Over the next few days, a few of the small tourist shacks began to open, but they sold the same tat, cheap fridge magnets, and forged items of every description, but mainly clothing. I was wary of buying spirits in a country, which so very openly, excelled at counterfeiting branded goods. The shops all sold the same things, with at least every other, displaying a near identical display of cheap extendable batons, plastic knuckle-dusters, and unreliable-looking switchblades and butterfly knives.
At the hotel, another guest told me that I must have made a mistake about Flower Street, and that it extended for over a mile. I went back to explore it anew, but I had not been mistaken, and most of the tourist bars, tattooists, beer and cigarette stores, and strip clubs, remained closed. After, maybe, a quarter of a mile, the street narrowed, and become a grotty back-street, where ancient alcoholics sat drinking from half-hidden bottles, and prostitutes propositioned the few tourists who strayed that far.
(Yes, that's an 'Erotic Bar' and children's toy shop!)
I had met some pleasant and interesting people at the hotel, and enjoyed conversing to the hotel staff in my rudimentary Bulgarian. Unfortunately, on my first night, I got talking to one of two elderly Scottish sisters, who quickly adopted me as their butler/servant/lackey, and were both rude and demanding, as well as being snobbish, and poor company
For several days, I was not alone in constantly trying to give Pinky and Perky the slip, but they would appear unexpectedly, and throw a cloud of misery over our enjoyment. I suspect I will remember them for the rest of my days!
One morning, I decided to escape to Nessebar, and set off immediately after breakfast, walking through rough-looking streets, with my camera hidden in my bag. After nearly being savaged by a rabid chihuahua I dubbed 'Spartacus' to some amused taxi-drivers, I continued into the run-down communist-era bus-station, devoid of information, and festooned with dishevelled people, who looked like they had nowhere else to go. In conversation with the Englishman a few days before, I had remarked that he must have seen a lot of changes in his 15 years in Bulgaria, and he said that there had once been gangs of beggars, but that "We got rid of them." I suspected that this meant that the Bulgarian police had driven them off, not wanting the rich tourist trade jeopardised by free-lancers. Unlike, in Britain, where I see it constantly, I never saw any homeless people encamped in shop doorways, and few beggars, but I saw a lot of very poor people, bedraggled, and carrying their belongings, and others drunk in bus-shelters, and sitting asleep on benches. The bus-station looked like it might be somewhere a person might sit, with some apparent legitimacy. A group of drunks passed a bottle discreetly, a woman with a dirty face, and matted hair, eyed me repeatedly, old men nodded on narrow benches. In an hour, only 3 buses passed through the bus-station. The Bulgarian holiday rep had told me that I could catch the 1 or 5 bus to Nessebar, but when I boarded the #5, I was told it didn't go there.
A group of middle-aged German women arrived with suitcases, and waited for a while at one of the bus-stops. After some time, they spoke to someone who pointed them out of the bus-station, and they walked back towards the main road. I began to wonder if I would ever get a bus, so shortly after, I decided to also head to the road, which I knew buses ran along. The German ladies walked along, pulling their large wheeled-suitcases behind them, but with little apparent clue where they were going. One of them spoke to me in German, but what she told me was beyond my comprehension, and we shared no other common language. A younger man spoke to me in a language I couldn't determine, but he was able to speak English, and I advised him of what I knew about the bus numbers. There was little to no pavement alongside the busy highway, and the bus-stop was a long walk, but eventually everyone was there, and joined by a few others.
The first bus was a number 2, which the German ladies boarded, while everyone else continued to wait. After a while, a man began speaking to people, and eventually approached me. As I suspected, he was a taxi driver, and offered me a ride to Old Nessebar for 15 Levs (about $8), which I agreed was a fair price, as people going from the hotel to Nessebar were paying 25 Levs or more. We walked to his car, and as we reached it, I saw the #1 bus coming, but a deal's a deal I figured. Both before our arrangement was agreed, the taxi-driver had told me, in his very limited English, how honest he was, and how straightforward, but then kept trying to encourage virtually every pedestrian we passed to get into MY cab, so he could be paid again!
The bus beat us to Nessebar by some minutes, and of course, he then didn't have any change, so I paid 20 Levs, instead of 15, and he still insisted he was a paragon of honesty. Sadly, just as every guide book, airline rep, hotel manager, and police chief will warn you, this kind of behaviour is endemic in Bulgaria. Prices in bars and restaurants are subject to arbitrary change, taxi drivers are crooks, counterfeit goods are sold openly, hotels fleece their clients, illegal money exchanges flourish, the whole place is as bent as a $9 bill!
Jack Black
You folks are living mighty well 
Sounds like you have a great day planned 
