What a flight it was to get to Bulgaria, or should I say flights. We had an overnight flight from NewZealand to Shanghai, then onto Turkey and from there to Bulgaria. Our first stint was with Air New Zealand and previous flights with them were not great, shall we say. This plane was actually quite good but it's in flight entertainment was so new and up to date it still had glitches. On previous flights with them there were still separate remote controls at your seat attached to wires which you had to use and got entangled in all the time. This latest plane had touch screen but messages kept appearing on screen telling you that you needed to pay for films etc. The stewards came around saying they would reset it and things would be free but randomly and inconsistently it would ask you to pay for films, even when you were halfway through. I had a very young girl next to me who was watching a cartoon who put her mum's bank card through the machine at least three times to pay for what she wanted to watch. She was told she would get the money back, let's hope he did.
We arrived in Shanghai very early in the morning and then had a 16 hour wait for our next plane. We were hoping to visit Shanghai but needed to collect our bags between flights and didn't fancy wandering around with heavy rucksacks. After that it was a short journey on to Bulgaria.
We arrived in Bulgaria to be greeted by a lovely young man called Stefan. Keira, our daughter in Bulgaria had arranged for him to pick us up and drive us the two hour journey to Bansko. It was such a relief to see him after the hours we had travelled already. The sky was grey and very misty but the sun was doing its best to break through.
Keira was in her garden when we arrived along with 5 puppies. Her dog Stella had 6 puppies while we were on our travels, one of which has already been rehoused leaving her with 5. My son is taking one, who he has called Ollie, here he is on the settee.
I am taking the black and white puppy who is in the picture below, who I have called Buddy.
As you can imagine , it was a very warm welcome with 5 excitable and to be honest big pups saying hello. Stella was inside the house but there were also two strays which had made themselves at home on the decking outside her house. David made it his mission during the holiday to block entrances into the garden to keep the strays out. The smallest stray was easily kept out but the biggest stray, who we called Ginger was more persistent and it became a battle of wills between David and it.
Keira has a lovely view from her house, snow capped mountains basically encircle it. Bansko is an up and coming ski resort which has a lovely feel and atmosphere to it, which I loved and I don't even ski. It is small enough to feel friendly and welcoming but has lots of choices of restaurants and shops which are very reasonably priced. We have also visited Bansko in the summer which is equally as charming, with alpine flowers covering the mountains and lots of interesting trekking trails.
This is the first Christmas we have spent with Keira for years and it was nice to wake up in her house on Christmas Day, even though the tree was demolished by the pups on Christmas Eve. Thankfully we managed to save three crackers so we had something to pull when we sat down for our meal. Keira made a fantastic three course lunch, including turkey with all the trimmings which put me and my attempts to shame.
Tea time in Keira's house.
Stella getting into the Christmas mood.
David was desperate for a white Christmas so thought Bansko would be a safe bet. As you can see the weather was actually very nice and sunny, in fact I think it was more wintery in Scotland. On Christmas Day we did head up the mountain where there was snow and we saw lots of skiers, snow boarders and sledgers of all ages. It was buzzing with excitement and even though we just strolled around it was nice to be part of what was going on.
We had lots of fun in the snow but I have to admit we did not make the snowman, we just posed with it.
On Boxing Day it snowed, we woke up to a lovely layer of white which put an smile on David's face. The pups loved playing with it but were soon asking to come in.
Over the next few days lots of snow came down making a wonderful snowy scene but sadly we had to leave as we were going to surprise my mum!
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