For the last two, three weeks, I have this constant feeling like I go to bed on Monday night, but I wake up on Friday morning. Time has been passing unbelievably quickly, mostly due to my (lovely) work schedule. Working from 10 a.m. till 7 p.m. isn't exactly human-friendly. I'm also blaming the weather as it has not only been arctic cold, but it's also snowing every other day so unless I wake up into a cloudy snowflake-dazzling morning, I know there's nothing but biting Siberian iciness waiting for me outside, so it's quite a challenge convincing myself I do enjoy this weather (trust me, the challenge is never met no matter how hard I try). These low temperatures have also caused my immune system to fail me a bit, so at the moment I'm fighting a bad cold and occasional voice loss with loads of fresh lemonade, tea and my best friend these days, paracetamol.
However, I do have a few secrets to reveal. I'm sure you've at least once in your life found yourself in a situation when you get hungry after a night out, it's 3 or 4 a.m. and a tasteless McDonalds hamburger or a Burger-King's plastic-like cheeseburger isn't exactly your cup of tea. Well, in Sofia things are different. Divaka (Дивака), a 24-hour restaurant, kindly saves you from a growling stomach when you fancy a hot soup, a juicy steak or a healthy fresh salad in the middle of the night. What is more, the ambient is very welcoming, the staff is polite, prices are low and the food is tasty. Seriously, what more could you wish for? Divaka has quickly made it onto my Favourite places in Sofia list and unless some major incident takes place, it will stay there.
My other secret is actually an on-going story about all non-English speaking Bulgarians. I have to admit, I have expected employees in pharmacies, banks, post offices, public-transport offices would generally speak English, but ... Ah well, I was so wrong. The other day when my internet wasn't working, I called the technical support and they sent me one of their technicians who didn't speak English. Considering I don't speak Bulgarian, it was a pretty funny situation when he arrived. I just pointed at the computer and let him do his job. When he finished, I asked Internet? and with thumbs up and a smile on his face he said Internet!. Yes, funny indeed. Then, today I went to the pharmacy to get something for the cold and as the pharmacist didn't speak English, I just showed what's wrong with me and I got what I needed. It's not that it bothers me whether people speak English or not, it's just that I never know if I'll be able to get things sorted out. Sometimes it really takes a lot of effort, but generally people do their best to understand me.
Still, I can't depend just on English all the time and hope people will always try to understand me. What's more, I have met quite a few people who were so firmly convinced Slovenian and Bulgarian are so very similar they refused to speak English and just spoke to me in Bulgarian and I had no idea what they were saying even though I was able to understand a third or a half of what they were saying. Therefore, one of my challenges for this week is starting to learn Bulgarian. I've been searching for free online programmes and looking at audio courses in bookshops and there's not so much to choose from, actually. So far I've found just two audio courses in one bookshop and the online courses could be defined as "search in progress". I'll most likely settle down for one of the audio courses and they exploit all my kind Bulgarian colleagues for extra explanations, so by summer I should be able to speak, read and write ... on, let's say, an intermediate level. That's my goal for now, but it may change depending on how the learning goes.
The other challenge of the upcoming week is more a mission than a challenge - a new camera. I hope I manage to buy it sometime after work this week. I really miss taking photos and I have already found so much beauty to be captured and shared. Sofia is just magnificent in snow and especially during the night. Hopefully my next post will be a photo-post, so keep your fingers crossed my camera-related mission doesn't turn into a mission impossible!
However, I do have a few secrets to reveal. I'm sure you've at least once in your life found yourself in a situation when you get hungry after a night out, it's 3 or 4 a.m. and a tasteless McDonalds hamburger or a Burger-King's plastic-like cheeseburger isn't exactly your cup of tea. Well, in Sofia things are different. Divaka (Дивака), a 24-hour restaurant, kindly saves you from a growling stomach when you fancy a hot soup, a juicy steak or a healthy fresh salad in the middle of the night. What is more, the ambient is very welcoming, the staff is polite, prices are low and the food is tasty. Seriously, what more could you wish for? Divaka has quickly made it onto my Favourite places in Sofia list and unless some major incident takes place, it will stay there.
My other secret is actually an on-going story about all non-English speaking Bulgarians. I have to admit, I have expected employees in pharmacies, banks, post offices, public-transport offices would generally speak English, but ... Ah well, I was so wrong. The other day when my internet wasn't working, I called the technical support and they sent me one of their technicians who didn't speak English. Considering I don't speak Bulgarian, it was a pretty funny situation when he arrived. I just pointed at the computer and let him do his job. When he finished, I asked Internet? and with thumbs up and a smile on his face he said Internet!. Yes, funny indeed. Then, today I went to the pharmacy to get something for the cold and as the pharmacist didn't speak English, I just showed what's wrong with me and I got what I needed. It's not that it bothers me whether people speak English or not, it's just that I never know if I'll be able to get things sorted out. Sometimes it really takes a lot of effort, but generally people do their best to understand me.
Still, I can't depend just on English all the time and hope people will always try to understand me. What's more, I have met quite a few people who were so firmly convinced Slovenian and Bulgarian are so very similar they refused to speak English and just spoke to me in Bulgarian and I had no idea what they were saying even though I was able to understand a third or a half of what they were saying. Therefore, one of my challenges for this week is starting to learn Bulgarian. I've been searching for free online programmes and looking at audio courses in bookshops and there's not so much to choose from, actually. So far I've found just two audio courses in one bookshop and the online courses could be defined as "search in progress". I'll most likely settle down for one of the audio courses and they exploit all my kind Bulgarian colleagues for extra explanations, so by summer I should be able to speak, read and write ... on, let's say, an intermediate level. That's my goal for now, but it may change depending on how the learning goes.
The other challenge of the upcoming week is more a mission than a challenge - a new camera. I hope I manage to buy it sometime after work this week. I really miss taking photos and I have already found so much beauty to be captured and shared. Sofia is just magnificent in snow and especially during the night. Hopefully my next post will be a photo-post, so keep your fingers crossed my camera-related mission doesn't turn into a mission impossible!
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