Bulgaria

Even though I am a bit behind with my posting (Switzerland/Italy trip, games at the Emirates) I thought I would share with you my skiing trip to Bulgaria. I didn't know what to expect from the start with everyone telling us how crap the resort is and all but it can't be that bad right if people are still going there? I'll let you decide.

Day 1:
3:15am wake up for the 4am cab ride to Gatwick. Apart from the lack of sleep, it wasn't too bad. The flight over was quite smooth as well and the landing was so much better than some of the ones I have experienced recently. The car ride to Bansko allowed us to see the city a little bit in Sophia and it has a China feel to it being ex-communist and all. It could have been the weather but everything seems dull and gray. We managed to check into the hotel and it looked quite nice outside, but as we inspected closely, the build quality is not so good and you can feel the wall wobbling when you touch it. I guess if an apartment costs 22,000 euro to buy you shouldn't expect too much. We went to sort out our gear and bought our lift pass, ate some food, then called it a day.

Day 2:
Got up early to get up to the mountains, the breakfast in the hotel wasn't too bad. The line for the gondola up the mountain wasn't too long, I think we waited for around 30 minutes but the ride up actually took another 30 minutes. It felt quite warm when we got there and the snow is well... at least you can ski on it. Went to practice a bit on a baby slope in preparation for our lesson. As the day went by, the lines for the ski lifts and T-Bars got longer and longer. The slopes had more and more people, we were told by another couple in the group that it took them 1.5hrs to get up to the mountain in the morning waiting for the gondola when they lined up at 9am. Went back to the hotel and hit the sauna and steam room, according to the posters the hotel charges 3 euro for 30 minutes in the sauna. As a guest at the hotel, it should be free. Didn't pay.

For dinner we went to a local restaurant. We soon realised that every restaurant sells the same food. Which is not a problem because food is actually quite good, cheap, and lots of meat. The problem is it makes the whole town smells like BBQ with smoke everywhere. We tried to look for a place for New Year's eve but everything was so expensive for local standard. We went back to the hotel and crashed.

Day 3:
Our ski lesson was at 9am so we had to get up early again. Instant noodles was magnificent. NJ_La decided to sleep in a bit and ended up having to wait 1.5hrs at the gondola. Skiing condition was so so since it didn't snow and it was warm again so on the way back, we decided to take the gondola down rather than the long ski road down to the bottom of the mountain. The ski road is actually quite a good idea, it is an easy run down the mountain but the problem is the lack of snow towards the end and since it was pretty flat, it was a tough work out for the arms to push yourself to the finish line. While waiting for the gondola, we noticed that there was a family next to us, no matter, it fits 8 and including us there were only 7 and 2 were little kids. As the door open, I went to the back door to put my skis in, I then tried to get on the gondola but the mum who first pushed in front of us just before the gondola came decided to stick her hands out and blocked my way to the gondola so her family can get on first. In any other sport that move would have been a foul and I protested and thought WTF but the operators didn't care and just shook his head and told me to get on. It wasn't his fault and he probably couldn't do much about it either. We did however told them how rude they were knowing that they would understand a bit of English. Went back for a sauna session, didn't pay.

Since it was New Year's eve, we headed out looking for a place but most places were charging ridiculous prices or were full. We stumbled upon a bar and when we asked them how much it was only £20 per person so we thought why not. We couldn't really understand the waitress so we sat down anyway, looking at the other tables it looked quite decent. Our communication was flawed in many ways because in Bulgaria, they shake the head sideways for a yes, and they nod when it's a no. The entire time we asked her whether there were more food than the salad she was shaking her head and mentioned something about meat and rice. She then tried to ask us what we want to drink but soon gave up and proceeded to the fridge and took a whole bunch of soft drinks to the table. She then put 3 bottles in front of everyone and pointed at the drinks and then pointed to the person and said 'You!'. The drinks were included and we also got 100ml of a Bulgarian brandy. I just looked it up and it's called Rakia, the explanation says high concentration of alcohol and it is rather accurate. Some of the guys decided to order some other drinks and it was so damn cheap. A 100ml of Bombay Sapphire costs £1.25, you can't actually get less, it comes automatically at 100ml. It was a happy night for all and it also involved me getting roped into a local line dance thing at the restaurant. After a while, more food came out and she was right, it was rice with 3 types of meat. We also got dessert which was some form of fortune baklava. I took a bite and there was a piece of plastic inside. I opened it up and it had Bulgarian writing on it. No fricken idea what it said but a woman from the next table came by and explained in broken English. To this day I have no idea what it meant and I only caught the bit saying you will buy stuff with old coins. The night was complete with local fireworks display and a cheap bottle of champagne that came with our deal.

