osem

It’s been a little while since my last effort and much has happened in the last month. Sam’s mum Wendy and her fiancé Bob have been to see us, our roof has been ‘completed’ and I have had my first bout of proper dihorea; apologies to those reading this at lunch… too much information.

We hear that most of the uk is now underwater and that there is no point in us coming back without an ark. I only really get glimpses of the news on Bulgarian TV but from what I can work out, some Scottish man with webbed feet and gills has taken over the country and is steadily flooding those parts of the nation under opposition control… sounds like a good idea for a film, maybe I’ll see if big Kev Costner is available?

We have had no such difficulties here. The current Bulgarian premier may rule with a iron, well at least Pyrex fist, but even he has been unable to do any work in the near African heat. Today it was reported that it was 44.5 degrees in Sevlievo making it the hottest town in Bulgaria – as if with me and sam here it wasn’t already. It is possible to convert that into Fahrenheit for those of you who don’t speak European, but it involves maths; take it from me it was hot, unbearably so. As such I have spent the last couple of days with heat stroke, which wasn’t pleasant, and Burya (the village where the house is) has been without water for about a week. As yet, I am pleased to report there has been no infighting at the village shop and it may well still be possible to buy a drink without the need for a police escort.

Crikey, I’ve just read the above and it sounds as though I’ve become a political in my not quite middle age. I will try to reel it in a bit – only had one glass of wine and everything.

So… Sam and I had our first trip to the black sea coast to meet Wendy and Bob. First up was Varna, the ‘big’ city on the coast which apparently has mafiosa connections, but in fact is more like a small, down market version of Barcelona. That may be hyping it up a bit, but after 3 months in middle Bulgaria, a city with shops containing things that you might want to buy, a beech with some cool looking bars, a few museums, a big park and a couple of roman ruins was quite exciting. The roman ruins are generally not well protected as they would be at home, modern roads, houses and blocks of flats seems to have been built over and in some places into the ancient remains of the city. From what I have read the place was in it’s heyday around 568BC, well before the Romans arrived to conquer and rebuild the city. So I guess in many ways, the city has continually evolved to suit its current inhabitants without much regard for their predecessors; a trait common throughout Bulgaria I suppose. We also introduced Wendy and Bob to a number of Bulgarian delicacies at a funny little restaurant and had a great evening polished off with a rakir and a night with air con... ooh what I’d give for that tonight! We then went down to Sozopol, another historic town on the black sea coast. It was one of the places Pete and I visited and the first we really liked last time we were here and it is still a great little town, although it’s growing at rate of knots. Thankfully the old town cant grow any bigger, it’s sat on a peninsular between 2 beeches and the old harbour. We wandered about the old town, sat on the beech and drank beer in little courtyard bars… what more do you want?

It was the first time Sam and I had met Bob so we thought we should get him a little present to make him feel welcome. My sister tells me that the internet is becoming more user generated and interactive so here goes: The back of Bob’s present said:

“Product feture: The easy self-colleet **** ***** cleaner we devised is elaborate made from abroad material, it is the requisite to modern home kitchen. This product own clean **** ***** easy, safety and healthy, lightness and durability. The Best You Used”

The first person to identify what this is wins 100 stotinki and a kilo of salty cheese of their choice. The winner will be revealed in the next edition of dull quiz monthly. PS: the grammar and spelling errors are not mine for once.

I have finally stuck some photos onto Flickr as well now. Only a couple cos it takes me 5 years to upload them here, but I’m sure you will agree the gratuitous shot of me working was well worth the effort!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/94644729@N00/

HOUSE UPDATE

I didn’t update on the house last time cos nothing much was happening. However, we now have a roof (which only needs minor work from us to put it right… which is a miracle here apparently) and it looks pretty good.

In finishing the roof, the builders put on a final theatrical flourish for us… kolyo (aka Colin) collapsed one day with a suspected heart attack and was ambulanced off to the hospital… turns out to be ok and is back at work 3 days later. No problem we are told, he was a bit hot.

Pete, Sam and I are currently trying to fit a ceiling before she and I return to the uk for a month or so. No doubt you will find out whether we succeed when we see you. We also have mr purple and his wife from up the road digging a big hole for our septic tank which will eventually look after our grey water.

The tomatoes are looking good although I suspect our drought will kill most of them so here is proof that we nearly grew something to eat.

I‘m off to eat some more of Sam’s delicious lemon drizzle cake,

Ciao Ciao za sega

sedem

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 6^th 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.

Better late then never??

Slack as i am...admittedly it's been a little while since i got back from the Blogaria inspiring Bulgaria. Suffice to say, the house is a glorious dump/health and safety hazard, but more importantly Mark and Sam looked after the 'old lady' and me just lovely ;-) We had a fabio time!

Highlights:

• Much alcohol and food were consumed ['food' by the way is Bulgarian for cheese]
  
• Many a sight was seen [a bizarre castle, some BIG bronze horses and a really fucking weird art gallery]
  
• Some fabulous people were met [particularly Marks neighbours Mika and the guy with bow legs who just sits and chills out mostly]
• And last but not least - some hilarious bulgarian speaking efforts from mum (aka Jules)
  

Now some excuses...
...as so much has happend since getting back from the mountainous Bulgaria my memory has started to struggle with capturing all the ins and outs of things, the basic details if you will. So - in an effort to get all 'web 2.0' on your asses I thought i'd point you to my bulgaria photos on flickr instead...Please browse in your own time...enjoy etc.

Blogaria Tip
If you're planning a trip to see Mark be sure to indulge in a zoom cocktail. Purchased at the local 'cocktail bar,' it fucks your teeth up but tastes totally GReeeeaaAT!

NazDave all! [mums unique bulgarian for 'cheers']

-claire_w-