I'm back...
I did warn you.
Sofia. Sounds like a beautiful, sexy lady, and to be honest, it behaves like one too. It has an enigmatic, chequered history, it has some really good looking areas, and it has a relaxed air of cultural sophistication. It also has trolley buses, which all sexy ladies should have.
I'm in my fourth week here, and have been living in a hotel, like I did for four, desperately long weeks in Doha. But this is different. I've enjoyed it (in the main). I move into an apartment on Saturday, which will ease a little of the biggest annoyance of being here, i.e. being stuck in a hotel in the outskirts.
A year to the day from my arrival in Dubai, I arrived here, landing in sheeting rain in an aging 737 that tested my nerves. At least the flight was only three hours. I was picked up - PICKED UP - by my new company's local manager. ON A SUNDAY NIGHT. This is unprecedented behaviour. Every other company I have worked for overseas has either left me to find my own way around a new city, or sent some gurning, obsequious lackey to pick me up and dump me at the cess-pit of a hotel they've chosen for me. I was impressed.
So we drove at quite a healthy speed through the soaked streets of my latest destination, and I watched the red, blue and green neon signs of a strange town blur past me, as my driver told me all about Bulgaria in faultless English. He helped me check in at the hotel, where I crashed and slept soundly. The manager picked me up from the hotel in the morning, even though it is literally across the road from the office, and he had to do a U-turn at the lights two hundred yards down the road to get to the office. I was taken to a bright, modern, open-plan office and greeted by a dozen new faces whose names slipped immediately from my mind. I was given strong coffee. I was handed a brand-new laptop and mobile phone. I was in love with this place already. Even better, on my first proper night in Bulgaria, I was taken out for a meal and a few beers.
Compare and contrast all this with my arrival in Dubai. No manager meeting me off the plane, wearing a fedora and a red carnation. No manager picking me up in the morning. No mobile phone or laptop (which I wouldn't expect, to be fair). No proper coffee, and NO social interaction for the first two months. The miserable bastards. I really had wondered if it was me that was the problem; but it wasn't. I would learn that lesson.
Anyway, enough about Dubai. It's in the past, and is all recorded for prosperity. Or something. I'm here now, and new experiences are just around the corner.
Ciao for now.
