Why You Shouldn't Take U.S. ATMs for Granted

Ever wanted to do something bad to an American ATM out of frustration? Well, if you ever do get that feeling, don't, because I can tell you that (as silly as it may sound) I actually miss American ATMs here. What I like about them? Well, here are a couple of things:

1. You can deposit money right at the ATM into your account (you can't do that here at an ATM, and in order to do that at your bank, you have to first go through a customer service rep (who approves the request) and then a teller (who takes your money); so you have 2 stops before you have even made a deposit. Not to mention that you can only deposit money at the branch in which you first opened your account. Talk about in-flexibility!)

2. US ATMs tell you how much money you have left in your account. At least the ones, for the bank that houses your accounts. Here, they don't, unless you request to view your balance, for which you are charged (it's not much, but it's the principle of that matter that counts, I think).

Well, to be fair, there are a couple of cool things you can do at an ATM here, that you can't in the US--like pay your electricity or phone bill for example. Now, that is convenient. But why the hell they can't make it so you can deposit money and not have to go to only one branch in all of Sofia is beyond me!

Coming Full Circle

Last night, I added one more piece of evidence to the theory that the world in Sofia is small, very small. A friend (Ani) had invited me to her friend's birthday--a guy called Andrey--at club Gramofon. I show up expecting to meet a bunch of new people, when it turns out that I actually know the guy, from high school, and we had even celebrated New Year's 2000 together. Now, to make this even more confusing, I know Ani from the States (and she did not go to my high school). She used to live in NYC, and I had met her through one of my best friends (who also lives in NYC). Andrey now also studies in the States and was just visiting. So, through some weird twist of events and acquaintances, we all met last night at Gramofon. In addition, there were a bunch of other people from school I hadn't seen since graduation. Anyway, it feels good to have these kinds of random moments--something Sofia is infamous for.

Каким бывает женский оргазм

Apologies for those who cannot read or understand Russian, but I wouldn't do this justice if I attempt to translate it. Anyway, I had a good laugh, so thought I'd share :)

Астматический: (охи, ахи) “А..а..а..”
Географический: “Сюда, сюда…”
Математический: “Еще, еще!”
Спортивный: “Быстрее! Еще, еще чуть быстрее….”
Научно-исследовательский: “Глууубже, глууубже… а-а-а… и не вынимай…”
Звериный: женщина вцепляется ногтями в спину и “нечленораздельно рычит”.
Иногда может нанести травмы зубами.
Агрономический: “О! Засади глубже!…”
Положительный: ” О!.. Да… О!.. Да…”
Отрицательный: “О!.. Нет… О!.. Нет…”
Религиозный: “О!.. Боже…”
Суицидальный: “О! Я сейчас умру!”
Криминальный: “О! Ты меня убиваешь!”
Угрожающий: “Если ты остановишься, я тебя убью!”
Инцестуальный: “О! Мама!”
Симулированный: “О! … Вася (Миша, Коля, Толя и т. п.)! “
Виртуальный: “Маша[15.10.2006 16:22:56] >> Кончаю…”

Today...

Tonight as I was heading home, walking along Tsar Osvoboditel (one of the main streets in Sofia), for the first time since I arrived, I thought to myself "It feels good to be here." It's not that I felt badly before; as I think I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I just felt sort of neutral. I didn't feel bad, but I guess I also didn't feel at home. Slowly, I think that is changing. And it's definitely a great feeling! Liberating, is the best word I can think of. Slowly, I don't feel behind, like I always have to get used to something I am not familiar with, start from scratch...I do find it a bit strange that I feel this way only a few days after my worst week, as described in Saturday's post... but I guess that is how things are here. It is a roller-coaster ride all the way and a place of extremes. We'll see how it goes from here.

So as a treat :), here are a few pics I took last week of some of my favorite landmarks in Sofia, and a view towards Boyana ("suburb" of Sofia, if I can call it that, although it sounds funny to me) and Vitosha mountain, taken from my grandparents' apartment. Click on the image if you want to see a (much) enlarged version.

