The Muslim month of fasting called Ramadan, or Ramazan in Turkish, began on 24 September. Muslims believe that on one of the days toward the end of the month - the 25, 27 or 29, it is not known exactly which - the Prophet Muhammad received the first revelations of the Qur'an from Allah.
Sitting here with my purple foot resting gingerly on the terrace chair, I look back on my first month or so in Sofia. While reflecting on my experiences here in my attempt to get my head round the place, I find that the more I try to come up with a word to sum up the city, the more I can only come up with "almost, but not quite". OK, that's a phrase, but it kind of works. Sofia is a well-cut Kenzo suit... with white socks. It's a land of contrasts.
As a preliminary test of my Orange nationalism I went to watch Lokomotiv Sofia play against Feyenoord Rotterdam. I was pleasantly surprised that I felt very good about the goals scored by the Bulgarians, although my local teams in Holland and Bulgaria are Ajax and Levski.
But what about THE BIG GAME? The question remained: should I back the Dutch favourites or dress in red, white and green and cheer for my new brethren?
My first brush with Bulgarian bureaucracy was at the Bulgarian consulate in Greece. My partner and I happened to see different consuls and were each told we needed a different set of paperwork for our Bulgarian visas. What! Surely there must be one set of criteria that everyone must follow?