Bulgarian Alcohol Traditions

As some might know, I don't drink (a statement universally true over the last 5 or so years). Thus some might find it strange that I'm posting this, but I find it interesting, so for the benefit of others that might find it similarly interesting, away I go.

A conversation was raised about the national drink of Bulgaria and here are the likely candidates: Rakia, Menta, Mastika. Onto themselves, they are a potent bunch, that could warm the heart on a cold winter's day. They each have their time and place, but you can't go wrong with Menta on a hot summer day or hot Rakia (usually heated up over fire, adding honey, herbs and water) on a cold winter day.

What I found after was what really prompted me to write this post. I found a curious list of cocktails, which sounds as much interesting as suicidal. I can imagine that any one of these cocktails would be a worthy challenge as well as an interesting experience all in one.

(List roughly translated from here)

A few notes. In Bulgaria a shot is 50ml and double shot is 100ml. Thus, one part below should be at least one Bulgarian shot (50ml), although in the spirit of things (no pun intended), if in doubt I would suggest matching a "proper" shot (100ml).

Unless it says otherwise, no mixers allowed.

Cloud (Oblak)

• 1 part Mastika (45% alc)
• 1 part Menta (25% alc)

Served very cold

Gipsy girl (Ciganka)

• 1 part Mastika
• 1 part Rakia (from grapes - Grozdova)

Served cold

Evridika

Star Sozopolski kokteyl. Prigotvya se kato v edna bira - 

• 1 beer (400 ml)
• 1 double shot Menta (100ml)

Poor the Menta into the beer. Serve slightly chilled. Great for early afternoon hangovers on a hot day.

Alligator (Aligator)

• 1 or 2 part(s) Gin
• 1 or 2 part(s) Menta

Can be mixed in different ratios. The most common are 1:1, 1:2, 2:1. Can be served with ice.

Cavalier stick (Kavaleriyski shtik)

• 1 or 2 part(s) Vodka
• 1 or 2 part(s) Menta

Can be mixed in different ratios. The most common are 1:1, 1:2, 2:1. Can be served with ice.

Japanese Sunrise (Yaponsko utro)

• 1 or 2 part(s) Vodka
• 1 or 2 part(s) Campari

Can be mixed in different ratios. The most common are 1:1, 1:2, 2:1. Can be served with ice.

Rock Climber (Pqlzachi po skalite)

• 1 or 2 part(s) Gin
• 1 or 2 part(s) Campari

Can be mixed in different ratios. The most common are 1:1, 1:2, 2:1. Can be served with ice.

Barbata

It's named after the old Sozopol alcoholic Barbata, god rest his soul. He survived almost 2 years only drinking this. It tastes discusting, but it's very nutritional.

• 2 parts Menta
• 1 part Rakia

Served hot.

Tiger Kiss (Tigqrska Celuvka)

• 3 parts Red Wine
• 1 part Rakia (from grapes - Grozdova)

Served warm. Great during winter.

Cleaner (Miyach)

• 1 part Menta
• 1 part Grozdova (Rakia from grapes)
• 1 part Mastika. 

Beware, it's strong. Served with a tablet of antacid and Nurofen Plus.

Bulgarian National Flag (Trikolior)

• 1 part Vodka
• 1 part Menta
• 1 part Liqueur (Red)

First pour the Vodka. Then slowly and carefully pour the Menta along the side of the glass (it should sink to the bottom). Last, pour the Liqueur, similar to the Menta, but even more carefully. It should form white-green-red layers to mimic the Bulgarian flag. Drink as a shot.

Hammer/Steam Hammer (Chuk/Paren chuk/Chukche)

It's not an accident that it's under number 13.
Collect all available alcoholic liquids and mix. Shake well, drink lots.

"Medved prihodit"

• 1 pint of Beer
• lots of Vodka

Start with the pint of beer. Every time you drink, top up the glass with Vodka. Repeat until there is only Vodka remaining in the glass.

"Medved uhodit"

• 1 part Vodka
• 1 Beer

Reverse of the one above. Start with a glass of Vodka and every time you drink, you top up the glass with Beer. Repeat until you have only beer in your glass.

Club Cocktail (Koktejl Bozdugan)

• 375 g. Rakia (the cheapest you can find, usually the apricot)
• 375 g. Beer (the cheapest you can find, usually Svetlo Pivo)

National Fist (Naroden jumruk)

• 1 part Grozdova (Rakia from grapes)
• 1 part Slivova (Rakia from plums)
• 1 part Mastika

Can be served as a shot

On Maturity

It seems the more regressed in age you act (being happy/worry free, appreciating the little details as if you see them for the first time, etc), the more people think you act mature ... how bizzare?!?

