Taking advantage of a birthday, I didn’t have better idea than make a gift related to travel. And being in Bulgaria, having a little longer weekend than usual (I’m one of the luckiest AUBG students with free Fridays), I used it to go to Bansko.
I had been there one month ago with my friends, sleeping in a 4 star hotel with spa also for 1/8 of the price. Bansko in summer (they call summer season to everything which is not December-March/April) is a very quiet place, with beautiful views to the mountains and the architecture that is almost a law in every ski resort in Europe. But what I am going to write about this week, is not Bansko itself, it is Kempinski Hotel.
Be calm, there is no snow in Bansko… yet
It is a matter of fact that normally the men are struggling when they have to make a gift to a woman, and the possibilities to fail are always high, no matter how long they know her. So, I decided that my gift would be something that I could buy in Booking.com. After decided Bansko, which is close to Blagoevgrad and very well connected by bus, I saw Kempinski Hotel and I just couldn’t say no to myself.
First of all, the price. The price is high compared to the Bulgarian standards. Very high. But is very low compared to the five stars high quality hotels. For two nights with breakfast in a room with balcony and mountain views I paid 138€ (two people). Much less than I would have paid at home. Well, at home I would not have tried…
I had never been in one of this level and some things are even funny. A person in reception walks you to your room, and shows you everything there, if the waiter in the breakfast keeps you waiting for 30 seconds (the Bulgarian standard for that is 30 minutes), he apologizes… and you don’t know if hug him or just laugh. Better not laugh, because the selection of food is huge, homemade bread and pastry, wine, natural juices, one barista for special requirements in coffee, little buffets with Chinese food or ethnic selection, diet buffet, an island of fruit…
The Hotel itself, is just the best in Bulgaria, as you can see in many places where the put the prize that the Bulgarian Hotel association gave them the last 3 years (or more, but I only saw this 3 prizes), the spa can keep you without words… It even has a snow room!
Missing to swim?
As an experience, it was perfect. I don’t know if I will pay the same amount of money again, probably not. Even when I like many details that the hotel had with us, they were just that, details. When you are accustomed to budget hotels, it is easy to enjoy very much for a few days this kind of place, but actually the differences are not so big. It does not mean that the hotel does not worth what you pay for it… it means that I can look for the room by myself, that I don’t need the cleaning lady of my room leaving a goodnight story in my chair every day, that the natural juice in the breakfast is better but I can live without it… Definitely, that being rich for a weekend it was perfect, but I am not going to miss it very much
As this blog has turned into a travel blog more than into a cultural spotter, I have found interesting for the post of this week try to find out more about the regulations of the passports and visas all over the world.
This topic came to my mind when this week I have been talking with some people from Moldova, and all of them are trying to get the Romanian passport (and most of them already have it). For them it is a must if they don’t want to spend hours and hours trying to get visa to everyplace they want to go.
The Moldovan passport
When I was doing the research I was scared. If you are from a country like Venezuela, which is not very well considered internationally lately, you have access to 115 countries without any visa requirement. If you are from Moldova, you have free access only to 56 (considering free even that countries that make you pay for the visa in your arrival). If you are, like me, holder of the Spanish passport, you are allowed to visit more than 165 countries visa-free.
According to the list that Henley and Partners make every year, the best passport to have in the world is Denmark. You can see the list here
Then I started to think about why, even when I am travelling abroad since I was 12, my first experience whit a passport was this year in Turkey… because I was travelling to other EU countries. We don’t think about how lucky we are the citizens of countries in European Union, but what is behind the freedom of movements in the whole EU?
Actually, it does not only the EU, because the freedom of movements is guaranteed by the Schengen Agreement, signed on 14 June 1985 which created Europe’s borderless Schengen Area, whit out any (or almost any) internal border control. At the beginning was adopted by Belgium, Luxemburg, France and Netherlands, but now includes all the members of the EU (except Romania and Bulgaria which are expected to join in the future) and also Iceland and Norway, which are not EU members. The borderless zone created by the Schengen Agreements, the Schengen Area, currently consists of 26 European countries, covering a population of over 400 million people
All the countries that are already in Schengen
Today I will save you the presenetation of the country, because we are talking about the USA, and there is nothing new to say, or nothing that is not well known, so today we will speak only about the interviewed.
