WE'VE GOT MAIL


I recently found these on a menu at a restaurant near Svishtov - I've added the proper English translations and explanations.

Yellow Cheese Balls - Fried pieces of kashkaval
Potato Balls With Yellow Cheese - Mashed potato patties with kashkaval
Chicken Parson's Nose - Grilled chicken rumps
Chicken Lungs With Onion - Chicken livers with onions
Tolstolob - A genetically engineered hybrid between a trout and a carp
Panayorski Eggs - Yaytsa po panagyurski are poached eggs floating in yoghurt sauce
Pork Lung with Onion - Like chicken livers, but pork
Pork Neck of the Table - Fried vratna parzhola, or pork steak
Family Sausage of the Table - Fried domashna nadenitsa, or home-made sausage
Sudzhuk of the Greben - Sudzhuk na greben, literally "sausage on a comb," meaning a sausage that has been half cut in slices
Lamb's Lung-Thread with Mushrooms - I don't know what this was
Strange Brandy - Spetsialna rakiya, means "special" or "aged" rakiya

My favourite, however, is Troglodyte Brandy for Peshterska grozdova. Peshtera is a town in southern Bulgaria famous for its rakiya distillery. Its name literally means "cave" though the stress is put on the first syllable.

Cheers!

Kevin Jameson, Oxford, England


DEAR VAGABOND

I got a fine on the way back from Svoge - the traffic police stopped me and saw that my vignette was out of date. I was under the impression that you buy it for a year and then it's valid until that date a year later, but now I know it's not. If I had had my wits about me I would have insisted that they provide me with the obligatory English translation ticket - then they probably wouldn't have been bothered. Is there any way of getting out of it? They told me to pay the fine at my nearest municipality. What happens if I don't?

K. W., Burgas

VAGABOND
enquired at the Interior Ministry and received a letter from the Department of Traffic Police explaining that foreign drivers can refuse to sign an akt, or ticket, on the grounds of not understanding it. In this case the driver must immediately contact the traffic police's local office where a verbal translation should be provided. If you sign an akt, you can appeal it within seven days. The akt results in a penalty document stating the amount of the fine. If not paid within one month at a local traffic police office or via the bank account indicated on the document, the traffic police can take away your licence. The above is only valid if you have a permanent address in Bulgaria. In case you don't or are a transit traveller the police cannot find you or oblige you to pay or give them your licence.

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