We haven’t had a fight for a while so Sofia airport seemed like a good place for it to kick off again. Actually we are pretty hopeless at fighting. Mostly it consists of Tub shouting something like “WHY DID YOU DO IT!!!” and then several hours of terse conversations where Tub tries to convey her annoyance by answering everything with either “Fine.” or “Whatever you like.” A quick tip for anyone new to relationships – “Whatever you like” doesn’t mean what it says.
It’s actually important to have the odd skirmish just to keep everything on the straight and narrow but I do find it a struggle sometimes walking the tightrope between just going along with everything (“Why can’t you make some of the decisions you lazy fucker!”) and making my own suggestions (“You always think you are right”). Every so often you are going to fall off.
This time we had a dispute about which lane to go in at immigration. Yup, its one of the top 5 flashpoints in any marriage. We got UK passports for this trip to make it easier to get about the EU but we aren’t in the EU yet so its a bit confusing. Tub is also secretly annoyed that my UK passport has 2 more stamps in it than hers because I used it in America and she didn’t get hers until we got to London.
“We can use the electronic passport queue.” said Tub.
“I dunno. There are only 3 people in the normal one and there are a million people heading down the corridor behind us. I’m not sure we should risk it.” I said.
So we stood in the normal queue and of course it went really slowly. Tub was cursing and mumbling things under her breath. After 5 minutes we hadn’t moved at all and there was only one person in the Electronic Queue so I said “Lets try it.”
That didn’t go down too well.
I went over and it worked perfectly but Tub stayed in the normal queue.
Later when she had calmed down I asked her why she had stayed there, was she just making a point?
No. It turned out she was hoping to get a stamp in her passport, but the bloke just threw it back at her. What a baby!
Sofia is what I imagine Russia was like in the 1980s. I’m sure I recognised our cab driver from some of those Youtube videos.
We got to the Hotel Ram D in one piece.
When we checked in Tub asked if there was a restaurant in the hotel. The guy on the check in desk said “Yes. But there is also a proper one just around the corner.”
We went around the corner.
It was pretty good and they had a folk band.
“Iz not fair. Boris have a drum. Dimitr have a kids piano and I only have a goonbag and a stick.”
This is our full day in Sofia. We got in late last night so we haven’t had a look about yet.
That’s right folks. Sofia is a bit of a shithole.
We headed into the “touristy bit” but it doesn’t get any better. Ian Callaghan promised me cheap beer and hot women but all I can find is crap wine and mingers.
Tub found a shoe shop.
And we saw this guy plying his trade. He has a set of bathroom scales and he will weigh you for 10c. If the scales say you are a porker then he hits you with his stick.
They have some strange advertising here.
You wouldn’t guess it, but this one is for cigarettes. Everyone smokes in Bulgaria. It’s where the laboratory rabbits move to when they escape.
You can have the car, the girl or the Chihuahua but only one of them is clean enough to take into your house.
Apart from that everything is pretty normal.
After 2 hours we’d had enough and did what everyone else in Bulgaria does, got drunk and tried to get an earlier flight out.
But just as we were heading back to the hotel and had given up on there being anything worth doing in Sofia, we came across this. Its…. Rubble! And it must be important because it’s got a little sign.
We have a day and a half of Dave Allen ahead of us. Might be time to actually look up the places we are going on this trip and find something out about them.
In the evening we decided to go for dinner. We spent some time on the web finding the best Indian restaurant in Sofia and carefully wrote out the address and directions on a piece of paper. We went out and grabbed a taxi. The driver seemed quite annoyed to have to take us somewhere and looked at our piece of paper with disgust.
“What is it?” he grumbled.
“It’s an Indian restaurant.” we told him.
“Ok. Get in.”
20 minutes later we pulled up outside an Indian, but it wasn’t the one we wanted to go to.
“This isn’t it. Its at 7 Knyaz Boris Street, like it says on the piece of paper.” I protested.
“You said Indian restaurant. This Indian restaurant. Stop complaining.” he said.
Fair enough. Lets try this one instead. The taxi bill was 5.50 Bulgarian Lev. I gave him 10 and he complained bitterly about us not having the right money. He gave me a handful of coins and kicked us out of the cab in the middle of the road.
I don’t know about you but I was kind of expecting those coins to add up to 4.50 Lev. When I looked at them properly I had a handful of buttons and washers. However his brothers Indian restaurant was actually really good and it was close enough for us to walk home and not get involved with any more taxi drivers.
On the way home we stopped at the rubble again.
and found a Banksy original.
We went into the hotel casino and invested 10 Lev in a slot machine. We couldn’t work out how to use it and after randomly pressing buttons for a bit it paid us 25 Lev to go away which more than made up for the taxi.
Our last day in Bulgaria, probably ever. It has drizzled most of the time here and we couldn’t get the flight changed so we don’t leave until 7pm. In case it wasn’t coming across clearly, Sofia really is a shithole. It’s like Houston but without the charm.
A whole day to kill in Sofia. How nice.
We went to the tourist attractions.
Well, they haven’t got any so we went to an empty shopping centre that had models of things that they claim are tourist attractions.
Then we went to the pub.
We spent an hour in the hotel bar just before we left for the airport. The concierge said to give him a shout when we left and he would get us a taxi. When we came out he was nowhere to be seen but there was a dodgy looking bloke by the door wearing an old raincoat who seemed very pleased to see us.
“Taxi to airport?” he said.
“Yeeeeessss” I replied reluctantly.
“Ok. Lez go. The hotel man said you would be coming out soon.”
He had been waiting an hour for us so we felt obliged to go with him. Of course the taxi had no meter and he suggested we go on back roads because of the traffic.
“This is where Bulgarian gypsies live.” He told us, “Very safe, you no worry.”
On one of the dirt back roads we went along, a car next to us tried to turn left much too late and span out ending up facing us. An appropriate way to end our time in Bulgaria.
We did make it to the airport and I chucked a 20 in the cabby’s hand along with some washers and an Australian 5c coin. Two can play at that game. By the time he had counted it we were well inside the airport. I could hear him shouting “What about my tip?” as we ran away.
Well that’s it Bulgaria. Thanks for nothing. I don’t expect we will be back but I’ll look out for you on the Eurovision Song Contest.
Next stop Greece. All I know about the place is that they invented anal sex and ouzo, but probably not in that order. There are 3 hours until the plane leaves so we can do some research.
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