Bulgaria day 4: The hangover

I wake up god knows when, and quickly crawl to the pool for my morning dip. No sooner have I hit the water, than Obi Wan runs round the corner shouting my name. Although he was still going strong until the early hours, it's clear he's been up since the arse crack of dawn waiting for people to wake up from Rakia imposed stupors. I seem to have been the first person up.

My hangover is not bad. It's certainly more interesting and has far more texture that a traditional Heineken/Tennant's hangover, the sugary sickness of too many jack daniels and coke or even the once in a life time "What happened after I drank that pink thing" hangover. This one has given me an aversion to the sun light which seems to be shining slightly brighter, and a mild pain at the back of my skull and a strange sensation in my right eye lid which makes it feel like it's not fully open, but otherwise I'm doing okay. What it has not given me is a way to make the smile look genuine when Obi Wan starts throwing toys into the pool and telling me what a great day we are going to have messing about in the pool. I explain that I have a hangover and need to do 15 lengths of the pool before I can speak to him. He counts them.

My front crawl based meditation has worked wonders. "Lets go to the terrarium and see the reptiles!!". He takes some convincing, and also his grandparents are in charge of him today. I tell him that he needs to ask his grandfather is this is okay. His grandfather comes over and I give my standard "Dobri Utro" for good morning and "Kak si?" for how are you. Our conversations tend to get a little boring after that. Obi wan and him talk for about 10 minutes in Bulgarian. He then goes back to their breakfast table and Obi wan immediately dives in the pool. I catch up with him and ask him what his grandfather said:

OW: Did you not understand?
ME: No. I don't speak Bulgarian.
(OW disappears under water)
Me: What did he say? Is it okay?
OW: It sounds a little like Russian.
Me What does?
(OW disappears under water)
OW: Bulgarian
ME: So do we go to the Zoo or not?
OW: Yeah

This boy is developing a wit and a joy for teasing people which could get really frustrating in the future.

Anyway, we head off to the Terrarium, with me wondering why my sunglasses don't seem to work as well today. The terrarium is about 400 yards from the Hotel, and has an iguana sitting outside which children get to stroke.

I had expected Obi Wan to be bowled over by the concept of big scary snakes, spiders ad lizards, but actually the first thing that really has him going is a cage of hamsters. Eventually, he moves on and we look at the snakes, the turtles, the terrapins and various sorts of lizard. It’s a pretty good little place to go and see, and I really start to enjoy my “hangover” day.

Between the heat outside and the heat in the reptile cases, the sweat is literally dripping off my nose. Scotsmen aren’t designed for hot weather, I think we may be Eskimos who lost our way and ended up on the fringes of Europe.

Up the stairs in the the little terrarium are all the spiders. These are amazing animals, and there shapes and sizes and structures are great:



The signs in the Terrarium are in Bulgarian, and also badly translated English where possible. Obi Wan is really interested in what they eat and what not, so we do a lot of reading of signs. Sometimes this requires me to read Bulgarian words really badly and ask him what they mean, but generally we get through it pretty well. Near the end of our tour, we come across a little spider with long legs and a fat body. I’m quite interested in this one cos the description says that it predicts the weather by taking in it’s web before it rains. The wonder of nature…

Obi Wan is annoying me in my ear:

OW: What does it eat??
ME: Give me a second – I’m reading
OW: What does it eat??
ME: Momentje.. I’m reading
OW: I really need to know what it eats
ME: It doesn’t say. I’ll look at the Bulgarian
(I look at the Bulgarian for obvious words which mean food like Shopska Salata)
OW: What does it eat?
ME: I don’t know why is it so important?
OW: Because there are two on the wall behind us.

Right enough these are common Bulgarian spiders, and they are dotted around the room. Luckily I don’t think it eats cheeky 7 year olds or hungover Scotsmen.

We’re now finished our trip round the terrarium. I said we’d be back at 3 o’clock so the day is yet young. we head on into primorski. The zoo is pretty close so we decide to continue on an animal theme, but only via a small stall to give me some more fluids to sweat.

