The Bulgarian smile

Finally, me and Servando got to Sofia last Wednesday really earlier in the morning. Once again, our flight arrived before the expected arrival time, so far so good!

Lili kindly came to the airport to pick us. It was very gently from her, because although we got some little information on how to get to the town by taxi (we were warned several times to stay away from the bad taxis, I mean, those were you most likely be ripped off), I wouldn't imagine managing ourselves explaining the taxi driver where we wanted to go.

My first impression is that Bulgarians are somehow kind of rude. Maybe they are not, but I do not why, maybe is because of their tone or gestures but it seems that when they are speaking to you they scold at you and look really angry and with bad manners. I give you an example...When we caught a taxi, the driver opened the trunk so we could put our luggage in. It seems that most taxis in Bulgaria run by metanol, so they got a big tank of metanol on the rear of the car, which occupies half of the trunk, so the room left to put stuff is very narrow. Servando was bringing a big suitcase. He put his suitcase the best way he could, but it seemed not to be best position, as the handler was sticking out a bit. Suddenly, the driver gazed at Servando as if he was retarded and flipped the suitcase over to a better position. Then, it was my turn. Bearing the driver reaction, I tried my best. I managed to fit my handbag inside the trunk, but once again there was something wrong. The driver said no word, but he killed me with his eyes. I felt insulted.

Later, already inside the car, the driver took us to Lili's house. Servando recalled me a Simpsons episode, "Lost our Lisa", where Lisa gets lost and finally ends up at the Russian district. There she asks for help to two Russian guys who seem very concentrated playing a chess game. The game seems to be in a stalemate. Suddenly one of the chess players stands up, and starts yelling to his opponent in some Slavic language. Actually, instead of bitching his opponent, he is in fact congratulating him. So here it looks the same, when you address to people they seem to be always angry. By the way, all the way down to Lili's house I couldn't stop laughing.

In Bulgarian, the word for "thank you" is "merci". Sad but true, they had to import a way to say "thank you" from a foreign language (French), as it seemed they didn't have one in their own language. So rude!