We decided to go to Bulgaria for xmas this year we thought we would have a proper white Christmas, the kind you just can’t get in London and skiing which is really expensive in Britain.
We went with Simon and Shelley our new housemates to be. The week went like this….
Saturday
Flew out of Gatwick, took a couple of trains to get there. Landed in Sofia with Monarch air. First time we have ever been offered to buy scratchies on board a plane, and had to buy our own drinks!! Got taken to the resort at
Borovets by our Ingham’s reps, must say Ing-hams as it is spelt the same way the Bulgarians say it.
Sunday
First day of lessons with equipment fitting, I successfully changed from skiing to snow boarding,
when we booked online there was no option to snowboard. I was lucky to change, all the other stayed with their skiing.
We stayed at the Rila hotel with the ski slopes just in front of us, we has a gr8 view.
Monday - Christmas Eve
More skiing and snowboarding all day and more lessons for Kieran and I, today was the day that simon and Shelley ditched their teacher as they had already learnt what he was teaching them and just wanted to get out and ski.
As all good Christmas Eve’s went out on the town and got very drunk, had to make up for no Moorebank pub night.
Tuesday- Christmas Day
Was a weird day to spend Christmas day – skiing and snowboarding from 11am, we has a sleep in of course. Today was my last day of lessons and was now ready for the big slopes so headed up the mountain for the long way down, as we were in a group it took a good 2 hrs, what would take a normal person only 30 mins.
Christmas dinner, was provided with the tour package, along with bottles of wine. The food was interesting not your typical Christmas
meal. Were drunk before we got dinner because it took so long to be served! We sat at a table with some of the other people my (Glens) Snowboard school. After some other people left our table more of the snowboard school came over. There was some dinner entertainment from Bulgarian performers, Glen got draged up to Dance. With what we called his new wife and kids (check out the
Video). We all got very drunk and danced the night away. The DJ only had a few English Christmas songs. Well only 1 CD of English songs at all, one of which was cotton eye Joe which he played over and over again. Actually spent this Christmas with English people but were in Bulgaria!!
Wednesday
More ski and snowboard, Kieran continued to go to her school while I met back up with people
from my class to continue boarding with around the fields. Much better to have people the same level with your rather than by yourself.
That night we had a free night to do what we wanted on the town, as always we decided to go out, but then came back to play cards and drink our port in our room.
Thursday
After a day on the slopes we went on a trip into a Bulgarian village. Where we ate at Mamma Rosas house, she was a big lady who loved to give us her home made warm brandy. She even gave it to the kids we were sitting with who were under 11 ( and their parents let them drink it) the thing with mamma was that every time she would pour you a drink she would rest her big boobs on your shoulder when she lent over you to pour into your glass. This made me not want to drink her strong stuff any more. She was a happy lady (we believe drinking to much of her home made brandy) she was
singing songs for us and spinning wool.
Friday
Today is our last day of snowboarding and skiing for tomorrow we go home. So we finished up at
3:30 and had to hand back our equipment. Then onto our Horse drawn sleigh ride through the country side around the Forrest. It was great the horses had bells and all.
As it was our last day, we ended up meeting up with my snowboard friends and we had a big night out. Nice end.
Saturday
After a nice lazy sleep in, we packed and went to get our bus into Sofia for a day
trip around Sofia before getting our plane. We had a guide who showed us around the city and then had our own free time. While walking around Simon and I went to look at the city as the girls wanted to look at the shops (that’s how girls see a city by shopping) on our walk we saw a beggar man with massive cuts and scabs on his legs and he should really have been in hospital. Then on our way to meet up with the girls we got approached in a very unusual way by a pimp
, who asked us for the time and then stopped and gave us a business card with his ladies services on there. After that we were talking about it then got approached by 3 ladies wanting to know if we knew anywhere good to party in Sofia as they had not meet
any normal people and thought we might know (not fully sure if I believe their story) we told them no and we were on our way again….strange. Back to the bus and then onto the airport.
It was a hell flight, not only did we choose the slowest person at the counter and
were the last checked in but the plane was sooo small owww my legs hurt.
That was our Bulgarian experience, but hot tip…..great place to purchase a tazer or mace, knuckle duster or ninja stars you can pick them up really cheap too.
place Kell’s, otherwise known as the Fairway palace, where we had a BBQ dinner and lots of drinks, ozzy music and fun(video). Feeling very happy we left and went to the walkabout where most drunken Aussies also found themselves. Hot tip for the new players…..flip flops AKA thongs are not the best foot wear for the Walkabout!
Yes that’s right after more than a year in our last place we have finally moved house. Its only 10min walk from the old place so not too much of a change there and still in the same area. We loved the area with Kieran’s job so close, and well I work anywhere so it doesn’t impact me too much. We just wanted somewhere a bit smaller with our good mates Simon and Shell and it is nice so far. Top level 2bed flat which is split level and we also have a terrace on a great street close to shops, restaurants and great pubs.
Flew out of Gatwick, took a couple of trains to get there. Landed in Sofia with Monarch air. First time we have ever been offered to buy scratchies on board a plane, and had to buy our own drinks!! Got taken to the resort at Borovets by our Ingham’s reps, must say Ing-hams as it is spelt the same way the Bulgarians say it.
when we booked online there was no option to snowboard. I was lucky to change, all the other stayed with their skiing.