If there is a famous person between al the new students of this year in AUBG is César. He came from San José, CA, to spent a semester here and he lifes in Skapto 1 lobby. And it is not fake, he really spends more time there than in any other place in AUBG.
He is considered by everybody as a strange person. In his room, a huge mexican flag can be seen trough the window, and there are more than 10 plastic bottles outside of it. He is also famous because of his(none) skills playing football and because of his strange addiction to wear a mexican hat everywhere he goes, trying to avoid a Bulgarian haircut that does not convince him at all.
I tried to interview him, and at the beggining the topic came to a very humoristic point, like Cesar is always living in:
Why do you have a flag of Mexico in your window?
“I have to represent terrorism and Bulgaria need terrorism. I need to inspire people of Bulgaria to make very millions of dollars like Mexico. If they follow how Mexico is dealing with the stuff with the drugs, and making easier to people to buy them and make them… then Bulgaria will become very strong financially”
Do you have any relationship with drug dealers of Mexico?
“Yes. I used to work with them crossing drugs from Tijuana to San Diego. Everybody things they are evil, but the only thing you have to do is respect them. Just do what you are supposed to and you will be fine. Just get the drugs, take them here and that’s all”
What do you thing about the drug war between Mexico and Colombia?
“I think at the beginning they try to cooperate to get the drugs into the US, but now you have individual Colombians and groups acting by themselves using Guatemala, and that is the problem, because they are using other countries which increases the problems”
And the problem with the drugs it is more related to Mexico or to the US?
“It is both, but mostly the US because there are a lot of consumers in the US, and it is cheaper for them to get it from Mexicans instead of american gangsters. If you go to Tijuana you can get maybe 20 pounds of cocaine for 200$ and is very cheap”
And this is the image that Cesar is giving all the time to everybody… and is not the real Cesar. I had been trying to talk to him and make him realized that I really wanted to hear his version about the US, that the fake Cesar needs to be away. Finally he reacted and we can enjoy the point of view about his own country… so I started with a very easy question.
It is true that in the US everybody is eating fast food all the time?
I don’t eat fast food, maybe once a moth, always eat from home, we cook at home, my neighbors do the same… When I came here everybody thought that… or still things that the Americans are fat. I thought it was funny, but is not true yet… but maybe in the future all the Americans will be fat,because they eat all. At home we have McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell…
Cesar on his graduation day from High School
And the second part of the sentence: Fat people and weapons.
I don’t think… In california, I have never seen weapons. I think they might have more weapons in Bulgaria, because I have seen hunters, going to the hills carrying weapons.
It depens on the states?
Weapons is a federal issue, but I have never a normal person just carrying a gun in public. I think that there are more dangerous people in Blagoevgrad, even the police. I was running from a soccer match because I wanted to get to Skapto fast, because I had something to do, so they stopped me and a see a huge gun on their shoulders… I think it was too much.
Is that your worst experience here?
At all! The Hospitals! The hospitals here are horrible, they are dark, cold… the staff is wearing halloween costumes I think… The hospitals are very very very different.
Talking about hospitals…whats your opinion about public healthcare?
When Obama put this new plan about healthcare and everybody gets cover, I have many friends who told me how greatful they are because some of their relatives have conditions of deseases… So having free healhcare without any problem about your incomes, it really helps them. But I can also see why you would like private health care, maybe more quality services… Maybe the doctores will threath you different if you come from a state sponsor.. I think there are more good things instead of bad things.
Obama or Romney?
I think Obama is the best option. I don’t think he is the best, and he has many flaws, but I much rather prefer him than Romney, because Romney has already made other countries mad and he is even not president… so if he would have been president maybe we will be attacked in AUBG, maybe we will be bombed by Siria or Iran because he plans to increase the military and that is not the best way to go.
