BasBasBas.com

Tag: Friends

  • Happy Birthday To Me!

    Happy BirthdayIt’s my 23rd birthday today! Over the last few years I’ve started to care less and less about my birthday, maybe partly due to be away from my family. I remember last year I hardly cared about my birthday, but due to the fact that it coincided with my last day of my internship in the Bulgarian National Radio, I had a great day.

    This year I felt the same apathy towards my birthday, partly because I’ve just been very busy arranging things and getting myself settled here in Sofia. Bulgarians are great when it comes to birthdays. In Holland you might get a call or a text message saying happy birthday from a few close friends and your family, but that’s about it (in my experience). In Bulgaria however, you can expect almost everybody who has your number to give you a call to wish you a happy birthday, a great life, great health, great love, luck with any new plans or projects, great friendships et cetera.

    Probably the best thing about Facebook, besides the fact that it’s really useful to keep in touch with your networks of friends, is the birthday reminders. I’ve had a lot of great birthday greetings from my friends today and would like to thank them all. Dutch, Russian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Spanish, German, English… Dankjewel, спасибо, благодаря, teşekkürler, gracias, danke, thanks!

    Oh, and I was just sent this Bulgarian popfolk/chalga happy birthday music video. The video’s probably not supposed to be funny, but it’s making me laugh a lot.

    Photo above by enggul.

    BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.

  • So Virgin founder Richard Branson took my friend to Washington today

    What the f…, Len! Apparently he was being his usual cheeky self this morning when attending a speech of Richard Branson, the British industrialist famous for founding Virgin. You could SMS questions to him during the speech, which he would then answer afterwards. Well, Branson said that he would be taking his private jet to Washington later to attend the inauguration of Obama, so Len Hulsbos and his friend Omar sent him an SMS asking if he could join.

    I guess the conference hall was filled with laughter as Richard read out the SMS, followed by surprise when he said that they could come. Congratulations, mate! Looks like your cheekiness got you somewhere! 😉

    Omar, Richard and Len (photo from here)

    Can’t wait to hear Len’s stories. I hope he’ll send out some more messages to his Twitter feed or posts a story on his blog, Pomtidom.com. Let’s stick this in the face of our university professors. Me meeting Philip Kotler, you flying on the jet of Branson.

    Cradle of Design and Mankind is no Island are destined to be successful!

    Apparently he’s been eating caviar and drinking champagne on his way to Washington. More about his adventure soon! Right here, or there.

    Dutch article by NOS (click).
    English article by Reuters.

  • 5 Reasons to Use Twitter and 5 Tips on How to Use It Right

    This is a blog about countries, travel, life abroad, culture shock. Yet this post is about technology. About Twitter, to be exact. Why?

    I’ve been “using” Twitter off and on for over a year now, but it was only up until very recently that I really got it. I love it. They only thing I don’t love about it is that many of my friends, readers, family, acquaintances are not using it and I’d LOVE to interact with you via Twitter.

    Briefly, Twitter is a service where you can share your thoughts in micro-blogs of max. 140 characters. These messages are shared with your followers who get your updates. They can then choose to interact with you. You can also follow other people for their updates.

    Here are 5 reasons WHY you should sign up for a Twitter account and start using it.

    • Friendsourcing. Got a question? A problem? Let’s say you want to know what the cheapest airline to travel to a particular location in Europe is. Before doing a lot of research, post it on Twitter. Let your friends help you out.
    • Network inside your niche. Are you a travel blogger? A PR expert in France? A Norwegian expat? An amateur photographer wanting to go pro? You can follow other people in the same position, but also experts in your niche and stay up to date with them. Through Twitter I’ve communicated with Guy Kawasaki, DoshDosh, had some email exchanges with Michael Arrington, got linked by John Chow, (yes, I’m namedropping) and became acquainted with Andy from CommentLuv – he even commissioned me to produce a DJ mix for him. I also met many fellow expats from around the world through Twitter!
    • Learn about the every day lives of others. You might be a medical student, about to graduate soon, maybe you’d be glad to follow doctors and see what their everyday lives are like as a preparation of your professional life.
    • It’s the easiest way to stay up to date with friends’ daily lives. Yes, you probably don’t feel like reading all about people’s daily lives. Don’t worry, some people leave maybe 1 tweet per day… and even if you get a lot, you’re not expected to read each and every tweet.
    • Stay up to date on current events. Twitter was my main source of updates during the recent Mumbai terrorist acts.

