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Living in one of Europe's best ski towns and not trying skiing would be a cardinal sin. I therefore ran across the road to the Salomon ski shop and worked out a nice deal with a gentleman by the name of George which included a four hour ski lesson and all the equipment at a very good price. Nice. Walk the 40m to the gondola lift station in those ridiculous ski boots that make you look like you are walking on the moon. Stood in the long line and spoke for a long time with a fantastic guy from Ireland, reached the front of the cue and realized that I did not have my card on me(never carry it on me in BG) and that I was short 15 levs. Patsy just whipped out a 20, said no worries and would not even take the 5 levs change. I offered to pay him back after the skiing and he refused.

Tearing it up on the Slopes of Bansko

Lloyd Peter West
2007-03-08 17:57:42

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on the gondola and did it all again. Loved it, going skiing again this weekend.

On a side note, I had the most ridiculous driving experience of my life this morning. We had a couple of clients that we took out to some of the developments. But you see Vesso (the crazy bulgarian guy) smashed up our 4x4 car so we only have this terrible mercedes 2 wheel drive van thing which is useless to drive around these bomb shelled roads. So it rained all of last night and when we got to the turn off for Crystal development before my eyes lay a quagmire of mud and crap. So what do I do? Turn around or just gun it? Well of course I gunned it and had the craziest drive of my life. I mean these roads are awful, there are no words to describe the state of these so called roads. My car was spinning in the mud, the under chassis was smashing into boulders and at times I had to turn the steering wheel a full 180 just to keep the car going straight. Well about a km along the road
plumes of white smoke started erupting out of the front, oh boy and here I am shouting at the top of my lungs "FUCK, what the hell!!" and these poor clients in the back were looking a bit shell shocked themselves. Well I eventually managed to turn the car around and get it pointing in the right direction and we headed back over the same muddy, icey, bouldery, big ditches everywhere road from hell. What a ride, a narrative to tell the kids for sure.

Oh and on another side note, Stu and I went to this construction site yesterday to look at a development around lunch time. It was nuts, all the construction workers and I mean all were sitting around eating and knocking back beer after beer. Even in the canteen where they all eat they serve straight vodka or you can buy 2 litre beers!! None of these guys wear hard hats and when they are 6 floors up and grabbing planks from the cranes they are not harnessed in at all. Crazy stuff, certainly would not fly in the states! I ended up egging Stu on and we sat down with all these hard, really tough Bulgarian construction workers and ate our $1,50 semi raw meatballs with cabbage. I love experiences like that, I just enjoy soaking it all up.