Hey Everyone…
It’s Julia’s Birthday today! Drop her a comment and overwhelm her with your well wishes!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JULES! Now go charge it in Are…
Stephan and the 10000 fans who tune in
I have to admit, most of us, including me, were somewhat dreading the journey to Bulgaria: crazy travel logistics to a completely unknown part of the
world made for some skepticism. When else do we get to experience the entire girls World Cup tour complete with coaches cramming into a chartered flight (by some sketch-city airline) all hauled off to Bulgaria. NEVER!
And I have to say that something got into me on that journey. I was the annoying fly buzzing in everyones ear….
Man, it’s so true that you can tell a whole lot about people’s character when you travel.Here’s what I mean…
It all started in Munich on the morning of the flight. So, the buses were scheduled to pick us up at 8AM. To me, 8 means 8. To most of the Euros, 8
means 7:40. OK so me and my US Ski Team friends stroll out leisurely at 8, yawning and rubbing the sleep out of our eyes. When our sight finally focused on the situation, we were rudely awakened: 2 buses were FULLY crammed with bodies, packed, wall to wall, girls on top of girls on top of coaches!
But as fate would have it, no longer than the thought lasted, another bus, completely empty rolled up and picked us up. We virtually had that big-boy all to ourselves while all the people who showed up at 7:40 were in agony.
What irony, huh? The early bunch — thinking they’re on the ball — got the shaft and the delinquents got the royal treatment. OK, so already we had 2 bus loads of people giving us the evil eye. Oooops.
Cut to the airport… long line at the counter. I must have pissed everyone off when I — at the back of the line — strolled up to the counter and asked
the check-in lady to please save the last row for me, Chemmy, and my Canadian compadres. Now, I honestly did not intend to cut the line, but much to my surprise, the attendant turned to me and said, “well, you know, if you want me to reserve it, I’ll need your friends’ passports.”
So I collected the passports and gave them to her.
Once again, many evil eyes, but its all good, we were all going to the same place!
Then in the plane I accidentally spilled my drink 3 times on Chemmy’s coach. I have no idea what got into me nor how I became so accident prone. Strike 3.
But once in Bansko, all good! There was a fun sense of togetherness, since all the girls were held up in one big hotel. Really kind of cool. The hotel
had a bowling alley in the basement and so in our spare time we hit it as much as we could…
We had team bowling faceoffs with alter egos… Brit, Kelly, and I were actually Britney, Jessica and Mandy and Chemmy, Emily and Larissa were Charmane, Lasista, and Black Betty. I was quite consistent, having bowled a 153. Chemmy worked a 155. Brit killed it with a whopping 60.
A bunch of us played on other days and the pattern we noticed was that the Americans were by far the best bowlers. The Euros and Canadians just couldn’t keep up. Not sure why that is… perhaps we’ve got a richer bowling culture in the States? Brings me back to my Pizza and Bowl nights back in Cali…
So that was sweet…
The skiing was successful too. I’m happy with what I was able to accomplish and I was also stoked on Bansko skiing as a whole. I didn’t get out to free ski, but looking around at the mountains down there made me salivate to get out and heliski. I had no idea they had such amazing terrain there, but everywhere you looked, you saw high mountains with sweet unridden bowls and runs. The only way to get there would be with a heli… not sure they do heli tours there. Perhaps that’s an untapped business down there.
The town was nice a quaint too… food was surprisingly decent. Fresh vegetables that were steamed and rather healthy. I find that in Austria and other western European countries they cook with butter a lot. This Bulgarian cuisine relied more on steaming, which was great and much like I’m used to from home. The protein wasn’t that awesome though… not sure why, but the meat wasn’t up to snuff. Ohhh but the yogurt was excellent!
The flight back was a riot, capped off with an aborted landing in Munich and a diversion to Stuttgart. There we waited for a full hour for a bus that
never came. We finally made it to a hotel and I fell asleep at 2AM… finally.
An adventure for sure, I just hope some people can find it in their heart to love me again…
второстепенен
XOXO
Jules
