Skiing for Dummies 101

Bulgaria is beautiful in the mountains, and somewhat scary in the city.

Closetblonde's Essential Guide to Skiing:
Go East (as in Eastern Europe) if you're after cheaper, and less touristy skiing. You won't see Prince William on the slopes (as they all go to Aspen), but other celebrities spotted included Kermit the Frog and a "Tigger" with scary dilated pupils. (Hard to tell from the photo, but I think he was on drugs.)

Essential Skiing Skill: Note that when skiing down from the top of a mountain (such per picture below), there is no such thing as "barriers" on either side of a ski path (unless you're skiing in Western Europe of course), so it is essential to be able to turn and change direction. If you can't you will either:
a) crash into a tree (just like in Skifree - remember that free Microsoft Windows game back in the 90's?)
b) fall off a cliff and start rolling down becoming a bigger and bigger snowball - well, that's what happens in cartoons anyway...
Second most essential skill is being able to STOP.

Big No-No: Balance - if you have a known deficit in this skill department, you may as well give up, hand back skis (and go for that hot chocolate or beer)....
Even Bigger No-No: Telling your ski instructor that you thought he was 40 (when he was actually only 29). Oops. (Wasn't me - thankfully some other girls beat me to it.) Insulting your ski instructor = guaranteed pain and torture in future lessons - I had a mean one who kept on trying to push me off the cliff.

FACT:Skiing is dangerous to your health. My school class started with 14 people, and by the 6th day, there were only 3 of us left (inclusive of me). By then it had truly stopped snowing, and we were basically skiing on ice and gravel...

Your Typical Culinary Cuisine at a Ski Resort: Expect to pay through your nose for fast foodie type stuff (that doesn't taste particularly great).

Expect to Pay for almost anything and everything you can think of. (I'm surprised that they didn't charge me for taking snow to make an ice bag for R. post injury or charge me 1 lev for the taking a photo of this snowman. They did have an igloo up the top of one of the mountains - "Hotel Yeti" - door entry was 1 lev...)

...And the rest of Bulgaria (Capital Sofia)

Sofia summarised in two words: scarily depressing. Nobody took photos of the little village that was colonised in 4 AD. The main city attractions consist of old communist relics (none of them well maintained).

(Above: Welcome to the city centre of Sofia.....)


(Above left to right: St Alexander Nevski's Cathedral, some run down relic of something or other)

Most Quirky Store: The "hole in the ground" convenience store..... literally. (Took us a while to figure out where the actual opening was.)