Collage 2008

I have this sort of "tradition": when a year starts, I always make a collage for the cover of my schedual book. Not an ordinary collage, but a special one, with things that somehow means something to me, and things I wish for myself and my dear ones during the year that had just started.

Due to everything that has happened to me in the past few months, since the year started (not worthy mentioning here, now), I ended up not having the time and the "mind" to make my cover collage. Only yesterday I finally took a couple of hours to do it - it's june, for heaven's sake! But it's never too late to finish something as important as this is for me: so there you go :)

I like it :)))))))))

Hey Folks!


I've been away for some time, due to my work with balkan and gypsy parties and events and all. Now that everything has passed, I'm finally back to my 'normal' (or almost normal) life, so I promise to be updating here real soon ;)

"Balkan dinner", at Nara's

Sunday, 11/05/2008

Good food and drink: gibanica, ćevapi, šopska salata, ljutenica, wine, rakija, vodka and some bizarre home-made drinks...

Plus fantastic people: Nara, Lucio, Rodrigo, Solica, Bruno, Marina, Chica and Emilia...

Plus irresistable tunes.

It's priceless to have great people around :)))))

Happy belated birthday to my dear Solica and Kostovinski :)

What to do with 3 Euros???

After a rather unproductive talk - these are the best ones - and a lot of arguing, we came up with this: the "What to do with 3 Euros?" list.
Why 3 Euros? I have no idea, what so ever. Anyways, here it goes:


What to do with 3 Euros?

Köln (Germany)
Suggested by me and Nara

- Currywurst with bread, in that place I forgot the name (I swear I'll try to remember it and post it here!);
- 200gr of a de-licious butter cookie in that bakery/coffee house, which I also forgot the name :D ;
- 3 gigantic burek at that place owened by that guy from Israel. It's opened 24 hours a days, so it's definitely the best place to stop by after a night out (fuck, I'll have to look for this place's name as well);
- 2 hours of internet at Venloen Strasse - cheap, cheap, and the atendants are so nice :)

Berlin (Germany)
Suggested by Nara

- 3 coffees in the libanesse kiosk where Nara made some crazy old german friends that were mocking every overweighted person that walked in the establishment

Amsterdam (Holland)Suggested by Nara

- glass for shots of drinks, at any souvenir shop, in Amsterdam. Nara was telling the images stamped on the glass were the best ones, rather "typical" ones from the city, like penises, cows and marihuana leaves

Paris (France)
Suggested by Fécula and Rodrigo

- 4 1l packages of apple juice. Fécula was kinda obsessed with apple juice all during the trip.

Geneva (Switzerland)Suggested by Fécula and Rodrigo

- 1 plastic dog leash hanger, at IKEA. The piece is simply great, in the shape of a dog's butt, the "hook" of the hanger being the dog's tail

Beograd (Serbia)
Suggested by me and Nara

- 6 Tito lighters (I have to take pictures of that);
- 3 pairs of acryllic wool gloves - that is, if you buy them with the gypsies at Bulevar Kralja Milana. Fantastic colours (the deep blue and the fiery red are my favourite);
- Pommes frites plus a bottle of Coca Cola at the Biblioteka cafe, on Terazije (lovely place by the way, I highly reccomend);
- 8 croissants - really, the best ones I ever had, ever in my entire life. Forget french croissants, or french puff pastries in general. The real thing is the serbian one. God, I need a cheese one right now.

Niš (Serbia)Suggested by me and Nara

- 6 "go's" to the most awful toilet you probably ever saw in your entire life, at the central bus station. Nara said some nasty things in portuguese to the keeper, you wouldn't wanna know...

