Birthday in Bulgaria

Boys and girls, gather around your screens, take a popcorn and soda (or beer), and let me tell you a magical story about Bulgaria, the land of Bulgarians and... Gipsies! As you all know, I had my 29th birthday and my wife's present was a week (plus 2 weekends) in Bulgaria (the wonders of married life).

On a first day, when we arrived to Sofia, Sergo (who managed to steal a car) and Sveta picked us up from the airport and immediately, we went to a mountains to enjoy the views, escape the heat and the dust of the city (it was close to 40C), and sample local cousin (local dark beer was AMAZING) at the... hmm... can't remember the name. Later that day, we took a night walk (after couple of cocktails) on the streets of deserted Sofia.

Before I will go on, let me tell you, Sofia is every bit ex-Socialist country where people took democracy to the wrong direction. All the building (including historic and governmental) are spoiled with graphite and half of the bricks are missing (I didn't know they can walk away on their own). Also, all of the people (at least the 37+) are frowning all the time. It's like they've seen socialism, and now they've seen capitalism, and they're not impressed with either one. On the other hand, it could be the heat...

On a day after, after having an early and a very tasty breakfast (eggs, eggs and some more eggs), we drove to Sezopol. Basically, it is a very long drive across Bulgaria but surprisingly, the roads (or the highways) are not bad at all and you are allowed to drive 120kph on most of them. We arrived to Santa Marina resort (2km outside Sezopol), checked in and drove to the ancient town of Sezopol to eat (yes, we did it a lot).

The next few days were pretty much as every vacation looks like: Sun Beach (or pool) Aqua park Old, in some cases ancient and sometimes very small cities with a lot of tourists Beer and food, food and more food Ohh yeah, and a birthday cake (2kg of sugar, cream, caramel and chocolate)

Out of all places we have visited (Burgas, Sezopol, Nesebar,Sveti Vlas, Primorsko, Kitten and Plavdiv), I can recommend only one place – Sezopol. It is an old town (with historical value) on the cliffs with amazing view on the Black Sea, friendly people, excellent cousin and not too many tourists so you can walk around and enjoy your time.

If you ask yourself “where are the photos?”, there is too much of them and we are working to delete some (or most) of them. I will upload them as soon as we are done... [10/09/2008] and finally, here they are (I had to delete a lot of old photo album to free up some space on Picasa Web): http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/john.markh/20080829BirthdayInBulgariaPart1 http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/john.markh/20080829BirthdayInBulgariaPart2

Enjoy, John.

P.S.: A short lesson in Bulgarian culture: Drink “Aryan” when you are hot, drink “Aryan” when you are cold and drink “Aryan” when you are thirsty [more info can be found here: http://mideastfood.about.com/od/drinkscoffeetea/r/ayran.htm]. Ohh yeah, and you also have to try Bulgarian Chushki Burek (roasted peppers stuffed with cheese), Za-Za (small fried fish which goes really well with beer – local beer or as a cat food) and “Fish On A Roof Tile” (sorry, don't remember the Bulgarian name) which is a whole fish (I had Mackerel) in a roof tile, topped with a rich, red-wine, tomato, and shallot sauce, then slow baked.

Once upon a time in London...

What a week...
If I have another one like that, I will become alcoholic...
It started with Rob S. on... wait, when did he come down to London? Probably too much drinks earlier that week.
Anyway, he came down here from the sunny city of Carlisle to celebrate his 28th (yeah, I know he looks younger) birthday. We went to the O2 (actually, sailed there) to have some spicy dead chicken meat at Nandos (some call it "wings") and then couple of drinks at Silk Thai. That place (the Thai one) has a huge selection of cocktails. And just imagin what you need to say to the waitress if you want to order "Sex in the Jungle" or "Sex on the Beach". Thanks god they don't have "Sex in the Storage Room"...
Check out the photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/rob.stapleton/LondonJan2008PartyingAtTheO2.
Anyway, when Rob left to Amsterdam, we had another excellent, absolutely smashing time crushing Anna's flat on Friday night. It was a kind of "by invitation only" party with A LOT OF @#$r@#$ (come on, if I will say it, you will most definitely think that I'm alcoholic) and dancing. Basically, we had fun. You can check out the album at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/john.markh/20080125AnnaSHouseParty.
Then came the weekend. Rob came back from Amsterdam and we headed once again to O2.

Enjoy,
John.

Another Month, Another Entry...

It has been a long, long time since I posted here.

During last weeks, I had to work form a dozen different locations for a dozen of different clients (I'm writing this from Birmingham). Needless to say, that during weekends I didn’t want to touch this dull metallic “thing” called laptop.

Couple of weeks ago I celebrated my 28th birthday (I’M MATURE, NOT OLD). My uncle and aunt from US came to London for couple of days and we all together went to Bath (it is ancient city in west of UK with a very impressive history, sights and nature around it) for a tour in Roman baths and spa in natural hot springs (present from Alyona).

A week after, Kremer were on tour in UK, so we went to check out their latest sound in club with very Jewish name: Fiddler’s Elbow. After the show, four big, blond Dutch guys stayed at our place. I have absolutely no idea how they fit in, in our living room, but they did. It was very nice to meet with Rob (guitar) again after more then 8 months and to hear him abusing his guitar. Too bad it was for one night only and… too bad he didn’t play with “Hello Kitty” guitar.

So guys, happy New Year to you all (What, did you know? It is Jewish New Year today!) and… hope to see you all soon.

Ciao, John.

Hmm… I did it again. I forgot to include the links to photo albums…

Here they are:

http://o2create.migapps.com/o2create/video/454041/hi

http://picasaweb.google.com/alla.markh/AllaBoryaInLondonPart1GreenwichPark

http://picasaweb.google.com/alla.markh/AllaBoryaInLondonPart2

http://picasaweb.google.com/alla.markh/JohnnySBirthdayPart1

http://picasaweb.google.com/alla.markh/JohnnySBirthdayPart2Bath

Brussels (and Amsterdam)

What a wonderful weekend...

This time, we went to Brussels and to Amsterdam, to celebrate my birthday. I think this one is the best I had...

We took Eurostar from “Waterloo International“ to Brussels-MIDI. It takes 2 and a half hours to get there and it is much faster that do it by air.

Brussels is amazing city : very beautiful, majestic and ancient. We spend the whole day roaming the city and in the evening we met with Arkady and Noga. Together, we saw more of city sights and had couple of drinks. They showed us a female version of “The Mannekin Pis”, “Jeanneken Pis” (peeing girl). That was a pervert sight, but I guess that peeing boy need to have a countepart. Just before the trip, I asked some people about what to do in Brussels. Most of them told me that 2 days in Brussels is too much and that there is nothing to do. That is so untrue! The only problem we had was with 2 French guys whom send us in wrong direction when we asked for a directions to the hotel.

Two days after, we took a Thylis train to “Amsterdam Central”. Another 2 and a half hours on the train the we were there. That weekend, there was a music festival in Amsterdam. There we met Mark and Natasha (A.K.A. Comrade Bonita) and also stayed in their place. The guys are great, so funny and a live! They gave me a very special birthday present: “Venus Trap” flower.

Enjoy the photos : http://picasaweb.google.com/john.markh/BrusselsAmsterdam