Bulgaria day 1 - Getting there

I'm off to Bulgaria for a conference. It is about 10 months since I was last here. It was such good fun last time I was here, that I think it should be fun. This is about as exotic as you can get on a European Conference, in that it's not a European Country, it an "Other Country"....

It's an early start, and I am in Summer travel mode... hair down...three quarter length shorts... converse, Pearl jam T-Shirt, Checked shirt, Oakley's and straw hat... it's a kind of Grunge take on the British holiday maker look... my pasty white skin doesn't look good in any summer clothes... I'm warm on anything except a sheep strewn cliff in Scotland, so no matter how fit I get and how much exercise I take... I'm a sweaty white scotsman...

In Schiphol, I'm on a high! I'm off on an adventure... This isn't a day trip to Brussels, or a weekend in Paris. This is uncharted territory. All my Bulgarian friends have given me tips, warnings, advice and shopping lists. They have told me to watch Sofia... that it can be pretty dodgy.... at this end I'm getting picked up from the airport so it shouldn't be a worry. Hopefully, they mean Glasgow level dodgy and the warnings stem from the relative safety of Amsterdam as a big city.

I get on the plane to be greeted by a very Bulgarian looking Stewardess... she is stunningly pretty, very young looking(although probably older than me) and thin as a rake. I remember from last year that Bulgarian women are beautiful, but most of them could do with a good plate of mince and tatties....



I take my seat and discover that there is an exception to my analysis of Bulgarian women, she's sitting on the seat next to me. I sit down and due to the heat, and the tiny plane designed for either Bulgarian Gymnast frames, or holiday makers, I'm crushed in a seat with half of the woman beside me bleeding over onto my seat... I lean over to the right to avoid passive sweat... as I do this another larger than average man sits on the seat and knocks the cheap structure back about a foot towards me.... it could be a long flight. I twist into the space allotted to me and switch of to Ænima by Tool:



It took me a while to get into tool. I didn't like his voice at first, but given that I tell people that they will appreciate Smashing Pumpkins if they can weather any dislike of Billy Corgan's nasel whine, I decided to take a dose of my own medicine a few months back and really quite enjoyed it. It's pretty impossible not to enjoy the Drum lead prog metal and it is perfect when you want to just switch off completely.

When the food arrives, I take i ditch the laptop and start eating... the woman beside me immediately starts talking to me... I forgot that Bulgarians have a similar quality to Glaswegians.... they talk to each other. Seems like such a simple concept, but its not something you often see. It turns out that she is traveling with her son and they live in America... they are returning home to visit relatives. The son appears to love all things American and finds Bulgaria a little frustrating and backwards... all the things he complains about are the annoyances that I think ensures that (at the moment) the country remains different and vibrant for a traveller...

We land at Sofia and join a huge queue to get through passport control... it looks very serious... I psych myself up for a bit of an adventure.... but with a grunt, the stoney faced border guard waves me through.

The airport is tiny... one conveyer belt spews out luggage from 4 flights onto the floor and it's a free for all to try and get your luggage. Some people try and arrange the luggage thats blocking the conveyer belt from delivering more.... I try to help, but can't help but enjoy the disorganisedness of it all. I'm still in hair down converse mode.... and I'm certainly not with the various people in suits with frowns on their faces who just arrived on the London flight and are worried for what they are in for.... will the menu's have Atkin's diet options?(Answer: They might not be in english).... will they be able to read the street signs..(Answer:You've got to find one first....it's not as easy as it sounds).... will they have starbucks?.....Will "Bigska Macski" get me fed in Sofia?

Learn to Swim!!!!!

Maybe I've been listening to too much Tool....I get excited just looking at their faces....

Once I've liberated my bag, and got some water(Вода), I achive my dream of walking out of an airport and having someone standing with a sign waiting to pick me up... from here it's onto a bus for a 3 hour plus journey south... as soon as I've stepped on the bus, I am reminded of School trips - probably the only time I've been on buses for any longer than a 2 hours. It's hot, sticky, the bus is almost full, and I don;t have a detailed enough map to let me chart my course and work out where I am.

We drive through the outskirts of Sofia, and see everything you would expect... the grittiness and grottiness of any outskirts... I decide it's not that interesting and crack out the Lego Star wars:



It makes the journey fly by....

The odd glance out of the windows reveals an overcast sky which caps rolling planes, with the odd green hill... It's not really that interesting... Eventually, just after I see a sign for the Rila Monastery(this tells me that we're not that far away), we stop for a piss break at a petrol station. I get talking to a Scottish Norwegian guy I know from a previous conference. I try to show off a wee bit of Bulgarian, but he returns with fluent russian, which coupled with a brain means he can work out what most things say...

We turn off the main road and enter dense lucsh green mountains. The road winds and meanders through these scenary as the moisture seems to envelop the bus... I'm not even sure if it's raining... it just feels wet.

A little while down the road, and the youngest daughter of the co-ordinator of the conference, excitedly tells us that we have just passed a 5km to go sign. She is Bulgarian, 10 years old and speaks pretty good english. She speaks with the same accent as Obi Wan Kenobov which is pretty cute. Her humour, forwardness and cheekiness is also similar, so it must be a Bulgarian thing.

