I found out that I was a junkie the next morning. I woke up and headed for the kitchen, urged on by the desire for a hearty breakfast. I had crisscrossed the country hitchhiking, and that is tiring. Hitchhiking is what it is, and doesn't make for an interesting story. Take Kerouac's On the Road, which is considered his best book, or at least his most famous one. Most hitchhikers I know don't like it too much.
Associate Professor Georgi Lozanov, who has for many years headed the Bulgarian Electronic Media Council, is possibly this country's most important intellectual. A man of many interests and inclinations, Lozanov has observed what has been going on in post-Communist Bulgaria with the keen eye of a journalist yet with the mindframe of a philosopher: always considering the details but striving to go beyond the whims and quirks of the everyday in order to take in the bigger picture of life in Bulgaria.
Through the many chats, lunches, dinners and obviously drinks we've had with John Rowan, Ireland's ambassador to Bulgaria, we have discovered that, perhaps surprisingly, Ireland and Bulgaria have a lot more in common than meets the eye. The two couldn't be more different if geography and topography are your guidelines of course, but that's about as far as the differences go. The Irish and the Bulgarians have a very similar history, both having been oppressed by neighbours and both having undergone a sometimes painful search for a national identity.
If opinion polls are anything to go by, Bulgarians are the most pessimistic Europeans. In contrast to the Danes who, despite – or perhaps because of – their climate and taxation levels, have persistently, over the course of many years, emerged as the most contented people in Europe, Bulgarians are becoming increasingly unhappy and morose.