Bulgaria: Where the Mountains meet the Sea. Of hotel room and restaurant bills

 

 

 

Dear loyal reader, today you’re getting an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at our hotel room - because, well, circumstances forced me to spend my entire morning there.
At 4 a.m., I woke up with a migraine that felt like someone was trying to chisel open my skull. Despite medication, by 11 it hadn’t improved much. I tried to eat breakfast around 10, but after two spoonfuls of muesli, I gave up and went back to the room.

Now, let me tell you about this “smart” hotel room. When you walk in, the curtains automatically open and the lights turn on. Sounds fancy, right? Except it happens regardless of the time of day. Meaning: at noon, you get unnecessary mood lighting, and at midnight - hello, instant daylight!
There are no regular switches on the walls, only mysterious touch panels. So every time you want to adjust something, you play a little game of “guess the right button” until you either win (the lights finally cooperate) or lose (you accidentally start the curtain dance again).

Well, this morning, though, things reached peak annoingness. Scott went for a walk around 11, and I decided to stay behind to rest. Fifteen minutes later, the blackout curtains began to close by themselves. I reopened them, because lying in pitch darkness while your head throbs is not my idea of comfort. Naturally, the room responded by turning on all the lights. I nearly lost it.

More painkillers later, things started improving around noon, and we both finally escaped outside.

Sofia has a tram line that runs through a park - supposedly magical in autumn when the leaves turn. We hopped on, paid 80 cents, and rode for fifteen minutes through a golden canopy of trees. It really was beautiful.

We walked back, stopped for lunch around two (my first proper meal of the day), then continued to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, wandered through the city, and ended up at Starbucks before heading back to the hotel.

Determined not to repeat our earlier dinner debacles (where restaurants without reservations basically laughed us out the door), I booked a nearby steakhouse for the evening. Everything went smoothly — until I nearly ordered a half-kilo, 100-euro steak. Luckily, I caught it just in time and downsized to something more wallet-friendly. The tartare, mushrooms, and steak were all fantastic. The dessert, however, tasted like it had been waiting patiently since last week for someone to finally order it.

Then came the bill. It looked suspiciously high. I reminded the waiter we were supposed to get a 15% discount for booking through a certain website. He assured us it was already applied - the prices were indeed different from the menu. We paid… but something still didn’t add up. Upon closer inspection, it turned out they hadn’t given us a 15% discount - they’d added 20%. Oops.
To his credit, the waitress promised to fix it. He returned a few minutes later holding 70 levis in cash and explained the system would only allow a cash refund. I politely told her we were leaving the next day and had no use for that cash. Five minutes later, he reappeared - this time with a €50 note. We handed her a €10 back (the only small bill we had), so in the end, we got €40 back instead of €35 he initially offered in levis. Technically, we still didn’t break even… but by that point, the math was the least of our concerns. It was after 9pm and it had been an exhausting day.