Accommodation

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First Weekend in Sofia, First Evening and Morning

This post will share some general thoughts about my weekend in Sofia and then I will do a couple more posts about the tours I did on Sunday. I did some wandering around on my own when I arrived Saturday and saw some things that I revisited on Sunday. So future posts will have more details on some of the things I photographed in this post, which covers up to 11AM Sunday morning, ie. my departure from Malak Izvor, the ride to Sofia, my arrival in Sofia, the hotel, my first evening, and my first morning.

So Max showed up as promised Saturday morning. We discussed a few things, then he left me to book a hotel before driving me into Yablanitsa to catch a bus. I was surprised by how hard it was to find a hotel. I’m past the point of wanting to sleep in a dorm or in a roach motel and all the reviews for anything affordable were offputting. I finally found something that had the right mix of location, price, and positive reviews. More on the hotel in a few paragraphs. 🙂

Max thought there was a bus at 1PM, but there wasn’t… There are a couple of signs around the plaza in Yablanitsa showing the schedule and one of them had the 1PM bus crossed out. Damn. I managed to decipher the sign and figured out that there should be another bus at 2:15, so I sat down on a bench for a long wait. An old man came to me multiple times offering me, I eventually figured out, a lift to Sofia, but I wasn’t that desperate. It was just too odd!

Thankfully, the 2:15 bus did materialise! It was a whopping 6BGN/4.50CAD to go to Sofia. I should stress that I’m being sarcastic!

Off we went. At first, the scenery reminded me of the Okanagan.

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But then, it got greener and more lush.

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The villages all looked the same, white houses with orange roofs.

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All the signage on the bus was en français.

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I don’t know if all of Bulgaria looks like this, but, dang!

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See what I meant about all the villages looking the same?

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Approaching Sofia, we passed immense sunflower fields.

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The bus had an ashtray!

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Coming into Sofia, I saw a restaurant menu that made me hungry. The third item is what caught my attention, пица — peetsa. 🙂

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I arrived at the huge and still fairly new Централна Автогара — Centralna Avtogara — the bus station. From there, I got a taxi to my hotel. I’d done my research on taxis and knew not to get in one without posted prices and a working metre. The price was 0.79BGN/KM and I’d calculated it shouldn’t cost more than 5BGN to get to my hotel… I was right! I was so pleased that taxis are as cheap as I’d been told they would be. Here is a map of my universe this weekend:

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So I stayed at Hotel Zenith. The location was absolutely fantastic, just 10 minutes or so walking from nearly anything you’d want to see in Sofia, but on a quiet street. The staff all speak English. I forgot to grab a picture of the outside, but it’s really unassuming, just a small sign saying “Hotel Zenith.” The carpet inside is ugly, but the hotel is new and clean:

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Here’s my room:

I hadn’t had lunch and it was almost 5PM by this point. Famished doesn’t even begin to describe my mood. I decided to head to Vitosha Boulevard, Sofia’s pedestrian street, as I figured it would be my best bet for finding food quickly.

I have no idea how I picked the restaurant I did, but it might have had something to do with the fact that someone asked, in English, if they could help me. I was seated and given a huge menu, in English, with pictures. It was more like a catalogue! They had everything from burgers to pizza to sushi!

I’ve been meat deprived since I got here, so I decided to take a chance on their bacon cheeseburger. I didn’t bother with the fries, but, damn, the burger was good! Look at that thick bacon! This was exactly what I needed. I asked for no mayo on the burger and it came with ketchup. Not my first choice, but mustard is not common here so I didn’t even try. I like dill pickles now, so I liked the added flavour in the burger. The meat was seasoned, too. A great burger by any standards.

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The restaurant served gelato and I wanted some for dessert, but had no luck getting a dessert menu. So I decided to settle up and look for ice cream elsewhere. I did a quick Google and learned “smetkata, molya,” which means “the check, please.” I then walked around a bit and discovered there were at least a half dozen other gelato places on Vitosha. I picked one at random and got a huge chocolate waffle cone, figuring it was my belated lunch. 🙂

I passed a telenor store and popped in to buy some top up cards for my phone. I have not, and probably will never, figure out their pay as you go system, so please don’t ask about it. 😀 As far as I understand it, it’s like in Mexico, where you put money on your account and buy various packages. Because I only use my phone when I’m in town, I’ve just been putting 10BGN on my phone and using it until I run out. Probably not the least expensive way of doing it, but it’s been working fine. I’ve only spent 36BGN for my phone since I got here, and that’s, I’m told, super expensive compared to having an actual plan. Of that 36, I still have money on my phone and I have a 10BGN top up card I still haven’t used. The folks in this store was fantastic and went out of their way to find someone who spoke a smidgen of English even if what I wanted could easily be done with a bit of miming and holding up fingers.

