Ema's Adventures

Bulgaria and the European Union

I am still in Bulgaria and politically this has to be one of the most interesting times recently! Bulgaria has always been interesting place to live. Communism, Revolutions, Hyper Inflation, having our king as a prime minister, having the communist come back and to be the ruling party now when we are getting in the European Union. Coming back this winter meant that I will still be faced with all of the Mafia issue and seeing 4 parked Ferraris and Lamburginys in the centre of Sofia next to the elderly people begging for food is quite the cite.
So what comes next, Bulgaria in 2 days will be part of the European Union a step that the country is not ready for. Apparently nothing that Bulgaria produces is good for the European Standards. So from 1st of January Bulgarians can't eat Bulgarian pork or any other meat, can't smoke Bulgarian cigarettes, can't fly on Bulgarian planes, everything have to be imported. The worst thing is that Bulgarian people in the villages are not allowed anymore to make their own Rakia ( the Bulgarian national drink, 60% alcohol, made out of grapes). To tell a Bulgarian that they can't drink this is almost condemning them to death! Well the only good thing is that we can travel everywhere, sober but at least the border authorities are not going to treat us like criminals! The view of everyone I talked to was that there will be no European Union after a year of Bulgaria joining in, instead of them teaching us how to get in the right way we will just convert them to our pirates rules.

posted by Ema @ 1:26 AM