Coasts to Obama, center to Romney. Is USA a divided country as it looks in the election map?
I actually counted all the states and it was 25 Obama and 24 Romney, so we were waiting for Florida but it does not matter because they were more people in the important states. It looks like the country is very divided and yes, when you count the votes that Obama has, and the votes that Romney has, the difference is only 2 millions. I hope everybody can work together in the future and change things to make it easier to live in America.
I have been very inconstant with the idea of the blog, so I am a little bit late for almost everything I am doing here, but here is my little evaluation about what I have done during this two months in Multimedia Journalism in this experience in AUBG which started in May.
First of all I would like to point that is my first time being force to manage a blog, to plan about what I should do ever week, being able to choose with freedom the topic and how I want to talk about it. This is good and bad at the same time, because even knowing that is only your own issue, it is always easier to search for excuses to do not work on time on it.
As my topic I chose the idea of “What can residents tell about their country?”, trying to find new stories about the people who life in a place, and really is fulled of stories that anybody else can know, even if he has been there as a tourist. That idea looked easy to afford at the begging but turned harder to turn into real, because all the interviews always come into a common places: how different is Blagoevgrad to my hometown, and the things I am missing most from my hometown.
In this little adventure I have been able to know many different things about different countries that normally do not come up in a normal conversation in AUBG, because is nothing common try to find something deeper to speak about for example, the history of your country. It is common for example try to know what places to visit when you are planning to go to a country, as we know in my interview with Sylwester, from Poland:
Another interview I remember very well is with Deyan, a student from Bulgaria who also lived in South Africa. It is almost impossible to find a point of view more different than his, but I think that he just said how Bulgaria is, in only one sentence:
I have made a video showing in my favorite photographic technique, timelapse, the beauty of this countries that we have explored together.
Today I would like to write about something pretty different than my general idea for the blog, and it is the prices in Bulgaria. This week I have been trying to know how is the opinion of people in e AUBG concerning the standards of living here and in their different countries.
As this is a blog based on interviews to other people, I would like to start giving my opinion this time, because I think it is going to be one of the not very many timesI will be able to do it. So, let’s do it:
My first impression when I came to Bulgaria it was: “This is the paradise” Everything which is related with leisure, it is extremely cheap. Extremely cheap, but even more if you compare it with Spain. I will give some examples:
A normal meal in Spain with one dish and one drink in a normal “dinner” restaurant, in Madrid, my home city, it is around 15€. Here in Blagoevgrad, it is impossible the most of the days pay 10lev, and in our daily lunch in a Bulgarian restaurant, we are paying less than 4 leva so 2€.
Menu of a very common Italian restaurant in Madrid
As you can see in the menu over this post, these are the prices in a very normal restaurant in Madrid. It is a very normal dinner, nothing special, but the price for example of a Rissoto is 12€, when in Bulgaria normally it is between 2 and 3€. And a pizza its 10, when in Bulgaria it is usually 4 or less.
Another two leisure related examples, bowling? Impossible to play for less than 7€ in Spain. Here 3 leva and 3 for 6 leva So we are playing here 3 games for less than the half of the price of one at home. The cinema is another crazy example. 8€ at home, with student discount. Here less than 4 leva Exactly a quarter of the price.
It does not look like a place where you can it for 4Euros, but you actually can.
It is true that there are many things that are expensive. For example the milk, the difference between here and at home it is inappreciable, the same with the honey, which is even more expensive. Also, there are many products, gel, deodorant, chocolates, snacks… which are exactly priced the same that at home, if they are of the same brand. If they are made by a Bulgarian company they are a little bit cheap, but nothing specially big.
I tried to speak to many people in Skaptopara about their opinion of the prices, and almost nobody told me that Bulgaria is more expensive than their countries. Polish people told me that is cheaper, specially regarding to alcohol, Moldavian people, that is extremely cheap even knowing that their wages are comparable or even better here, for Russian people also is cheap…
Should Bulgaria take advantage of that and use it as a reason to visit it in its not very developed tourism industry? I think they should, when you are on a holiday here it is the first time you notice, and it can make Bulgaria more desirable for EU tourist.
