Day: July 31, 2016

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Balancing the Books

I just caught up on two months worth of bookkeeping, WHEW. The amazing thing is that I am so conscious of my spending that I balanced very nearly to the penny even though I did not have receipts for everything and I was juggling several currencies.

So this means that I finally have the cost of my hedonistic five days in London. I am not including airfare because I was going through London whether I stayed there or not. I think I did quite well considering how expensive the city is! My London trip costs, broken up by categories, with all expenses in CAD:

Accommodation: $222.00

Public Transportation (Oyster): $65

Attractions: $128 (thankfully, the British museum was free!)

Food (including afternoon tea at $55): $255

Souvenir (Moleskine notebook): $20

Total: $690 ($138 per day, counting my arrival and departure days as all expenses for those days were in London)

My first month in Bulgaria was extraordinarily cheap, even less expensive that Mexico, because I had no rent to pay here and no household setup costs since the house is so well equipped. I don’t feel that revealing my entire budget is relevant, but here were my Bulgaria costs for July, remembering that I live in a tiny village with few opportunities to spend money!

Food (including beer and my very few restaurant meals): $299

Public transportation (two round trips to Sofia, two taxi rides): $29

Household: $8 (this is just toilet paper and paper towels, which are extraordinarily cheap here!)

Toiletries: $8 (shampoo, body lotion, body wash (I only came with small carry on sizes), razors)

Telecom (SIM card, plus top up cards, of which I still have 20BGN outstanding!): $36

Hotel: $93 (for two nights)

Movie: $10

Tourism (two walking tours): $20

Total: $503

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Fancy Going to a Polish Bonfire?

Max showed up late yesterday afternoon, just as I was finishing up my insane week of work (that, admittedly, would have been a tiny bit less nuts if I hadn’t given up a day to go see Star Trek, but my mental health needed that). Soon as I was finished, I told him he could go ahead and put on laundry, then I grabbed a beer and went to the second floor deck to decompress a bit. Max decided to join me and I told him to grab a beer from my fridge.

We had a chance to catch up and I got the scoop on Albania, where he went on holidays the week that I arrived here. Can’t wait to see the Adriatic Coast!

It was going on seven when I decided to go make a sandwich for dinner when Max said that we’d been invited to a “Polish bonfire” down the hill and to bring a beverage, with that being all that he knew about the event and that he hoped there would be food.

Curious, I headed down with him and discovered that the gathering was at the guesthouse of some lovely British expats I knew and that I’d also met the Polish folks renting the house who were putting on the event. Another British couple had come as well.

The house is fantastic. It looks run down from outside, but they’ve redone most of the inside in keeping with the rustic feel of the house while at the same time completely renewing it. I was the Airbnb expert of the group (LOL) and assured the owners they would have no trouble renting it out that way if that’s what they decided to do.

We went to the backyard to sit around the fire. It was a very low key casual thing with lots of young kids prancing. Food just kind of showed up as it cooked over the flames — wieners on sticks for the little ones, potatoes in foil, very salty and cumin-y Bulgarian meat things that had us all polarised, as well as homemade bread with a fantastic yoghurt dip that I had with everything, salads, and a chocolate zucchini cake for a little boy’s birthday.

I finished my second beer of the night and more materialised, as well as a welcome glass of juice offered to me by that little boy who was a perfect host, passing plates and napkins around and making sure everyone got sweeties and crisps from his secret stash (aw!).

The little ones went to bed and then so did the Polish couple as they needed to be up early. Max and I stayed up with the two British couples and finished the night by drinking a bottle of fizzy raspberry wine, just talking about Bulgaria, singing and strumming the guitar (I listened), and being awed by the fact that I looked up at the sky and said, “The stars look different.” And they did! I didn’t get grounded until I found the Big Dipper.

I didn’t get in till past midnight and by the time I’d decompressed enough to go to sleep, it was TWO! Of course, I was awake at my normal time this morning (thanks, Sausage), but I managed to doze until nine. I’m glad I hadn’t planned to do anything mentally taxing today! I had thought to maybe go on a long afternoon hike with the dogs, but Max is out for the day and had counted on my being home to oversee some construction work on his behalf. I’m rather glad to have an excuse to just chill. 🙂 I’m going to make another cup of coffee, then head up to the deck with a book.

I’ve been in Bulgaria a full month now. Tomorrow is August, my last full month here!