Varna (Bulgaria)Suggested by me and Nara

- Damnit! Just now I realise I didn't buy anything in Varna. But, hmmm... 3 Euros is an 1/8 of a ticket from Sofija to Varna, going straight to Shabla (although, Nara and I agree, this was priceless)

Sofija (Bulgaria)Suggested by me and Nara

- 6 failled tries to call to Varna on a public telephone, at the bus station. The cool "plus" of this What to do with 3 Euros option is that after each failled phone call, you get a voice message explaining - in bulgarian - how you should proceed to correctly complete a phonecall. Brilliant;
- 3,5 500 ml bottles of Sprite


Other suggestions are more than welcome :)

Tourism boom in Shabla puts Bulgaria on the top 5 destinations for travelers around the globe

The small city on the Black Sea coast had more visitants last season than all the Hawaiian Islands together last year, says the Bulgarian National Tourism Board

Sofija, April 24th 2009 - by Marija Almeida

The Bulgarian National Tourism Board announced, last Monday, that the country had a tourism boom in the past year as never seen before in any other place in the world. The reason for this sudden world curiosity on this Southeastern Europe country have its reason on the newest and hypest coast resort on the globe: Shabla

“Only last summer season, Shabla had more visitants than all the Hawaiian Islands together last year” declares, excited, the executive director of the Bulgarian National Tourism Board, Mrs. Poli Karastoyanova.
The unexpected tourism boom in the region last season made the Board decides for urgent measures to support and attend the huge visitants’ demand. “It’s good, and at the same time, very complicated. Although in the past two years Bulgaria's been watching a significative increase in the tourism area, what happened in Shabla was something completely without any precedents, and met us rather unprepared for it. We’re already working on projects to increase not only the city’s infra-structure for the next summer season, but the entire region’s”, says Rumen Draganov, the newly-elected head of the Board.

Since February 2008, Bulgaria watched an increase of 23,4% (compared to the same period of 2007) on the number of foreign tourists visiting the country’s winter resorts. The summer resorts in the Black Sea Coast saw an increase of 167,3%, being 94% of this percentage concentrated only on the city of Shabla and its surroundings.

With a history that goes as far back as to the roman times, Shabla – a small city around 15 km south to the Romanian border – was once a popular destination for eastern bloc tourists, during the communist years. The 1990’s, however, were of complete ostracism for the region.

Although authorities can’t quite explain the subtle world interest in the city and the region, locals have their own theories about the phenomenon. “We were in the bar, on last year’s Christmas eve, when two tourist girls, said Brazilian, appeared in the city. Few time later, a bunch of tourists started arriving in Shabla. I have no doubts, those two girls brought Shabla back to all it’s glory, they were a good omen” declares Georgi Irinov, a local miner. “My friend’s hotel is now always full and I’m working as a cooker again, just like I was in Germany!” he adds.
If the two mythic Brazilian tourists had or not been to Shabla, only few can confirm. But after the tourism boom last year, a monument to the “Unknown Brazilian Girls” was erected in the city’s main square, where the city locals pay tribute monthly, on every 24th.

For 2009’s summer season, the Bulgarian National Tourism Board has already a traced plan: other than the opening of Hilton's luxury hotels newest member, the Hilton Shabla Palace Hotel, around 15 new accommodation establishments will be ready until this year’s summer. “We want to attend the expectations of all kinds of tourists that visit Shabla. The opening of the Shabla Folk World theme park will be an excellent option for families that choose to spend vacations in our country’s coast. In addition to a wide range of ecotourism, we just settled now the first Rock in Rio – Shabla Edition, that is going to put us on the route of the great european festivals. We have attractions for all ages and tastes”, celebrates Aneliya Krushkova, head of the Bulgaria State Agency for Tourism.

The Agency also releases, next Friday, the tourism campaign “Shabla – a priceless experience”. The release party will have the presence of Jamaican singer Shabba Ranks, who recorded a new version of one of his greatest hits specially to pay tribute to the Bulgarian resort: his 1992 song, Mr. Loverman, evokes Shabla on its new refrain. “This city is beautiful. Reminds me of my hometown, Kingston” declares, moved, the singer.

For 2009’s summer season, the Bulgarian State Agency for Tourism and the National Tourism Board predict a raise of at least 53% compared to last year’s boom.

