Well hello from the long haul flight back to Australia. I thought I’d use one of the 17 hours in the air to finish listing all the things about Eastern Europe that stood out to me. It’s been a long time since I last slept, so hopefully this post makes sense. And, by the time I go online to publish this, I’ll probably be back home. So…. here they are!

21) Bulgarian ATM’s give you 10 lev notes most of the time. You wouldn’t believe how awesome this is! But Romanian ATMS give you 100 lei notes — very annoying! But they are only worth about $37 AUD :-).

22) Most people seem to live in Communist issue flats. These are usually big, plain, concrete, flats that are built together in one place. Since they fit a lot of people into a relatively small space, a city of 100,000 takes up less area than an Australian city of 40,000. It means that there are a lot more people walking the streets at night.

23) In most toilets you cannot flush your toilet paper. Instead, there is a bin next to the toilet bowl for you to dispose of your freshly dirtied paper. Surprisingly it doesn’t smell bad, as most of the paper is scented. Luckily, I’ve never been the person who had to empty the toilet paper bin. :-)

24) Overtaking is scarey!. Every overtake seems to be made with “only just” enough room. Most minibuses will start the overtaking process before the car coming the other way has gone past, which turns a two lane road into three lanes. And if you are merging lanes, just make sure sure that there is a gap 10cm longer than the length of your car and go for it! Dangerous? YES! I’m so gratefully to live in a country with good drivers.

25) Tailgating is epidemic. I don’t think anybody has ever heard of the 2 second rule. You know… the rule about being no closer than 2s to the car in front. If there was a rule here, it’d be more of a 0.5 metre rule — even on the highway at 100km/hr. Yes, it is scary being a passenger!

26) Coffee… haha… Most coffee is sold as espresso, or medium-blacks. And there you were thinking that I wasn’t going to mention the coffee situation :-P Don’t bother ordering a milk based drink — it’ll either be Nescafe, or have super-terribly frothed milk.

At least it’s cheap. You can buy a rather average take-away shot in a clear plastic cup for 30 stotinki (25c). On the up side, we went out a few times for coffee and cake, and it only cost about 10lev (~$9AUD) for the three of us. So worth it! Although, I think my snobbiness for a good cup of coffee has disappeared. I’m sure it won’t take me long to get it back though :-P

27) “Quality” — Bulgarian goods. I bought an expensive (for Bulgaria; but only $35 in Aussie dollars) ski jacket to keep me warm. But, the first time I wore it, two bits of it broke. Building materials are also dodgy — we stayed at a newly renovated hotel, but all the fittings where already falling apart. I kept wanting to go around the room with a screwdriver and re-tighten every screw.

28) Rubbish is everywhere! There doesn’t appear to be the concept of “you bought it in? you take it out” that we have in Tasmania. Don’t look at the side of any highway — it’ll just look like a tip. Even in Turkey, rubbish was along every walking track we walked along and in every rock cave we looked in. I’ve always heard people comment about hoe clean Tasmania is. I guess I didn’t realise what dirty was until then :-)

29) Bulgarian fashion is funny — well at least stuck in the 90’s. Crimped hair, and pleather (plastic-leather) are currently the rage. And Elly would definitely want me to mention what she calls “nappy pants”. I’ll let you ask her about them :-)

30) Nobody seems to care about pollution. A shopping complex we went to in Romania was built across the road from a fertiliser factory. It didn’t smell very good. Also, everybody has these coal fire places in their houses. If you thought wood smoke pollution was bad in Launceston, you should smell the coal smoke pollution in Eastern Europe!

THE END

Well, I’m now about 25 mins off landing in Australia, so I better head. Bye!