Marketing campaign for Bulgarian trains - travel with Bulgarian trains!

Having one of the worst trips ever I learned that one of the scariest things in your life could be being alone in a Bulgarian train at night. First of all, you don’t know who you will sit with. My great neighbour was drinking beer all night long and talking to me even after I told him 15 times that I want to sleep and because of the fact that he was so great, I was afraid to fall asleep, so I had to listen. Next is the complete lack of information. There are no announcements of stations, no “tabels” with the station names, no info about any arrival time (and if you bear in mind that Bulgarian trains are ALWAYS late, it’s even worse), you don’t know whether your station is the last one or if you can wake up in a different part of the country next morning.

In addition to everything mentioned above, I had an experience with Bulgarian train toilet. NEVER go to the toilet in Bulgaria train, especially if you are travelling alone. Being a naive girl who thinks that Bulgarian trains are similar to the old Russian trains I closed the door and next minute realised that I am trapped in a 1 sqm large smelly, loud and cold room, in the middle of the night, alone, with no phone. Trying not to panic too much and thinking what will I do if I have to stay there all night long and miss my flight; I was beating the door with my fists hoping someone will hear me. 10 minutes later I was rescued, but the impressions and emotions I got are priceless and unforgettable. If you feel like you are bored and nothing thrills you in your life any more, forget about extreme sports, travel with Bulgarian trains! A whole marketing campaign could be based on just my impressions J

Latvia and Bulgaria

Bulgaria and Latvia are two similar countries, even though at first it seems that they don’t have anything in common. Both countries have people who want to live much better than the corrupted government allows, however in Latvia there are much more people who want to escape by going to England, Ireland and Germany. In Bulgaria people’s national conciseness is much higher and as a conclusion more people want to stay in their country even if it’s not perfect (does anyone know a perfect country? Even Norway was attacked by a terrorist, and the fact that he was Norwegian only made it worse). Another expression of national belief is the protests that I witnessed less than one month ago. Protests in Latvia also happen, but firstly they are attended only by few people and secondly they don’t have any effect on anything. I wish my country to wake up and to look at all the problems not from the position “I want to escape”, but from the position “I want to change it and I will”, however even for me while writing this post is difficult to imagine that something like that can be done.

Living in Bulgaria for me was great, as I felt the connection with the culture, language and people, the politics and economy doesn’t differ much from what I am used to and the climate was normally much better than in Latvia, however the 2 rainy weeks in October made me reconsider my opinion about the great Bulgarian climate.

It was really sad to leave, especially considering that the last couple of weeks everything was becoming better every day of my life, but life goes on and this page of my life finished. May be I will come back one day and I would really loved to, but life’s unpredictable and I cannot plan anything like that so far. So, keep in touch and thank everyone for everything! 

Long week - longer weekend

Trying to pack my backpack, but it's hard, even though I have quite an experince in packing... Why I am packing? Well...

The day September 6 is a very important one in the history of Bulgaria. It is the Unification Day of Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia (Southern part of Bulgaria) in 1885, separated in 1878 by Berlin treaty and given to Ottoman Empire with partial autonomy. However 7 years later brave Bulgarians finally got their territories back and are celebrating this day since then. For us as foreigners here this means two things - we are happy for our friends and we have one more day free. This is why this week we are working Monday to Saturday, however Sunday to Tuesday having 3 days holidays.

Bulgaria VS Sweden

They're asking me, how is Bulgaria? I'm saying - great. They're asking me - better than Sweden? I'm saying - different.
Sweden is more calm, more stable, better in financial and social aspect. It's a good place to settle down after 30 may be, or even later. To get social benefits, stable salary and buy a Vovlo or SAAB.
Bulgaria is more unstable in financial and social pert of life. For example, if such thing as Gini index is saying something to you, then you can compare. Bulgaria - 33,5, Sweden - 23 (Latvia - 37,7), and it's just one of lots of numbers.
BUT. As I mentioned before, at the end of the day, it's all about people. And despite the fact that I am not really religious, I like that Bulgaria is orthodox, I like that they have Cyrillic here and that the language is quite similar to mine. It makes it closer to my mind. And I like that people here are more opened, more friendly and as I also already mentioned, seem more happy. Swedish people are depressed. They are robots at daytime and stupid drunks at night. Of course there are exceptions. And of course there are less problems in Sweden. So all in all, I can't compare, it's just different.