Slovakia is a country located in central Europe, with a population of over five million people. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union since 2004, and of the Euro zone since 2009. Now has one of the fastest growth rates in the EU.
A separate Slovak state briefly existed during World War II, during which Slovakia was a dependency of Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1944. From 1945 Slovakia once again became a part of Czechoslovakia. The present-day Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
There are many ties that connect Slovakia with Czech Republic, because of their recent history happened the most of the time together, but they are now two different identities, even sharing very close languages and probably a very close way of living. Every time that two countries get their own paths and spare each other, there is a feeling of pertinence to this new country, they enjoy more their new nation, people feel more patriotic than in countries with a long history behind them. It happen the same with Slovakia? To know that we have the chance to speak with Alzbeta that can show us in her own feelings and thoughts how is the live in the country she was born.
1)You were born in Czechoslovakia, right?
Yes, I was born in 1990, so I was born still in Czechoslovakia, but I consider myself only Slovak. Also all my friends do the same. The only flag that represents us is the Slovak one, and we are very proud of being an independen country.
2) How is the relationship with Chech Republic?
In my opinion is good. Not only related to the countries itself, to the governments and stuff like that. The people of the two countries knows that we share a history together and nobody can forget that. Also, we share more or less the same language and we should take advantage of that. Be different, but be together in the things that are really important.
3) Everybody has the feeling of Czech Republic being the the most powerful country of the two? Is this real? There is any way of colonialism, for example with languages, or buying your industries?
Yes, kind of. For example, the most of our text books are not in Slovak, because we are only five million people, so we read it in Czech. I am not telling that this is a bad thing, because translate a book for a market of only five million, probably is not worthy for the publishers, but it only make the people feel that the Czech Republic is the strong one, and we are the ugly sister.
4) What is your opinion about the crisis that the countries of the euro are suffering? Do you think that is affecting to Slovakia in the same level that other countries?
We do not have the feeling that we are in crisis. We know about it, we listen to it in the media, read on Internet, but we do not put too much care on it. Probably because we have still things to get worry about in our country, but not the economy. Still we have a lot of path to do, but we are making it very well in terms of money.
Deyan Lubenov is a senior student in AUBG, finishing this year his major in computer science. He was born in Bulgaria but he spent a lot of time during his life in South Africa, where their parents move when she still was a kid. That is why, probably he is enjoying more his new live in Bulgaria, because he does not doubt at all when you ask him about South Africa.
“I hate South Africa. It is a racist country, and is practically impossible be happy there”
But he is here to speak about Bulgaria, which is a country located in Southeastern Europe. Its location has made it a historical crossroad for various civilisations and as such it is the home of some of the earliest metalworking, religious and other cultural artifacts in the world.
The Bulgarian State became independent in 1908. The following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both World Wars. In 1946 it became a Communist republic with a single-party system. In 1989 the Communist Party allowed multi-party elections, following which Bulgaria transitioned to democracy finished with the adoption of a democractic constitution in 1991.
What is your opinion about the general situation in Bulgaria?
Honestly, I think we are doing better these years. I suppose that the entrance of the EU has helped us a lot, but still, it is fair to recognize that we are making progress. The Bulgarian people are always critizism their country, but when something is getting better we should be the first ones in saying it.
Is Blagoevgrad a “unreal” city in Bulgaria? Because some people don’t know any other cities in the country and probably Blago, with the AUBG influence is not a normal example
Bulgaria has a lot of contrasts. Even here, and as you said, is not a normal bulgarian place, you can see a gipsy with his horse, and then a Mercedes of 100,000$. This can be crazy, or look crazy for a person who come from a more developed country in the EU, but for us is not shocking, maybe we are accostumed. Trying to answer to your question, I will tell you that there are two parts or Bulgaria much more developed tan the others. The first one is the west, with the black sea and a lot of tourism, and the other is the south, also connected to Greece. So, Blagoevgrad is not unreal, but does not represent the normal city in BG.
