Bulgaria

Marks on paper. Have you noticed that? When you use a keyboard every day, you start to lose the ability to write. Once we have fully voice-compliant hardware, we'll never need to write again. Literacy will have been a transient phenomenon in human history. The first storage and transmission technology. Tenacious, but doomed. I started to write because I'm temporarily becalmed without technology. How to record impressions without digital means? Use the digits of the right hand. A woman passes in a day-glo orange dress; hair bone-white; skin dusky. A male and two females --  I know that pattern: "only if I can bring my friend". A disco bar in ZP. Two little girls, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, are on the dance floor. They are serious and perfect. They have all the moves, like professional dancers backing a rap act. It's cute, but it's very, very surreal. The waitress keeps nudging me as she comes to the bar for her orders. It seems unconscious. Perhaps I'm in her usual place. She is startlingly pretty, outshining the clientele by far, and her name tag says "MEGY" -- in Roman script not Cyrillic, for disco bar is a very Western place and proud of it. You have to order in English. Even if you're German. Four stormtroopers arrive. Tall -- taller than me -- and spare, with hard bony faces and short blond hair. Polite and convivial. They still scare me. A couple is up dancing to the pounding beat. They're doing something like a jive, but at double speed and without the lifts. It's very watchable. You can see the joy and enthusiasm and skill. I wish I could dance.

Tuesday morning.

I've missed breakfast, but the hangover is surprisingly mild. I can't read some of last night's writing. What I remember: Nice Scottish girl, Theresa. Grandparents in Raphoe, Donegal. Boyfriend English -- Nick? -- but OK. She looks a bit like Caroline McD's younger sister, and a bit like Claire Grogan. Nice. As is the young waitress. Lots of Bulgarian women are beautiful, as I discussed with a Dutch guy later on. I'd said hello to him using my one phrase of Dutch. Then the Finnish girl came in. She's beautiful too, but her beauty also comes from inside: her enthusiasm, energy, smiles. She says only the Finns can outdrink the Irish. She speaks very good English. Her friend -- or sister; they look alike -- does too, but with a London accent. She's the red-headed one. Later, Blonde Finn comes to have a chat with me. I realise afterwards that, for once in my life, I didn't treat this as a potentially sexual encounter. In fact, I remember impatiently waving away an itinerant "buy a rose for the beautiful lady" seller, whereas, normally, I'd probably use that as an excuse for some cod gallantry, in that oleagenously charming manner I affect. But tonight, that's not the atmosphere, the vibe. It's just people having a good time.

Eclipse day.

I see people start boarding the bus at 08:30. I was told 09:00, so I start to panic slightly. I pack my gear and get ready. I meet Nice Scottish Girl and partner. We load into two busses and depart at 09:00 exactly. All the Irish Astro people have borrowed the chairs from the hotel balconies. Presumably with the hotel management's permission. Presumably. Some very nice Irish girls on the trip. They start singing sweet songs at the back of the bus. God, that's annoying. Departure at nine means arrival more than three hours before totality. And it's hot. And Shabla camp-site hasn't geared itself up to cope with the invasion. An extra consignment of beach umbrellas is ordered. To arrive at 13:00, an hour after the eclipse ends. Lots of Danes from the Tycho Brahe Society. One of their number, a doctor someone says, is paralytic from drink. An empty vodka bottle catches the sunlight. Not bad going for mid-morning, but he's paying the price, and will continue to do so, no doubt. And he's shat himself. Telescopes large and small. People queue in the blasting heat to peer through the biggest one at the sun unblemished. Why? I find a quiet and shady spot and wait for the eclipse to start. I take pictures of the crescent. At ten minutes to totality, I come back to join the crowds to get the vibes. It gets darker and colder; then the light acquires a strange, artificial hue; then to the sound od shouts, drums and fireworks, the sun disappears. It doesn't get totally dark: the corona lights up the sky like a twilight. Venus is clearly visible, but I don't have the presence of mind to look for other planets or stars. There's a black heart to the sun, like a science fiction book cover. Then a diamond of light breaks through and very, very quickly, normality is restored. People take this bit for granted " yes, we've already seen this crescent thing, thank you. And soon it's time to go. Waiting for the bus, NSG's partner says "I couldn't believe two minutes twenty could pass so quickly." I ask her "Does he always say that?" A pause, then she gets the joke, then she says quietly "He's, ah, not my boyfriend, he's um..." Oh dear. That evening, I go back to La Bamba for the atmosphere. And the music. And the Internet. The waitress I noticed while drunk on Monday (no, I was drunk, not the waitress. Oh, you guessed that, right?). The waitress is georgeous, but very young. Still georgeous though. I didn't mention the georgeous customer, did I? She's back too, looking like a Byzantine icon of the Madonna. Wearing Madonna-blue too. Some Bulgarian heavies arrive. Gangsters. Or plasterers. Or plumbers. Same thing. They have two molls accompanying them. Beautiful, but then so many Bulgarian women are beautiful, but these two have something more ... international .. about them. It's only when two bimbos arrive and try to join the party that I realise that the two original girls are so much taller and better built. And a good ten years older. The atmosphere becomes electric. Politeness becomes a weapon. Result, one bimbo repulsed utterly; one retires relatively gracefully. Party moves on.

