3,165km later we reach Sofia, Bulgaria...

  Sofia, Bulgaria
Monday, September 22, 2008

So there we were driving towards Bulgaria feeling like the prize was just in our grasp when we saw signs above the motorway - straight for Belgrade in RUSSIA, right for Athens in Greece, god we were a long, long way from home and it was sooo exhilarating!
 
We were welcomed to Bulgaria just over 2 weeks ago by a massive thunder and lightening, electrical storm so we found a park up by these amazing lakes just outside Sofia. It was Saturday night when we arrived at the lakes and we decided to spend the evening on our own as once we reached Sofia it would be a whirl wind of meeting people and going places...
 
We weren't due to be in Sofia till Monday but I was feeling restless (must have been the thunder storm) and we couldn't decide what to do so I wrote all the available options on bits of paper and put them in a hat for Ned to choose one....
Stay where we were. Find mega star hotel and stay there for the night. Find new park up on the other side of the reservoir. Choose again. Go to Sofia and see what happens organically. Call Ned's mate in Sofia and let him decide. Blank.... Which meant Ned could choose.  
I shook the hat and Ned dramatically picked one out of the hat.... 7. Blank. Hahahaha typical!!! Ned couldn't decide so he decided to pick another one - good man. 2. Find hotel.... But I didn't want to do that either.... Poor Ned I was in one of 'those' moods so we decided to call Simion (Ned's mate in Sofia) and let him decide... yes great idea let someone else decide!
 
Simion was totally delighted to hear from us and directed us to his friend's house in Sofia - we put on our town clothes, I plucked my hairs as I was beginning to look like an ape and off we went...
We arrived at Simion's friend's house amid torrential rain and flash floods; we were in a total state of shock after taking our lives in our hands by driving on pot holes that were held together by road!!!! I wonder where all that EU money has gone, NOT ON THE BULGARIAN ROADS I TELL YA....

 
Simeon's friends were lovely and welcomed us in but as Ned and I were not only in total shock from the drive, we had been alone away from social contact for 5 weeks apart from 'fill her up please' it was as strange making small talk as it was being in a house but we coped and the fine Bulgarian vodka helped!
We were having a grand ol' time until Simion told us we had to attend a press conference the next bloomin' morning!!!
"What the fuck am I going to wear Ned" and Ned responded - "apart from your hangover dear"! great help huh... So off we went to bed both of us agreed that things couldn't get anymore bizarre, but they did....
In the morning as you can imagine I was having kittens - we were going to be on the Bulgarian equivalent of the BBC and I didn't have an 'outfit' in mind for either of us and worst of all I didn't have my hair strengtheners with me!!!
However the style queen that I am and the fact that I packed something for EVERY occasion, I quickly came up with suitable attire for both of us phew - Right, Next, Ned get shaved, me put my face on and boy did it feel strange putting make up on after living on the road for so long, I was convinced that I looked like a freak but Ned assured me I looked perfectly normal and that I only felt like that as we had been living like vagabonds for so long. Ummmm?  
Once we arrived at the press conference it hit me, what the hell are we going to say and it didn't help that Ned looked as white as a ghost - we were in total shock!
But true to form we pulled it off and quickly went for a stiff drink afterwards. There was meant to be a nice hotel waiting for us in Sofia but it quickly came to light that we had been booked into a hostel - A HOSTEL!!! Me in a HOSTEL - you've gotta be joking.... So we stayed one night with the clapped out heating drip, drip, dripping and the only comfort was that we were the only people in the room with FIVE single beds!
The next day we swiftly booked ourselves into a 4 star spa hotel - thank god for my laptop and plastic and as it was our 3 year anniversary (can you believe it) we thought, lets get a deluxe suite for 2 nights and then move to a normal room - why the hell not eh!

 
We arrived in our deluxe suite only to discover that our idea of deluxe and the Bulgarian idea of deluxe was as far apart from each other as we were from home! Well as you can imagine I got us moved quick sharpish to another room, well what was the point of paying all this money for a shite room, may as well pay normal money for a shite room! Our new room was tiny and cold - the heating was broken so 3 visits from the engineer later I got us moved AGAIN - our 3rd room was at least warm and clean but by this time it was 9pm and we certainly weren't in the mood for romantic anniversary celebrations so called room service and went to sleep!


In the morning I was furious and stormed off to see the manager dragging Ned along with me for back up! It was obvious she was expecting us... she promised to have a lovely room made up for us within the hour and the first night was free, "I should bloody well hope so" I snarled at her.


Our 4th room was wonderful, it was big and bright with a balcony over looking the mountain, the heating worked and it was clean. I quickly headed to the spa to unwind and we decided that today was our anniversary instead! We spent the next few days relaxing on our own at the hotel making full use of the room service, service and the spa facilities but then the bubble burst - we had to attend meetings, go to functions and smooze!



Finally the day of the festival arrived (our time spent in Bulgaria was starting to feel like pulling teeth).

We put on our glad rags and off we went to the festival only to discover the Bulgarian idea of a festival is not what we were expecting... It was basically an amateur showcase of bands and poets lasting all of about 4 hours! It's impossible to describe it but think student gig in student venue... It was quickly transpiring why they needed us however what also became clear is that they couldn't afford us!

 
We both couldn't wait to get out of the place - we had been treated like shit by being given such a low accommodation budget that it only covered a hostel (poor Simion didn't have the budget for anything else, he had really tried his best) and it was such an amateur production that we were being asked to sort out for crap money, we just couldn't wait to get the hell out of there - we had had enough of the desperation, the bad roads, the corruption and the dirt... so we decided to find a route home avoiding the whole of Eastern Europe and that only left one option... drive down to Greece and get a ferry across to Italy - How bad?


 
With renewed vigour and the sense of adventure pulsating through our veins, we just drove and drove - we really did need to get out of Eastern Europe to restore our sanity once more and as soon as we crossed the boarder, a sense of relief swept over us, we looked at each other and smiled - we were back in civilisation once more,
DESTINATION GREEK COAST.