How to spend a lazy Sunday in Sofia

Option 1:

1. Wake up at 11 am
2. Vote for president
3. Visit the grandparents (after a week of eating out or making sandwiches at home, a warm home-cooked meal is more than welcome!)
4. Visit the other grandmother (including taking an hour-long nap)
5. Go home
6. Have a friend stop by for tea
7. Skype, skype, and more skype :)
8. Make a “plan of attack” for the following week

Option 2:

1. Wake up
   
2. Meet up with windsurfer friend
3. Drive from Varna to Sofia
4. Meet up with set of friends #1 in bar/café/restaurant #1
5. Meet up with set of friends #2 in bar/café/restaurant #2
6. Meet up with set of friends #3 in bar/café/restaurant #3
7. Meet up with set of friends #4 in bar/café/restaurant #4
8. Meet up with set of friends #5 in bar/café/restaurant #5
9. Meet up with set of friends #6 in bar/café/restaurant #6
10. Go home after midnight and go to sleep

I am not making the above up. One of the options describes how my last Sunday went; the other how Lubo’s did. Those of you who know Lubo (yes, wind-/kitesurfer/ Oregon Lubo) will know very well that Option 2 describes Lubo’s Sunday :). Yes, Lubo is in Bulgaria until the end of November (or so, cause with him one never knows :) ), was in Sofia for a few days and is now on his way to Vienna and then Poland via Sky Europe (one of the growing number of low-cost carriers flying to Bulgaria). We hung out yesterday (Monday) and by the end of the night he started complaining about how only in Sofia on a Sunday can one spend 9 hours in 6 different bars/cafés/restaurants and that he can't repeat something similar on the following night too… Hasn’t happened to me yet, but then again, I am now not only a visitor.

So, how did you spend your Sunday?

One of Those Weeks

I just had one of those weeks that I hope I never get to repeat. For the first time since I got here, I was shaken awake by the Bulgarian reality. Maybe I was just overly sensitive this past week, who knows? It all started with my return from Helsinki. As I had gotten my luggage (which they had made me check in because it was 9 kgs instead of 8) and made my way through customs, using the "nothing to declare" aisle, a customs officer decided that he had lazed around enough for the evening and asked me where I was coming from and what I had been doing there. (I didn't know that customs officers doubled up as immigation officials too...) Anyhow, sarcasm aside, I answered his questions when he asked me whether I was carrying anything for "other persons". I must have looked at him in a disdainful way as I answered "No" because he was kind of surprised. (The absurdity in the situation is that I had a very small bag--as I said, weighing 9 kgs. I have passed through customs with two huge suitcases before and no-one asked me anything.) Anyhow, after double-checking my answer by asking me "No?", he wished me a good night and I was on my way. Well, I then ended up with one of those "nice" taxi drivers, who guilt-tripped me the whole way home that he had waited in the taxi queue for an hour, and it was just his luck that he now had to drive me a very short distance (I live really close to the airport.) I just wished he would get over it! In addition to this, I had people slam the elevator and apartment building entry door right in front of my face quite a few times this week; this I could understand if they hadn't seen me, but all these people had turned around right before doing that and seen me coming in right after them and still did it. I guess, it's the mentality of "I'm in a real big hurry and can't wait for you, cause I am in SUCH a big hurry!" It's ridiculous... In addition, work reality is also settling in and I am not quite accustomed to it, I must say. Hopefully, all it will take is some time and the right adjustment that won't require too much sacrifice on my part. But that's just the way things are here and I can't get affected by them... otherwise, it is going to be a loooong road.

Anyhow, so to celebrate the end of this suboptimal week, I decided to "drown my sorrow" in Alcohol with a couple of friends (one of whom also needed to desperately recover from a bad week). Alcohol is a bar/club downtown that actually did achieve its mission. The music was great, the crowd--mixed and energetic, the setup of the place--really interesting. There was a promotion for Absolut Vanilla, so at one point we were served shots of it in sugar cones :)--an intriguing approach. Also, our attention was mostly diverted by two dancers who were dancing against a white canvas, their silhouettes and every move displayed on it, again advertising Absolut Vanilla. I was highly amused by a guy who was mirroring everything one of the dancers did while standing face-to-face with the canvas. He was actually quite good and kept up with her very well. :) Another room in the club contained a bar as well as tables, couches, pillows, all Oriental style--the lounge--where you could just chill and smoke a shisha. So all in all, it was a good time that we plan to repeat sometime soon. (Supposedly, it is also the place where lots of folks from the American University of Bulgaria hang out; probably because one of the owners is also co-owner of the infamous Underground in Blagoevgrad.)

Oh, in case you are interested in the most fashionable drink these days (well, has been probably since the summer and perhaps even spring), it is vodka Sobieski green label with green apple (aka Granny Smith) juice (yes, it must be from green apples :) ). I must say, it is pretty good, although I usually try to stay away from being a slave to fashion ;)

And with that, I will just say that I hope you had a better week than me.