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It started to pour when I came out of the store. And I’d left my raincoat at the hotel! Thankfully, I was wearing my wonderful Ipanema‘s, so I didn’t care if my shoes got wet.

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It ended up raining on and off for a bit longer, but I just got wet once the initial deluge was done.

I passed the courthouse (had to translate that from the French for a second — like in French, it’s a “palace of justice” in Bulgarian), and this would end up being an important landmark since the walking tours started from here.

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I think I have an Irish pub radar. Remember that I found one in Mérida too!

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Bulgarians, like Mexicans, apparently like cream cheese in their sushi. *growls*

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Sofia has a tram system.

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Holy Sunday Church. We will return. 🙂

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I liked the paint job on this building.

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I passed many Mac stores in Sofia, including one almost right next door to the hotel. Didn’t seen any PC stores…

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That’s about the same price as I paid for my 13″ MBA.

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Sofia is full of contrasting architecture like this.

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Sofia has a fairly recent subway system that is expanding.

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This is the south end of Vitosha Boulevard.

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We will come back to this. 🙂

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This is the cultural centre where there are exhibitions and business meetings.

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Mount Vitosha. Wow! I knew it was close to the city, but not that close! Very popular for skiing in the winter.

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So many billboards atop buildings.

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This Starbucks is right by my hotel and I’m proud to say I did not make use of it even though finding other coffee was a challenge (there is coffee everywhere, but I haven’t yet figured out the etiquette for cafes).

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I got in around 8PM Saturday night and went to bed around 11PM. I didn’t sleep nearly as well as I would have expected, considering how comfortable the bed was. I didn’t get up till 9AM on Sunday, with my tour being at 11AM.

I went to Vitosha Boulevard in search of breakfast. I ended up having all my meals there because it was the easiest option, if not the cheapest. I walked around for a bit until I saw a sandwich shop, Makis, that didn’t look too intimidating. They had a beautiful display of fresh sandwiches and a full coffee menu. I ordered a cappuccino and their Makis sandwich, which had ham and cheddar. It was a bit of a heavy meal, but I knew I’d be walking it off!

Let’s do a parenthesis here to talk about the value of learning to read Cyrillic before coming to Bulgaria (or Russia or Serbia or Ukraine or…). It is amazing how many words sound like English, especially on a menu. If you can read Bulgarian, you won’t go hungry. You might not get what you want, but you can very likely find something you like.

Examples:

бургер — burger

дунер — duner (donair)

пица — peetsa (pizza)

хот дог — hot dog

Чедар — chedar (cheddar cheese)

сандвич — sandvich (sandwich)

салам — salam (salami)

супа — soopa (soup)

салата — salata (salad)

I had fun reading everything I could see on Sunday and made out that this is the Sofia Hotel Balkan… then noticed the English next to it. LOL

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I thought this luggage was well designed. Notice the built in zipper lock:

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Pedestrians are controlled much like in London, with barriers to keep them from crossing streets where they’re not supposed to. For many “scary” intersections, there is actually a pedestrian underground passage, where you’ll find shops and restaurants.

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I had no idea how important these three buildings are. We’ll come back. 🙂

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McDonald’s was the first international company to take a chance on Bulgaria in the 1990s and it bought up the best locations in Sofia. There are now a lot of the restaurants around the city, but they’re not a popular chain.

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This is what the word Russian looks like in Russian. 🙂 This phrase is Russian, not Bulgarian, and it says “Russian Standard Vodka.” What did I tell you about learning to read one Cyrillic language being the key to the others? 🙂

 

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This is another Cyrillic font and it gives me a major headache! In this one, the m is the T sound (Т), the u is the I sound (И), and the g is the D sound (Д). WTFBBQ, as my best friend would say.

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Looking down Vitosha Boulevard to Mount Vitosha.

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Before I close up this novel and move onto the walking tours, here are some general thoughts on Sofia:

-The touristy part is very walkable and feels safe, but I was warned about pickpockets being abundant. I watched my purse! The city is pretty clean, but there is a lot of graffiti. I was struck by how varied the architecture is.

