Wow Czech Airlines, wow!

DEAR MS -last name spelled wrong even though it was at the bottom of the email they’re replying to-
YOU HAVE TO DECLARE EXTRA LUGGAGE AT CHECK-IN DESK AT THE TIME OF DEPARTURE.
PLEASE BE INFORMED 1/ONE/ EXTRA KILO COASTS EUR 16,-
BEST REGARDS
CSA CZECH AIRLINES SOFIA-D.SKENDEROVA

Caps Lock + misspelling my name + calling me Ms. while I’m sure I’m a Mr. = a forward to the main desk of Czech Airlines + blog post 🙂

Seriously, if they weren’t sure if I was a Ms. or Mr., there must have been a way around having to address me as either one. I signed my email with my first and last name. Couldn’t they have just made it “Dear first + last name”?

I wonder if Czech Airlines is like this everywhere or whether it’s just Bulgaria. Not that I really care. My question got answered, but I can’t help but wonder how much they’re paying employees like this.

Money, money, money

Two days before I finish my work here, I decided to calculate how much I actually make per day. I work full-time in a decent paying job, I’m around the national average.

Make a guess in your mind.

Any guess.

Don’t read on until you have made a guess.

Okay, ready? How about less than sixteen per day, but that’s in the Bulgarian currency… Converted to euro’s that’s less than eight. Is it more or less than what you guessed?
I’m so happy I didn’t look at it this way earlier 🙂

Conversion rates

When going to Bulgaria, don’t just take financial conversion rates into account. If you’re used to a rather punctual society, or culture, there’s another conversion rate into account.

When someone says “I’ll call you at 7.30”, that means they’ll call you somewhere between 8 and 8.30 in Bulgarian time.

Just a note for if you ever go here… or plan on dealing with me when I come back to Holland 😉

Is it too late to say Happy New Year?

Okay, it’s been a while. Actually, it’s been three weeks. The longer I waited with posting, the more I had to tell, the less I felt like making time to tell all of it. This kept looping and looping, until now. I present to you…

.
Three weeks of Bas – in bullet points
self-indulgence

• Bouwe & Roos arrived at the airport only 45 minutes late. I say only because a lot of flights were canceled or had 4 or 5 hour delays. On Christmas eve! How cliché!
• Needless to say, there was a lot of partying and playing around. On the second day of Christmas we went to a restaurant and as we were walking home I said “I have to show you guys a really, really bad club. It will be funny.” We all had a beer… then we decided to have another and move to the dancefloor. Two or three beers later we were talking to some Bulgarian guy who invited us to some party on New Year’s Eve. As we were getting our coats, ready to go home… a friend of him came up and said there was a drum ‘n bass party going on in some club and if we wanted to come. Fuck yes. We get to the club, club closed. We go to another, club closing. The Bulgarian guys and girl knew one more place that was open… it was called Kama Sutra and it was a stripclub (original name though). We decided that Christmas is a good time to visit a stripclub for the first time in your life so we went there. It was rather boring. We never spoke to those Bulgarian guys after that.
• The next day, completely hung-over, we went to mount Vitosha. Took some great pictures, check it out.
• We celebrated New Years Eve at a club where they didn’t bother stopping the music for a countdown. I left the club at 7 though, so apparently the party was not so bad… after all.. there was drum ‘n bass (and hardtechno… oh, and friends).
• Then I decided to show Bouwe & Roos Plovdiv. This time around, it was snowy!

Okay, so what else?

• I have stopped using MSN Messenger. See you on Skype!
• I have started updating my Photoblog again.
• I have installed PeerGuardian and found out everyone’s watching me.
• I’m still a vegetarian.
• I’m getting more serious about DJing. I’m playing in Utrecht on the 24th of February. Details to be announced!
• I’m looking for a place to live in Amsterdam. If someone knows a really good deal in Utrecht, tell me.
• Radio Bulgaria interviewed me. Check it out here!
• A Bulgarian national newspaper named Trud interviewed me. I’ll put the article up when it’s published.
• Radio Sofia interviewed me. I have no record of this.

Expect updates to be more regular from now on. I’ll be busy here though since it’s my last weeks in Bulgaria and I mostly want to spend time with the people I’ve met here.

Merry Christmas from Sofia!

Hi everyone!

I’d like the chance to wish you all some happy holidays! I’m waiting for Bouwe & Roos to arrive at the airport here. What else? I uploaded pictures to my Picasa album. I’ll start updating the daily photoblog also. After all, I said daily. Not much to add really. Enjoy the week everybody!

Oh, and check out the digital card.

!
Bas

Xmas Gifts

If anyone feels like doing something special for me this Christmas, please do me a favour and get me a gift here.

Now that’s a special gift.

10 things I want…

when I come back. I need your peer pressure to make this happen 😉

• When I come back to Holland I want to live in Amsterdam.
• When I come back to Holland I want to cut down alcohol to lower levels or maybe quit completely.
• When I come back I want to start networking in various music-scenes.
• When I come back I want to meet Bulgarian students living in Holland.
• When I come back I want to see if I can find myself a part-time job in media.
• When I come back I want to get active in activism and start networking and organising a movement.
• When I come back I want to open up my social circles, not having the same, more or less fixed group of friends as I had in the past.
• When I come back I want to catch up with everyone.
• When I come back I want to be a dragon, but if that doesn’t work out, being a good student will do also.
• When I come back I want to start saving money to leave again.

Day-After

• Missed calls from numbers I don’t know.
• No coins in my wallet.
• Waking up with a head ache at 4.30 pm.
• Not recognizing some of the names in my telephone.
• About a 1 second recollection of this morning’s busride.

Boy, I must have had so much fun last night!

Shift happens

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I was ill for a week and I’m not really in the swing of things anymore. This week I might go to the mountains to take pictures since it’s the start of the ‘snow season’ there. Oh, did I mention it will be for my work? Sweet.

Anyway, I just stumbled upon this video that I think you all should watch. From beginning to end. It gets better and better the further along you get. Just take 5 minutes and watch it.

Day one of being a vegetarian…

starts with resentment.

Nuff said.

I should add that I feel that I have no choice after seeing a film called ‘Earthlings’. Check it out below.