Bulgaria with Noodles

Not my favourite place in Sofia If you have been dutifully reading my blog, then you will know that one of the most annoying, frustrating and time-wasting activities is trying to arrange an international bank transfer in a Chinese bank. Slightly less irritating and exasperating is to visit the office of the Bulgarian electricity company in Sofia. In some ways it was a bit like our endless visits to the Microwave Woman. Yes, you have to wait a lot. And then so me more. Finally, when my number came up, it was my turn to talk to the lady at the desk, but my wife had not arrived yet and she had all of the important bits of paper. So I had to take another number and start waiting all over again. Woman with a desk, not a microwave Then my dear Irisha duly arrived and our number came up, so we went to talk to the lady at the desk. She told us that we were in the wrong queue.  After getting our third number and doing some more waiting, we spoke to another lady behind another desk...

Just before breakfast, we received this WeChat message from Julia, who has now safely returned to Shenzhen from the USA. This morning, when I took Diudiu for a walk, she insisted to go to the direction of your apartment in SZ. I let her keep walking until the exit of metro station, but she still wanted to go downstairs and keep walking to your place. Then I told her Uncle Simon and Auntie Irena weren’t there because they went back to Bulgaria. She seemed like understood what I’m talking about and she looked very upset. I think she must miss you guys so much. We miss you too, Diudiu! And in case you were wondering what has been happening in Downton Abbey , it's all over between Lady Mary and Lord Gillingham, Carson has proposed, Robert has guessed that Marigold is Edith's daughter and Anna has been released from prison.

Yes, here it is. A real Russian visa! With the news about the poisoning in Salisbury still making the headlines, I was a bit worried that the Russian authorities would not allow British citizens to go to the Crimea, but hey ho! As well as the hassle of getting the Bulgarian residency cards, the Russian visas cost us 100 euros each, plus two trips into Sofia and the medical insurance (in addition to the medical insurance we already have for Bulgaria). In order to apply for the visas in the first place, Papa (my father-in-law) had to complete (and pay for) a special invitation and then we had to fill in two very long online visa application forms and print them out. When we get to Moscow, we will have a long taxi ride between the two different airports and that will not be cheap either! On the subject of fruit, a neighbour from across the road heard Zlatka complaining to Irena. It seems that I may have broken the window of her old Lada three years ago, when she gave me a l...

It was my hero Michael Palin, in his classic BBC series Around the World in Eighty Days , who said that railway stations do not intimidate and dehumanize people in the way that airports do. Well, we have been making so many train trips into Sofia over the last two weeks. The time-consuming visits to the notarius and the Microwave Woman are now over, but our dealings with the Russian visa office and the Nissan dealer are continuing. No sign of Hercule Poirot That means catching the train from Dragoman just after seven and arriving in Sofia's central railway station after eight. The main station has been transformed from the gloomy, pigeon-and-pickpocket hole that it was when we first started travelling in BG. With two years of teaching in Bucharest and a house in Bulgaria, Irena and I got to know this dark and dingy transport centre rather well. Nowadays it is a very different place, no doubt thanks to a generous dollop of EU money. It is much brighter and cleaner, ...