When we get to the zoo, the sign tells us that it’s 0.50 Leva for Bulgarians and 1.50 for foreigners. This double pricing is very common in Bulgaria. I don’t really mind it, but I decide that I am integrating enough that I can chance my arm. I tell Obi wan that he has to speak Bulgarian:

ME: It costs more if we speak English. Ask for one adult and one child.
OW: No
ME: You need to speak Bulgarian, and then we save money
OW: Listen. You are a big person and I am a little person, it looks stupid if I speak and you don’t . They will understand English
ME: That’s not the point speak Bulgarian.
OW “Govorite li Anglayski”
Ticket man: Da
OW: My friend wants to speak to you. I spoke Bulgarian

He’s right. He did. Completely defeated the purpose, but he did speak Bulgarian.

We head round the zoo. Obi Wan’s already been so he’s giving me the tour. I don’t really like zoos, it’s the influence of my animal loving sister. This is not a good examples of a zoo. All the animals sulk with a lethargy and depression. It’s just like Glasgow zoo. There’s very little to see, the big cats are hiding in their indoor enclosures and pacing back and forth. The Bears are out cold asleep. The emu is hilarious. They seem to have this constantly confused look on their faces:



Obi Wan says that we should go and see the “sheeps that are not sheeps”. I’m confused. He says that when he was here last the sheeps that are not sheeps have got a baby and it’s very good fun. I’m utterly confused. Eventually I catch up with speedy Gonzalez and realise that Sheeps that are not sheeps are goats. I would say it was my problem not his. If you don’t know the word goat, it’s not a bad description.

He’s right, the kids of the goat family are the most animated in the zoo.

We head out of the zoo and back to the hotel. I’m now set up for an afternoon in the pool, but it turns out that everyone is heading to the beach. I’ve been here 4 days and today is going to be m y first trip to the beach. We fill about two cars and head off to the City beach of Varna. Everyone is pretty lazy due to hangovers and late nights. The Bride even manages to just wrap herself in a Brazilian flag and sleep fall fast asleep. The weather is not too good, but it feels good having nothing else to do except jump waves, lie on the beach and read books:





Eventually, it gets to about 6pm and it’s too cold and windy to lie on the beach much longer. We agree to depart to various homes and hotels and then meet up later at a restaurant.
We pop in to a bar which is new to me to say hello to some of the Bulgarian Amsterdammers. The bar is apparently the best place for salads and beers of an evening. We’ll return to here later. But first we are heading off to a Bulgarian flat to eat up all the leftovers from the wedding buffet. We walk through the town with various plates of food and head to a flat of one of the Groom’s mates. I really enjoy this evening. A bunch of mates sitting round the telly drinking beers and eating food. It has a really homely atmosphere, and I really feel like I am getting a taste of real Bulgarians. The bride and groom have managed to recreate this in Amsterdam and I appreciate how much importance they put on family and friend get togethers.

This is also when the Bride presents me with a tomato grown in the mountains by the groom’s father. It’s about half the size of a football and takes tomatoes to a new dimension. I have half of it with salt, and the lush flavour just fills your mouth as you bite into it. It is absolutely delicious. Now I understand why I enjoy the salads over here so much. The tomatoes in this area of the world have flavour!



Eventually we head back to the salad and beer bar. It’s called Alba. It’s an anceitn name for Scotland, so I feel quite at home. This bar has staropramen the Czech beer on tap, for about 50 euro cents a pint:



Even though we’ve had our fill of leftovers, we still have salads brought to the table. I’ve known these Bulgarians for a long time, but I still don’t trust them I am sure that they are cannibals who are fattening me up for later. The salads taste so good that you can’t avoid digging in. It’s full of feta cheese and olives and oils, and the luscious tomatoes, sso it’s hardly light.

Finally we have had our fill and the ten of us pay about 10 euros for a night of wonderful beer, food and conversation. It’s one of the darkest outdoor bars I’ve ever been in, so the atmosphere is excellent for conversation and drinks - a real social gathering like they should be.

I get the locals to order me a taxi to avoid me as a foreigner being humped by the taxi drivers who are famously dodgy when it comes to diddling tourists. Then it’s off to bed. For a hungover day it was pretty fun filled…..