Bulgaria 28/05
Here I sit nursing a minor hangover. And I know that I’m supposed to be sitting home knitting just now, but an invitation to join Ivan and Kremena for a night out was just too tempting after all these months of doing very little indeed.
The night was in honour of Kremenas birthday and I was informed that we were going for dinner at a restaurant in a village way up in the mountains called Graditz (sic). I’m thinking ‘god I hate travelling too far for a night out’ but it was certainly worth it. For starters the scenery on the drive up through the mountains was absolutely beautiful and the restaurant itself was in the loveliest of settings. It was nestled in a small valley at the edge of the classic picture book babbling brook…with small waterfall….fabulous. Very traditional, very enjoyable, very beautiful.
Had another crack at Rakia, but I might have to admit defeat on this one….at least for a little while longer. It really did burn the old throat a bit, and heavens above, I don’t want to be ruining this lovely new voice I’ve now got. AND its back to Dr Drinkoff on Friday and I don’t want to get into trouble for not being careful enough. 🙂
After we had eaten, Ivan suggested we return to Sliven and finish our evening at a hotel owned by a friend of his….in fact, it’s Toma, the man who installed my central heating downstairs. What a good suggestion that was. Toma is not only a damned good heating engineer but runs a great hotel/restaurant. The place was, again, fabulous. It was in a classic Bulgarian style building, was packed to the gunnels and had live traditional music….what a treat.
We had a great time and many, many glasses of very fine Traminer.
Look at that Hawaiian shirt….he’d blend into Australia very well indeed 🙂
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Toma, Ivan & Kremena
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[photopress:Ivan___Me.JPG,full,pp_empty] Ivan & Me
The Bulgarians love a dance and the whole restaurant was heaving with patrons doing traditional dancing. They were not only dancing around and between the tables, but on them as well.
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And I know it’s not a great pic, but the buggers kept turning away every time I got them lined up for a shot……
Ivan and Kremena were up there with the best of them…
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I just had the best night…and I reckon I needed it. It’s been a quiet old time here for the last couple of months and I do love a night out…it was good for my soul. And Ivan and Kremena are fantastic company…and really good people to boot.
I may have discovered another Bulgarian ‘thing’, though I will be checking up on it. I tried to pay for the meal and Ivan & Kremena would not allow me to, saying that in Bulgaria it’s the person whose birthday you’re celebrating that pays the bill. Now, I’m from a country where the person whose birthday it is gets paid for by all their mates. I told Ivan this and he said when he goes to Australia and it’s my birthday, he will pay….so I told him that he loses out on both counts then…he pays here in Bulgaria for his birthday and then he would be paying in Australia for mine……doesn’t sound too fair to me. 🙂
Just casting my diary memory back to Thursday. I got a phone call from the Mayor, Dimitar. His voice had a somewhat urgent tone to it and I thought there was a problem. Still only being able to pick up every third word of what he was saying, I told him I would ring my translator, Stefka…which I did. While I was talking to her, Dimitar rang, so Stefka signed off and went to talk to him. She then came back and told me he needed to see me in his office……but not to worry, it was nothing bad. I was still feeling a litle concerned when I headed up there but soon found that I really didn’t have anything to worry about. It was morning tea and a presentation by his wife Sanka, of a rather large banana plant to say thank you to me for all the photos I’ve been taking in the village and passing on to the villagers. Isn’t that just so nice….I was really touched.
There I was at 8.30 am being fed soft drink and chocolate biscuits (Eeek!!) and spending a bit of time with the Mayor, his wife and a few of the villagers. We had a conversation about my slowly improving Bulgarian and apparently they all believe that in one year I will be speaking more than a little, in two years I will be speaking more and so on and by ten years I will be speaking perfect Bulgarian….I thought they were being pretty optimistic about my ability to learn the language and even more optimistic that I’d even be here in ten years…Christ, anything could happen.
The weather just keeps getting warmer, the garden just keeps getting bigger, my enormous rose bush with the beautiful, heavily perfumed pink roses is absolutely bursting with blossoms and my cherry tree is groaning under the weight of ripening fruit….life just doesn’t get much better than this.
Dovishdane
Mercer
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