Varna

Spending time in Varna has been rather interesting.  Luckily, I met up with the Couchsurfer whose place I had stayed at in Sofia and he gave me a wonderful tour of the city and told me a lot about it, which was excellent because I have not found Bulgaria to be the most friendly place.  Seriously, his family in Sofia was awesome, but besides him and his family, I have not encountered many friendly people here.  In all honesty, maybe only a handful of people have been friendly with me.  When I asked my Couchsurfing friend about this, he said that it is just the culture and the fact that many people here do not speak English, as well as the fact that attitudes from life behind the Iron Curtain remain which facilitates a different type of attitude toward foreigners.

Furthermore, he told me that the mafia runs Varna and there are even surveillance cameras at almost all of the traffic lights that were supplied by them, not the government, making it the most scrutinized city in all of Bulgaria.  In addition to this, the mafia owns the airlines, as well as the port here in Varna, which is the largest port of Bulgaria.  Plus, they also own large cornfields up north between the Danube and the city of Dobrich, therefore they own the bread manufacturing companies so they can control the prices of bread, which greatly affects the poor people who purchase a large amount of bread.  Many of the richest people in Bulgaria are residing here in Varna, so they own the hotels and such and are mafia members.  Basically, he explained that the mafia and the government is the same thing here in Bulgaria.

Besides all of this craziness, it is the second largest city with close to one million people living here.  Although the town is run by a mayor like any other town in Bulgaria, the mayor does not run it on his own because he has some advisors.  Both he and the advisors are elected by the people, but the majority of the advisors are mafia members, so it truly makes no difference who the mayor is because the mayor really does not have power.

Speaking of power in a different sense of the word, on my first morning here, I woke up to no power in the hotel and therefore could not use my computer to message and communicate with the outside world.  When I asked the reception if they would allow me to use the phone to call my friend, they just said that it did not work, which was strange because I always thought that landline phones still worked during power outages.  Thankfully, I found a Polish woman who was there with her Bulgarian friend who let me use her phone to call.  Even funnier was the fact that the Polish lady laughed and commented on how unfriendly the people are around here, which made me feel a little better that it is not just me feeling this lack of warmth here!

Luckily, I got a hold of this Couchsurfing friend and he came to get me to go to Castle Beach, which has the ruins of a castle right there.  Later he took me out to meet up with some of his friends, which was cool because I was at least I was able to meet some Bulgarian people who would talk to me so that I could learn a bit more about the culture.  However, I must say that Bulgaria certainly has not been the easiest place to visit by any means.  Even today at breakfast when I encountered my Polish friend again, she made a comment that this is the first and last time she will visit Bulgaria, so I know that I am not alone!  Of course I am grateful for the experience, but I am also grateful to be traveling on tonight!