А Work Week Outside of Sofia

I spent the past week at the AGRA Fair in Plovdiv (the second largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia). Among the many other things we do, every year our company works with the Dutch Embassy to organize and manage their stand at the fair. This year, 8 Dutch companies in the field of agriculture had sent representatives to the stand. All in all, it was a busy but interesting week and I was happy to get away from the office for a while. A few observations:

1. Dutch people can be really fun! What you most frequently hear about the Dutch is that they are a little cold and quite stingy. Well, the group at the fair were nothing like that--towards the end, it was almost hard for me to keep up with their level of drinking and wanting to go out every night!

2. Bulgarians are really surprised when you are nice and friendly to them and you answer their questions with patience and a smile. While at the stand, my colleague and I had to hand out brochures, translate for the Dutch representatives and potential customers, and answer all sorts of questions (from "Where do I hand in my lottery slip?"--we had nothing to do with the lottery, mind you--to "So what are you guys selling?"). However, doing so with a smile seemed to amaze people. They were even more amazed when we would offer them a plastic bag to keep all their brochures in. We got responses such as "Oh, you are sooo kind" and "Finally, someone friendly at this fair!" At the end of it all, one man even gave me a small booklet he had written (which he also signed for me) because apparently I had been really kind to him. I myself have always been put off by most Bulgarians' lack of client-orientedness, but the divide between client-friendly and -unfriendly seemed to really stand out at this fair.

3. I was a little sad to see so many people get extremely excited by the opportunity for freebies--pens, calendars, caps, keychains--at one point as we were handing pens and caps out people started getting almost aggressive and grabbing them out of our hands. For days after we had given everything we had away people would still stop by and ask if we had any pens or keychains left. It reminded me once again of how stark the difference in Bulgarians' economic wellbeing still is.

4. The fair seemed to attract a lot of retirees--who, having nothing to do all day, would wander around and stop to chat with people at every stand. We had one old man stop by our stand almost daily and reminisce about how things were back in the 50s and 60s. It was endearing (at least for me) to see.

5. Plovdiv is a really cool town. I have always been enamored by the Old Town... which I wandered through once again, but the new part also boasts some interesting restaurants and places to go out. We even happened upon a live appearance by Te (a Bulgarian band).