of his cigarettes for one of my Gauloises. Plus, through the window, I got to watch someone meticulously parking a 40 year old Soviet car so that it blocked up most of the pavement and quite a lot of the road. I should have gone back to Saloon, but I couldn’t find it again. In fact, I could hardly find my way back to the centre from there, because the barman looked at the map that the hostel receptionist had given me, laughed very hard, and then gestured vaguely in the direction in which I was supposed to go. 

I then tried to find some dinner. The meat on the pizza hadn’t agreed with me, so I wanted fish or vegetables. Unfortunately, I was to be disappointed. Pretty much everywhere either sold kebabs, meat and potatoes, or soup. I could only guess what was in the soup, but I’m not a fan of soup at all, so I was destined to go hungry. The nice independent restaurants down by the sea? Shut. All of them. I drifted around for a while, and ended up in a funny little bar under the stairs of what appeared to be a housing block. I sat there with a beer, my belly rumbling, and ended up talking to a mad old Finnish man. I attract loons, I can’t help it. He was, as I recall, a meteorologist, who moved to Varna when his wife died, because he loved the place, and liked the ‘mild’ winters. We had a bit of a conversation, which was abruptly terminated when a few of the other barflies started shouting in Bulgarian. He shouted back, but more gently, and this carried on for a while. Eventually he told me that they didn’t like that we were speaking English, but he’d calmed them down, and I was okay to stay. Spoiler alert: I didn’t. I went back to Yo-Ho Hostel, had a crap and went to sleep. I only noticed the sign in the bathroom telling me not to flush bog roll after I had flushed my used bog roll (it took six goes, but I got it down eventually). The sign, incidentally, had a cartoon of a pirate aggressively brandishing a toilet brush, which is an image that will haunt me in fever dreams and acid flashbacks for years to come. 

Here's the cathedral at night. It has Canterbury beaten.

The next day, I made sure that I filled up on breakfast, seeing as I wasn’t sure that there was anything much that I could eat in Varna. And the weird thing was, I was at a loss for what to do! A new country, an exciting, thriving city, and I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to spend my time. I spoke to a couple of German guys who had been to the thermal springs. It turned out that the thermal springs were about 100m away from where I’d been the day before. After grilling the receptionist, I found that I could choose to pay to go to the swimming baths, but they were possibly shut, or go to the free ones. You can guess what I chose. I put my swimming shorts on under my jeans, and set out. The weather was much worse than the previous day, but I figured that hot springs would keep the cold out. Besides, the Vikings used to visit saunas and then run around in the snow, so I was taking a much less extreme path, after all. And when I got there, I was confronted with an incredible sight. The sea was steaming, where the hot springs came up. And all over the beach, there were homeless people. It was like a convention. You couldn’t mistake them. Half of them looked like stereotypical bearded tramps, with some hard-faced gypsy-looking types in ragged clothing dotted around. I stood there, alone in a foreign country, looking at a steaming sea and a horde of Bulgarian homeless people, considered my options, and left. Now, I have given a lot of money to homeless charities, and I say that we, in this country, treat our homeless worse than animals, and that is a human rights crime. Please don’t mistake this for simple prejudice. Did I want to leave my possessions (namely wallet, hostel keys, tobacco, money and phone) alone on a beach with a large amount of homeless and hungry individuals? Not really. Most likely 99% of them would have been brilliant and looked after them for me, but it only takes one man to rob you.  

After that, I drifted around aimlessly for a while. I took in a few sights, like the outside of theatre, but I wasn’t sure what I could actually do. I wasn’t sure about travelling miles out of the city to see things like the Wonderful Rocks, Euxinograd or whatever. The problem was that so much was shut, and the Roman baths were needlessly expensive (£10, apparently, possibly due to my being out of season, or maybe they were free and the woman in the doorway was a particularly accomplished panhandler), and a lot of other things were very far away. So I decided to hit the Retro Museum!

