“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.”  James Michener

There are a few things that we will remember about Bulgaria: the women are very fashion (and make-up) conscious, Bulgarians enjoy eating (almost anything – tripe and liver are especially popular) and they enjoy listening to ‘80’s music …preferably whilst they are eating…

Sometimes our dinner outings felt like we had stepped back in time: Lionel Ritchie playing in the background, the women with a full face of makeup and even an 80’s Farrah Fawcett hairdo or two.

Our apartment was on the second floor of the Monastery Apartment Block, at the ‘ski lift end’ of Bansko where there has been a building boom over recent years.

Three and four story apartment blocks and upmarket hotels in various stages of development are everywhere, transforming the once sleepy isolated village into a mini tourist mecca in the last decade or so.

Foreigners, especially the English, bought up big in the boom years prior to the GFC, using the apartments as holiday houses for their own use and to rent out.  However, following the GFC of 2008, the value of property fell by up to 50% and now there has  been a wave of secondary investors, cashing in on the much lower prices, and this time apparently being led by the Russians.

Nevertheless, Bansko has been named world’s best value ski resort for Britons for a few years running and this was one of the reasons that led us here.  We were often asked “Why Bulgaria?” when we told of our Christmas plans.  Purely because of its close proximity to Turkey (that I knew I wanted to go back to), higher than average chance of a White Christmas and the opportunity to do some skiing. So being able to afford to rent here for a month in what can be the most expensive time of the year, wherever in the world you happen to be was the cherry on top. Oh, and I’d never been here before – what better reasons could there be?

Of course, with the tourists come the services: hundreds of restaurants and cafes, ski and snowboarding shops by the bucket load, tacky souvenir shops, casinos and worse, the ‘adult’ entertainment places/shops that unfortunately we’ve come to realise, share the same street as the family restaurants and general day to day services in all cities and towns in the Balkan countries. Maybe it is now because as a parent of reading age children who try to read and make sense of everything, I notice it more than I usually would, but there are some things that I wish they could not read (or see for that matter!). Censorship here seems non-existent.

Compared to the modern apartment blocks, down in the village of Bansko itself it is still a quaint town dating back to medieval times and some houses seem ancient and others quite run-down so it has a bit of a time-warped character.

But back to our very comfortable apartment …

Featuring in our groceries from Plovdiv were many canned foods. Now never assume your self-contained apartment will have a can opener when you arrive, because ours didn’t, so we set out to buy one…

So imagine our bewilderment when we couldn’t find the most common of items needed to make our stay easier …. After a day of searching every convenience store in our vicinity we set off for the big supermarket at the other end of the town – around a 30 minute walk away (the ‘winter’ supermarket nearer to us didn’t open until Dec 21) and still we remained unsuccessful.

This is in spite of the fact that all of the shops sell canned food. The shop attendants are either unable or unwilling to explain how one would open a can after purchasing it and when asking or showing a can and acting out the ‘can opener demonstration’, the younger staff who had limited English where one would buy such a tool we were always given the great ‘Balkan shrug’ – where they basically look at us with disinterest, give a resigned shrug and a ‘it’s not my problem’ look, before turning away.

In the end, we emailed our meet and greet friend requesting he buy a can opener for us and drop it off.  When he dropped it around, we asked him where do you buy them even he responded “Ahhh, it’s a secret”.  So we are still non-the-wiser.

Another puzzle was finding Christmas paper to wrap the few presents we had accumulated for the girls. After the winter supermarket up our end of town opened on December 21^st we assumed that it would be something like at home where cheap Christmas paper was available everywhere by the truckload. We could just pop into almost any shop and pick-up a couple of rolls. Well that was our first mistake – don’t assume anything in Bulgaria!  There wasn’t any in the newspaper shops or convenience stores or in the supermarkets. Now, Bulgaria is an Orthodox Christian country and there were decorated Christmas trees everywhere so it wasn’t as if they didn’t celebrate Christmas.  I even put the question on one of the chat forums in Bansko, but received no reply – it seems no one else knew where to buy it either! After two days of searching and now the 24th of December, David eventually purchased some wrapping paper from a local florist in the village! Although it wasn’t particularly Christmassy paper, (more like rice paper) it was better than nothing and served the purpose.  Some things are to remain a mystery! But not knowing things sure bugs me!

Here are some other things you may not have known about Bulgaria … we certainly didn’t…

They shake their head for yes and nod for no ….now if you don’t speak the lingo and a simple ‘universal’ gestures are back-to-front this just makes things more interesting/confusing!

They don’t smile readily… it is not because they are unfriendly as such; it is just that this is supposedly just reserved for close friends.  It is hard not to take personally when, again we think of a smile as a universal language, and we greet people with a smile it is often repaid with a deadpan expression. Mind you, after we had frequented the same convenience store for bread and milk nearly every day for two weeks the girl on the check-out counter let us know we now qualified for a discount of 20% and would then give a small smile each time we came in after that. And of course, the ‘tout’s’ working the street in front of their restaurants would always give us plenty of smiles and compliments like calling “Hello, beautiful family – when you come to our restaurant again?” as we walked back to our apartment!

Pink features…a lot.  As in Rose pink. There were so many of these little ‘pink’ shops selling rose scented creams, shampoos and soaps that on further research we learnt Bulgaria is particularly climatically suited to growing roses and eighty five per cent of the world’s rose oil is distilled here in Bulgaria. It would have been nice to visit the Rose Valley where roses have been cultivated for centuries but we are definitely here at the wrong time of year!

Public memorial notices – we noticed these when we were walking down to Bansko village – black and white A4 page with a person’s picture tacked to the front gates of houses.  At first we wondered what they were, and discovered that in Bulgaria, as in other central and Eastern European countries, it is the custom to publicly announce and remember deaths by memorials and that they are tacked at recognised sites within a neighbourhood like on boards or walls on particular street corners or bus stops where there is frequent passing foot traffic.

These black bordered notices typically with a black and white photo of the deceased lists their name, vital dates and details of the person and also of those still mourning their loss.  As well as the notices that are posted immediately after death they are also often placed at other commemorative times like 40 days, three and seven years after death and also at 10 or 25 years too if they died prematurely or are survived for many years by their widow or widower.  No wonder there were so many about!

…And so we settle into our apartment for our long-dreamed of ‘White Christmas’, the girls are happily playing with their toys that are spread out all over their own bedroom floor. There is a gorgeous sunset, and the sky takes on the most amazing colours, highlighting the snow capped mountains that I can see from the sofa.  I am enjoying a glass of merlot while the fire crackles, content in the fact that I don’t have to pack up and move for a while. Ahhhh Bliss…….or is it?

Yes, it is a blissful moment per se, but sometimes it is easy to feel a bit tired, annoyed and jaded when travelling, especially when on the road for a long time. I’m sure most of you have guessed I love a great quote or saying and when I read them I am reminded of why I love to travel – to see, to live, to learn.  For me travel is the best way to learn and grow, to challenge myself and to really appreciate the world around me now.

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.”- Bill Bryson

So when I read these quotes I nod my head in agreement – they all ring so true and serve to remind me that I love that the world is so different and yet so similar at the same time and how boring life would be if it were always easy! If we hadn’t had to go looking for that can opener I may have missed those public memorial notices so I’m glad. And everytime David went out in search of something he always came back with a story or two of what he’d discovered on his walk.  We are  out of our comfort zone, often – but I like it like that.

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. – ”Clifton Fadiman