Haskovo Tourism Bureau

18Oct09

(posted by stuartgrant)

Hi all,

Elly and I have been playing tour guides with Humf over the last couple of days.

We think we’re ready to set up business as the Haskovo Tourism Bureau. As you can see from this following photo collection:

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A traditional first-encounter for tourists is a 10-year-old’s birthday party in the mahalle:

Due to the language barrier, Humf unwittingly adopted seven (7) Millet kids. Go, Humf!

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It’s very hard to get away without dancing at such occasions:

Aydin (6), Hasan (10) and Humf (25) strut their stuff in the Great Mahalle Dance-Off!

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Next stop on the tour, obviously, was the old Haskovo power plant. It was never completed. No one may ever know if it was going to be nuclear or coal… It’s only 2-3km from the centre of Haskovo, but who knows?

The FBI were able to "enhance" the image to read the sign in the background. It says "5,000 Leva fine". Uh-oh.

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Another of Haskovo’s main attractions is this “super” market! Like a normal market, only quite large. Do you guys have these in Australia yet?

"What do you mean he looks less than impressed... it's a supermarket, guys! You don't see these just anywhere!!"

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After an exhausting day of seeing spectacle after amazing spectacle in Haskovo, it was time for some traditional cuisine.

The Bulgarian translates to "Quality steroid-fed Chicken with salmonella baste". Yuuuu-um!

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What a day!

So, who’s next for a tour of our delightful city!!?

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Stu.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 12:01 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 comments so far for “Haskovo Tourism Bureau”

mum grant says on

18Oct 2009 at 12:20 pm :


err….well….hope you have some better sights when we come!!

like the dancing and meeting 7 yr olds! not sure about the nuclear sight and dodgy chicken??

love mum

PS have read the first chapter of Eyewitness Travel guide to Bulgaria – didn’t realise Haskovo was still so far south!

Amelia says on

18Oct 2009 at 2:13 pm :


far out humf, those kids loved you!! and they’re quite snazzy skillz with the dancing there ;) lol, good to see you are having fun exploring the ‘beautiful sights’.
looks rather coldish there now *cough* humphrey *cough*
anyways, have sweet as fun times and all that stuff
byee
xxx

Humphrey says on

18Oct 2009 at 3:25 pm :


Yeah it’s cold! F*#@!*##**@@ But it’s ok. Bulgarians building are designed to keep in the heat (unlike tassie houses), so it’s warm everywhere unless u go outside.

stuartgrant says on

19Oct 2009 at 2:42 pm :


You know the funniest thing ever!!? We just went to the official Haskovo Tourism Centre and the lady there (who had good English!) kept asking “Why did you come to Haskovo?? Why are you living here?? Why are your friends living here?? Why did you leave Australia?? Why, why why??”.

All in good humour, of course – except that she really couldn’t understand why we’d be here.

Her advice was basically: “Go to Plovdiv, go to Sofia… and take the bus – our trains are terrible! – please… go somewhere nice!”. Hahahaha.

Best laugh I’ve had in a while.

Cheers
Stu.

Bridget says on

20Oct 2009 at 7:58 am :


Your tour looks amazing. I guess if you’re going for something different, a giant unfinished potentially nuclear power plant in the middle of a city is not something you would see at home!

Attastu says on

22Oct 2009 at 11:26 am :


I know I should give Humf’s blog some love but Cat just posted there so I thought I’d balance it out :)

Sounds like you had the same experience as me on the planes Humf, where you start off in good spirits, it goes fine for 10-15 hours but then you’ve still got a few hours left and you’re just over it and everyone else seems to be able to sleep but you… I reckon everyone is still awake but just have their eyes shut – or they’ve traveled before and have drugs to knock them out ;)

And I think Europe is full of pictorial signs since there’s so many different languages and countries all next to each other it’s the easiest way to communicate. That said I had no idea what that truck/car sign was. If I were driving I probably would’ve swerved off the road with a scrunched up face halfway through saying wha..?

And some of those foreigners have made an art out of selling you rubbish. They have sayings that try to make you feel bad for not buying their stuff. Some of them are pretty funny but :) Just learn “no thank you” in as many languages as you can – short, decisive, firm and clear, they’ll leave you alone quickly after that.

I bet it was nice to finally meet up with Elly and Stu. Familiar people!! And who know quite a bit about living in another country no less. And I bet it was nice to see a friendly face for you guys too (E+S). Hope you’re all havin a ball, keep the updates updated :)

Ciao!

kallans says on

22Oct 2009 at 4:24 pm :


Komik yazı. Nükleer santral ziyaret iyidir – çerez kesici mimarisi daha iyi. Bu saçmalık bir Google Translate kötü. hoşçakal.