Highways

They’re the equivalent of dual carriageways but the speed limit is 140kmph. Of the two lanes, the inside is often crumbling and peppered with the kind of potholes that people get rescued from - probably due to the extremes of weather and the high volume of lorries. The outside is treated as a racetrack, particularly if you have an Audi or Mercedes or any brand of SUV. If you can’t overtake in the inside lane, the preferred technique is to blast up to the driver in front and get as close to their bumper as possible while flashing your lights.

Fear of the Sack

On my first day at my first Bulgarian school, I was trying to clear my classroom of teenage debris when the cleaner entered and shooed me away, panicking I would put her out of a job. This fear is most prominent in the older generation so I can guess where it comes from (although it’s much too easy to attribute every character trait to living under Communism) and people will even stop others voicing opinions in case of collateral damage. The attitude is to show total deference to authority, complain in secret, then find creative ways to adapt to problems.

Selective English

No Bulgarian tradesman knows a word of English. That is, unless they overhear you raising questions with your wife about their prices, quality of work or honesty, when they'll suddenly become – if not fluent, then certainly enthusiastic – English speakers. The abilities they all share, however, are coming up with excuses and applying enough pressure to make saying no practically impossible. This is when selective English can be turned to your advantage. In these kinds of situations, my wife says: ‘Well, I agree with you but my husband refuses, so you’ll have to convince him’ and they don't have any comeback.

Waiting Staff

It’s not their responsibility to help you enjoy your meal. Nor is it any of their concern if you like the food. Their role is strictly delivery. The sequence of the delivery is not necessarily important either – if you make the mistake of ordering your whole meal at the same time, your main will probably come together with the starter or, quite often, before. There’s a phrase I’ve heard several times, a kind of half-joke: ‘don’t embarrass us in front of the foreigner’ but of course, concentrating so hard on not messing anything up means they’re much more likely to.