Mobile Phone Concerts

Bulgarians and mobile phones... Quite a few observations can stem from that phrase. For one, 90% of Bulgarians seem to own the latest models in mobile telephony (even the 18 year olds). Quite a paradox, given the fact that nearly the same percentage complain how they receive barely more than the mean wage for the country. (As a side note, I just want to mention that at the same time, in Finland--home of Nokia and neighbor to Ericsson--most people still own camera-less phones with black-and-white display.)

Well, the thing that I find even more bizarre, or should I say interesting, is how most Bulgarians never silence their phones. They have them set to the loudest setting so that we may all listen to their choice of ringing tone as they reach into their pockets or rummage through their bags to get to their ringing phone. And I have the slight suspicion that they do this not simply because they are afraid they will miss a call by not hearing it (that's why people thought of the vibrating alert that can definitely be felt if you carry your phone in your pocket or even in a bag). In buses, cabs, restaurants, etc. I am privy to the latest polyphonic sounds. Don't get me wrong, I'm not so much annoyed as amused. It was funny to walk behind a man who all of a sudden had the whistling tune from Kill Bill start playing from his pocket--the one that one-eyed Daryl Hannah whistled when visiting Uma Thurman in the hospital. It had quite a sobering effect on me :). Even better is when you hear a hard-core rap song, turn around, and see a middle-aged woman reach into her bag. And, of course, let's not forget the chalga rhythms some people are really big fans of.

Yes, every day out is like a set of concerts...

Did someone say "frat"?

One thing I forgot to mention. Finns are crazy about fraternities...although unlike in the US that doesn't merely involve sporting a baseball cap :). When they belong to a fraternity, they wear the uniform and insignia of that fraternity... out in public, as if wearing normal clothes. It was kind of bizarre to see. For example, men in military wear with weird hairdos (and, no, they were not from the military). My favorite example though is of this group of teenagers my sister and I saw in Suomenlinna (an island off the coast of Helsinki and home to a fortress). After our walk around, we were heading back to the ferry and spotted this group of teenagers dressed in black and wearing black cloaks. As we got closer, we saw that they were also wearing striped scarves (half of them red and yellow, the other half green and white), and some of them were holding wooden sticks that resembled magic wands. I cannot state this with 100% certainty, but we are almost sure that we had landed upon a Harry Potter fan club/fraternity or something of the sort...There were about 20 of them... and no-one else around us seemed to find it strange at all. Well, you can draw your own conclusions, but mine is that some of these people really have nothing better to do with their time :). I don't mean it in a bad way, but I did find it a tad peculiar :).

Impressions from Helsinki

This entry will digress a little from my “back in Bulgaria” theme and go back to my “travelogue” beginning.
Last night, I came back from Helsinki where I spent 4 days visiting my sister (who had the crazy idea to turn her back on the opportunity to go to Spain for a year, and went to Helsinki instead…. go figure :-)). Well, the first thing you might imagine Helsinki to be is coooooold. Well, yes, it was, but the weather that I came back to in Sofia was much colder, so that wasn’t really what I found distinguishing about Helsinki.

Helsinki is first and foremost a modern city—there isn’t really an old town or anything similar. Second, it is a city on water—there is water everywhere, ferries, and sea gulls; you get that smell in the air and you know you are near water. To me, Helsinki really reminded me of Hamburg (where I spent one year of my undergraduate studies in 1999-2000)—same architectural style, same level of modernity, same weather, quite expensive, bound by water…The Finnish language we all know is very different from any other Western European language. But I personally had no idea exactly how different it was, until I visited. The word for “center” as in city center sounds similar in many languages: centre in English, centre in French, Zentrum in German, centro in Spanish, център (pronounced tsentar) in Bulgarian… well, in Finnish, the word is keskus. The word restaurant, also quite international and similar in most European languages is ravintola. So, most certainly, no matter how many languages you know, you most probably will not be able to understand a single word when spoken to in Finnish :-).

Well, I could start talking about Finns and their relationship to alcohol, tell you how expensive it is, etc. etc. Instead, I will just tell you this story… took place on my flights to and from Helsinki; I think it will illustrate what I want to share very well. So, I am sitting on the flight to Helsinki from Frankfurt (after barely making my connection and running across most of Frankfurt airport, after my flight from Sofia departed with a two hour delay). Anyway, the time comes for food and beverages to be served. On my previous flight (Sofia to Frankfurt), I saw people ordering a variety of things to drink—from mineral water, to Coke, to beer. Well, on this flight, every single person (and I really do not exaggerate) except me ordered red wine (and still mineral water). I thought, “Man, Finns must really like red wine.” Then I remembered how expensive alcohol is supposed to be and it made sense. Well, that was one thing. On the flight back however (Helsinki to Muenchen), we first start the same routine with the beverages, everyone orders red wine… until we get to two men who are sitting across the aisle from me, and what do they order? Wine and ………beer. I couldn’t believe it!! Alcohol could be expensive, you might want to drink as much as you can to offset the price of your ticket, binge-drink etc. but mixing wine with beer just seems like too much. So, so much about Finns and alcohol.

