This time we arrived without any problems and without leading out to Turkey, as the previous year. We took off from Drezden on 27.05 and exactly on time and at lunchtime we were drinking our beers in Sunny Beach. I’d like to notice that we were accompanied by tourist guides from ITS for transfers to the hotel and as well as from the hotel.

Sunny Beach

We installed in the 'Laguna Park' hotel. It is a lovely hotel, placed in a rather quiet place. Although we arrived a couple of minute ago, we made for the places, having meaning for us, that were to say the beer-house of 'Mercury' hotel and the 'Malibu' bar, not far from the beach.

There is a nice swimming pool and a small park in the hotel. The inner part was planned with breadth of vision and urged us to stay there. The rooms are big and stylishly furnished (air-conditioner, a satellite TV, etc). The bathroom is large and the shower is separated b a wall. So it is impossible to talk about flooded bathrooms and bath curtains stuck on the body.

The service was absolutely fine. Everyone was always kind, no matter where - at the reception, at the pool stand, at the lobby bar, in the restaurant, etc. The room cleaning was all right. The towels were changed everyday and the sheets were changed repeatedly during our three week stay.

As the hotel belonged to ITS, everyone was speaking German

Only one thing was bad. There was one German woman, who behaved in the restaurant as if she missed the first seven years of her life. Without any doubts the music preferences are a matter of taste. And whether I had to listen to the song 'Oh, my father' each morning in the restaurant was also under question. And to have a quarrel in an extremely rude manner with one of the waitresses, who in that very moment was cleaning one of the tables, was beneath criticism. If the Germen have a bad reputation abroad, is due to such hens like this one. I insist, that I don’t mean the waitress.

The high quality of the service in the hotel was shown when literary it was a matter of life or death. What happed? The fourth of us arrived again. One of our fellow- travelers had a massive hemorrhage of the stomach during the night, a couple of days after we had arrived. At the reception reacted immediately. A doctor and an interpreter arrived at midnight, only ten minutes after they received the call. Our friend was transported to the Hospital in Burgas without any additional formalities. The doctor and the interpreter accompanied our friend.

And that wasn’t all! The interpreter traveled to Burgas as if it was something normal. People from the reception also did their best, and the ITS agency started helping. The son arrived, too, to support his mother. The ITS provided them a return flight to Germany. All of them were constantly interested in my friend, after he had left for Germany. Tomorrow I have to send a lot of faxes to Bulgaria. Our friend wasn’t a closed file for them. They all behaved very human towards him, even when they didn’t bear any responsibility anymore.

When you receive a help in a really critical situation, you can do nothing but to nod your head to the twaddles of someone about the incompetent reception clerk, who cannot remove a tourist in a room he\she wants to be. As if it is very important!

If the food had reached the high category of the hotel, ‘Laguna Park’ would have been ¹1. Not that it was so bad and there were a large number of choices. But somehow something was missing. Nothing delighted our eyes. At the beginning we had breakfast there very often, but we had dinner only twice. It made no difference to us because we had booked only breakfast, and we as transferred from another hotel received our dinners for free. And afterwards it was proved that it was better to sigh for Sunny Beach without food, if it is possible, of course.

I have already sung songs of praise for this beer- house in my previous travel- notes for m holidays in 2004. We again had a wonderful time there. By the way the prizes are not changed- 80 stotinki for 300ml lager.

We dropped b the ‘Mercury’ hotel at the very second evening. We hadn’t entered in the lobby yet, when the hall resounded with ‘Manfred’. The owner, himself, recognized me and welcomed me hearty. We spoke for a while and after that I had a chat with Simon. At the same time m friends were saying hello to other old acquaintances. Then I noticed Milena, ’the manager of the restaurant’. She fell on my neck, while I was greeting her, and she dragged me off in the kitchen to show me to the others.

Then we went to the beer-house. It wasn’t officially opened, yet. Snezha and Toshko were still arranging. We knew them from the previous year. The joy to see each other again was shared. And, of course, we didn’t want to die from thirst.

Snezha

Toshko

Snezha, Toshko and I

Snezha and Milena

The beer-house was opened two days later. Moreover, the kitchen staff, with the cheff Mario, was glad to see us. We knew most of them. Unfortunately Mini, Dani and Donyo weren’t there anymore. But without panic! We found Mini and we learned where Donyo would start working. Both of them worked together in another hotel, where we are going to visit them in September. We didn’t receive any information about Dani. Probably she is studying somewhere.

