PS:

I cant believe it. The David Bisbal epidemic has reached Romania and he'll be on stage here tomorrow. He had better bring his woolies...

Weather matters & bucharest personality

Any meteorologists among you? I'd like to know how a 2.5 hour bus journey north, can make the temperature drop by 20 degrees!!! It is a absolutely freezing in Bucharest!

I like Bucharest, I'm probably one of it's only fans....it oozes an intense personality, it's characterful, it's chaotic, it's smelly, the old quarters are a mix of beautiful (but faded) churches and rubble (left, right and centre). And there's a incredible restaurant there too, I was there extactly a year ago to the day. You order a lamb and you get just that. A LAMB. Well almost...

It's been a great trip - see you soon

Ruse

Ruse, on the banks of the River Danube and on the Bulgarian/Romanian border, can be conveniently described in 2 words: A DUMP. Maybe that's a slightly harsh assesment. However, It is everything but a 'very appealing and lively town' as described by the lonely planet author - was he on some kind of back-hander from the town's mayor?

The owner of The English Guesthouse is also described as a Charismatic Englishman - I'd personally describe him as a complete d***head - spent the best part of 20 minutes with him and his mates from Harrogate and all I heard was: "Am I not so cool and great???" OR "I am doing the Bulgarian girl over there , so hands off"...pathetic.

Left as quickly as I could and by 6:15 this morning was crossing the border into Romania..

bulgarian property prices

I know this will be a ludicrously boring post for most of you, I guess i have run out of ideas!

Seriously, Tarnovo is full of estate agents, and while on a walk yesterday evening stopped to have a browse..

For 350,000 euros (this was the highest price I saw anywhere in town) you can buy a downtown Veliko Tarnovo hotel (I hear you gasp) which sleeps up to 16 people and has the wonderful name of "The Pink Bakkery". At the other end of the property scale for less bulging wallets, I saw on offer for 4,000 euros for a small house (it did have a roof and 4 walls if you're wondering).Or if you're REALLY into property you could put down 90,000 Euros and get 9 small cottages in exchange.

That's enough on this rubbish - I promise to be more inspired tomorrow.

Bulgarian fashion

Traveling solo provides plenty of 'dead time' to carry out profound, accurate analysis of the country's culture, customs, and traditions.

While I was waiting for my pork-on-a-skewer with bulgarian oven-toasted bread to arrive, I noted the following with respect to Bulgarian fashion:-

For the ladies, make-up is an absolute must if you're going to be leaving the house. Anything smart and tight is in, loose and baggy can be left in the cupboard. Knee high boots with marked heel (very compatible with the terrible tarmacked roads) and huge leather handbags (the size of my bed pillow) also popular! The sale of hair straighteners must be huge.....

As for the men, you're going to blend in if you're wearing a big, heavy leather jacket, blue jeans and you're clean shaven. Balding men with overgrowing jungle-like beards are nowhere to be seen...

Bulgarian Breakfast

The breakfast menu this morning was longer than the wine-listing at a 3-star michelin restaurant. I homed-in on what looked like the star breakfast on offer: a cake, the size of a frisbie, covered in green and brown icing (representing a muddy field I guess) with a fortress (including draw-bridge, moat and viewing tours) mounted on top. I guessed the icing fortress was intended to be a particularly bad representation of Tarnovo's fortress itself. It would no doubt feed me, the bar girl and everyone else having breakfast in the bar.

I played safe, and went for the "diet Pancake" instead. It turned out to be everything but a diet: the plate was too small for the pancake, which was rolled up and bulging (like a size 36 pants on an obese man) with fruit that had been stuffed inside...covering it was a thick coating of honey and oat seeds...very, very tasty though!

Veliko Tarnovo: a rough diamond

Veliko Tarnovo is a like a rough diamond. The first thing you come across on approaching the village is what looks like a rock mine, on closer inspection it's infact a massive construction site. However, go beyond the construction site, head into the heart of the old town, and it's a lot more pleasant to the human eye. You find yourself in a maze of narrow, cobbled alleyways that cling to the mountain side and look down into the river below. The houses here are small and traditional style, with intricate wooden balconies and stone walls covered by grape vines. The air is filled with the scent of burning wood.

It turns out that Veliko Tarnovo infact means Great Tarnovo. Just imagine that. "So where do YOU come from"? "I come from Estupenda Barcelona!"