For those interested in taking part on the Shabla-o-mania, access

http://www.shablainfo.org/ for more info about Tourism in Shabla, or even http://www.bulgariatravel.org


ps.: this is a work of fiction

The shopping mall experience

It was december 29th, if I am not mistaken, when Fernanda and Rodrigo came to me saying they wated to go shopping, on a mall, for they were not finding what they wanted to buy in the shops on the streets. So, on the next morning me and Nara took them for a long sight-seeing walk around Belgrade, while the time to meet up with Toma and finally go to the mall they so wanted to see wouldn't come.
Of course our first stop had to be Kalemegdan (again), after all it was, by far, our favourite place.

Knez Mihailova was packed: the usual, delicious mess of people, running around to buy new clothes for new year's, small kids playing violins for some change, the smell of pop-corn, loud teenagers in large groups, youngsters giving away new year's eve parties' flyers and, of course, the already well known north american native indian musicians - that, as Toma pointed out to me later, would always bring rain to Belgrade after their performance.

So, after a long day of walking around Belgrade we finally met with Toma and took the bus to Novi Beograd. The bus was completely packed with people, in a way that we almost didn't manage to reach the door still in time to come off in the right station. In fact, Nara, Fernanda and Rodrigo didn't manage to reach the door as Toma and I did, and they had to come off the bus a hundred meters after us. But anyways, we met right after it, and got into the Mall...

It's interesting how Shopping Centers are exactly the same, no matter where in the world you are. Suddenly I was taken by this feeling that I was not in Belgrade, but in Rio, or Cologne, or London... Being on a shopping mall anywhere in the world is like being in some parallel dimension, outside any country or borders, because all the malls look the same, specially at this time of the year: christmas decoration, sales everywhere, hysterical women fighting for Zara's last "off" pieces, kids running and messing around... Enfin, complete chaos, haha.

As soon as we walked in, Rodrigo, Fécula and Nara decided to go eat something, because they were starving and starting to get ill humoured. When we finally reached the restaurants and fast food area, I started getting really, really disturbed: there was just SO many people, and the noise they were making was so loud, I couldn't focus on anything at all - I was getting completely disorientated. The queues in every restaurant were huge, there was no place to sit and we couldn't barely move without hitting someone accidentally.
As the 3 of them didn't seem to agree on one place to go and eat, they decided to go where each one of them wanted to, and then meet on a table, so they could eat together. So, after (finally!) finding a table we splited: Toma and I went to a less chaotic floor, while Fêcu, Rodrigo and Nara were eating - or at least, trying to.

Fécula ran to McDonalds. Nara, already used to serbian food by now, chose for a more local option (can't quite remember the place's name). And Rodrigo, as always, didn't seem to decide for a place to buy his meal - that is, til the moment his eyes came across Duff's. DUFF's. D U F F ' S. He was almost moved to see "Duff's" written on a big display. "Hell yeah, just like in The Simpsons!!", he thought. And even though the queue was gigantic, he decided it was worthy to wait - after all, when he would have the chance to eat at Duff's again? and other than that, if the queue is big, it's (probably) because the food is good.

So, there he went. Took a deep breath and engaged in the line.
While waiting in the queue, he suddenly realised: he couldn't speak serbian so how was he supposed to ask for anything? "Semi-panic" for several seconds, when he started to try to remember what Fécula had just taught him: serbian numbers! Now, with the numbers kinda in mind, he was trying to make sentences, saying what he wanted, mixing serbian numbers with english words and things he saw written in the place's menu and so on. Hunger was making him get rather nervous about his time to ask for his meal that, despite the huge delay, seemed to be approaching. It wasn't before almost an hour of waiting that his turn finally came. And when it came, he had this mix of starvation, plus nervousness plus excitement:

Rodrigo: Ja... Ja ho... Ja.. Speak english??
Attendant: *Giggles*, nodding head like "yes"
Rodrigo: Phew! (in a rather psycho tone of voice) I'm hungry, I want a sandwich! I want to eat, give me some food!!

People around him in the line, the attendant at Duff's and even himself couldn't help but laughing, a lot, hahahaha. The attendant registered his order and he paid, which made him feel deeply relieved - he was finally going to eat!