Day 4:
We slept in after a late one and since the walls were so thin we could hear the next room talking really loud at 5am in the morning. More instant noodles goodness and we were off to the snow again. The ride up wasn't bad at all since most people were probably sleeping or resting. Had a good run before meeting our instructor again and had quite a good lesson. He told us we should try the tripe soup but all the restaurants we went to didn't have soup for dinner, "only day time". For dinner we went to a place recommended by a Greek couple we met in the sauna. The instruction was to head to the old town square, past the monument, and it's a restaurant with a big barrel with vegies on top. Damn that was accurate and as we got close, there were vegies on top of a barrel. We did come by a couple of nights before but it was packed and we found out why. The food was awesome! BBQ meat again but it was at a high standard, it was cheap as well and they had this home made wine that costs like £3 for a litre and it was fantastic.

Day 5:
Last day of skiing and got up early for it. There were more gondola action! This family wanted to have the gondola to themselves and when this woman put her skis on and stepped into the gondola, this guy pulled her out and pushed her away! She had to take her skis off and wait for he next one. What is wrong with these people! By 11am we have had about 6 runs and the lines were absolutely crazy by then! We decided to take a break at one of the restaurant sitting outside so we could monitor the queue. Our friends who waited for us for 20 minutes already directed our attention to the little kid behind us. apparently he had been waiting for his parents since they got there and he even fell off the chair. Our friend picked him up and tried to wipe his tears away but since he was probably told not to talk to strangers (plus he doesn't speak English) he pushed our friend away. He then proceeded to walk around and started crying really loud looking for his parents. Eventually his mum came back and for her to line up for the lift, go up and ski down the kid was probably sitting by himself for a good hour at least. Asian parents leaves kids in cars to go to the casino, Europeans leave them to go skiing. We decided to have a long lunch and I didn't actually make it back up to the mountains.

The last dinner in Bulgaria we went back to the same restaurant with the barrel and vegies on top. Our "waiter" for the night was probably not a waiter. We ordered our food and wine and he came back with 4 glasses for 6 people, we told him and he said no problem. When the salads came, we asked for some plates, first he rolled his eyes, then came back with 5 plates. He quickly did a count and said 'you want 6 right?' and damn straight we do and he went away rolling his eyes again. Even though he had a massive mullet he did grow on us and some of us even took a photo with him. The food again was great and had a bit of wine to drink again.

Day 6:
The last day we had an early ride back to Sophia airport. It was absolutely bucketing down with snow all the way (almost like right now as I look outside the window in London). We thought that our plane would be delayed since it's Easyjet and all but it actually came on time and we were on the plane in no time. Then the bad news hit, there was a problem and because there was a massive head wind they had to load more fuel on the plane and given the huge amount of ski gear the plane was too heavy to take off. They wanted 5 passengers to volunteer and surprise surprise, no one did. After 15 minutes and a £100 lure 2 people decided to take the later 9pm flight (we were on a 1:50pm). with no more volunteers, they said their next option is to pull luggage off the plane. Normally it would be fine but they also said that there is no way for them to tell who's luggage got taken off (even though the checked in bags are all marked with name and barcode) and the only way to find out is at the other end when your luggage don't come out! Luckily, they recalculated and said if 1 more person get off then all the luggage can come along as well. Eventually, a Bulgarian guy decided to get off and everyone clapped.

Finally got back to London and we were only 50 minutes late. Our car ride home though was crap because the driver went over to Fulham and a Chelsea game just finished. I think in the end it took us almost 2hrs to get back home from Gatwick.

So there it was, an interesting time in Bulgaria. Other highlights include:

- a kid during a ski lesson got cleaned up by a snow boarder and when confronted the boarder didn't care and said it's not his fault
- a kid fell of a chair lift while getting on, the operator didn't stop the lift but just kept watching, eventually he stopped the lift when the next lot of people were about to get off
- people pushing in and the absolute chaos at the ski lifts queues
- our hotel running out of hot water and said it would take 40 minutes to fix the problem, then they turned the water off for a while
- we asked for towels but it never came because they couldn't find the maid

So to summarise, the local people and food was great, but the skiing, resort, and people on the slopes were not.I don't think I will go back for the snow and wouldn't recommend it. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time and when I made it onto the slopes, it was fantastic.