Chestita Nova Godina! We wish everyone a successful and happy New Year. Our holiday was spent in Bansko, a ski resort town in Bulgaria. Last year we didn't do anything but gaze wistfully out the windows of our apartment while people set off fireworks and this year we were determined not to miss out on the festivities. After a mini-break between holidays we set off once more for the other side of the country on an overnight train. This is notable because after a pretty crummy experience in our train car involving some loud-talking, chalga-music-video-playing drunk people, we have decided to never take the night train again :) We met up with our friends in Sofia and continued on to Bansko to an apartment we had rented from a British lady. It's very common for foreigners, especially the British to own property in Bulgaria and the apartment was AMAZING! It had heat in every room, new appliances and dishes, comfortable beds and couches and just about everything you could imagine including access to a jacuzzi and sauna. We passed our days there playing games, making hot cocoa coffee drinks, watching movies, taking walks and even headed up to the mountain for an afternoon of sledding. Bansko is situated at the foot of the Pirin Mountains, but the Rila Mountains are visible as well and everywhere you look you can see snow covered peaks. It was much larger than we thought it would be. It has been built up and developed a lot over the past ten years but still retains bits of its historic old-world charm. A lot of the buildings were built or renovated to resemble houses from the revival period and mehanas serving traditional Bulgarian food abound. Bansko gets a bad rap for being expensive and it was a little awkward to tell people we were going there because the assumption is that you will be paying a lot of money therefore you must be rich, but we cooked all our own meals and spent a lot less than we imagined! We didn't get to ski because it was pretty expensive, but after seeing the result of a couple ski mishaps most of us agreed it was probably for the best.
On New Years Eve people usually go to a restaurant, which woul
d have been booked long in advance. There is a set menu with entertainment and the party lasts the whole night. At midnight in the center of town there are performances by singers and dancers, fireworks, a blessing by the priest, a televised address by the President of Bulgaria and horo dancing. Wil and I were so excited for the horo because we recently started taking dance classes and it is one of the only ones that we know. However, when the time came for this special dance called the Dunavsko Horo, we didn't even get to do it because most of the people there didn't know how and you have to start on the right beat in order to do it properly. Oh well. On New Years day people cook banitsa and put fortunes inside it that tell you something about your future for the coming year and kids go around with their Survachka tapping people and reciting good luck poems for money. In some towns Kukeri (men dressed in costumes of goat hair and bells) dance to scare away bad spirits. The next day we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow which made the views really nice on our train ride back through the mountains. A perfect start to our year.
Chestita Nova Godina! We wish everyone a successful and happy New Year. Our holiday was spent in Bansko, a ski resort town in Bulgaria. Last year we didn't do anything but gaze wistfully out the windows of our apartment while people set off fireworks and this year we were determined not to miss out on the festivities. After a mini-break between holidays we set off once more for the other side of the country on an overnight train. This is notable because after a pretty crummy experience in our train car involving some loud-talking, chalga-music-video-playing drunk people, we have decided to never take the night train again :) We met up with our friends in Sofia and continued on to Bansko to an apartment we had rented from a British lady. It's very common for foreigners, especially the British to own property in Bulgaria and the apartment was AMAZING! It had heat in every room, new appliances and dishes, comfortable beds and couches and just about everything you could imagine including access to a jacuzzi and sauna. We passed our days there playing games, making hot cocoa coffee drinks, watching movies, taking walks and even headed up to the mountain for an afternoon of sledding. Bansko is situated at the foot of the Pirin Mountains, but the Rila Mountains are visible as well and everywhere you look you can see snow covered peaks. It was much larger than we thought it would be. It has been built up and developed a lot over the past ten years but still retains bits of its historic old-world charm. A lot of the buildings were built or renovated to resemble houses from the revival period and mehanas serving traditional Bulgarian food abound. Bansko gets a bad rap for being expensive and it was a little awkward to tell people we were going there because the assumption is that you will be paying a lot of money therefore you must be rich, but we cooked all our own meals and spent a lot less than we imagined! We didn't get to ski because it was pretty expensive, but after seeing the result of a couple ski mishaps most of us agreed it was probably for the best. 
On New Years Eve people usually go to a restaurant, which would have been booked long in advance. There is a set menu with entertainment and the party lasts the whole night. At midnight in the center of town there are performances by singers and dancers, fireworks, a blessing by the priest, a televised address by the President of Bulgaria and horo dancing. Wil and I were so excited for the horo because we recently started taking dance classes and it is one of the only ones that we know. However, when the time came for this special dance called the Dunavsko Horo, we didn't even get to do it because most of the people there didn't know how and you have to start on the right beat in order to do it properly. Oh well. On New Years day people cook banitsa and put fortunes inside it that tell you something about your future for the coming year and kids go around with their Survachka tapping people and reciting good luck poems for money. In some towns Kukeri (men dressed in costumes of goat hair and bells) dance to scare away bad spirits. The next day we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow which made the views really nice on our train ride back through the mountains. A perfect start to our year. 
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