    Maybe I convinced you… Maybe you just need to try it out and see for yourself. Here’s what you need to do to get a good start on Twitter:

    • Install Twhirl. After signing up with Twitter, please do yourself a favour and use Twhirl. Nearly nobody uses just the web interface of Twitter… and those that do are the sporadic users (like me, in the past). If you’re doing it right, you’re going to be receiving a lot of Tweets from a lot of different people (Tweeple). Using Twhirl keeps it manageable and pleasurable!
    • Start following! First of all, find people you know. Have you seen that the authors of blogs you like reading use Twitter? Visit their blog and find out where to follow them on Twitter! Also, use Twitter Search and look for specific things you find interesting. Start following people that write about them. Don’t worry about them possibly not being interesting. It’s fine to unfollow them if they annoy you or you get bored of them. Just grab a lot of people now. Then start selecting later. Here’s a bunch of interesting people to get you started. Oh, and don’t forget to follow me!
    • Interact. This is where Twitter really gets fun and offers an awesome value. You can communicate with experts in almost any field through Twitter. You see someone posting an interesting Tweet? Reply to them (here’s how).
    • Tweet! Write about what could fascinate others. Found an interesting link? Share it. Pondering an interesting thought? Put it out there. Need some help? Tweet it! The world is listening.
    • Promote the fact that you’re Tweeting. Share it on your blog, put it in your email signature, your Facebook status, et cetera. Maybe more people you know are already using Twitter… if not, maybe you’re usage might motivate them to join up. The more, the merrier. After all, that’s why I wrote this post.

    First things first. Go to www.twitter.com. Sign up. Follow me.

    Are you already using Twitter? What’s your nickname? Why are you using Twitter? Do you have any other useful tips?

    Besides following me on Twitter… you can also follow this blog via RSS or email updates. 😉

  • Happy Birthday! 🙂

    Click to enlarge

    Today’s my girlfriend’s birthday. Look what I made for her! Since I live in Istanbul, and she lives in Sofia, Bulgaria, and we couldn’t be together for her birthday, I still wanted to make something special. So I gathered up some friends and acquaintances at my university and made this! 🙂

    There’s many nationalities in there also… Italian, Dutch, Romanian, American, Turkish, Canadian, Greek, German and Czech. I thanked them for their help afterwards.

    Hope you all like it as much as my girlfriend did. A little bit less is also okay also. 😉

  • Strumica – Roma’s and Sandwiches

    The second day in Strumica I woke up with a bit of a hangover. We all got up and I went along with Mite to bring Isabella to the centre of his NGO where she would go to work with other American volunteers and then the plan for Mite and I was to go for coffee. Once there, Mite was put to work, so plans changed. I was standing around a bit and a guy was hooking up computers, so I figured I’d help out a bit. After hooking up some computers, I went to find Mite who was in another room with the American girls doing some activities to teach English to Roma children.

    They were busy with an exercise to write down three things about the first impression you had about a particular person in the room. The children stated some pretty sweet and funny things. After that we were put to work to make badges for ourselves with our name on it, but we had to draw something on it too. After that we did ‘Simon Says…’ to teach the kids some more English.

    See the pictures of the children in my Picasa album…

    After this Mite and I went for lunch and got some of the biggest sandwiches I’ve ever seen.

    We then met the girls in the centre who were done with work by now and Mite and Leni (who also works for the NGO) showed them the ways home. This was very interesting, because one of them was staying in a Roma neighbourhood. You enter quite a different place when you walk into the Roma neighbourhood; it’s like a village of its own and a very busy and noisy one at that. One of the girls was picked up by the family where she was staying and we were all invited to come around for coffee some time. This plan’s definitely on the table and I’m very excited about it.

    We then went home, had dinner, chilled out a while and Mite and I went out again to meet some more of his friends.

    If you wish to stay up to date about my travels, you can subscribe by RSS or email.