-I was warned by the Brits I know here that customer service in Bulgaria is very “European,” ie. there is very little. It was intimidating enough to go into a restaurant where I don’t speak the language, but being treated like a pest or ignored on top of that was a bit much. I did the path of least resistance thing my whole weekend. I just tried one restaurant after another until I got service. Makis sandwich shop was my favourite place as they were really nice. I ended up going again on Monday morning and the English-speaking guy wasn’t there, but the gal let me muddle through in Bulgarian and it was fine. It would be really nice to get someone to show me how to get seated at a restaurant since I passed a lot of nice little cafes where I would have liked to enjoy a coffee, but sitting myself down, saying “excuse me,” and trying to order at the bar did not produce results. The gelato place was also really good and even though they were more expensive than other shops, I went back several times. 🙂

-I found being in Sofia was exhausting because of how much work it was to do everything when you don’t really speak the language, but at the same time, it was easier than in Yablanitsa because there’s more of everything. I could wait until I found what I wanted, be it a bathroom, water, or meal, in an accessible and non-intimidating location. But for being a capital city in an EU country, I expcted a bit more effort to help tourists. I’ll do a write-up of my bus station adventure in a future post…

-Sofia is apparently the most expensive place in Bulgaria and Vitosha Boulevard is the most expensive place in Sofia. I found both to be inexpensive! I didn’t worry about prices at all.

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So How’s Working from Bulgaria, Well, Working for Me?

So how’s my work life here in Bulgaria?

FULL.

I have as much work as I can handle and am actually turning down jobs and picking and choosing my projects. Quite a contrast with my very lean spring!

The time zone difference with my clients hasn’t been an issue so far.

One client normally has an 8AM PST deadline, which is 6PM here, and when he can, he moves it to 12PM, or 10PM here. With him, I used to try to get the work in the evening or night before the 8AM deadline, but now, I tend to get it in sometime in the wee hours of the morning and he has it first thing. This is because I tend to get the work around 8AM his time the previous day, which is the end of the day my time, so I work on the file the next day.

Another client has an 11PM EST deadline, which is 6AM here. I get very small jobs from her and they tend to be easy, but since I’ve been here, most of her files have been tough and I’v struggled to get the file done by bedtime the day before they are due. I’ve negotiated a three-hour extension to 2AM her time, or 9AM here. That means that if I’m heading past dinner time and still haven’t finished her file, I can go to bed, get up and walk the dogs, have coffee, and still have time to make my deadline. But I haven’t exercised that option yet.

My third main client is a bit trickier. I haven’t received any flack from them, but I wonder if that will change. How deadlines work with them is that I sign work out of a “library” and then I have 48 hours to return it. So the time zone shouldn’t matter. However, you’re not supposed to sign out work early in the day PST unless you plan to do it by the end of the day. With the 10-hour difference, I sign out work and then do it first thing in the morning my time, uploading it in the wee hours of the morning their time. I’m still normally well ahead of my deadlines, though, which I think counts for something. I’m producing good work (as per the feedback I get) and they know I’m here, so I don’t think there will be an issues.

Strangely enough, everyone has been sending me crappy files since I got here. It’s just a coincidence, I know that for a fact, but I’ve ended up with much longer working days than I expected and have had many days where I’ve typed to 9PM or later. Today was one such day, but that was because I had to go to Yablanitsa and that ate up almost four hours of my day. I really hope things settle down so that I can finish by five or six, walk the dogs, have a beer while I make dinner, and then decompress a bit. Finishing this late means I’m going to bed late and then I have to be up around seven to have time to walk the dogs and so I’m not getting enough sleep. It’s turning into an unhealthy cycle that I really need to nip in the bud. It’s funny that super long days used to be the norm for me, but I’ve been doing very well at working more reasonable hours for the last year or so. I’m at the point where even if I don’t take a full day off in a week, not getting my evenings off feels very wrong.

None of this work pays particularly well, but with my expenses being so low here, I’m not too worried. I’d be in trouble in Canada, but I’m happy with this type of work versus the income it produces while in a country with an affordable cost of living.