Bulgarians are like Indians in at least 1 way

Bulgarians also do the funny head movements, maybe not as obvious as the Indians, but it's noticeable nonetheless. The movement up/down means NO , and horizontally across YES. However, I am told that SOME locals will swap this to our ways when in front of tourists...which (in combination with an impossible alphabet to learn) just adds to the confusion! it's all fun though!

the party train

I walked onto the 730 Express Train at Sofia this morning, and found a party in full motion: the train was packed to the rafters, and the only people on it were in their 20's. Most of them were either talking loud and swigging at bottles of every type of conceivable alcohol, or had passed the moment of no-return and where collapsed on the seat, or even worse, the doorway. or even worse (given the stench), collapsed on the toilet seat.

It turns out that ALL of Bulgaria's University Students are doing the same thing: December 8th is Bulgaria National Day for University Students. The plan as Nikolai pointed out is not a very elaborate one: DRINKING. I asked him to elaborate: DRINKING IN THE MOUNTAINS WITH FRIENDS, THE GIRLS COOK, WE GUYS JUST DRINK. (At this point, his girlfriend butts in: MEN ARE IDIOTS)

I was heading to Veliko Tarnovo (which is where I am now). It's Bulgaria's former capital, and conveniently half-way between Sofia and Bucharest. It also has to be one of the most dramatically-situated towns I have ever been to. The town is cut into 3 by a large meandering river, the mountains rise on all sides, and there is a huge fortress overlooking the whole place - beautiful.

I think I managed to find the only empty bed in town - with the university students having taken everything else and on a mission of never sleep, getting some rest is going to be tough.

Hope you're all well...

radoslav and nikolai

I met Radoslav and Nikolai yesterday night (during the rakia sessions) at the "Art-Hostel-we-spend-most-of-our-time-in-the garden" (this is the hostel's complete name, slight inappropriate for winter). So the name is crap, but the downstairs underground bar, accessible through what looks more like a trap door in the kitchen, is absolutely tremendous! Arty,funky (glass tables hanging from pulleys), and very laid back..

Radoslav and Nikola it turns out are musicians. And by what it sounnds like, excellent ones too. They had just come back from giving a concert in Holland, and Radoslav will be playing in Barcelona in a couple of weeks - we've arranged to meet. Or I should say him, and the Bulgaria Symphony Orchestra (all 50 of them). Should be at least entertaining, anyone up for it?

Aside their non questionable impressive music skills, they are very talented when it comes to drinking beers, I was doing 1 beer for every 3 of theirs...we must have knocked our bottles together (can't think of the right verb here), about 120 times, once every 2 sips..and in between Radoslav would go off and hunt down some girls to bring over to our corner of the bar...we spoke to Portuguese from Porto, then we spoke to Hungarians from Budapest, then we spoke to Romanians...then the locals..in my long-gone days of being single, this would have been tremendous 5 star service...

The night ended with big bear hugs & a promise to show Rasdoslav the best bars in Barcelona....

table top dancing

Freinds, flipping heck, we're at the equator of the trip, I thought I would post something, before you start imagining me table top dancing with bulgarian ladies..the fact is I wanted to post something yesterday night, but got a bit sidetracked by the Bulgarian beer, Bulgarian merlot and Bulgarian rakia.....

Bulgaria here we come, here we freeze. Subtilte: Cramming

Freinds, I am crammin´ the cyrillic alphabet at full speed and trying to memorise useful sentences such as:

go-vo.ree.lee nya-koy took an-glee-skee (Does anyone speak English?)

I´m told that anyone over 30 will probably not...

So what´s the plan? well, I´ll confess to it being more ???? than anything concrete right now, I think I´ll sort it out 'on the ground'. Fixed is that I´ll be landing in SOFIA and heading back out of BUCHAREST, and I´ll definetely see Veliko Tarnovo (former capital of Bulgaria).

I´ve packed the smallest bag possible (a-la-camila) - we´re in a tight, reduced community of freinds and family here, so I´ll confess that in the name of space (not in the name of Julen-is-a-filthy-bugger), it only has 1 pair of socks, 2 t-shirts, 2 underpants, some woolies, a toothbrush, a sleeping bag and little else. In case you´re wondering, there´s no fellow traveller to stink-out, I will be going ´solo´ this time....

More stories from the front line, over and out...