More skiing and snowboarding all day and more lessons for Kieran and I, today was the day that simon and Shelley ditched their teacher as they had already learnt what he was teaching them and just wanted to get out and ski.
Was a weird day to spend Christmas day – skiing and snowboarding from 11am, we has a sleep in of course. Today was my last day of lessons and was now ready for the big slopes so headed up the mountain for the long way down, as we were in a group it took a good 2 hrs, what would take a normal person only 30 mins.
meal. Were drunk before we got dinner because it took so long to be served! We sat at a table with some of the other people my (Glens) Snowboard school. After some other people left our table more of the snowboard school came over. There was some dinner entertainment from Bulgarian performers, Glen got draged up to Dance. With what we called his new wife and kids (check out the Video). We all got very drunk and danced the night away. The DJ only had a few English Christmas songs. Well only 1 CD of English songs at all, one of which was cotton eye Joe which he played over and over again. Actually spent this Christmas with English people but were in Bulgaria!!
More ski and snowboard, Kieran continued to go to her school while I met back up with people 
from my class to continue boarding with around the fields. Much better to have people the same level with your rather than by yourself.
After a day on the slopes we went on a trip into a Bulgarian village. Where we ate at Mamma Rosas house, she was a big lady who loved to give us her home made warm brandy. She even gave it to the kids we were sitting with who were under 11 ( and their parents let them drink it) the thing with mamma was that every time she would pour you a drink she would rest her big boobs on your shoulder when she lent over you to pour into your glass. This made me not want to drink her strong stuff any more. She was a happy lady (we believe drinking to much of her home made brandy) she was singing songs for us and spinning wool.
Today is our last day of snowboarding and skiing for tomorrow we go home. So we finished up at 
3:30 and had to hand back our equipment. Then onto our Horse drawn sleigh ride through the country side around the Forrest. It was great the horses had bells and all.
trip around Sofia before getting our plane. We had a guide who showed us around the city and then had our own free time. While walking around Simon and I went to look at the city as the girls wanted to look at the shops (that’s how girls see a city by shopping) on our walk we saw a beggar man with massive cuts and scabs on his legs and he should really have been in hospital. Then on our way to meet up with the girls we got approached in a very unusual way by a pimp
, who asked us for the time and then stopped and gave us a business card with his ladies services on there. After that we were talking about it then got approached by 3 ladies wanting to know if we knew anywhere good to party in Sofia as they had not meet 
any normal people and thought we might know (not fully sure if I believe their story) we told them no and we were on our way again….strange. Back to the bus and then onto the airport.
were the last checked in but the plane was sooo small owww my legs hurt.
guide Deano drove us down to Weymouth with a few drink stops on the way. We got to our lovely B&B and had a girl’s room and a boy’s room. It was fairly late when we arrived so sleep was soon on the cards
10.5 mile walk along the coast. Dean had told us we were going for a 
walk…….Deanos idea of a walk is more like a cross country trek to any normal person! In short it was cold, windy, beautiful and bloody tiring.
night we did a bit of a pub crawl, top night with karaoke and drinking games, dancing and despite the fact we were totally buggered from our massive walk we pulled ourselves together to celebrate Deans birthday till 4am in the morning.
We were all a bit worse for ware but we had a schedule and as most tours go hung-over or not 
you soldier on! Unfortunately in the morning we discovered our mirror on the van had been stole so after we made a police report continued on to a visit to Corf castle and had a nice lunch in the small village before driving back to London.
Tonight we went to roller disco at Camden. It is a night club roller rink. There are 3 different rooms/rinks. One 
of them had a very steep ramp entrance and being on roller-skates, heaps of people stacked it. Man it was funny to stand there and watch hahaha. Unless it was one of us….. which it wasn’t. We went in 80’s dress, well as best we could with a limited budget and clothes we had. I think we did pretty well. It was a good night out but we only skated for about 2 hrs. Just couldn’t go any longer.
The interesting thing is that you can drink there. So not only do you have people who can’t skate and keep stacking it, you now have drunk people who can’t skate and think they can … and they keep stacking it, this time they have no fear so they take ppl out while skating. What a Gr8 idea!!!
maybe 
get some presents to send home for Christmas. While we were over that way we thought we would go check out the Greenwich Meridian i.e. the International Date Line. It was interesting to find out all about time and how the modern watch came to be and that the main reason for its invention was for sailors, to help them navigate the world. 
dinner and then going to see the comedian Ross Noble. It has been an excellent year packed of travel and we hope to stay on for a few more so we can continue to travel and see this part of the world. Bring on more winters I say.
The next day we woke to have our full English breakfast and then had a 
walk around the town and pier, looked at a few of the gaming arcades and as we didn’t have a car decided to go see a movie (starlight). That night we searched around for a nice restaurant to eat in, it was the last day of the season before they all shut for the winter. We found it difficult to get a table; we have never had an issue with restaurants before. To be in a place on its last day of a season is a new thing to experience.
As we had done so much the day before we didn’t know what to do with ourselves, no cinema, as they did not open till after 12 and our train was at 2 so we didn’t want to be late. We just decided to go have some lunch and then hit the gamming rooms. Great Yarmouth’s main beachfront Rd is over run by bingo halls and shops filled with skill testers, and arcade games….literally shop after shop with exactly the same games and machines. 