The internet has been working great. There have been a couple of short outages, but nothing to be concerned about. I am spending so much less time waiting for pages to load and files to download that I am noticing that I have extra time in my day. Really! When I am somewhere that I can get wifi in bed, I tend to save reading some sites until then and I find that I get through my reading list here much more quickly. Picture sites like Buzzfeed come up right away, for example. My internet in Mexico was better by a long shot than what I had in Canada, but it still wasn’t fast, and I certainly couldn’t stream with them. It’s nice to be able to catch up on late night TV (Fallon, Kimmel, O’Brien, SNL, etc.) by watching clips on YouTube when I’m too tired to read.

I’ve come up with a surprisingly comfortable way to work, but it’s not super efficient. I’m simply sitting in the comfy IKEA chair and typing on my lap. I really miss being able to use a real mouse and it’s a pain to get up and have to move my equipment (hard drives, hub) out of the way but, otherwise, this is actually working out. It does mean that I don’t have the transition from work space to play space, however, to watch a movie or read a book or whatever before I go to bed. Still, it’s good to know that a setup like this works.

I’ve also managed to make the bed more comfortable by making a nest of bedding and pillows, so I’m not sore the way I was my first winter in Mexico, even with all that walking I’m doing. My calves were hurting quite a bit (cramping) yesterday when I got to the top of the mountain, but that’s really it. Even my bad knee seems to be handling all these hills (and even the humidity) with aplomb. I can tell I’m getting stronger and have more stamina than I did when I arrived two weeks ago. The walk home today was tough only because of the heat and I still took the dogs on a proper walk (what I shared yesterday) before I came in to a very simple supper of a salami and jam sandwiches (not together!).

So all is good on the work side of things. If I can only just figure out a non-bipedal method of getting around here, I will be able to gain a little more work-life balance!

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A Week in Bulgaria

I can’t believe I’ve been in Bulgaria a week already! My rural location has definitely helped me acclimatise slowly. I definitely need to do a run to Sofia to feel that I can survive on my own in this country, but being a week in while content and well fed, I’d say I’m doing okay.

The pet sitting part of my gig is proving to be a dream. Mechka and Sausage are such wonderful dogs! They are impossibly well behaved and responsive, very loving, and great companions. My twice daily walks with them have yet to feel like a chore. Pen-ghu the cat is a brat who can’t be trusted around food, but as soon as he snuggles against me on my lap, all is forgiven. I was really concerned about this part of the assignment, but we’ve already fallen into a routine. They all seem starved for attention and affection, especially Mechka. She keeps trying to sneak into the house, so I’ve agreed to meet her partway and let her sleep on the rug in the entrance where she can keep an eye on me. Sausage likes to lie on the flagstones just outside the door. I make sure they get lots of attention and cuddles throughout the day, not just when we go walking.

The house, bed and lack of proper workstation not withstanding, is working out great. Today, I gave the kitchen a really thorough deep clean and rearranged it to suit my needs, then baptised it with a really good meal. The kitchen here is better equipped than the one I had on Isla (I have scissors! Sharp knives! Glass plates!), but I need a few things and will ask Max where I can buy basic kitchen equipment (a colander would be nice…).

My diet here has been surprisingly close to what I would make in Mexico — lots of salsa mexicana with avocado, toast with jam, ham sandwiches, pasta with red sauce, and tonight I made my sour cream/potato/carrot/onion/garlic/squash stir fry that was a staple in Mexico. I added chicken since I had some, as well as a side of beets tossed with sirene (Bulgarian “feta”), the perfect companion. Mmm! And, of course, I’ve had heaps of beer, which is cheaper than in Mexico!

My language progress has been minimal, but I’m working at it and being patient. At this point, I’m satisfied with remembering words if not whole phrases, as well as getting an ear for the language.

The setting here is idyllic and suits my personality. I know many of my readers would be starved for human companionship and exterior stimulation, but I’m doing fine. I’m sure that once I break the ice on the café, I’ll want to go down there a few times a week, but for now, I’m content with just the dogs and cat for company.

Work is slowly picking up. I’m not worried about that end of things at this time.

London already feels like it happened in a dream and Haven feels so far away it might as well be on another planet. C&C have checked in and all is well there.

I feel content. I find the agony is in making decisions and implementing them. Once they are made and done, all that’s left is satisfaction. If this week is any indication of the weeks again, I’m going to be just fine here.

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How I Found My Bulgarian House and Pet Sitting Gig

I’m surprised that so few people have asked me how the heck I ended up in Malak Izvor. Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. 🙂

Back in January, upon the advice of a couple of friends, I signed up at Mind My House, a site that brings together folks looking to house and pet sit with folks looking for house and pet sitters. Most of the gigs are in the US, Canada, and Western Europe, but there are really gigs all over the world. I’d never considered housesitting before, but it sure sounded like a great way to travel around the world with minimal housing costs and the chance to live like a local.