  • Sofia revisited

    As said in the last post, I got up ‘early’ (nine) on Sunday, to meet with Tsvety, my girlfriend. We chilled out a bit, I showed her the Art Hostel where I stayed the night before, and got my stuff to move to another hotel. On our way to the hotel, some woman at the other side of the street and about 20-30 meters away started shouting: “your bag! Your bag!” in Bulgarian. I ignored it, since I couldn’t understand it and didn’t get it was aimed at us, but Tsvety noticed it and turned around to see who was shouting.

    We turned and there were three gypsies behind us, one closely inspecting her own bag and saying “huh? My bag?” Then they crossed the street and went away from us as fast as possible. Close one. Nobody in Holland would shout through the street if they thought someone was about to get something from your bag. Well, very few people at least.

    Then we got to the hotel. At some point we had a visitor, a small bird, which we took some pictures of. I’d post the pictures, but I appear to have forgotten the cable for my camera, so I promise to show them later. Hopefully before the end of the week.

    Then we went out to the park, where they would be showing the Euro Cup finals, but there were also two stages with live music before that. Got to see Eli, Boriana and Annie again, also met up with Bobi, Mitko and Ivan. Ran into a French guy I met while I was living in Sofia also.

    Watched the game with Mitko and Ivan, then afterwards stayed at the park for a while and drank a beer. On my way back to the hotel I saw about ten honking cars with Spanish flags being waved. As I looked at the number plates, turns out they were all diplomats’ cars. Festive people, those Spanish. I wonder how the Dutch embassy employees would have acted in Sofia, had Holland won the Euro Cup.

    If you wish to stay up to date about my travels, you can subscribe by RSS or email.

  • What a music… a recollection

    Miro, a friend I made in Bulgaria, just sent all his friends on Facebook (including me) a dedication via a particular application. Apparently his song “What A Music” is now uploaded in there and while listening to it again, I realized just how much that song reminds me of Bulgaria.

    I met Miro in the middle of November. Asya (sorry if it’s misspelt), a colleague of mine at the National Radio, gave me a call one day that she said she was still going to take me to a party. I had no recollection of this, but then again, when I met her at the Balkan Youth Festival, days were long and nights were drunk. She told me there was a CD presentation of the winner of the Bulgarian Pop Idol in a club in the centre and asked me to come along. I hesitated for a second, then told myself to just say yes. So I did.

    We arrive… free booze! She runs off and starts talking to people and I’m kept busy with people who talk to me because I’m not from Bulgaria (and because they’re just as drunk as me, from the free booze). At some point after the CD presentation, Asya gets us into the ‘artists’ area and I meet some of the people there. They are getting restless and want to have a party somewhere. Asya leaves. I was told to come along, because it was going to be fun. Obviously, I was intimidated, so I went along – I would have rather been responsible and go home of course. Who likes parties anyway?

    So uhhh, the next day I wake up with a massive hangover. Pictures I don’t remember, business cards I vaguely remember, and random entries in my phone. Names with no numbers, just the letter ‘E’ with a number. You know those nights where you’re too drunk to type the name and then in your mind you go “fuck it” and tell yourself you’ll just remember it? Yeah. You won’t. If you’re too drunk to type… you’re too drunk to remember. And also, you might take pictures of the Iranian embassy on your way home.

    I remembered one business card that I got belonged to the producer of the CD of the girl who won. I was a bit intimidated… It’s not every day that I get the contact cards of a ‘celebrity’. If I think back to my thoughts at that time, they’re a bit ridiculous, but make a good story. So I think I emailed him or called him, I don’t remember. Added him to Skype and it turned out his studio was right around the corner from my apartment. Literally, not even 2 minutes from door to door. He invited me and I came over. He showed me his studio and his pride. We maintained our connection and were hanging out about once a week, I guess. One of the songs he let me hear when I first came ’round to his studio (correct me if I’m wrong Miro) is ‘What A Music’, the track I was just sent on Facebook.

    Those times were strange. The Pop Idol party, sitting at the same table as Philip Kotler at a high tea-styled press conference with a panorama view of Sofia, meeting my current girlfriend… but also Sofia getting colder and the weather getting harsher and harsher. It was a moment of highs and lows, which makes the highs even more magical as they already were. And that’s what this song reminds me of. The song has a magical sound to it and reminds me of the magical times I had back in Bulgaria. Therefore, without further adue, I present to you the video of my friend Star Tattooed’s ‘What A Music’. Dedicated to everyone I met in Bulgaria!

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