Oooo-oooo, That Smell!

I checked into my hotel room yesterday here at the luxurious National Hotel in Sliven. Immediately, I notice a powerful and somewhat familiar smell. Holy dog crap! Where have I smelled that before? It's like an old lady funeral home. It's like a flower farted. It's what I imagine Sex Panther smells like. Oh yeah, it was the same smell that was in my hotel room the last time that I was here in the Hotel National. Except it was a different room in the hotel.
When I was here then, I thought that the smell was maybe from the strange dried flowers that were in the room last time. Some sort of bizarre, Bulgarian potpourri. But here I am in a totally different room with the same stench and no dried Bulgarian flowers. So what gives?? A couple minutes of frantic searching reveals the culprit:



Some shitty Plug-In? That's been causing this epic aroma? Jessica and I have had these things in our house before, and they usually aren't worth a damn after about one week. But not this little bastard; he's cranking out the juice. Well, mystery solved. Pretty lame, after all.

**UPDATE**

Just got off the phone, and my luggage is en-route from Sophia to Sliven, with a short detour into Plodiv. It should be here sometime this afternoon. I can finally change my underwear. After three days, it's starting to wear a little thin. Gross.

Rolling into Sliven

I arrived today in the bustling metropolis of Sliven. Where might that be? Why, it's nestled within the heaving bosom of Bulgaria. See for yourself:



As you can see, it's the hub of all things Bulgarian. Things such as green peppers:



Red peppers:



And bear statues.



It's a little much to handle all in one day, but I'm making the most of it. Those photos were actually taken on my last trip to Sliven, around 24 August. Not sure if there's any photography buffs out there, but those were actually taken with my crappy cell phone camera. I know! It's hard to believe from the quality!

Those peppers were from a farmer's market that sets up near the center of town and the bear was on top of a communal water fountain. There were probably 10-15 people at any one time around this water fountain; drinking, splashing their faces and hands, filling up little bottles. And when I say water fountain, I don't mean the metal, rectangular boxes that we see in office buildings. This was an old stone watering point, with little brass spouts that water flowed out of into a basin. The people would come up and either fill a little cup or bottle, or cup their hands to drink.

I did pack my video camera to capture the essence of what is Sliven. Unfortunately, that camera is packed away in my missing luggage that has still not materialized. If everything goes as planned, the luggage will arrive on the 1600 flight from Rome today and the airport's courier service will bring it to me tomorrow morning. We'll see how that goes.