After a little more time waiting, the attendant came with his sandwich. His eyes were beaming and he had a transported smile on his face, while he was watching his "food" coming to him, in slow motion, with a bright light coming out of it (ok, this was my imagination, but the scene does looks cool seen like this).
When the attendant finally came to him with his huge hamburger in hands, she asked "what sauces do you want with your sandwich?"

He froze - sauces? Sauces?? He didn't have the time to think and plan about asking for sauces!!! His despair was so big at this point, that he only said "any sauce, whatever you want to put, I just want my sandwich!!". But it was not just up to the attendant what sauces to put: everybody, literally every person in the queue started giving their opinions on what sauces the attendant should put on his meal. "Put that one, that one on the right!" or "That, beside the read one!" and "Nooo, that one is not so good, put the first, on the left!".
After 10 seconds of that, his sandwich was looking more like a soup of sauces than a proper sandwich, hahaha.

But you know, when we're really hungry, we just don't care or don't even notice stuff like that.

He started walking away from Duff's messy queue, with his drink in one hand and admiring his huge saucy sandwich in the other hand, taking a deep breath before the first bite. A magical moment.
But the magic only really lasted til he had the first bite.
He felt like his mouth was on fire - the feeling was that his so desired sandwich was straight pepper soup, hahaha.
Cursing didn't help much. So he had his sandwich pepper soup, with tones of water to heal the burning feeling, and that was it.

It's worthy mentioning that he still took some half an hour to find Fécu and Nara, after his Duff's adventure.

Like in a Discovery Channel documentary

Nara improvising, as we took Rodrigo and Fécu to their first walk around Beograd



(english translation)

"You can watch a rare kind of wild wolf from the stepes. It's name is Cannis Nefridius. Very dangerous when hungry and when the weather changes. During summer, they atrophy and make cocoons on the top of the trees. A very wild species, as you can see... Very unfriendly... With a tendency to intense sex activity. (Opa!)
They like to rub their arses in the snow in order to obtain a certain hygienization, as one of the most frequent causes of death among this species is the bacterium Nefridius Cannis Arsis, that attacks the entire digestive system, leading them to death by dehidratation.

The x-treme sport most practised in this country, Slow Street, is very popular amongs the city's drunks.

Right ahead, behind the red fence, you can see the biggest alcoholics-anonymous centre in the world. And the Barbie house is on your right.
(Why did I put so many clothes, fucking shit...)"

My Belgrade

We woke up at 5:30 am. As we had packed and prepared everything on the previous night, we didn't have to run. So we took our time, packed the last pieces of clothing, dressed up and called the cab. I remember I was so excited I just couldn't have my breakfast, for I wasn't even feeling any hungry, at all. Anja was still asleep til the moment the cab arrived and she woke up to help us with the baggage and say goodbye. As I can remember, it was not so cold - some 4 degrees - in a still dark, early-morning Köln, while the cab drove us til the main train station. As soon as we got off the car we run to find our platform. I sat and took care of our stuff while Nara ran to buy our tickets to the Düsseldorf airport. As the time to get into the plane was getting closer, I was getting more and more excited, and kinda absent: I always get like this when something I want too bad is coming closer to finally happen. And over the past few years, I can't remember of wanting anything more than I wanted to visit Serbia.

As soon as our train arrived, Nara came back with the tickets she had just bought. We took our seats and, during the 20-30 minutes of train travel, I almost didn't say a word. Nara was busy, cursing at the rude german man she came across still on the train station and I only remember telling her to relax and forget about him, after all we were about to leave the country and - head to Belgrade! Every time me or her would mention "Belgrade" or "Serbia" we would both open big smiles without saying a word, for several seconds. We were behaving so weirdly that, thinking of it now, it probably seemed like we were on drugs or something.

As soon as we arrived to the airport we managed to make the check in and get rid of our baggage. I was thirsty and Nara hungry, so we sat for a drink and a croissant - that tasted more like margarine than anything else. As the time of the flight was approaching, I was getting more and more absent, to the point Nara asked me, while having her coffee, if I was feeling ok. "Yes, yes I am" I replied a couple of seconds after she made the question.

