Leaving Bulgaria
Trip Start
Jan 20, 2008
1
5
28
Trip End
Ongoing
Chepelare,
Bulgaria
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Well tonight is our last night here in Chepelare and I have to say that we have had a truly fantastic time. This can be attributed almost entirely to the incredible hospitality and generosity that Mike and Tich ("Geoffy's" parents) and of course, Geoff and Bec themselves, have shown us over the last couple of weeks... I really cannot express how thankful we are for everything they've done for us; from putting us up, to putting up with us. From helping get us kitted out with clothing suitable for snowboarding, to tuition in getting up to speeds suitable for killing yourself. From letting us give the odd small and dodgy bit of assistance around the place to helping set us up with some work in England... the list just goes on and on. Truly Mike, Tich, Geoff and Bec, you guys are champions and we're very grateful for everything you've done!!
becs and boags
!So, I suppose some sort of a summary of our time in Bulgaria is in order, but where to begin? Snowboarding seems the logical choice. I think you could probably say that Doug and I have become mildly addicted. It's more fun, and (when you get good enough to go really, really, insanely fast) more exhilarating than I would have thought possible, and I had some pretty high expectations in the first place. There's a whole separate lingo, or jargon that goes along with anything associated with snow and speed, most of which we still haven't picked up. You just sound like a wanker when you use it half-arsedly. It's all about, "shredding", "carving", "working the edges", "cutting a rail in", "bombing the slopes" and so on and so forth. (I feel like a poser any time I use any of these expressions, but it doesn't seem strange at all when Geoff or Bec or Mike spit 'em out).
Our first attempts at snowboarding were naturally pretty shaky. If only our ability had matched our enthusiasm! It is actually quite incredible though, just how quickly you can pick it up. By the end of our third day on the boards, we were both blitzing down slopes (bloody steep slopes!) at speeds that would have given me a heart attack on the first day. And the more you do it, the better you get
geoffrey marsh a.k.a "geoffykins" in action
! This soon turns into confidence, which is just a small step from cockiness, and this in turn goes hand in hand with the growing conviction that the next time you hit the slopes, you're going to go faster still! There were plenty of stacks involved in all of this of course, some funny, some painful, some spectacular and some just plain crazy. For example: my day of snowboarding today ended in what I can only describe as a big fucken ouchie. Going down the piste is all well and good, but the real fun, the really exhilarating stuff is to be found, 'off piste', out in the powder... oh the powder! For anyone who has never skied or snowboarded in nice, fresh powdery snow, be it off through the trees, off to the side of the pisted area, or down a nice big open and steep expanse of it... no description of mine could ever do it justice. It's just fucking magic. The only sound is a soft swish of the board and the whistling of the wind in your ears. It is totally different to scraping your way down the piste. Once you get the hang of it (you have to learn how to link turns all over again in powder) it's all you want to do. The piste becomes instantly second rate, and anytime you see nice fresh powder off to the side, you just have to go through it. Earlier today I was absolutely screaming down a lovely (almost untouched) stretch of powder just off to the side of the piste, intent on over taking Doug
ummm... snow?
. He had a head start, but I was closing fast and wondering about which side I would pass him on. As he started a nice clean toe turn to the left, I though right! I'll just keep this line and take him on the outside. So intent was I on this that I completely failed to notice Doug had glided off to the left for a reason. There was (so they tell me) a very slight ridge in the powder ahead, running perpendicular to the slope, about the same kind of length as, say, a big fuck off log. It's usually a very good idea to avoid this type of thing, because you really never know what's hiding under all that lovely powdery snow. As it turns out, "a big fuck off log" is precisely what was underneath it and consequently is precisely what I hit. At full tilt.I'm not exactly sure what happened after that, but I am sure, in an approximate kind of fashion, that it did involve a fucking lot of pain in my right ankle, and me, cart wheeling madly down the slope in a tangle of limbs. That was the end of the days boarding for me. About an hour later, I finally managed to hobble off the slopes, and the ankle has slowly been feeling better since. Like I said before, a big fucken ouchie. But hey, we live and we learn, right? Well, we live anyway...
Not all of our time here has been spent snowboarding though
paul, after the big stack
. We lent Geoff and Mike some (very amateurish) help in fencing repairs at the compound near their workshop, and spent a day doing some very serious pruning (the type you do with a chainsaw) in Chereshevo, where the Marshes have a few properties. This is also where Doug finally met his Bulgarian princess - the Bobcat. The Bobcat is in reality a lovely little old lady who doesn't speak a word of English. She doesn't let that stand in the way of lending a hand anytime the Marshes show up at Chereshevo to do some work on one their properties though. In fact, she didn't let the fact that none of us spoke any Bulgarian get in the way of her conversations either. Actually, it was on the way back from there, when we stopped for lunch in Smolyan, that Doug undoubtedly found his personal highpoint for the trip so far. The restaurant was called the "Bohemi" (I think...) and was quite a different affair from most of the other places that we'd thus far visited. It was pretty much styled after a cafeteria. You come in, grab a tray, walk past a selection of foods and point at what you'd like, which they then plonk on your plate, grab a beer (stubbies are all 500mL over here), pay for it and then find a table. Quick, simple and easy. Good beer, and very tasty food. But to be honest, it was a cost of it all that sent dougie into paroxysms of joy. 4 leva and 10 statinkis (about 3.80 AUS dollars)
Doug, Bessy and Mike
. Doug was overjoyed, even to the point of photographing his meal and telling people frequently about the time he bought "500ml of beer and got a great meal thrown in for fuck all!"There's so much more that has happened here than I've been able to include, and when we figure out what else should be put in, I'll update this entry again. But for now, it's 0105H and I have to get up in 5 hours to get on a bus back to the capital, Sofia. We spend the night in Sofia, and then we fly back to Heathrow, London on Tuesday. From there, it's a bloody long bus trip up to Lancashire, where (thanks entirely (yet again!) to Mike and Tich) we have a little bit of pub work lined up.
At any rate, Bulgaria has been a fantastic experience for us, and in a lot of ways, we don't really want to leave (especially not when you consider the exchange rate that we'll be swapping for...). But, as they say, all good things must come to an end, so for us, it's good bye Bulgaria!
Thanks again Mike, Tich, Geoff, Bec!!!
Cheers, from Paul and Doug!
(I'll try to get the photos up as soon as I can)
