Bulgaria. Great place. In the land of Bulgaria, there is a town, and that town is called Sunny Beach. Not the most imaginative name, but it makes its point. As the astute among you will have no doubt guessed, it’s sunny, and it has a beach. Quite a nice beach actually, it’s won awards and that.
I bought a small place there and lived in that land of sun and beach for a bit around 2007. Such a great place. Well during the summer that is.
In the winter it was cold as ffff. I mean, it went from swimming in the pool throwing beach balls at a never ending stream of holiday girls in the summer months, women swishing their hair and throwing their heads back laughing at my hilarious jokes ( * ), going out drinking cocktails at night, to… the same swimming pool being frozen over with solid ice, spooky silence, darkness, and me being the only person in the complex. Kind of like the Shining, but in Bulgarian.
Actually, in the winter it would be me and the security guard and the maintenance man. The security guard never said much, he just sat in a box near the entrance in case someone visited, which as far as I could tell was never. The maintenance man was a raging alcoholic who would happily sit and drink for hours. And drink we did, even George Best and Oliver Reed would be getting their coats and leaving in shame.
During the summer you would walk down the main street, full of bars, nightclubs, women in bikinis dancing on poles for no reason (although luckily no-one complained), mentally loud music, and so many people you would have about 2 inches of space around you as you walked along the street. You know when you’re in a crowded pub and making your way to the bar, squeezing past everyone saying sorry so you don’t get your head stoved in? Yeah like that, but everywhere along a 2km long street.
Back to the winter. It was actually pretty creepy walking around that town at night. Numer one it was like a deserted film set… all the props are there but you would walk for 20 minutes and not see another person. Plus eerily silent, you could hear the sound of your footsteps reverberating off the deserted buildings each side of the road.
I’ve got many stories to tell about the time in BG. But I’ll save them for other posts. In the end I left there as it was just too damn cold in the winters, and moved to another country which had cheap cost of living, nice weather all year, and beaches. I like beaches. See if you can guess where. To be continued…
( * ) well ok, maybe a slight exaggeration. I think a woman there DID laugh at something I said once though. Or maybe she was just laughing at me. Oh well.