Standing on the line to get into the plane was exciting: people speaking serbian all around us! We had our ears 'wide-opened', trying to listen some familiar word but, at least for me, it didn't quite worked: I was far too excited and crazy to focus on anything anyone was saying, no matter what language.

The almost two-hour flight were the most torturing ones to me: I felt like standing up and walking side to side in the plane while Nara was as talkative ever and hungry like a bear, eating everything it was offered, even my meal, that I didn't feel like eating at all - not even the cookie. I turned my mp3 player on to try and relax, but it was no good: my serbian/balkan-music-only player wasn't of much help at the moment, it only made me more and more anxious. I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep or at least to get a bit more relaxed, but I was so tense I started feeling my head, neck and shoulders hurting.

When the plane finally started to descend and Nara - who had the window seat - turned to me and said "Teta, we arrived! We're in Serbia!". My body relaxed so quickly all of a sudden that I felt like a cloth dummy, without any "structure" - like if I didn't have any bones. A "melting feeling".
The "melting feeling" got even stronger as we walked out the plane and stepped in serbian soil, to get the bus from the plane to the airport building. Nara and I looked around, then to each other and then, at the very same time, we took a deep, deep breath, to feel the air. I can still remember the first "smell of Belgrade". It smelled like wind.
It was a cloudy day, around 4 or 5 degrees, but not as wet as in Germany, thank god. The dryer weather made us feel much more comfortable than in Germany and like taking off our scarfs and opening up out jackets.

We went through the customs, got our passports stamped and took our baggage. We went to the restroom to fix our messy hair and our still sleepy faces and we finally got off the arriving gate. Nara was walking before me as I remember was still feeling completely melt and then we saw Tomica waiting for us. It's weird, because I can't quite remember anything else of this meeting other than he saying "Hey, I'm Tomica". I can't possibly tell you what I said, or what Nara said, or even if he said anything else - and they most probably said plenty of things more, I just wasn't 'registering' any information at that moment.

We walked out and again, the "Belgrade smell". I took several more deep and long breathes, as we waited for the bus that was gonna take us downtown. I remember Nara asking me, kinda worried, how we were gonna do, cause we had no dinars with us. I can't remember what I replyed or even if I replied her at all - I was getting back to my conscience, but still not really able to reply anything.
The bus arrived, we took our seats, and Nara reminded me to sms Kosta, to tell him we arrived well. Toma kindly offered to send the message over his mobile, and so he did.

During the half an hour trip from the airport to downtown Belgrade, I almost didn't say a word: I was looking around, rather amazed and still not believing to be in Belgrade, noticing every single detail on everything, from the grass colours to the building's paintings and graffiti, from the huge commercial displays to the clothes people were wearing on the streets - literally, everything. As we were getting more and more close to the city center and the car traffic was getting more and more intense, I started noticing people and instruments all around: an old man with his accordion here, a bunch of guys coming out a car with their trumpets over there and so on. Later I would find out and record on my memory, forever, the sound of the city. Yes, because in Belgrade, even if there's no real music playing whatsoever, you can feel it filling in the air :)
I was finally in Belgrade.

We took off the bus at Slavija - I remember Tomica saying that place would probably be a key one for us during our staying in there. And indeed, so it became.
The ground on Slavija was kinda wet, although it wasn't raining. I had a look around, and I immediately loved that square; noise, cars, buses, trams and trolleys all over, people crossing the streets, policemen with their whistles and us and our baggage, waiting for the next bus we had to take in order to spare some walk with Hans and Klaus (the names we gave to our two "dead bodies" - aka "biggest bags", weighting more than 30 kg each)

We took another bus to our place, less then 5 minutes riding from Slavija. We got off, walked a few meters more, turned right, and then right again and voi-là: Sime Luke Lazića, the street that would be our address for the next several weeks. It was around 1pm when we were shown our room by a very sympathetic looking girl - that later became a great friend, Sanja. Toma said he would leave us for he had some stuff to do, and that he would call me a bit later, so we could plan something.


