I'm off to Bulgaria for a few weeks. Try not to break anything while I'm gone...
Hope you have/had a great time.
(depending on when you read this)
have a great time - I've only been to Sofia once (with Gurtie as it so happens) but I will say they have the weirdest style of restaurants in the basement of their 5 star hotels!!
Have a good time. We want a report on Bulgarian food and beer when you get back.
...and their knives and guns...
...... and torches :D
... assuming he gets through Airport Security in one piece carrying all that stuff.
have a good time DB.
Have a good one! ..and pop-up north in our neck fo the woods if you wanna have a beer :)
Quote from: JasonD on May 31, 2012, 08:06:40 PM
have a great time - I've only been to Sofia once (with Gurtie as it so happens) but I will say they have the weirdest style of restaurants in the basement of their 5 star hotels!!
Or just very weird lapdancing clubs?
Even weirder pizza's :-\
Lapdancing & steak. To be fair I've heard of worse ideas!
Having a blast. wish I could post a few pics for you but I'm on my phone and this forum won't let me attach anything.
Got the flashlight through security just fine, knife in my luggage:) So far I used the flashlight to find my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night and I use the knife to open beers using the flat side:)
Saw a castle ruin on some cliffs, and another place with strange pillars of stone that I can't explain. Saw the oldest treasure in the world at the local museum. Been eating all sorts of great food. Her dad is a chef, so we eat something new everyday. Tonight is tripe soup which is supposedly a favorite but my only experience w it is feeding dogs the stuff because it's good for them.
He loved his knife, btw. Said it was amazing after he cut some dried meat with it paper thin. Told me it was nicer than what he is using now and explained to my girl what makes a good knife. So that was a big score. Her mom was happy w the iPhone, the way anyone would be.
We are headed to a village to meet her grandmother. I bought her a microwave. No idea how that will go over, given she cooks over a fire outside most of the time. But I hear she is excited to see us and is going to kill a chicken for us to eat. so my guess I won't have any wireless to relay messages, but I'll check back in later...
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video
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151817222815252
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151804623080252
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151817241065252
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151817247205252
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10151817285705252
Your lass looks a bit skinny in that pic where she's sunbathing all blinged up... :o
It was a long flight...
:)
it looks truly amazing
I haven't had much time to write, but yeah, this ranks right up there with when I went to Kamchatka, or Noorvik (200 miles North of Nome) in terms of the 'Holy Shit!' factor.
I'm walking out the door again for 3 days at a resort on the Sea... maybe they have access down there. I'll try to elaborate but I think the videos speak for themselves.
Great photos, looks like an awesome place to visit.
My father inlaw and his new family has just come back from Bulgaria. They went to Burgas and said it was amazing. Completely different to what they were expecting. They especially loved the waterpark near there.
Ok I will ask what everyone is thinking. How much is beer?
I don't know but this site is invaluable - http://www.pintprice.com/
My Bulgarian ...um... acquaintance recently got me a can of Bulgarian beer (lager). She thought it was nectar, I thought it was nice-ish enough in comparison with most Dutch and Belgian brands (and maybe German and Danish too). Are my beer tastebuds borked beyond repair, or is all non-British lager really quite the same (apart from the price in E. Europe maybe - heh)?
Interesting: Vampire graves...
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/07/vampire-graves-may-bring-hordes-to-bulgaria/
beer is cheap...
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but this stuff is free...
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...That is a Jack Daniels bottle in which three musicians were assembled piece by piece - the bottle was not made around them. It is filled with Rokia(?) which is Grappa under a different name, and we drink it DAILY before every meal with salad. This bottle in particular came from a monument on top of a mountain where 3500 Bulgarians held off 60000 Turks for 3 days. By the end of the battle they threw rocks and hurled dead bodies at the Turks until the Turks gave up. We drank the contents at lunch and then it was refilled and given to me as a gift to take home along with 2 other liters:)
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I think I was in Burgas last night... it's running altogether...
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I'm afraid I don't have the time to really say as much as I'd like to about the place...
As you can see, I got around the country some and deep into the interior. And you are seeing some of my better shots of the things I liked the most, mainly art and architecture. I also got to experience things no tourist would ever stumble upon. I'm thinking in particular about the few days I spent in the village with my girl's grandmother. The first night we got in we sat around a card table for dinner, eating a tomato and cucumber salad from her garden, out of a communal plate, drinking Rokia that old woman had made a few years prior, so it was properly aged. We then ate soup, where I was surprised to find the foot of the chicken she killed for us at the bottom of my bowl, which she gave to me as a special treat. They use EVERYTHING.
Speaking of that, we brought her a bucket of strawberries we picked in another village at an aunts house, which she jarred immediately upon arrival, on a fire outside. Once the jars were boiled, I saw her take the last little piece of burning wood out of the dwindling fire and put it out with some water so it could be used later, and not wasted. She lives off about $150 a month. Needless to say the microwave was a big hit, even if she was a bit confused by it.
However, the next day though, I totally endeared myself to her when she had 2.5 tons of wood delivered and I was able to show off my mad ax skills, which I think impressed and surprised everyone, as I split wood for 4 hours straight in 90F heat, stopping only once to down a jar full of well water. Of course, the old woman was stacking wood as fast as I could split it with the gigantic ancient battle ax they had, along with my girl and her father. Between us, we got her set up with enough to get her through the winter. That was actually a pivotal event, in her eyes, transforming me from a stupid american into a productive member of the family. No one really said anything, but I knew I passed the test - when it came to ball busting hard work, I could hold my own, and that is a valued trait when you live on a farm. Last year she did it all by herself.
Afterward, she built a fire in something that looked like a still so that I could take a hot shower. Since it didn't hold that much water, she wanted me and my girl to shower together, which I thought was embarrassing enough, until we got into the 'bath room' totally naked and realized neither one of us could figure out how to work the thing, and the old woman had to come in to show us how to do it. I don't know about you, but standing in mud walled basement room wearing little rubber women's shoes with a hand towel wrapped 3/4 around my waist, with your naked girlfriend, while a 4 foot nothing grandmother gives you lessons on how not to scald yourself or put out the fire, in Bulgarian... well, I doubt you'll ever get that experience if you take the tour bus:)
Ok, my bags are packed and I'm 24hrs I'll be home. See you all on the flipside.