Bulgaria is a very interesting country. Historically speaking, it has got a great variety of cultures who have lived there: the old Thracian, the Roman, the Ottoman, and in the last century they also had a comunist government, and all those ages are still present in the architecture of the cities.

Bulgaria is also the origin of the cyrillic alphabet, used in several slavic languages, like Russian or Bulgarian. In the beginning, you feel like in Korea, China or Korea, as you are not able to read almost any sign in the street. But after a couple of hours, you start “reading” that alphabet. If the word happens to be written similar to any known language, you can even survive.

Bulgarian food is also quite good. My favorite dishes there were most of the meat-related ones, as well as the sausages, together with the Шопска салата. Bulgaria is also a major wine producer (I tried some good ones, especially for the strong meat dishes), and they have their own “poison” called Rakia, a beverage that they say it is healthy to drink on a daily basis (with its good 40% -or more- alcohol content.

Some other curious stuff is the way they say da (yes) and ne (no) with their heads: exactly the opposite as we would expect in the rest of Europe. If they nod the head they are saying ne, while shaking your head means da. Strange and Bulgarian are quite unique in this part of the World in doing so.

The presence of weapons is unfortunately a reality in the country. At least, everybody is frisked in the airports and in the entrance of the discos, in search of weapons. Also, in the entrance of the restaurants, instead of signs prohibiting smoking, they prohibit carrying guns in (and using them!).

But weapons are not the only thing present in the country, also the familiar face of Hristo Stoichkov, the former FC Barcelona player, can be found every 10 km in the main road of Bulgaria, in wine advertisements.

Last but not least, it is always nice to have a name which sounds familiar to the locals. Nacho is also a name in Bulgarian (and not only “the Mexican dish, but in singular”). I wonder how it would be written… начо ?

(Some more posts and pictures about the wedding, Sofia and Plovdiv coming soon, as time permits)