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Penultimate page

Next stop, India...

Two ladies

Coming back from Sofia

And the last shopping experience? The flimsiest, most ridiculous teaspoon, sold to me at Sofia Airport, from a shop whose purpose was the extraction of as much otherwise useless Lev as possible from idiots like me who buckle under even the most modest and mild mannered sales techniques.

Travel back from Sofia

Again, a lack of research meant an embarrassing false start, taking what I thought was the airport bus from one side of a square to the other. At the airport I finally lost patience with a Bulgarian post office employee who I considered as being just a little too rude and hostile. Silly cow. I am, however, happy to report that the other transactions I had at Sofia Airport were far more pleasant.

Still trying to shop

I still had to wait. No problem. While I did so, I was privy to the halting conversation between stallholder and his then patrons, which struggled, as English clearly wasn’t anyone’s first language. The chat was illuminating and dismal; the stallholder made noises about being on a good thing and not needing to discuss finances, let alone run a market stall in the Sofia drizzle, but going on, nonetheless, about how he bought and sold gold and silver in Thessaloniki. His customers - a rather joyless looking couple in European kagouls - seemed interested in in this ruddy nonsense. All this time, the pens I was coveting were locked in a cabinet. Eventually, after a bored impasse, the couple moved on. I asked to see the pens with a view to coolly snaffling one or both Pelikans.

‘How much?’ I asked, nonchalantly picking up a green marbled pen after a few pregnant pauses, as if I was doing the stallholder a huge favour. The pens were grubby but in reasonable shape. I decided to do the deal, hopefully for less than 40 Lev (around £20) and leave with a spring in my step and still not leave the dealer particularly fleeced.

“One hundred and eighty,” I was told in a bored aggressive tone.

“And this one?” I croaked, trying not to give anything away and holding up the most battered looking pen of the bunch - a second, far more ragged Pelikan. I was already planning an honourable retreat, but still wanted to do so after having visibly considered, possibly bartered and adopting a slightly disappointed air. I wanted a happy sense of having engaged, which was achievable if I could persuade the stallholder there was a chance I might come close to a low end evaluation. Which, for this tatty specimen, and even with the 180 Lev quoted for the earlier pen, I reckoned at around the 30 Lev mark.

“One hundred.”

“Oh,” I said.

“How much do you want to pay?”

The stallholder looked the kind who might flip into a random act of extreme hostility. Instead, of answering the question, I employed a hastily composed, just about acceptable sign off of ‘oh; I was just looking’ - before turning on my heels, making one last sneer at the Nazi memorabilia and scarpering. If nothing else, the whole excursion reinforced my long held view that me and shopping just don’t get on.

More shopping

Again, in Belgrade, I came across a cd shop quite near my hotel, which had a nice feel but incredibly ordinary stock (ok jazz, but not that good) and pretty steep prices. Other than that, shops provided little interest, with cursory peeks in clothing stores around the main shopping streets (in Sofia, too) suggesting bargains being few and far between.

Sofia, I’d say, is a slightly more promising shopping prospect than Belgrade, but then maybe because it’s smaller. The centre has a similarly swanky shopping area, although shabbier, more interesting shops - including a couple of decent bookshops - are close at hand.

What, though, of rustic tat as remodelled and re-priced by cynical profiteers down at the tourist market? Having decided the Thomas Cook Miniguide was dreadful, I took a deep breath and decided to give it a last chance with what was described as the “unmissable” market to the north of the Alexander Nevsky church. There was a promise of ‘not very good art’, tacky religious icons and Russian dolls. I should’ve given the area a swerve, but given that Russian Dolls are one of my five-year-old niece’s favourites, decided to have a look.

Somewhat predictably, Cook and the street market both let me down. The market existed with a few stalls opening well after the time indicated by the rotten guidebook. And yes, there was a reasonable smattering of ‘not very good art’ and tacky religious icons. No Russian Dolls though. The best on offer - at first glance - were a few random and deeply undesirable looking 1950s LPs and a few crappy street signs (I usually like this sort of thing, but these looked homemade). Somewhat more disturbing was the Nazi memorabilia - enough to make me wonder if the damned stuff isn’t still being produced for maudlin, nationalist customers.

My shopping interest was piqued, however, by one particular line of goods. Fountain pens. One stallholder had a grubby collection, most of which looked as if they’d never worked, let alone stand any likelihood of doing so in the future. I steered away, although the stallholder’s persistence and the fact he wasn’t selling Nazi wares prompted me to ask how much a rather dilapidated pen cost. Not much. I was half tempted when he described it as ‘Bulgarian’, but decided to go back a different stall I’d just drifted away from on account of the stallholder being busy. It had a far more promising collection of Parkers and Pelikans.

Beer and book shops

You can’t buy beer here. Not at this time.

After the huge meal on Svetog Save, I tried to buy beer from a food shop. I’d been looking for a bar that was not too bright, but which had a decent reading light, no noise and zero chat, but had only come across some unsavoury looking places, one of which, in near darkness and apparent desertion, blasted Queen into a quiet side street. “Don’t stop me now - I’m having such a good time….” Not true, even if the heavy smokers, a number of whom, on approaching the establishment, could be seen hanging round the patio heaters, were giving it their all.

After giving up on finding a decent drinking spot, I found a late night food shop and put a couple of Sick Nicks in my basket to enjoy in the solitary splendour of the Hotel Slavija, before being told, with utmost courtesy, that I’d missed Belgrade’s 10pm deadline for buying alcohol. I felt immediately undone at this cultural faux pas. Things weren’t improved when I was advised I could buy some alcohol free fizz. I got out sharpish, trying, in vain, to appear ‘bemused’ and ‘eccentric’.

More shops
Away from food? I could have shopped on the Bar to Belgrade train. I had the chance not only to buy hot drinks from a broken man with a tiny tray, but also some toys from a similarly dishevelled entrepreneur. On both occasions, I resisted.

The Evro Giunti bookshop in Belgrade was half decent and had some interesting looking Serbian novels in translation, one of which I picked up. It was written by the daughter of a diplomat. For some reason - envy?, inadequacy? - this made me feel resentful. Was the book published because of who the author is/was? Happily, I snapped out of this funk in reasonable time (having endured no lasting damage) and resumed strolling. There was, however, a grumpy residue and futility which hung over me until the end of the trip.

Other links - contemporary Serbian literature in translation