Bulgaria 23/01
And so to Sofia……Jillian & I got ourselves settled in another very comfortable apartment, once again organised for us by the fabulous Stella. We went around the corner to a Steak house for dinner….very disappointing. Overpriced and very average, which was a shame really, because I’ve pretty well been very impressed with the food in Bulgaria to date. Next day, our last together before Jill left, was basically a shopping day so she could pick up any bits and pieces she wanted to take back to Australia. Because she’d enjoyed the food in this country so much, we really wanted to have a fabulous last night repast before she left. When I picked her up before Christmas, we went to a great Bulgarian restaurant in Sofia. It was so good, we decided to pay another visit. It’s called Sеmovata Kushta (симоваmа къща) and, if you ever find yourself in Sofia, well worth a visit….the food is fantastic. ! ….and nothing had changed…the food was great, the service very good…and it really made up for the not so fabulous meal the night before.
24/01
Tuesday dawned very cold indeed. Rumours abounded that the Great Russian freeze was on its way to Bulgaria and temperatures of minus 20 were being forecast…..
I was feeling very flat indeed, as I was about to see my sister off after five very enjoyable weeks of her company. I had such a fabulous time with her here and the only thing that kept me from turning into a blubbering fool was the fact that my brother Tony was arriving the next day.
We got to the airport and there was no doubt that we were both a tad nervous about Jill getting through customs without anyone noticing that she should have left the country 6 days earlier. In fact, I agreed to wait until I saw her get all the way through, just in case she got frogmarched back to the autobank to find the money for the 500 lev fine. I could actually see her at the customs desk and trust me, it seemed to take forever before she actually walked through….Phew !! Mind you, once she disappeared from sight, I felt like shit…..I do love my family and often I feel that I’m just too far away from them.
I headed back to the apartment and tried to contact Martin. I wanted him to go to my house and turn some taps on in the hope of stopping the pipes from freezing up. Yep, the rumours about the freeze were true and the temperature had started to drop like a stone.
I couldn’t raise him at first but later that night he rang me…..was it a call I wanted ? As it turned out, no….he’d written off my f****ng car !!! Jesus wept….fortunately he was fine, but I just didn’t need to hear that kind of news at that precise moment.
25/01
And things didn’t get any better the next day…..Martin did indeed go around to my house. He had to cycle because the car was no longer in existence and when he rang me, things went from bad to worse. The house was completely frozen: the water in the kettle was frozen, the water pipes were frozen, the cistern had a large block of ice sitting in it (so no dunny) the 10 litre bottles of drinking water were frozen, the water in the iron was frozen…Oh, and let’s not forget that the air conditioners were frozen as well…..and this was inside the house !!
So, a quick recap….I’ve got my brother arriving from Prague that day, I’ve got no car when I get back to Miladinovtsi AND I’ve got a four storey, 360 m2 block of ice to take him to……it was about then the tears started. I suddenly felt that it was all too hard and I really couldn’t be arsed.
I rang my niece Elizabeth, in Prague to see if I could stop Tony getting on that plane but he (very bravely) decided he was coming anyway. I have to admit that even though I knew he was coming to a completely shit situation, I was so pleased. I was feeling deeply despondent at that moment and the fact that I knew that the one person who always seems so solid when things go tits up was coming, made me feel a whole lot better. Mind you, perhaps if he’d known how bloody awful it was going to be, he may have turned back.
By the time I got to the airport, I really wasn’t thinking too much about the lousy bits….I was just so excited about seeing Tony and my spirits lifted considerably when I saw him walk through the gates. 🙂 Momentarily, things really didn’t seem that bad. After I got Tony settled in the apartment, we decided to head out for a walk. Oh my giddy aunt….you cannot imagine how cold it was. It was the sort of cold that takes your breath away…makes your lungs hurt, your finger ache, your nose fall off. I’ve never had so many clothes on in my life and I had to wrap my face, so I could breath.
We did have a lovely day, but spent a fair bit of it ducking into warm places to thaw out.
That night, I figured that because Tony enjoys good food, I should take him to the Sеmovata Kushta (симоваmа къща) as well, and again, what a good choice it was. We just had the most fabulous meal and Tony was pretty damned happy about it…as was I 🙂When we left the restaurant to walk home, we figured we might pop into a bar and have a cleansing ale…well, by then it was so cold that it really did actually hurt. We’re talking two people wrapped up to the max…I even had fur lined boots on, but every fibre in my body was hurting. We only had a ten minute walk back to the apartment and when Tony said ‘ It’s freezing, let’s go home’ I was so relieved. I really don’t think I could have walked around looking for a pub and survived. !! A centrally heated apartment with Rakia and Baileys was a far better idea that looking for a pub 🙂
How do people survive temperatures like this ???
26/01
Another day in Sofia…another incredibley cold day in Sofia….minus 27 was the rumour. It felt like minus a million 🙂 I’m Australian for Gods sake…..I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life !!But it didn’t really dent our enjoyment…again, there were many cups of coffee to warm us up and we still managed to see a reasonable amount of the city and found a German bar. Tony enjoys a beer, especially a good one, and after his months in the Czech Republic, with all their fantastic beers, a German bar seemed like a good stop to see what was on offer. We also decided to have dinner there that night…not necessarily a good choice. Perhaps we’d been spoilt by the wonderful Bulgarian food at Sеmovata Kushta the night before, but the food was like grease city. Beer was OK…but the bucket of fat was just a wee bit too much for both of us. Tony kept poking the Wurst and showing me the fat running out…a bit too much for any civilised human being 🙂
27/01
Next morning, while getting ready to head back to Miladinovtsi, we compared our nights sleep and both of us had had greasy food restlessness…..yuk !!
But now it was time to get on that bus and head down to see what awaited us at Miladinovtsi.
There are many that would have said that we should have stayed in Sofia…..but that’s another story….
Until then
Leka nosht
mercer
Sue Mercer, Bulgaria 2006
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