Day 2 did not start well for me. Having arrived at stupidly early o'clock, I was amazed to find I had remembered to change my watch to Bulgarian time - two hours ahead of the UK. So on waking up dazed and confused, I was unsurprised to find out from my phone, which I had not changed, that it was 9am in the UK and therefore 11am in Bulgaria. Feeling pretty dopey I rolled over and went back to sleep for a bit, this time waking in shock to find out that my phone now read 11am, which meant it was really 1pm in Bulgaria and I was wasting the day. I leapt up and unpacked some clothes for the day, then checked my watch which read 11am as well. Knowing that I had changed it the night before I checked the phone again, only to find that it had somehow recognised that I had relocated it to Bulgaria and automatically updated its own clock. Whilst I acknowledge that this is quite clever, it highlights yet again my complete failure to find 'innovative' and 'intelligent' technology useful.
Nothing a nice shower wouldn't cure, I thought. The shower was a floor to ceiling glass affair with a Swedish style wooden floor. On the facing wall were three knobs that I assumed were connected to the provision of water. The middle one appeared to be of the sort that you pull up to provide water and then twist left or right to control the temperature. The right one twisted left and right only. The left one appeared to be a microphone. None of them provided any water, no matter how much pushing, pulling, twisting and singing I carried out. Thinking outside the cubicle, I looked for a pull cord in case it was an electric shower. The only cord I could find was an 'SOS' cord to pull in the event of an emergency, so I elected not to test that one. Finding nothing in the bathroom, I checked the rest of the room. The lights were all independent of one another, but nothing was linked to the shower. Realising that I would be in for serious mockery if I called Fran, I decided to call reception. Instead of simply explaining it to me, they decided to send someone up to demonstrate. Two minutes later there was a knock at the door and I, swathed now in a towel, opened it to find a very attractive maid standing in front of me with a look of bemused frustration that she had to attend to a half-naked British idiot who couldn't work the shower. Clearly I was an imbecile. She headed for the bathroom, leant in to the cubicle and pulled up the middle knob (no pun intended). Nothing happened, and she looked slightly put out by the fact that she was also now uncertain of how to produce water. Her instinct was to head for the right hand knob, which she twisted to the left. This had a dramatic impact. A stream of water shot out of the microphone horizontally onto her front, soaking her and causing her to squeal. In a panic she reached again for the right hand knob, and twisted it in the opposite direction. But she overcompensated, and a powerful deluge rained down from the shower onto her head. Now coated in cold water front and back, she regained enough composure to switch it all off. I was now oddly aware that I was half-naked and she was soaked to the skin. She looked round embarrassed and mumbled something along the lines of 'That's how it works'. I tried to apologise and asked if she was alright, but the poor girl got out of the room as fast as she could go.
Having agreed to meet Fran and Graham for breakfast/lunch, I was informed by hotel staff of a good traditional Bulgarian restaurant around the corner. We made our way there and sat down, ordering our first breakfast lager and a few Bulgarian dishes to share between us. One of these was a meat platter, which contained horse meat among other things. When it arrived, it was not clear which one was the horse (I'm not sure what we were expecting!) so we asked the waiter what was what. He knew the English for pork, but didn't know beef so instead made a small devil's horn symbol and a mooing sound. Following his lead, we asked which one was horse, but he didn't know the word, so Graham had to neigh and toss an invisible mane while galloping. The impression was so good that he got it immediately.
We elected to have a short walk about to see the sights. We found designer shops, trendy bars, ice cream parlours, churches, lush green parks, communist architecture and fountains. But what we couldn't find was an English tea. I don't drink tea and am therefore totally oblivious to the sufferings of tea drinkers, but it was to become a theme of the weekend that the only available teas were Earl Grey and Rooibos. Fran bravely made her way through several unsatisfactory tea experiences before giving up and selecting juice instead.
The tea search continues
The evening started at the hotel roof bar, with wide views over the city. From there we made our way to a restaurant cellar where we were given giant hanging platters of salad followed by giant hanging platters of meat. This was accompanied by vast quantities of Bulgarian red wine and assorted noisy conversations with family members, which were finally drowned out by some traditional Bulgarian music. Of course I took the opportunity to make use of my camera, which always goes down well when people are eating and getting steadily drunker.
The evening's entertainment
Aware that we had to save ourselves for the main event tomorrow, we decided to call it a night and returned to the hotel. On arriving in my room, I found a small chocolate next to my bed and the radio tuned to smooth jazz classics. I looked around to see if I was alone, wondering whether this was standard hotel policy or was in fact connected to my rendezvous with the maid in the shower.
The Bride-to-be, Dot
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