What feelings do you have about the EU and some countries don’t allowing bulgarian people to enter freely in their countries? Do you consider your country a real EU member?
If the EU want us inside it should be with all the consequences. I understand that the inmigration is a problema with many countries in the Eu, even more now with the economic crisis, bute ven counting with that it is very difficult to understand what they want to do with us. They are at the same time saying no and yes to us. They are helping us with many construction Works, with our problems in infraestructures… but still they dont want to see as a normal european country, with all our rights and of course obligations.
It easy to think about Bulgaria and its concerns, but what do you think that can do Bulgaria to improve?
First of all, we should stop being in the news because corruption things. Is that easy. If we want to improve, and to improve we need Money, and that Money is going to be given by the EU, we should show them that we are a trustable country, thing that we are not doing at all. I am not telling that everybody is stealing in our institutions or in the government, municipalities, our representors in the EU… but we have probably a higher percentage of thieft in our country that other EU members. And that is, of course, a problem.
Our post for today is going to be dedicated to Poland, the sixth most populous member of the European Union. Poland is located in Central Europe and its capital city is Warsaw. And it is well known lately for been the organizer, with Ukraine, of the Euro2012 (that Spain won, by the way). But also Poland have a lot of stories to tell, because it has been an important piece in Europe since centuries and it is part of the most important stages in European History. Probably the worst part of their history is related to the WW2, when they lost more than 6 million people, and then they were forced to suffer the communism until 1989 when was declared the Third Polish Republic. Another black day of recent Polish history occur on April 10, 2012 when the president Lech Kaczyński died in a plane crash in Russia, with other 89 important people of the government and the army.
To speak about Poland our guest is Sylwester Piotrowski, from Lodz, which is not a very well-known city, but it is the third biggest city of Poland.
When somebody thinks about Poland, it is always a fight about what city choose to visit if you do not have time to visit both: Warsaw or Cracow. Sylwester said that:
If you really want see something in Poland, connected to our history, then go to Cracow, because from centuries it was the center of the country, and all of the kings have the residence here and most important things and decisions were settle there. And also the most beautiful architecture is on Cracow because it wasn’t damaged as much as Warsaw in WWII. In Warsaw, A lot of very historical and beautiful buildings were completely destroyed and never rebuilt. And after 1945, everything was built by Russian constructors and everything looks more or less the same everywhere.
Speaking about tourism, Poland received more than half a million of tourist during the last summer due to the celebration of the Euro2012. How was it seen in Poland?
Well, thanks to the Euro cup we built new stadiums, we built new roads and infrastructures, for example a new airport in Warsaw. We got strong impact in sport activities with children and young people, because we built a lot of sport centers, and I hope it will bring a great new generation of great polish sportsmen. And it was also a big chance to show how Poland can be good in a big event event like Euro 2012, maybe in the future we can get another opportunity to be organizer of another sports events, for example the Olympics.
But sometimes, even when the organization is successful, if the national team does not make a good paper in the tournament, looks like is not a “complete” succeed. What is the Sylwester Opinion about that?
The most of the people in Poland was unsatisfied because of the results that we achieve, we didn’t go to the playoff, we were in the 4th position in our group and the most of the people expected our team to be into the 16th best of Europe. But we still have the chance of not waste our best generation of players like Lewandoski because they are still young and play in one of the best German clubs, so they can improve and they can still give something else, maybe in Brazil. (Where will be the World Cup in 2014)
Maybe this tourism has help Poland to be one of the countries in Europe which are facing better the financial crisis. Sylwester recognize that it is true, that they are not speaking about the crisis everyday like we do in all the countries in South Europe:
Yes, maybe because of that we are not on Euro-zone. We are taking part of negotiations but maybe we don’t need it because we have very good relationships with east-countries and we cooperate each other. For example we have a big market of vegetables and fruits which export to for example Russia and Ukraine. And also for our state policy is made to support middle and small companies and for example they don’t have to pay taxes… maybe is for that we are still on a plus. I do not know.
Here you have the best parts of the interview with Sylwester:
Music version:
1day1country 