On the Cards, Part 1

Getting our new Bulgarian residency cards from the Microwave Oven Woman

Rejoice! Let's celebrate. Hallelujah! At long last, the Microwave Woman has given us our new Bulgarian residency cards (BRCs). As a special treat, just in case you do not know what a BRC looks like, here is my old one. 

My dear wife suggested that I should "black out" certain bits, as there are lots of evil people out there on the Internet, all gathering my personal and financial details in order to swindle me or involve me in some dreadful scandal or some such nonsense. Of course, no one who reads my blog could ever do such a nasty thing!  

Getting our new BRCs means that we can go ahead with our applications for our Russian visas. Then, maybe two or three weeks later, our passports will be returned to us, with new Russian visas stuck into them.

The other good news is that the insurance agent in Dragoman did not lose my car registration document. When she had finished giving me my new car insurance, together with the the little green sticker for the car windscreen, she should have given back to me the little yellowish car registration document, but she didn't. So when I turned up at her grotty little office in Dragoman and asked for it, she looked rather guilty and relieved at the same time. She gave it to me without a word.

Our Bulgarian car registration document (the big one)

The Nissan garage in Sofia did not have a courtesy car for me - something that I am not very happy about - and so I am hiring a little red Nissan Note. It has a manual gearbox, so I was wondering how I would cope, having got used to driving an automatic. Actually, it all came back to me quite easily. The Note is a great small car, but the limited ground clearance underneath the car means that it is not suitable for the dreadful roads in Kalotina. 

First we took the little car registration document to the Nissan garage, as they will need it when they roadtest the car, after they have done all of the repairs.
Then we drove to Geo Milev, to collect our BRCs from our dear friend, the Microwave Oven Woman. We found a rather nice Orthodox Church not far away and we had a little wander around. Quite a lot of icons and candles, as usual.

After that, we drove home for lunch and another episode of Downton Abbey. (In case you are wondering, William, the former footman, has just died and Mrs Bates is refusing to give a divorce to Mr Bates, Lord Grantham's valet.)

Now that is what I call a proper salad.