The Varna Story

Well, I never expected to spend longer than 3 days in Varna, Bulgaria. Three months later, I am leaving behind one of the best summers of my life, having met a lot of awesome people, and having gained an appreciating for a new level of laziness. So how the hell did this all come about…

ESCAPE FROM BUCHAREST

After fleeing from the black hole that is Bucharest, I had eight hours of train travel ahead of me. I first had to change trains in Ruse, just over the Bulgarian border. As soon as I stepped off the train, I was surrounded by Gypsies and sly Taxi Drivers (hard to say which is worse), hassling me for money! I got back on the train until the Police cleared me a path (although they too were trying to get money off of me).

After a 2 hour wait at the station watching every dodgy person like a hawk, I finally got my train. The train was going to BAPHA…which I guessed was Cyrillic for VARNA. If only I could guess Lotto numbers with equal success!

I shared my six seat cabin with a shifty looking Bulgarian man. His eyes would dart between my eyes, and my luggage. At one stage, he got up to speak to the conductor in the corridor (out of ear shot), whilst side glancing at me. A slight concern, to say the least…especially when he slipped the conductor some money! My grip on my belongings tightened! However he was off at the next station, and the cabin became my very own lair!

WELCOME TO VARNA

It was great to finally make it to the Black Sea coast…to any coast really! After a week of being surrounded by foreign language, it was extremely refreshing to enter a hostel bubbling with English banter! These collections of voices were soon chanting “Amos, Amos, Amos…” as the Dave the Hostel owner poured Vodka down my throat through an engine oil funnel. This is the traditional Flag Hostel welcome you see. I kept it tame for the rest of the night…apart from two hours later when we were all naked from playing strip poker and vodka drinking games (well my poker hand allowed me to keep a couple of garments on...everyone else was in the draft though!). There was a gathering movement amongst the group to storm into town whilst naked and sing Stairway to Heaven, but this was only thwarted by the collective coma everyone soon slipped into…

JOB OFFER

The next day, the whole hostel spent the day together sweating out vodka on the beach. It was my first time on the beach in two years, and it felt good. Whether this is because the air was fresh, the water warm and the sun shining…or because all the girls were topless, I am not sure, I just knew I had to stay. I asked for a job 32 seconds after coming to this realisation. The answer was, “yes, when can you start?”….

THE JOB

My daily routine in Varna, loosely involved the following: Wake up in a cold sweat, trying to shake the iron grip the Vodka has on me. “Work” for four hours (which generally involved sleeping on the couch). Hit the beach to refresh and energise myself, before another night of the local drink, FLIRT VODKA! Vicious cycle that…

Of course, when I am not sleeping on the couch whilst on shift, I do actually DO shit. I have a range of tasks, ranging from observing from the balcony Randy (the male stray cat of the yard) shag 5-6 felines per shift, sussing out which of the weeks guests is the appropriate official “Wanker of the Week” (hey, they get their own wallpaper on the hostel computer), and trying to master the A Major chord on the out of tune communal guitar.

Every now and again someone knocks on the door, so after a lot of cursing and swearing, and sometimes throwing some fine china at the wall, I get up and answer the door as well…

LIVING IN VARNA

Varna really is like no other place I have been. In an effort to blend in, I attempted learning the language. I mastered the Cyrillic alphabet. I was rapt, I was able to read all the words, problem was, those words were still unfamiliar….not one to try too hard, I gave up at the second barrier. I knew two words, Merci, and Ciao, and they aren't even Bulgarian.

Living in Varna was quite a satisfying experience however, and allowed me to achieve a goal of living in a foreign speaking environment. Varna really is the complete opposite of London. One is cheap, and one knee caps you. One is hot and sunny, and so is the other one, but only once or twice a decade. You can have a pleasant walk down the street in one, or tackle a rugby scrum to get to the local shop in the other. And most telling, one has a beach, with topless sun bathers, and according to official polls, the fourth most beautiful women in the world; the other has the Thames, with old drunkards flashing passing joggers.

I managed to join a gym with one of my room-mates in Varna. We never really fit in for a variety of reasons. One, we wore shoes. Two, we wore pants. Three, we wore T-Shirts. Four, we did not wear tight Speedo’s. Five, we did not stop everything and dance and sing to the latest Bulgarian pop tune when it come over the radio. Yes, we were the Gym outcasts! The ring leader, who can only be described as ‘Meatball in Speedos’, was glad to get rid of the clothed intruders, so he could continue to train the next generation of mafia coming through…

UNIQUE TO VARNA

As you may have gathered from my notes in the past, Varna is totally controlled by the Bulgarian mafia, who have their HQ in Varna. They control all the big money spinners, the nightclubs, restaurants, hotels, real estate, drugs, and of course, how can we forget, they also run all the ice cream vendors! This is particularly cut throat, where they demand all vendors sell their ice cream at $1.30 per 100 grams…or else…(I’m guessing their best move is to unplug the freezer)…

The mafia own the building the hostel is in. The hostel owner meets them in a café each month to give them rent, of which they provide a receipt for half that amount! They launder the rest! In essence, they ‘own’ the hostel, and so I can establish that I therefore was ‘working’ for the mafia. How glamourous! As a result, I used to wear a black T-Shirt to work, and bling it right up…and there would be no greeting at the door, just a sly nod…

While the mafia are not a problem, it’s the mafia wannabes that can be trouble. You can spot them with their cheap market rings, henchmen struts, Godfather ringtones, and crooked “fashionable” mullets. We have had run-ins with these phonies! One of my friends had a gun pulled on him over an argument about a stool (the kind you sit on that is), and I even had one come up to me and punch me repeatedly in the chest. It was a blessing in disguise however, as I had had chicken wings for dinner, and one was lodged in my left wind pipe, so he was able to dislodge it with his blows…I thanked him and left!

There are thousands of stray dogs and cats in Varna. The dogs are the next in line from the Mafia, in the Varna hierarchy. The dogs are all tagged and super friendly. Our special dog was #563...or Samson, as we called him. He would follow us everywhere at night. He would even wait outside the bars for us, hours on end. He was a good dog until the incident (sigh). He got some gum stick to his belly, and to his face. We all instantly knew this was the end of a beautiful friendship, and struck up a friendship with a new dog, a better dog, a cleaner dog….Blackie (although he had a slight limp, so we didn't keep him around for long…)

MAKING ENDS MEET

Bulgaria is the second cheapest country in Europe (cheers to that…chink!). So while I was only getting a free bed for my “job”, the cost of everything else was minimal. Beers are $1 a 500ml stubby (for something decent), or $3 for a big 3L bottle (of something rank and undrinkable). I usually went for the latter option. Of course when beer had lost its lustre, Vodka was always there. At $12 a litre for Flirt Vodka, this powerful stuff would always ensure a heavy night. The day after a night on the vodka would generally involve scrubbing footprints off the ceiling, putting the fourth leg back in the table, erasing video memory cards and repairing the light shade after its function as a Tarzan rope the previous night…

THE END

Unfortunately my time in Varna has come to an end and I am back on the road. I was, in effect, working for a dead ringer for Basil Fawlty (personality wise that is), and it all got too much, so all the staff have now left, replaced with cheap imitations from Spain! It is good to be on the move again, and if I had my time over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Not even my undies.