Kolikovski Sofia

... hmm that can of coke cost us 2 pound 50 (I though Bulgaria was supposed to be cheap!!) and she couldn't give us some coins. got change in the exchange office then as we went to the pay phone I saw my dad outside. Didn't even need the damn change! hugs kisses hellos then in the car to start the 5 HOUR car journey to Srebarna...argh! On the told the father about the most expensive can of coke in the ...

... area, but they disappeared eventually. Getting tired of this scene, I suggested to Dan that he and I scout around the plaza for any better clubs. Before getting to our first club, we met a large group of drunk local blokes, whom Dan decided to engage in his English-with-a-shoddy-Russian-accent voice. To my slight surprise, they were quite friendly, and to my great surprise, they said Avenue was as good as it gets. In fact they were on the verge of deciding whether ...

... all you can eat breakfast including taking a lunch away for myself, you have to save the pennies when traveling it all counts. The hostel is pretty awsome a really nice place the best rated in Bulgaria and for 10 Euros you get a bed, all you can eat breakfast and a pasta dinner not bad at all! I managed to jump on a bus to the capital which was really straight forward and found my hostel no problem again it is the same company and a really nice ...

... churches. Aside from that, the only discernable difference would be the abundance of alcohol and pork products. The people were very friendly and willing to help. It was also evident that more people spoke English than in Istanbul which is good considering that my Turkish is much better than my Bulgarian. The interesting thing about language is that you never know how much you know until you are put in a new situation where you know nothing. Hannah and I have been in Turkey for about ...

... I didn't see any of those?!?) Well I think its fair to say we had no idea from the start. We tried to catch the 10am bus but Greg's map reading skills put us on the wrong side of the round about and we missed it. We had to wait for the 10:45 bus and we only got on the right one with the help of 2 older ladies who were going for a walk up there. Up the hill we encountered some problems with the radiator and we needed to stop about 3 or 4 times to ...

... na dworcu, i potem przemieszczaniem sie z plecakami. Pol godziny pozniej przyszedl nasz Turek i kazal wstawac, swiecac nam przy okazji latarka w oczy. Nie wiedzielismy o co chodzi. Okazalo sie, ze przyniosl ze soba... impreze. Bylismy tacy zmeczeni, ale ta podroz nauczyla nas jednej rzeczy - ze ludziom sie nie odmawia. Jaser nie mowil w innym jezyku niz turecki, a mimo to swietnie sie dogadalismy. Jedlismy, pili, rozmawiali do niemal drugiej w nocy ...

... His English was okay, but he talked real slow and seemed to be making stuff up on the spot. Our first site was a church, which was in the middle of it's Sunday morning mass. The patriarch was there, and there was a choir singing, which was a fairly neat experience. The church was beautiful inside and outside, but it wasn't very old. Construction finished in the 1920's. He then showed us a palace, a ...

At the arrival, a lot of cab drivers are looking for a tourist. We decide to use an official one: the driver start and after few meter we see that he is not the official one (or he change a lot his face if we compare with the picture of the official one in the cab)... and ...

... and, as great punctuation, Vinny sat next to him doing the actions and going "Grrrrrr". So he went, bless him. Again, in retrospect, I think he was starting to fall down a slippery slope. But we were really, really drunk and din't much care. He came back five minutes later, and told us he had directions to a Folk Club. Seriously. So, in our defence, we did set off in the vain hope of finding a Folk Club. It was Vinny's idea to go to the strip club we passed ...

... transition from communism to capitalism. Food and other essentials are still very cheap, even at the more western venues. The coastal cities like Varna are becoming popular tourist destinations for the British and German, and many foreigners are buying property all throughout Bulgaria, as real estate is still quite cheap relative to that in western Europe. But all in all the country has a long way to go before it will see living standards similar to those in the western world.