The kitchen staff

Stefan

Milena

The managers of the 'Mercury' hotel

On the first table: Nikolai, Snezha, Horst, Toshko and I; on the second table: Milena and her family

We became friends mostly with Snezha and Toshko. We were going out together and they were sitting on our table for a quick chat when there weren’t guests in the beer- house. We exchanged our addresses and phone numbers. Snezha even told us what she was dreaming about. But don’t think that I’m going to reveal the secret. There is no such a thing. Latter Nikolai joined us.

In a retaurant

And this time we again left the lump in our throats when the departure time came. But our consolidation was that we were going to come in September.

The second morning we sat in Babylon to take a rest. The waiters weren’t ready for work yet. Suddenly a young lady turned her steps towards us and greeted us: ‘Hello! Here you are again!’ We looked up and who we saw? - Jenya. We met her in 'Caribi' and during each holiday we visited her very often. She speaks German perfectly, because she had finished her studies at the German High School in Burgas.

Now she is a manager in 'Malibu'. This is the bar between 'Babylon' and the 'Corner' pub, opposite the 'Sombreroto'. There we met some other acquaintances from 'Caribi'. Dani works as a waitress- now in 'Malibu', before in 'caribi'. Jeni’s best friend Rossi has also moved from 'Caribi' to 'Malibu'. We stroke up a new acquaintance with Antoniya and of course with Mimi.

Jenya

Jenya and Rossi

Dani

Antoniya

And this is Mimi!

Whatever you do, don’t order 'boiled Mimi'! The girls are going to get angry.

It is placed behind the Post office next to the 'Pelicans' beer-house. And there our friend Mini was working. That’s what Znezha told us. And we immediately went towards that beer-house. Mimeto wasn’t there. They told us, after we asked that she should come soon. So we waited for a while. She came before long, tapping with her heels. Her eyes opened widely when she saw us. Enthusiastic greetings followed. I spoke to her in Bulgarian with some mistakes and with the help of my dictionary. Mini’s friend-Sini works here, too, and she is also very kind. Then the two of them moved to another job. The manager was very angry. But the maxim about the supply and the demand is valid for both sides.

Mini

Sini and Mini

It is placed next to our hotel and in front of 'Hrizantema'. In the evenings we took sleeping pills at this place. The waitress was wearing shoes twisted upwards, and that’s why we called her 'the shoes of the little Muk'.

This is a forum in Internet, where people exchange their impressions about Bulgaria.

First we met Stefan and Elmar. Ur meeting was arranged to take place in the famous beer. Shtefan met me next to the 'Mercury' because the beer-house wasn’t opened, yet. He, most probably, recognized me by the T-shirt with the signs of the forum 'FUT'. Then we met in the garden of the 'Zornitsa' hotel. It was nice and cozy here, too. We spend two funny hours together.

Unfortunately the meeting with Rilaphan didn’t take place, but probably we would manage to meet in September.

Horst and I met Rainhart and his wife at the 'White House'. We carried on interesting conversations and I could pay my lost. We met them once again at the market of the 'Mercury' hotel, where they were desperately trying to find cigarettes.

At first a problem was about to appear. We were supposed to leave on 16.06. The information about the flights on 17.o6 already came, but there was nothing for our day. They told us about a flight to Leipzig through Hanover on 15.06. So we will keep within the plan. When we were already on the plane, I understood why this delay of information was- we were less than 40 passengers. We suppose that ITS speculated whether should this flight be realized. We arrived about 30 people at the Leipzig airport. The customs clerk checked our papers for less then 10 minutes.

The necessary

When we entered for the first time in the 'Liliya' hotel we had the following conversation with the waitress: '- Good afternoon' '-Good afternoon. Two beers, please.' '-Here you are' '-Thank you'.

So, 10 words only in Bulgarian. Nadiya was confused. She understood by our accent that we weren’t Bulgarians. And she asked in Bulgarian, whether we were Polish or Russian. After that laughter burst.

Who doesn’t know that about Sunny Beach? There are people standing in front of almost every bar, inviting you less or more persistently to visit the bar. Although this is their job and we don’t want to offend anybody, it is very annoying. And then an idea came to my mind and I started saying 'We are too drunk'. In Bulgarian certainly. Everybody burst in laughter, and one of them said 'A good performance' and after that they left us alone.

That’s not a joke. There was an English pub in the street behind the Post office. We went there once. The waitress looked at me helplessly when I, as usual, ordered the beers in Bulgarian. Actually nobody was speaking Bulgarian. Well, my English was good enough at least to order one beer.

And that is to say during the night. The joke on a side. The building construction works were every where as the Sun Palace was. They were paying a fine from 2.000 leva and continued working. In fact this is what we were told.

Once again we spent three lovely weeks in Sunny Beach. We saw much of the country, we met nice people, or respectively the old acquaintances turned into friendships. We are already happy that in September we are going to be there again.