No guns please, we're Bulgarian

Last night, in the throbbing seaside resort of Varna, we were privileged enough to see nightclub culture Bulgarian style, which, like their cuisine, involves heaping portions of whatever happened to be handy at the time. In at least one case "whatever happened to be handy" was motorised dodgem-style boats and a small, filthy pond. To my great shame I have to confess that we avoided the (figuratively) alcohol fueled dogem-boats in favour of the (Guinness-certified) world's-longest-cocktail-list-having-bar and the Africa-through-Bulgarian-eyes one. The first choice was based not only on the prospect of being able to choose between dozens of minor variants of the same drink but also because of the comforting "no guns allowed" pictogram on the front door. Not so the medieval-themed dance club down the road, where Chris saw a patron showing the doormen his gun before happily strolling in to create more mayhem than usual on the dance floor.

Beyond the cocktails and weaponry, Varna delivered the kind of beach which reminded us why we live in Australia, and the kind of hotel which reminded us why communism is history's most amusing cause of mass starvation. Also, there were Churches.

This is the (supposedly functioning) phone in our hotel room. Although the list of call-able destinations was purely Eastern Bloc and some select communist/dictatorship Asian nations.


[Suggested caption "In Soviet Russia, phone dials you".]


We write now from Bucharest, which is significantly less ugly than we had been promised, providing a passable imitation of Paris without the `tude.

Crossing the new, EU-approved border to Romania went smoothly, so much so that two of the customs officers hitched a ride home in our minibus, but we've ended up in by far the most expensive (and nicest) hotel room of our short trip by virtue of showing up in the city centre on a Friday night without a reservation. On the upside, we have a separate lounge room in our suite, featuring overstuffed arm chairs in which we shall sit, pretending to enjoy the local brandy. Tomorrow we visit the world's second largest building, and contemplate once again the dangerously amusing nature of socialist dictatorship.