On Passwords and Privacy

Believe it or not, I have no sense of privacy. I don't care if everyone reads my emails, knows what I buy or knows where I live. Part of this is based on the acknowledgment that even if I did care about it, there is little I can do (short of becoming a paranoid freak) to prevent that information being accessible by thousands of people, so why discriminate - I don't mind giving it to anyone that's interested.

On the other hand if there is one thing I don't give away to people I know is passwords. A password for me is not giving people access to your information - it is giving them the right to represent you. I don't care if people snoop into any account I have ever had, but I do care if they login as me and take actions which will be misconstrued as my actions and respectively will impact other people's oppinions of who I am and what I do.

Sooo ... yes, you are welcome to reading my email and no, you can't have my password.

A Trip To Greece

On my trip to Bulgaria, I had the chance of visiting the interesting country of Greece.
I was on an organized bus trip with local tour guides and a number of planned events.

The trip had 3 distinct stages.
The first night we spend at the city of Kalampaka, which is situated under the rock towers of Meteora. I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't heard of Meteora. It seems to be a sort of a sheltered place, but you should know - you are missing out. It's an amazing natural wonder, which has been completed with grandiose human achievements to top it up. To begin with, there are those huge rock formations, which are sticking out of the ground like needles, hundreds of meters tall. They have vertical, rock walls supporting a small, flat surface at the top.
It escapes me how people got to the top to build there or the determination needed to do this.

The second part of our trip was Athens (Atina) and the surrounding sites. We had a couple of days there and had a chance to see a lot of the wonders that are there. It is really unbelievable the amount of history that could be found in this one tiny part of the huge world we live in. The tour guide told us a story about the time when the greeks were trying to build a metro, they constantly kept running into more and more remains of the ancient city and eventually they had to give up entirely. As a proof of her words however, everywhere throughout the city you can see remains of 2-3 thousand year old houses and public buildings. The Aghoras (the ancient meeting grounds) are particularly well preserved. I loved the story about the tallest remaining building in the old aghora - the tower of the winds. It's an octagonal building, with a side for each of the major winds (north, south, east and west) and the directions in between (north-east, south-west, etc).

Of course the Parthenon was the main attraction. It's on the tallest (well, actually second tallest) hill in Athens and it is truly majestic in both size and beauty. We also had a round trip around Peloponnese, seeing some of the beginning of the Ancient Greek civilization. We drove through miles and miles of olive trees and pretty, white rocks.

On the way back, we stopped by Delphi. To get to Delphi, you have to travel through what has to be one of the narrowest roads in the world. When going through the city of Delphi, we were literally inches away from the walls of the buildings on the street. Anyway, the ancient city of Delphi was really amazing. It has a lot of history with all the ancient embassies of the different Greek cities as well as a eerie feeling, created by all the mythical stories about the magic of the place. At the very top of the ancient city, there is a huge arena (of course). There was also an amphitheater, where we tested the acoustics of the place and you can hear a voice from one end of the huge construction to the other without any assistance of technology (apart from the mechanical tricks they used, like empty amphorae under the stage and the careful construction of the seating in such a way as to carry the sound waves in the most effective way).

The last part of the trip was in Thessaloniki (Solun in Bulgarian). It is a particular favorite for Bulgarians because of the rich history that connects that city to our own history. It also happens to be quite heavily populated with Bulgarians. It is a very pretty city, with a nice sea view. The main plaza is very beautiful with lots of flowers and surrounded by some amazing old-style hotels. We also had a chance to visit the local market (where you get to see some display of survival bravery only typical for third world countries). Our last stop was the remains of the oldest parts of the city in the middle of the modern day city.

All in all, if you get a chance to visit this country with such rich history, you should seriously consider it. There is so much to see, enjoy and appreciate. It leaves you with a sense of insignificance in a sense after seeing what people were able to do thousands of years ago. Greece rocks.

Red Sox Game

Just one of those things. It spans across countries, across cultures, across languages. The experience to go to a Red Sox game is more than the ultimate fantasy of a baseball game fan, but it has not any less of a significance for anyone - even if they happen to hate watching sports.

Sure, it has been commercialized to a stage that parallels political campaigns. From the way to the stadium with hundreds of shady characters buying and selling tickets, to the entrance with a number of fan merchandise, to the stadium itself covered in banners and every free inch of space around the walkways filled in with food stalls, and you have your mandatory hot dog and coke guys walking around and making an extra buck the entire night. But that's just how it is these days. If it wasn't for the money involved in it, it would have been left out like a blind dog by the street and would have never been perfected and polished to the stage where each and every game is a piece of art, giving spirit and inspiration to young and old alike.