Here' a motorbike

The Retro Museum turned out to be in the very shopping mall in which I first surfaced, bleary eyed and hungover, in Bulgaria. So I had to retrace my steps! I was slightly less terrified of the favelski shopping centre this time. That lasted until I went into a pet shop to look at a nice snake that I saw through the window. The man behind the counter asked me a few questions in Bulgarian, and seemed to misinterpret me pointing at said snake, smiling and putting my thumbs up as a request to buy the bloody thing. I somehow got out without having to buy a serpent that 1) probably wouldn’t have been allowed in Yo Ho hostel, and 2) would doubtlessly have perished in the Bulgarian cold, and 3) would have been a ballache (probably literally) to get onto the plane. 

Anyway, I made it to the big, horrific mall. I followed the signs for the Retro Museum, and ended up in an underground car park. I lit a cigarette, and decided to stop thinking like a stupid tourist, and just go in through the bloody front doors. I went up in the lift, and there it was, the Retro Museum! It was about £5, and fuck me, it was worth it!

I gave my money to the wee cross-eyed bint behind the desk, and stepped through a thick red curtain, like you’d find in a theatre. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness before a middle aged old bag appeared out of the gloom to tell me, in minimal English, that I could take photos (‘photos is… OK!’) but that I couldn’t cross the velvet ropes (‘no please crossing… red deeevide…’). I followed all these rules to the letter, and it was incredible. Admittedly, I still had a fairly hellish hangover, and would probably have paid the entry money to be in a cool, dark room, but it was well worth it.

What these guys had, on the second floor of this faceless mall, was a huge collection of Soviet cars and motorcycles, as well as a load of old Communist made toys, and cigarette boxes, and all sorts of mad shit. It was incredible. They were piping in this crazy old Communist music, and I was in a huge room, full of old cars. I was in heaven. There were cars that I recognised from Poland, and old Soviet marching banners, and radios, and everything. I walked around for a good two hours, just looking at everything. They hadn’t quite got the information points right, though. There were little computer screens that told me the cars’ years of production, wheelbase, engine size, and general technical details. I would have far preferred some details on their country of origin, relative cost, general use (dignitaries, family saloons, whatever), but I won’t hold this against them. I cannot fault the value for money. I must have walked around twice, and loved it each time.

A big old Soviet bruit car. If you know me, then you'll
know how many I'd like to own (the answer is six)

By the time I left, it was about 3pm, and a bit bleak, meteorologically speaking. Now, as a little aside, I speak some (minimal) Russian. I can, however, read Cyrillic, thanks to a Russian class I took at uni, and KINO. I spent a lot of time in Bulgaria mumbling the street signs to myself, partly because I could, and partly to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten what the letters sounded like. Now, on the way to the Retro Museum, I saw a big gate, set into a wall, that promised (a word that I didn’t recognise) Park. I love urban parks. I love the grandiosity of them, and being amongst green things instead of concrete. So, on the way back to town, I decided to go through those gates. It turned out that they meant ‘cemetery’, rather than ‘park’. Or, maybe that mysterious word was “boneyard” or “death”. I did not spend a happy two hours there. I spent about ten minutes, surrounded by distraught Bulgarian grandmothers, before I braved the traffic and dismantled pavements to hit central Varna again. I got there, and it started to snow.

I went to the pub. Immediately. I did not pass Go. Well, that’s a lie. I argued with Google Maps for a while, and ended up, having tramped around downtown Varna in the snow for about an hour, absolutely sodden with melted snow, angered at Kommandent Google for misdirecting me, in the pub that Google Herself originally suggested, but by a longer route. The bar was called the Black Sheep (I think), and it promised its own beer. I didn’t see evidence of this, so sat down, and drank several of the local beers. It wasn’t until I ordered a different one that I was told by the landlord that they didn’t have that beer: that tap was for their homebrew (much nicer than mine), and they only had that particular beer’s label on there as a placeholder. It turned out that their own beer was about half the price of the other beers. 