Got the morning bus to Varna.

0.7 lev, or about 30p for a twenty-minute trip. Hot and crowded: a small 25-seater bus with around 40 people on board. I was lucky and got a seat. Varna is, frankly, shabby, even compared to the slight tackyness of Zl. Pjasaci. There is much less allowance made for readers of the Latin alphabet, something I quite like. My plan is to look at the cathedral, then visit the museum. After that a look at the town. From the map, there's a belt of parkland connecting the town to the beach. Might be nice. In the cathedral a couple of black-clad orthodox clergy are demanding, yes demanding no requesting, a one lev entrance fee. I pay. I'd probably have given more if it had been voluntary. Small building, but quite exotic. It took me at least ten minutes to see everything. The museum is good. Most labels in English and Bulgarian. By chance, I start my exploration at the wrong end " the present. But a journey back into time seems good to me. In retrospect, I should have read up at least a little on the outlines of Bulgarian history first, but I was able to reconstruct it as I went along. Independence from Turkey is only 150 years ago, but no signs of any Islamic artefacts -- no not quite true: some Persian ceramics. The sequence seems to be Bulgarian independence, preceded by Ottoman rul. Before that was a medieval independent Princedom. The ancestors of these Bulgarians had become Christian by around 500. Not quite clear how their pagan forefathers had replaced the Byzantine/Greek state of Odessos. Or how the earlier Greeks (say 500 b.c.) had founded Odessos in Thracian territory. In fact one fascinating artefact is a boundary marker: a bit square-cut stone pillar, taller than me. On one side is carved ODESS. TERR. and on the opposite, THRA. TERR. Curiously, it's in Roman capitals, not Greek. In fact, there's a fair smattering of the Western script on all the classical monuments. No indication why. Before the Thracians and their horses, there were tribal peoples, going back to the Mesolithic. They seemed to be rich in gold. My favourite exhibit is a reconstruction of an excavated burial. The guy has gold everywhere. Chains, bracelets, earrings (2 big, 3 small on each ear it looks like. Hard to be sure when there's only bones left of him.) Gold discs on his knees and ankles, gold discs arranged, I guess, around the hem of a cape. He has stone tools and clay pots too, but it's the blaze of gold that catches the attention. And that's about all that Varna has to offer. Offer me anyway. Maybe a shopper would have been kept more busy. All I bought was a 0.3lev glass of lemon slush from a street stall. Embarrassingly, I had nothing smaller than a 20 lev note, and they almost had to lift a collection to get me my change. The beach is clean, and busy. The park less clean and less busy. After a while of absorbing the atmosphere, I jump on a departing bus. "Zlatni Pjasaci?" I shout to the driver, over the heads of the travellers. I get grunts of assent. It's the right one. No seat this time though.

My last night.

My meal in the Arabian restaurant is the best I've had in Z.P. (hummus, bread, lamb, lentils). Much better than the one I'd looked forward to in the Indian Tandoori, where the alleged Chicken Tikka Massala turned out to be canteen-style chicken curry. Not all that bad a chicken curry, but it was disappointing. Back to the Arabs. Red-Headed Belly Dancer was gyrating as I came in, which I took to be a good omen. But heavens, then they had blonde and dark BDs as well. The one common feature I've noticed in Bulgarian BDs is a complete absence of belly. Dark BD is even prettier than RHBD, but I stll like her best. It rained again. For at least a solid ten minues. I'd meant to go round the stalls and spend my last levs on frivolities, but because of the rain I head back to La Bamba. It seems that Assistant Bar Tender has won first prize in the Z.P. bartenders competition, and is mixing cocktails and juggling bottles with abandon. The Hoods & Molls are back. Not plumbers, it appears, but drug dealers. Or at least I see a small package being passed. Dutch Guy is there. As is Norwegian Thin Lizzy Fan. Nice Finnish Girl arrives and turns down 6 free tequila shots. Something about an earlier embarrassing incident. NTLF thinks she is a "fawking bitch". Apparently, he "nearly" got off with her one other night. I still think she's nice. Gorgeous Waitress 2's sister arrives. Must be. They're so alike. GW1 is still around, and I noticed what can only be GW3 working downstairs. I only have enough levs for two drinks, so I leave. Early departure tomorrow anyway. NTLF asks for my address. He's a mechanic in the shipyard and speaks better English than his equivalents in Harland & Wolff. He's heard of H&W.