A one-year membership is 20USD. I can already tell you that I will be renewing my membership!

I signed up in January and started to look for gigs in Eastern Europe, of which there were very few. I found Max’s ad in February and sent him a message showing keen interest in his gig. However, he prefers people who can stay long-term, eight months to a year or even longer, so he politely declined. I thought that was it.

Over the following months, I continued to look at gigs in places I was interested in, including the Czech Republic. And then, Max got back to me in June to see if I was still available because my 85 days of availability were going to be better than nothing. The rest, as the cliché goes, is history. Needless to say, this one gig has more than paid for my membership to Mind My House!

The gig has really spoiled me in that I’m very much in my own space, not someone’s home. What I’m really here for is the pets, not the property. But it’s a successful first foray into housesitting and a first reference through the site. I hope to find something in Portugal, Spain, or the south of France for the start of 2017. I’m also looking for something in a non-Schengen country between the end of September and January, but I’m not holding my breath on getting that lucky twice. I am very open to where I go next, though, and willing to see what opportunities present themselves. Flights from Europe to almost anywhere are so inexpensive that I have a lot more options than I did back in North America.

I’ve seen a few ads for gigs in Mexico, so that’s something I will look at when I’m ready to head back there. Hopefully, I’ll find a gig in the Yucatán!

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How I Taught Myself to Read Bulgarian Cyrillic Script In a Few Hours

I’m a visual learner and it’s easier to memorise lists of words than sounds when I’m learning a language. So I knew I had to learn Bulgarian Cyrillic script before I could even attempt to learn the language. I’d already successfully learned to read Japanese hiragana characters, so I knew I could learn Bulgarian Cyrillic.

Bulgarian Cyrillic wound up being much, much easier because I could understand so many of the words I could now read since they are similar to the equivalent word in French, English, or Spanish. There are a lot of French loan words in Bulgarian, which definitely gives me an edge. Also, Bulgarian is a phonetic language, so there is one way to pronounce sounds, with only a few exceptions. So once you know what sound goes with which letter, you can read anything.

I started to learn to read Bulgarian Cyrillic with the name of the town I would be living close to, Ябланица, Yablanitsa. That gave me 8 of the 32 letters suddenly representing sounds rather than just being squiggles on a page. This became my key word on which I built my knowledge, but I still had three quarters of the alphabet left to learn.

I started with the letters that look like Latin/Roman characters and sound the way an English speaker would expect them to sound: А, Е, К, М, Т, О. Remember these with the phrase, “O, make tea!”

The consonants K, M, and T are pronounced like in English. English vowels have different pronunciations, but that’s not the case in Bulgarian:

А is like the a in palm.
Е is like the e in best.
О is like the o in order.

Next, I learned the letters that look like Latin/Roman characters, but are pronounced differently, В, Н, Р, С, У, and Х.

В was easy for me because I speak Spanish, which pronounces the letter very closely to the English sound V. In Bulgarian, В is pronounced like the V in vet.

I used a mnemonic device to remember Н and Р, a three-letter English word that starts with what the letter looks like and ends with what it sounds like.

HEN reminded me that Н is pronounced like the N in normal.

РAR reminded me that Р is pronounced like the R in rabbit.

С wasn’t difficult. An English C can sound like an S or a K. Since Bulgarian already has a K sound, C has to be the S sound. So С in Bulgarian is pronounced like the S in sound.

У sounds like the “oo” in tool. So I used yoohoo to remember it.

X sounds like the Scottish ch as found in “loch,” a guttural sound that is difficult for English speakers. It is used in Bulgarian Cyrillic to represent the English H as in hell sound as that’s the closest to the Scottish ch we have in English. So when I think of the Bulgarian X, I think of hell!

Next come letters that kind of look like Latin/Roman characters if you squint, б, Г, З, И, Й, Л, П, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ь, Я, and Ф.

Notice that Bulgarian has several letters that look like the Latin/Roman letter B? Yes, it is very confusing. No, I have not mastered telling them apart just yet!

б is the Bulgarian B, like baby. It looks enough like a B to be easily rememberable to me.

Ъ is a vowel that sounds like the U in turn.

Ь is a “soft sign” that I haven’t wrapped my brain around yet. It’s not always pronounced, but if it is, it’s like the Spanish ñ, or the yn in canyon.