Nara and I got into our room. I took my camera and made a photo of our room's window. I was now fully conscious again, and all excited and jumping around, repeating with Nara, every 10 seconds "We're in Belgrade, we're in Belgrade!!!". Nara was looking around the room and opening her baggage while I was insisting with her that I didn't need any rest at that moment and that we should go out to explore the city right away. But I only had time to take off my jacket and boots - having in mind to put more comfortable shoes: as soon as I sat on the bed I felt asleep like a stone til 7 pm, when I woke up with Nara saying she had just made a friend in the hostel that was crazy by brazilian soap-operas; the guy from the reception saying Toma was on the phone and my complaining, empty-for-a-day stomach.


And that was my first day in Belgrade :)

Do you know where Shabla is?!

Exibir mapa ampliado

Balkan Expedition - Part III (Final)

We got into the café.

As fast as I could I managed to take the seat on the table nearer to the entrance. I remember just "leaving" my body on the chair, like if I had no bones in it. Nara took the seat on my left, and when we were both seated, we took a deep relief breathe - Kostov was coming to "rescue" us, in only a couple of hours! Only a couple of hours...

Anyways, I noticed Nara was OK again when she said she needed a coffee - she always needs a coffee when she's fine. She stood up, looking for the waitress, when she noticed the miner looking men were inviting both of us to join their tables. Before I could say "Nara, I think we'd better stay here", she was already heading to their table.

So, on this table there were two guys only: the most miner-looking man in the whole cafe (he was wearing a full-of-holes grey wool cap, and a huge grey jacket, with some little grey beard covering his cheeks) and his younger friend (black haired, with a black jacket on). As Nara was approaching the table, she asked "Speak english?". "English? No, no, no Engleski", the older man said. "Sprachen sie Deutsch?", he asked.
"YES!!!" Nara quickly replied, and finally took a sit at the guys table, next to the older man, facing me, just a few tables away. After the introductions (of course they mistaked her name with "Nada", as usual), she started explaining them what happened to us in our way from Serbia to Bulgaria. That was when I realised the black haired guy didn't speak any other language other than bulgarian, as his friend was translating to him what Nara was telling them. But it wasn't quite working: the two guys were so damn drunk, they were asking her again and again what happened to us and what were we doing, on a Christmas eve, in that cafe in Shabla. After having the same answer from her some three times, the man gave up and started telling about him, and started asking where we were from. "I bet you can't guess where we're from! Try to guess!", Nara said. While they were trying each and every possible european country - and Nara saying "no" to every wrong try of them, I was looking at her and shaking my head like saying "Fuck Nara, don't do that! Don't tell them where we're from!". She was looking back to me with a crazy smile on her face, like if she wasn't understanding why she shouldn't do that.
I mean, we didn't know anything about those two, they were pretty drunk, we didn't speak the same languages, we were alone in Shabla and, to make it worse, everybody knows that brazilian girls have the reputation to be easy and big arsed ones. Hehe, we are not "easy", and most certainly not big arsed girls, haha. But they didn't know that.
When she said "We're from Brazil", the two men were like "Noooo, you're not, you're lying!". Although she even showed them her student card to prove it, they didn't believe her. Then they started pointing their fingers at me and asking Nara where her friend was from. When she said Brazil, again they said she was lying.

That was when I decided I should join Nara at their table, to not leave her with them all alone. I sat right before her and beside the younger black haired guy that, as soon as I sat down, took my hand in his and raising his eyebrow with a drunken look he started saying in bulgarian "Your hands are so cold..."
"Fuck", that's what I thought, and as quick as I could I took my hand off his and put it inside my coat's pocket. He was staring at me moaning something that sounded like "Oh come on, give me your hand". Fuck again, I so wanted Kostov to arrive soon!