It was remarkably easy drinking. I eventually retired, found my way home, and had a nap for dinner. I had been thinking of a vague plan since I had started drinking, and I hoped that a wee sleep would take the idea away. I awoke at 8pm to meet the other inhabitants of the hostel properly. I should have stayed asleep. 

There was a bar in the hostel! Plus one TripAdvisor star for that! The other people in it? No thanks. I met a senile/insane Dutchman first. He spoke almost no recognisable English, and apparently had decided to retire, and spend the rest of his life cruising around hostels until he died, or something. He tapped a few cigarettes off me, but I didn’t mind. After him, we had ‘vaguely aggressive art student from Leeds’ who talked a bit about architecture with me, then went out to get a stinking chicken kebab. We also had a Bulgarian guy, who was in Varna for business, apparently. He refused to say what kind. And then, the star of the show, an obese woman from somewhere in the North of England! I think she was from around Dorchester, but everything she said was such moronic nonsense that I didn’t care enough to retain a word of it. Various horrors involved her dietetics course (apparently, my body should be alkaline, rather than acidic), and her garden wall that was falling down. I sat there in stony eyes silence, quite happy to drink myself to sleep, until she realised that the Bulgarian guy was Bulgarian. It turned out that she was trying to buy property there, but needed a negotiator. I sat there, until she tried six times to pronounce Shkorpilovtsi, but each time only managed “Scorpiosa”. I threw a handful of change on the counter, and told them I was going out. “Where?” they asked. “Strip club!” I said, lighting a cigarette. 

That was my plan. Now, please don’t think of me as a pervert. I am one, but no more than any man is. The last time I went to a strip club in Eastern Europe, we had a great time. I had to try to explain to Polish strippers that I was interested in rock music, history, and literature, in Polish, while a girl got her boobs out for my mate because he bought her a drink that looked more like an acrobatic fruit salad than a beverage. He ended up spending far too much money that night, and I decided that I should learn from his mistakes. That was a mistake in itself.

You don't want a picture for this bit. Here's the cathedral in Spring

I arrived there, and got frisked by an old man that had probably been in some kind of secret police. Before he frisked me, he made me raise my arms, and he scared me so much that I raised them over my head, as if he had a gun. He laughed in my face and told me, in English, that he was making sure that I didn’t “have a knife as well.” As well as what? As well as him? As well as a wallet? A beard? I had no idea. But he let me in, and I was given a beer and an ashtray. I was also given a wonderful view of a fully nude girl, who had fake boobs, but a face a bit like a peasant pretending to be a secretary. She grooved around to some song, went backstage to get dressed, then joined the middle aged English men at the next table, who put some money in her G-string, and got her pretending to find them interesting for about five minutes. Then the next girl came out, and did something similar. I sat there for two or three rounds of girls (and beer) before I decided to pay up, so that I didn’t overdrink, and also to make sure that I had enough funds to fully enjoy myself. 

It turned out that the scary doorman should have told me that there was a 20 Leva entry fee. That was important information, because it turned out that I didn’t have enough money about me to pay my bar tab. Fuck me, that was terrifying. In immediate debt, to a Bulgarian go-go bar? I ended up having to give the barmaid my phone, cross and chain, cigarettes, driving licence and whatever else I could give to make sure that she would let me leave to get enough money to pay my tab. Top tip: don’t bring too much money to a strip club. Also DO NOT BRING TOO LITTLE. I cannot stress this strongly enough. 

I decided to get more than enough money to see me through the rest of the night. Whilst I was doing this, I think my drink got spiked. That’s the only explanation. I won’t go into the details of my efforts to get a private dance from one of the girls, but, top tip: if you’re in a Bulgarian go-go bar, do not try and haggle any prices. The girls don’t like it. They will eventually have a conversation with the bar manager, and you’ll have to leave very quickly before an inevitable, horrifying backlash comes down upon you. I do, however, grudgingly admire my business acumen, haggling over £5 with a woman who had her breasts out.

That snow was wet.

