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.