And with that I will leave you for now. Pictures coming soon…

A Small Victory

Just wanted to mention that tonight Bulgaria drew with Holland in the Euro Cup qualifier. Final score 1:1. Our goal was amazing; theirs was average. Unfortunately, we started off very well but didn't keep it up. Oh, I should also mention that I experienced all of this live, at the stadium, and it rained the whole time. Hopefully, I won't be sick tomorrow.

Anyway, go Bulgaria!!

What's Wrong with Bulgarian Taxi Drivers

Four weeks after my arrival in Sofia, I can now safely say that I have enough experience with taxi drivers here to justify my complaints about them. Add to that the stories friends have told me, and here you have it: a list of top pet peeves about bulgarian taxi drivers (in no particular order):

1. They talk too much. I can understand that spending hours on end in a car on the crazy streets of Sofia and in traffic jams is not very conducive to your staying sane, but that doesn't mean that you have to talk my head off about politics, who you hate, why life sucks, etc. Just drive quietly and get me to where I want to go.
2. They drive like maniacs. This I admit is a "quality" common to all taxi drivers, irrespective of the country. Still, I thought I should mention it.
3. They really (I mean REALLY) like to take part in their passengers' conversations. It amazes me how taxi drivers here just feel free to butt into your conversation and express an opinion without being asked... What is worse is that they then take over the whole conversation.
4. Some of them cheat you. I have to admit, this happens a lot less frequently now than it did in the past, but it still does happen occasionally. They rig the meter so it runs up a larger bill than the kms you have actually travelled.
5. They smoke a lot. There is no concept of ensuring the passenger's comfort, so often you are subjected to a car full of smoke and loud "chalga" music blasting from the radio. In the end, it's not so much the smoke or the music that bothers me; it's the fact that they won't even ask if you mind or not. That's all.
6. They refuse to drive you to where you want to go. More so than in any other place I have lived, taxi drivers here are really selective about where they drive you. If you are going a short distance or in a direction they don't really feel like driving, they simply refuse to take you. Or they make you feel like they are doing you a huge favor, when agreeing to drive you after first complaining about it for 5 minutes.

And to wrap this up, since I don't want to be too negative, I'll mention a really good experience I had yesterday with a woman taxi driver. She immediately agreed to take me to where I wanted to go, asked if the music was too loud and if she should close the window, we then made some small talk, after which she left me alone and in quiet to enjoy the classical music playing on the radio, while driving me home. That's how it should be. Instead of stressing you out, taking a cab should make things easier and less stressful.

Today...

Today, something unexpected happened. I met a classmate of mine I hadn't seen in 9 years. It was a little strange. But the strangest thing of all was that it felt like that time hadn't passed; like we were meeting only a month or so after our high school graduation. She hadn't changed that much; she said, I looked exactly the same... (Well, I guess there was one sign that 9 years had passed, since one of the first things she did was check out my hands for a wedding band) :). Anyhow, it's amazing how in such moments, it's almost like time stands still... just for a few seconds, and then it's back to the rollercoaster ride.

How to Feel Young?

Answer: Come to Bulgaria.

The above may seem a little absurd to some, but I can guarantee that it is true. If you have spent at least a few years abroad (in a let's say more developed country, where things run in an organized way, there is less stress about every day things etc.), you are bound to look younger than most people your age in Bulgaria. Case in point:
#1. I take a cab home one night; once we get to the area where I live and I direct the driver to my apartment building, he started telling me how my apartment building used to serve as a landmark as soon as it was built (it's the tallest one in that area), which was in 1987. At that point the cab driver turned to me and said "You probably don't remember because that was before you were born."
So, according to him. I was born in or after 1987... a good eight years after my actual birth year :)

#2. I had joined a friend at the shooting of a commercial. One of the extras was an old man (probably in his 70s). At one point, he asked me, "So, where do you go to school?" (meaning high school). He was quite in shock when I told him that I had graduated from UNIVERSITY five years ago.

So, as I said. If you ever feel too old, pay a visit. :)