I am a Bulgarian, living abroad. Sometimes I forget why I left in first place. Here’s a recap of my recent short trip to Bulgaria:
- having a coffee out : I meet a friend in Sunday noon to have a coffee together in Sofia downtown. I check quickly the menu and turns out everything is about 25% expensiver compared to Prague downtown cafes. I’m not happy but it turns the prices are “normal”
- dinner out : I have dinner with several friends, at the end our bill comes and contains meals and drink we didn’t (and won’t ever) order like “pig’s ears on grill” and similar. The extra meals increase the bill value by around 20, the waitress just tells us to strikeout the extra stuff and pay what we actually had
- having a drink in a club: I’m out with friends to have a drink. We ask the bill at the end and I pay. I wait for my change about 15 minutes and next thing I see is the waitress saying goodbye to the rest of the staff and preparing to leave (it was the end of her shift). I caught her just before she leaves and told her I still wait the change. She just gave it to me with no questions - she was just trying her luck apparently.
- bank : I go for the same thing for the 5th time in the bank. They made me fill in the same form for the 3rd time and promised this time it’ll be ok, but I’ll be charged some fees extra even if they actually handle it this time. The bank is “First Investment Bank” and I’m considering to sue them quite soon.
- cue : I wait at the entrance of an exchange bureu to change some of the local currency into euros. There’s 2 of us waiting. A 3rd guy comes and goes just in front of the door trying to take all the space so noone enters eventually before him inside. I tell him “There’s a cue”, he doesn’t reply at all. When the guy who was inside comes out, the guy who just arrived tries to enter. I told him I was there before him and he started to scream at me. I managed to enter, but it was kind of scary.
- taxi : at the end of the trip the guy says he doesn’t have any change, trying to get the whole note I had and give back nothing. I wanted to leave him good tip, but after what happened I changed my mind and found some coins to give him. This pissed him off and he demanded tip. After we managed I saw the counter is still running, so the bill was having 15% on top at that time, so I just gave him the money and left.
At the end of a stay in Bulgaria, one really understands how come there are so many people on the streets talkig and shoting to themselves. Usually dirty words and swears.
However, I’m back in Prague
Marin