The energy is undeniable. The thousands of people piling to get in feed expectations from the start. There is something about so many people in one place, all thinking positively about achieving yet another victory. Once you find your way to the stadium instead, after going through the maze of dungeon-like walkways, you are greated by an amazing site. A garden of eden amidst the concrete jungle of Boston. It illuminates (under the stadium lights) the healthiest green light. The whole field shines like an emerald, rewarding whoever decides to look at it and enjoy it an eternal bliss of serenity.

I refuse to go beyond this on expressing the experience. Sure, there was an actual game to follow, but it was the energy of the people around this amazing place that really created the experience for me and presented itself as one of those times where the power of the people really exists in unmeasurable, yet just as real proportions.

I leave on this note - no matter who you are, what you enjoy and how much you like (or not) sports, reward yourself with this experience at least once in your life. If you regret it, come and complain to me about it :)

Printing Press

I got to go to a printing press today. That was pretty exciting. I work for a news paper company now and as part of the job, I got a tour of the printing company they use to print their paper.

It was a pretty interesting experience. I learned a lot. They led us through the entire process they use. First they get PDF files (CMYK) uploaded to them via FTP or other means. Then these files get checked and post-processed if needed. From these files, they create aluminium master plates (big sheets of aluminium), which serve as master for the printing machines. Each sheet fits 8 pages of the paper. There is also a plate for each of the major colours.
After these plates are created, they are fitted onto the printing machines. For colour printing, there are four printing machines going on at the same time, feeding into each other to get the colours overlayed on top of each other to produce the final product. The way the printing press works (from what they explained to us) is that the aluminium plates, produced in the previous step, have special coating on them where colour is supposed to be printed. The machines then apply water and ink to that plate. The coating attracts the ink and then it's impressed on the running pages. Before they run the press in full speed, they do multiple slower runs to adjust alignment of the different colours and setup the right amount of ink on each page (there are a sequence of about 20 knobs along the length of the page to adjust that). Once the machine runs in full speed, it is running amazingly fast and they can print more than 16000 8-page sections per hour. For bigger papers, they queue a number of printing machines in such a way that all the necessary pages come together in the end, where a machine is cutting and folding them to the ready product. It is unbelievable how fast and exact the machines are doing their job. The final step of the process is to combine all the different sections, which is done by another set of folding/inserting machines and to package the papers for posting.

Now I know :)

Car Accident

After the day in Cambridge, I caught up with a friend of mine from Canada called Nate from back in the days of KUA. He's one of the most fun loving creature on earth and naturally throws the best parties. I had pretty good fun at just one of those that night. It was good catching up with him and letting a bit loose after all the work.

The focus on this post however isn't exactly the fun parts of life. It's about the deep and meaningful, brought by the sudden moments of realisation that our lives hang by a thin line at any point of time, which can easily be snapped by the ever tempting fate. I just ran into one of these close calls in life in a vicious car accident.

It was late. We were getting home from a fun and busy (hence tiring) day. We were almost home, when the quiet, neighbourhood streets took a turn after a long, straight stretch about a mile down from home. Only too later did I realise that as much as the road was windy, it had stayed straight for long enough for the driver to fall asleep and by the time I realise he has no intentions to turn in the upcoming turn, it was too late to do anything about the immanent crash. All I was left with was trying to shake him awake and brace for the impact. I can spend quite a bit describing the eternity of the next couple of seconds, but the main point is: we crashed. We piled through a road sign and crashed into an utility pole, cracking it quite badly. There were no tire marks on the road, so I'm pretty sure no brakes were used and we crashed full speed in it.
Police were there right away. Within 5 minutes we had an emergency vehicle, an ambulance, a fire truck, a tow truck and three police cars surrounding us from everywhere. Nobody could believe, based on the condition of the car, that we just walked out of there without a scratch. They kept asking us if we are alright and if we were the only ones in the car. After all the noise and the standard rain of questions, we were left to go home and relax. The next day we could assess damages. The only thing I had was singed hair and slight burns on my hands. All damages were caused by the stupid air bags, which exploded to engage and filled the car with smoke. I didn't even touch the blasted (no pun intended) thing. My seatbelt kept me a fair distance from it (and that's a good thing, cause I could have been looking at broken ribs or something from the killer safety device). That's about it. I could keep going, but I think there is enough said.

Here are some pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/cyberhorse/Accident

Now (2 weeks later) the pole is replaced and we've named it tentatively "our pole" :) It's kind of good to look back onto this experience and learn from it. Also appreciate the fragility of life.