I then saw Nara was on a similar situation with the older man, haha. In a very, very 'restricted' german he was saying something like "I cook Berlin. 15 years. My mother sick. My daughter not house. I alone. Come to my place with me". Nara was pretending she didn't get what he really meant, saying "I need to stay and wait for my friend to pick me here, can't go anywhere else". And he said everything all over again, this time to me as well, and the younger one was still trying to get my hand again, and Nara saying "no" once more, and then ha! The younger guy took a note of 50 leva, placed on the table, and pushed it to our direction. On that moment, I think Nara realised she'd better really stop giving them the attention she was giving. She looked at me as who says "Dammit!", and I gave her back my "Yeah, dammit!" look.
She turned to the guys and said "What is that? What in the world is that???", pointing at the 50 leva. The older guy looked to his friend said something in a harsh tone of voice, turned back to us and said "I'm sorry, my friend is very drunk, he got confused, he just wanted to pay a coffee, he's confused".
"It's Ok, it's Ok", Nara replied.

Immediately the guy said again "So, come my house, I alone, my mother sick" and that was when we finally gave up, stood up, and got back to our table.

We were both nervous with the whole situation at this point. After making a nervous speech to Nara, pointing how she should never have started talking to them in the first place, we both started laughing, laughing so much, that we started crying, hahahaha. Laughing, crying, and pointing out to ourselves our bizarre situation and saying to ourselves "Kosta, please, come quickly!!".

After we managed to control ourselves, we agreed on speaking very low and not even looking at their direction til Kostov rescue us. So we did. But even so, the older guy - after realising we wouldn't go back to their table - came to us, kneelled down next to our table and started saying a bunch of things in Bulgarian. Nara was getting kinda pissed, telling me, in portuguese "I told him I only speak german, why is he still talking in bulgarian, dammit! I can't get a word!".
As soon as she said that, he stood up right away, and said "Romanian! Romania!!!" and started saying a whooooole lot of things in romanian, hahahaha. We completely forgot how much portuguese sounds like romanian and how close to the romanian border we were, dammit! Nara looked at me like who says "It doesn't matter what I say or in what language, he just won't stop". Yes, indeed he looked like he wasn't gonna stop, hehe. After a minute speaking romanian to us, he stoped, with a thoughtful look on his face, glazing at our table. That was when he saw my notebook, full of russian stuff written on it's cover. When I noticed he was staring at my notebook's cover, it was already too late: he turned to me and started speaking russian, hahahaha. I just couldn't believe that was happening, that guy was unstoppable, completely!!! The most annoying thing is that, actually, I could get quite some stuff of what he was saying, but I was holding myself back to not answer anything, or then heaven knew what could happen, haha.

Nara and I stayed completely mute, staring at the table, and after a while he gave up and got back to his table.
Thank God!

Nara and I could then start a conversation without being interrupted at every second. We were making some random drawings on my notebook, while talking about how funny it would be telling about that whole situation to our friends, hehe. All during our talk, Nara was staring at every single car that was passing before the cafe, believing it could be Kosta coming to save us, haha.
The older guy still made one last try to please us: he gave, to each one of us, an orange, a huuuge one, hahaha. And got back to his table. I remember even the waitress was laughing like crazy when he gave us the oranges, hahaha.

I was so tired, I didn't even have forces to be scared of nervous anymore, hehe. I wasn't even anxious for Kostov to come. I was simply absent. And Nara was still staring at the glass windows, hoping that each car passing by would be Kostov's.

Then, at one point, she stood up and started heading to the glass door, saying "I think it's him... It's... Yeah!! It's him, it's Kosta now!!!". And I was like "I bet it isn't. It's probably the 10th car passing by that you say it's him for sure, Nara..."
But this time she was (finally!) right: it WAS Kosta, and with his brother! Nara ran to the glass door and tried to open it, but it was locked, hahaha. She shook the door a bit, but it didn't work so she just stood at the door, with her hands and her face glued to the glass, watching Kosta and Martin approaching to the cafe. The waitress came and unlocked the door and ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! We held Kosta as strongly as we could, the four of us lauging a lot as we grabbed our things and headed to his car.

After an almost two hours trip back to Varna, we arrived at his house, met his parents, and had the coolest Christmas eve of the last years :)))))))))

Needless to say, this "Shabla adventure" became the_joke among all Kostov's friend in Bulgaria, haha. I guess we will be forever remebered as the "Shabla girls", like they named us.