At the risk of sounding like I’m desperately trying to get down with the uk urban music scene, the last couple of weeks have been hectic man (I know, that was sooo 2002). The barbarian has been over for a flying visit signalling the start of a heat wave which as yet has not subsided. 107C/42F degrees is starting to get a little boring now, although we have found a couple of outdoor pools which are helping to ease the pain, particularly the one with the bar in the shallow end. I have also been subjected to some of the more surreal experiences since arriving in Bulgaria back in April – which seems like eons ago.
Sam has started volunteering once a week at the local orphanage, which by all accounts is not as depressing a place as we might had preconceived. She had made friends with a number of the kids who I don’t think have ever seen anyone so white and I now have mnogo competition for her affection. One of the young teenage boys has already asked Sam for her phone number after impressing her with his extensive knowledge of foreign car marques... “Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ford” and offering her a trip to the local internet café to play him at World of Warcraft. As far as I know, they have not yet been on a date and he is still waiting for the magic digits.
After only two weeks at the orphanage Sam was invited to a local youth talent show at the Sevlievo House of Culture, where the orphans said they would be performing. Not being one to miss out, I managed to acquire an invitation to the said extravaganza. Every town seems to have a house of culture, which effectively is a slightly grandiose name for what is efectly a theatre and exhibition space. My understanding is that the majority of these concrete palaces, built by numbers in the communist era, were intended to provide a hub for the arts in the local community as part of a general celebration of traditional Bulgarian culture and of course the communist philosophy. The house of culture in Sevlievo, as elsewhere in bg, is an undersized version of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia… concrete murals, water fountains et all. Anyway, nowadays the place is used for cultural highlights such as the youth talent show which, as soon as I entered the theatre, I realised was going to be an experience I thought I would never again need to endure, after my darling sister had finished at Christine Andersons Dance School in Rugby aged 11.Who would have thought you could build a 3 hour show around 2 minute ballroom dance routines and high pitched, squeaky choirs? It was a strange mix between traditional Bulgarian singing and dancing and hilariously elecuted versions of popular western pop songs performed by precocious teenage girls belting out “hi vill survive”. Other highlights for me were a group of 5 year olds choreographed to thrust in time to the backstreet boys “am I sexual… yeeeeaaaahh” and a poor young lad trussed up in a full body leotard made to perform numerous floor exercises many of which would not have looked out of place at an antenatal class (although the Claire Welsby signature move ‘jump into splits’ was pretty impressive and had a familiar effect on the crowd… sharp intake of breath, followed by clapping in part praise and part to hide the giggling). We were fortunate enough to catch the highlights of the performance again the next evening on television in case we had missed a potential star in the making.
A couple of days later we thought we would get ourselves over to the cinema to even out the east-west culture balance; a skill we have already acquired in relation to food. We had managed to decipher the posters at the local kino which assured us that Pirates of the Caribbean 7 would be shown in its original language with Bulgarian subtitles, so we were happy to waste 50p each on a ticket. I hadn’t really ever thought of the cinema as a place to go to read a film before… but I guess if I had thought about it enough I would have put 2 and 2 together. A Bulgarian trip to the pictures is the same as at home, popcorn, ice creams, snogging kids on the back row with only exception… the sound of dialogue. They just don’t need it! They watch a film and read the words, so who cares what Jonny Depp is actually saying? So we sat, for two and half hours surrounded by people on the phone, chatting to their mates with the ‘original language’ turned down so not to distract from the noise of the sea swishing around. It was just about audible, and frankly was a god send in terms of being able to ignore Kiera Knighly’s terrible acting. Half way through the final credits, the lights went up, the screen switched off everyone rushed out to make sure the mad lady in the ticket office didn’t lock you in. We’re off to see, but not hear, either Zodiac or Wild Hogs next week – so if anyone wants to call, that would be a good time.
As I mentioned at the top, Clays has also been over for a quick visit to see the house and to teach us that flying in and out of Romania when visiting Bulgaria is not as good an idea as he might have thought. That said, we got to see some of Bucharest, and lots and lots and lots, well 12 hours worth to be precise, of the Bulgarian/Romanian countryside from the sweat box train. At least we didn’t have a 5 hour delay at Turnovo station like conan on the way back – hahahaha. We actually had a great day or so here showing him the sights of Burya, Sevlievo and Turnovo… smoked a few hookah pipes in a dirty little bar in Bucharest and really enjoyed our first trip out of Bulgaria in 3 months, which was actually quite strange… not least because we felt really glad to get back! Weird. Despite being neighbours, Romania and Bulgaria are vastly different cultures, the latin alphabet, completely different language, western prices, baroque buildings were all a bit of a shock to the system. The main similarities between the two cultures are those shared by the gypsy/romany communities which of course do not see national borders so clearly as the rest of us. Our whistle stop tour of Bucharest took in the museum of peasant life, revolution square (made famous in the 1990’s on newsround – in my head anyway) and Chouchescou’s grand palace, built following demolition of a 6th of the city to make way for the former dictators grotesque, gargantuan home. He also built a Romanian version of the champs elysee (7m longer than the ral one of course) as a driveway to the place.
Right, I’m off to sweat into my lunch. I will invite clays to add some thoughts from his trip if he has time between working out, and upload a few photos if he can work out how to turn on his computer.
Ciao Ciao, and lek den.
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