I am learning to differentiate Ъ and Ь by the way the word sounds and also because the U-sounding one has a tail. T for tail leads me to T for turn and its U sound.

Г is a hard G sound, like great. I remember RAG.

З kind of looks like a Z if you squint (it helps that I put a line through my zeds). So it sounds like the Z in zoo.

И is another vowel, I like in machine. I remember IN. That’s backwards from my other mnemonic devices, but that’s the point. Backwards N sounds like EE and backwards IN gives me a word that sounds like “Nee.”

Й looks a bit like the Spanish Ñ and that’s all I need to remember it sounds like the Y in yoyo.

Л and П look similar, but I didn’t have any trouble with them because my association for Л is so strong.

Л Looks like my bottom half with my crooked leg. That’s all I need to remember that Л is L as in leg.

П sounds like the P in papa. It looks like an N, so I remember NAP.

Ц might look like a U, but it’s actually pronounced TS like in fits. I remember this one simply because it’s in Yablanitsa.

Ч still trips me up as it looks so much like У. It is the CH sound like in chip, which rhymes with yip.

Ш sounds like the sh sound in shod. I remember WISH.

Щ sounds like the sht sound in schtick or the end of the verb fished. Since it’s Ш with something more, I remember WISHED.

Я sounds like the ya in yarn. I remember it because it’s the first letter in Yablanitsa.

Ф might look like an O, but it’s F as in food. I remember OFF.

That leaves us with only three letters that look rather alien, Д, Ж, and Ю.

Д looks a bit like a shaky A, but is the D sound. So I remember AD.

Ж is a zh sound. The closest in English is the S in treasure. It is also used to make a soft G sound, like in gel. I don’t have a mnemonic device for this one.

And that leaves us with Ю, which is like the U in menu. I don’t have a mnemonic device for this one either.

Once you memorise the sounds, you will be surprised by how much you can understand.

супермаркет is s-oo-p-e-r-m-a-r-k-e-t — supermarket.

хотел is h-o-t-e-l — hotel.

ресторант is r-e-s-t-o-r-a-n-t — restaurant.

такси is t-a-k-s-ee — taxi.

бира is b-ee-r-a — beer.

натурален is n-a-t-oo-r-a-l-e-n — natural.

If you speak French, the number of words you will recognise will be even larger:

жилетка is zh-i-l-e-t-k-a — gilet (vest).

магазин is m-a-g-a-z-i-n — magasin (store).

екипаж is e-k-ee-p-a-zh — équipage (crew).

багаж is b-a-g-a-zh — bagages (baggage).

кафе is k-a-f-eh — café (coffee).

котлет is k-o-t-l-e-t — côtelette (chop (eg. pork)).

Once I learned the Cyrillic alphabet, I forced myself to use it. I do language exercises on my phone and insist on using Cyrillic rather than having the app transliterate for me. It is still very painstaking work, but it is getting easier and there are words that I now immediately recognise and don’t have to sound out. There are a few sounds that don’t seem to be as common, so when I get comfortable with a word that has one of those sounds, I use it as a key. I also force myself to read everything around me that I can, even if I don’t understand most of it!

Being able to read Cyrillic helps immensely, but, of course, I’m limited in what I understand. Also, like with Latin/Roman script, there are an infinite number of fonts and handwriting looks very different. For example, street signage in the area uses a peak, like of like an upside down V, for Л. But since the other letters look familiar, I was able to adjust to that.

I haven’t yet learned to write Cyrillic. The above script is what’s used in print. Handwritten Cyrillic is very different.

As a bonus, there are many languages that  look and sound very similar to Bulgarian. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they are interchangeable (ie. that you can learn Russian and you’ll be able to read Bulgarian or vice-versa fluently), but they are close enough that there is a measure of mutual intelligibility. You have no idea how excited I got the day I discovered I could read and understand some Russian! I’m planning to go to Serbia next and while its alphabet has a few differences from Bulgarian, the two are close enough that I’ll have an edge when I start looking at that language.

Learning Cyrillic was easy for me once I was motivated to do so. It really took only a couple of hours to learn the bulk of the letters and then I spent dozens of hours applying my knowledge. I carry a cheat sheet with me at all times and if I forget what a sound is, I look it up rather than skipping over it. I think anyone coming to countries that use Cyrillic would find it to their advantage to learn how to read it.