Now for those of you not familiar with Cyrillic - it's really easy. All you have to do is substitute one letter of the alphabet for another eg. P=R, B=V, M=M, but m=t, and then there is a circle with a line through it which is an F and so on. When you are navigating and the road map you have is in Roman letters but NOT English spelling and the road signs are in Cyrillic, I'm sure you can imagine the chaos. At one stage we showed our Roman lettered map to a Bulgarian garage person (who couldn't speak ONE word of English) to ask directions to a town, he called his mates to help (they couldn't speak a word of English) - we were surprised that they had no idea where this large town was, but after 10 minutes realised that the map looked like 'Cyrillic' to them, just as it did to us. Happily the Bulgarians seem to be an amazingly helpful people and didn't give up on us until they eventually were able to work it out and show us the way. I'm happy to say that despite the above Mike and I are still married. We are currently in Bulgaria and having a ball and doing business at the same time. We have, today put in an offer for some land here and tomorrow will be looking at another block. While the roads and potholes are a nightmare, the Bulgarians whom we've met and the scenery and food have more than made up for it. Have been here for 3 weeks and are here for another 3 or 4 days before heading to Dalyan, in Turkey. We don't have any fixed plans after that except for Christmas in Italy with my Italian relatives. Between January and end of March (when we are off to South Africa for 6 weeks) plans are still hazy. We have the option of going back to Turkey for a while, or stay in Italy until the end of February or go back to UK (in winter !!!) and earn some more pounds to keep us going. If we don't find jobs easily in Turkey, I suspect we'll be heading back to the shores of 'Old Blighty' to accumulate those poonds.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Bulgaria
Something else to make travel by car interesting in Bulgaria is that the road signs and all other signs (except for some adverts) are in Cyrillic.
Now for those of you not familiar with Cyrillic - it's really easy. All you have to do is substitute one letter of the alphabet for another eg. P=R, B=V, M=M, but m=t, and then there is a circle with a line through it which is an F and so on. When you are navigating and the road map you have is in Roman letters but NOT English spelling and the road signs are in Cyrillic, I'm sure you can imagine the chaos. At one stage we showed our Roman lettered map to a Bulgarian garage person (who couldn't speak ONE word of English) to ask directions to a town, he called his mates to help (they couldn't speak a word of English) - we were surprised that they had no idea where this large town was, but after 10 minutes realised that the map looked like 'Cyrillic' to them, just as it did to us. Happily the Bulgarians seem to be an amazingly helpful people and didn't give up on us until they eventually were able to work it out and show us the way. I'm happy to say that despite the above Mike and I are still married. We are currently in Bulgaria and having a ball and doing business at the same time. We have, today put in an offer for some land here and tomorrow will be looking at another block. While the roads and potholes are a nightmare, the Bulgarians whom we've met and the scenery and food have more than made up for it. Have been here for 3 weeks and are here for another 3 or 4 days before heading to Dalyan, in Turkey. We don't have any fixed plans after that except for Christmas in Italy with my Italian relatives. Between January and end of March (when we are off to South Africa for 6 weeks) plans are still hazy. We have the option of going back to Turkey for a while, or stay in Italy until the end of February or go back to UK (in winter !!!) and earn some more pounds to keep us going. If we don't find jobs easily in Turkey, I suspect we'll be heading back to the shores of 'Old Blighty' to accumulate those poonds.
Now for those of you not familiar with Cyrillic - it's really easy. All you have to do is substitute one letter of the alphabet for another eg. P=R, B=V, M=M, but m=t, and then there is a circle with a line through it which is an F and so on. When you are navigating and the road map you have is in Roman letters but NOT English spelling and the road signs are in Cyrillic, I'm sure you can imagine the chaos. At one stage we showed our Roman lettered map to a Bulgarian garage person (who couldn't speak ONE word of English) to ask directions to a town, he called his mates to help (they couldn't speak a word of English) - we were surprised that they had no idea where this large town was, but after 10 minutes realised that the map looked like 'Cyrillic' to them, just as it did to us. Happily the Bulgarians seem to be an amazingly helpful people and didn't give up on us until they eventually were able to work it out and show us the way. I'm happy to say that despite the above Mike and I are still married. We are currently in Bulgaria and having a ball and doing business at the same time. We have, today put in an offer for some land here and tomorrow will be looking at another block. While the roads and potholes are a nightmare, the Bulgarians whom we've met and the scenery and food have more than made up for it. Have been here for 3 weeks and are here for another 3 or 4 days before heading to Dalyan, in Turkey. We don't have any fixed plans after that except for Christmas in Italy with my Italian relatives. Between January and end of March (when we are off to South Africa for 6 weeks) plans are still hazy. We have the option of going back to Turkey for a while, or stay in Italy until the end of February or go back to UK (in winter !!!) and earn some more pounds to keep us going. If we don't find jobs easily in Turkey, I suspect we'll be heading back to the shores of 'Old Blighty' to accumulate those poonds.
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