Jesus, the head I had the next day. Holy shit, I don’t remember the last time I had a headache like that. Between about 10 hours of beer, no food, a poor night’s sleep and an early start, I was feeling rather the worse for wear. I forced down a bowl of muesli (breakfast, lunch and dinner, in one handy bowl!) and about four cups of coffee. I checked out, promised to give them a blinding review on TripAdvisor (it’s on my to-do list guys, I promise), and left. I had about ten hours until I had to get my flight, and was again at a loss as to what to do. It was still snowing, but not the deep luxurious snows of Romania: horrible, damp snow that gets into everything. I had a quick farewell look at the Black Sea, and decided to drift around the centre for a while. I wanted to visit an independent record shop, but there was a big dog in the doorway, so I couldn’t go in. After another litre of black coffee in some faceless café, I decided to make my way to the airport. I navigated through favelski unscathed, and then realised that I had much too much time spare. So I decided to fully explore the shopping mall. It was disappointingly samey, really. Absolutely no different to any shopping mall anywhere. Well, what do you expect in the global age?

Anyway, I filled the time by waiting for the bus. It sounds tedious, but it was actually vaguely exciting. I spent about 40 minutes waiting, asking other people in my best Bulgarian if this was the stop for the airport bus, and got absolutely no joy – either they replied in Bulgarian that I couldn’t quite understand - no English, sorry - or they didn’t know. I saw a wide variety of buses pass, but none of them were the 20, or whatever it was I wanted. Was I even speaking Bulgarian? Was I in the right place? Did I look/smell like a derelict?! So, I cut my losses, and went through the underpass, thinking I’d have better luck there. I got to the other side, just in time to see the bus go right past where I was, complete with a big picture of an aeroplane on the front, next to the number. I think it was an hour until the next one. 

But I made it to the airport. I didn’t feel particularly good about the whole place, and then I stepped through the doors, and was confronted by a big fucking German Shephard. I really, truly hate dogs. I’m phobic about them. I see a dog, and if it’s big, or it’s not on a lead, or I’m surprised by it, then I freeze. I can’t help it. I’m slowly getting better, though. When I freeze up, I let my partner lead me by the hand past the dog. It’s extremely humiliating, but she likes dogs. She wasn’t in Varna airport, which was good, because I froze in the doorway. It took about a minute, but I realised that the big dog was on a harness, and was an airport sniffer dog. I managed to get to a bench, and then sat there, trying not to move, for about four hours. Interestingly, the McDonalds on the other side of the gates charges slightly too much for sauce to go on your fries.

Here's how it could have looked.

So, Bulgaria. A nice foil to Germany, because I want to hate Germany, but I quite like it, despite myself. I wanted to love Bulgaria, but I couldn’t. I suppose I visited the wrong city at the wrong time. The architecture and the beach are both incredible. If I could have eaten something, it would have been even better. I saw adverts for Black Sea fish, octopi and other marine comestibles. Aside from a scary bunch of drunks, people were helpful, and generally friendly. The surroundings are brilliant. If I’d had a week there in high summer, I could have had a radically different time. So, as I said, this is my fault. And maybe one day, I’ll go back, at the right time, and it’ll be brilliant. My visit could have been. The weather held me back, as did my time of year. I don’t regret it at all, but I shouldn’t have visited an Eastern European resort out of season. But, if Varna has anything for me, then all the stray cats were beautiful, and it was there that my Mother-In-Law agreed to be my Mother-In-Law (thank you, strip club, for getting me drunk enough to even ask her). 

As a flip side to all this, I regretted leaving Varna as soon as I did. I actively object to flying.  I was next to an old Bulgarian bag who crossed herself at the same time as me, both of us in the Orthodox style (sorry, Pope Francis, but it’s the same God).It only got worse when I landed. I won’t go into the details, but you can spend a night in Luton Airport whenever you want, and tell me how you like it. Thank (Orthodox and Catholic Jesus equally) for Bulgarian duty free booze and smokes to get me through the whole affair. My piles have not recovered. That floor is as cold as a witch’s teat.

erself Hersel reccommendedHeH