bike, bus and braying donkey
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009Biser, Bulgaria (and a trip to Haskovo for Rob and Kboy12)
by Rach….and Rob writes, too
What do you do when two of the boys take a van for the day and you really don’t know how long they are going to be at the chipped windscreen hospital?
You grab your knitting and take seat by the front gate.
You look up your street (we really are at the very edge of the village).
And you photograph whatever comes past.
It takes a long time to get this many photos and you concede you cannot knit forever, so you take a wander a little further up the street and photograph the tobacco that’s drying – a Bulgarian specialty (along with silk and yoghurt and rose oil).
You knit some more, agree that a ten year old daughter can proceed with her written proposal for arranging a party for the little kids (games like throw the ball in a bowl and a treasure hunt to complement delicacies like sliced quince and raisins), and take some more pics.
Again, the novelty wears off so you photograph the builders across the street reroofing an old house and you try to capture the distant view too, but both with too limited success to post on the blog. The farm gate is clear, though, and a house that looks like it’s about to fall over (however, it is said that those mud bricks give more in an earthquake and so are safer than more durable-looking stone).
Eventually a motorhome appears, but it’s not ours and as the site manager is with Rob we retreat to the campground to welcome the new arrivals. Almost immediately someone shouts out that the one we were waiting for is coming down the street so I excuse myself and run out to the street, snapping as I run.
Check out the tyre on that van….and the smooth windscreen…..
Rob will tell ya all about it!
The great thing about Bulgaria is that you can get just about anything done, and inexpensively, as long as you have the time! So, the seemingly simple task of getting a stone chip repaired and a tyre replaced on the van ends up being a whole day affair; a very pleasant day, mind you, with lots of time to chat, drink coffee and watch the world go by. And if we had not had the help of our campsite manager, Matt, we could have drunk coffee all day long and achieved nothing else. Fortunately Matt offers to accompany me and Kboy12 on the 35 km drive to the nearest city, where he knows the manager of a car dealership, who in turn has a friend, who can repair windscreen chips. Good to have a navigator, even better to have an interpreter!
Once we arrive at the dealers, it transpires that we have an hour wait until the manager is out of a meeting, and then a further half hour is needed to catch up over coffee (no rushing off straight into business), then yet another hour to wait until Mr-Stone-Chip-Repair-Man is able to look at the windscreen (and another obligatory coffee!), and finally an hour to wait for the repair to be done.
Lots of time to stand around talking and laughing.
One job down (done and dusted for a meagre 15 Lev ~ about $15 NZ), one to go. We’re on the lookout for a cheap second-hand tyre to get us safely back to Berlin.
There’s a tyre shop in Harmanli, but it didn’t have the right size, necessitating a drive round town in search of another. The second place we enquire at doesn’t have one either, but the owner manages to track one down. An hour later this is fitted and balanced and on the van; more time to discuss previously owned cars and teenage driving antics (no coffee shop this time!) – job done for a very reasonable 50 Lev.
Two jobs done, two coffees consumed, lots of stories exchanged, one day gone.
rayres