We get into the hotel, and get to our rooms. Just like a month or two back in Montreux, I'm greeted by a beautiful view of a mountain range:





Better than this, the Hotel is a top class Spa complex with indoor and outdoor pools, about 6 different saunas, 40 different massage treatments. I don;t even put my bag down.... I just unzip it, empty it on my bed, strip naked, put on my swimming shorts and head for the pool....

I love swimming... it's one of the few sports I can do successfully... and since I got fit, I love it even more, cos there's all this extra energy... I swim about 40 lengths and then head back to my room, get showered and spruce myself up for dinner... swimming was a great way to get the traveling out of my system... I'm ready to meet and greet... it turns out that most people didn't go for a swim and are pretty dead... I talk to no one... The food is self service "acceptable" mass produced Bulgarian meals... It's nice to have Tarator and Shopska salata on tap though. I pack myself full of salad and protein after my swim and head back to my room......

I open my powerbook and the screen doesn't work!!! I have two powerbooks... my powerbook - the old faithful that has been going strong for almost 4 years, and a super high spec one that belongs to work... it's not been right since it was taken out of the box. The screen goes... you can wiggle it and it comes back... now it doesn't take an electronics graduate to know that wiggle = loose wire.....

When I first phoned the registered apple dealer... he confirmed with me that powerbooks were the silver ones and iBooks were the white ones... their expertise didn't get any better. Even though I suggested that it was a loose wire... they replaced the logic board.... a common fault in some apple laptops apparently... this took them three months.. when we got it back, we wiggled it and the screen went grey again.... we took it back and suggested to the apple official repair people that it might just be a loose wire... over the next 3 months they replaced the screen..... 6 months later, I was confident enough to take it to Bulgaria.....

This may mean I have no access to my presentation, no means of writing a presentation... suddenly the middle of no where surrounded by nothing but peaks higher than Ben Nevis and no idea where the nearest Internet Cafe, copy of powerpoint, or overhead projector is is not relaxing, but frustrating.....

I'll deal with it in the morning....

Swimming in Mirandabad

After a reasonably quiet Firday night, I get a phone call early in the morning. I had promised to take Obi Wan and his friend swimming, so it's a quick bowl of porridge and hit of espresso and then a 45 minute bike ride to Diemen.



It's about 9.30 when I leave, so there is still that morning chill in the air which smells so fresh. A cycle is such a great way to wake up in the morning. It's not particlarly difficult, but it's continuous enough that it gets the heart pumping.

As I get to the last leg, his mum phones me to tell me that Diemen swimming pool is only open for lessons. I am going to stop off for coffee before heading nearly back into the centre to Mirandabad, another swimming pool.

We have coffee and play Lego Star wars, until it's time to head off on the bikes.



FInally a star wars game which is mindless enough, that you don't feel liek a geek when you are playing it, but still has the fun and adventure. It could be on my Christmas list.

We are cycling along the canal's which lead from Diemen to Amsterdam. I think this is the Watergraafsmeer, but I'm never sure. It's pretty picturesque, if a little industrial, and cycling along with two kids, makes me glad I got the phone call, cos otherwise, I wouldn't be out my bed yet, and I wouldn't have stared the day by cycling for 90 minutes before going for a swim.





We get to the swimming pool and are quickly in the water. I head off to the big pool for a quick 20 lengths. It's been a while, I'm tired out pretty quickly. The Bride and the kids have headed to the fun pool which has wave machines, slides, rope bridges and flumes, It's a great place for kids of all ages, and reminds you what it was like when you were that age. We muck around for a while, and then head for the flume.

I'm pretty disappointed. It's far less exciting that it was when I was 7 or whatever.

After a while, I say I'm heading for the big pool for some more swimming. They are always curious of mystery and think they are missing something. I tell them that it's for swimming only, and that they might not be allowed in. I am promptly reminded that they have Zwem Diploma C. This appears to qualify them for swimming upwards on the Niagra Falls.

The life guard gives us a bit of a strange look when these two kids come marching excitedly down the stairs to what is just a 25 metre pool with people doing lengths in. The kids are straight in the deep end and swimming no problem down to the other end. They don't put their heads in the water, but generally, I'm pretty impressed by their performance. We do probably 10-15 lengths, and then head back to the fun pool.

Now I'm completely knackered. It's approaching 4pm and I've been exercising since about 9.30. I'm worried that my body might go into shock.

Luckily the pool is closing, so I don't need to tell the kids that I can't keep up with them. We have a quick jacuzzi and then head into the changing rooms - Saturday's adventure over.

Once out of the swimming pool, it's a quick can of Cola Light and a phone call to find out what the evening plans are. I leave the kids with The Bride and head back to home for a quick change of clothes.

I meet up with The Kiwi and Dagenham Dave on Dam Square. They have been out on the razz the previous evening, so just want some food and a quiet night. We have chinese, and then head for a few in the Gollem before calling it a night.