28-06-08

We're back in VT! Got here last night about 11:30pm to a royal welcome from Stanimir who had just finished building & painting a new BBQ for the Hostel Mostel.
Now most Kiwi's would imagine a BBQ in their heads to a brick structure about 1 meter high & 1 meter square with a LPG bottle & hot plate, maybe a few hooks to hang their cooking utensils off.... Assen takes me on the official BBQ tour,
Stanimirs is something that resembles a small house! Brilliant job he did of it too, equipped with lights, a full on fire place & wood & tile roof & about 12 sq meters covered floor space.
So we spent last night putting it thru it's paces cooking kebabs & sausages.
I quit to my bed around 2:30am, dunno when the others hit the hay. Stanimir is a tiger for punishment, he has a swimming pool planned to go on the terrace out the front of the Mostel, which will be a bit of a feat since it's on the 1st floor of the complex & will be "in ground" above the old stone basement & laundry room. Very complex setup on a building that is in excess of 150 years old!
Tonight the BBQ gets it's first real workout as some of their architects, solicitors & others that have helped them through the last few years of property development with the hostels are treated to a thank you feast for all their help. Will be my first real induction into the Bulgarian social life.

Some intriguing bits of artifacts are sitting around the front terrace, I asked Stanimir where they were from...

This piece of pillar below is from the Roman era, they pulled it out of the river below the hostel. Other Roman ruins were dug out of the ground when building the patio, also the rock that the lights are mounted on are thought to be from the Roman age. The stuff is everywhere around here.
















Pretty cool eh? I want genuine Roman decor at my house too!








Below are more pics of Debrovnic & Montenegro... have fun!






















Kotor, Montenegro which has this fortress & surrounding wall built up the side of a mountain, pretty much a cliff face... I wonder how many men died on the job?

It's hard to get the sense of scale from the pic, just imagine building down in the sounds in the South Island. This settlement is in the deepest fjord in Europe, or southern Europe I think. It's a dramatic but very barren landscape.










There were some huge super yachts moored here, they were basically small ships, from the USA & all over. the tourists didn't seem to notice the fortress, more took photos of the yachts! Crazy!