Everything turned out fine on Monday. I got back into Silistra Monday night, ATM card in hand. I had to do some yelling in Bulgarian on the phone, but the bank came through for me. To my surprise. Dealing with a bank in Bulgaria seems to be a lot like dealing with one in America, only in a different language. Which makes it harder, but not so much you really notice. It's still a bank after all and the pains of bureaucracy seem to be universal.
I realize now, and finally, that this site has more or less turned into a description of my life here. I'm sure there are people who enjoy that, but I imagine most people want a description of, well, Bulgaria. It is in the title after all. Mostly, I've been trying to use the site to vent. And it has done its job, but today, we discuss the rams in Sofia, which will, coincidentally, also give me a chance to vent.
The trams in Sofia are part of the city's public transportation system, which means that, like the buses, they operate on a self-punching ticket system. This system is, for the most part and especially in theory, convenient. You walk on the tram, put your ticket in a little punching machine, and punch a pattern of holes into it.
If you don't punch your ticket or have no ticket, you may be caught by one of the control people, who hang out on the trams, and at an opportune moment stand up, throw on an official vest, and check and tear everybody's ticket on the tram. If they catch you, you pay 5 leva for one of their tickets (A set of five tickets normally runs 2 leva throughtout Sofia).
This is a fine system, and runs well enough in most of my experience. But on a hot, difficult, and long Monday, it failed. I had a perfectly good, punched ticket and was having a pleasant tram ride when one of the control people, an elderly woman in this case, came up to me, and tore my ticket, leaving me with a stub. She then turned to talk to someone who was complaining to her about being caught without a ticket. "Take your punishment and move on with life," I thought. After finishing with the complainer, the control women turned to me and I showed her that she had already ripped the ticket.
This was critical, as I did not tell her that she, herself, had ripped the ticket 10 seconds earlier. Or maybe it wasn't critical, I still don't know.
She walked down the tram, tore two more tickets, then came back to me. She asked to see my stub again. I gave it to her. "No, the tear is wrong," she said. "five leva."
"What?"
"You just have the stub," she replied. "And I've been tearing them upside down. They tore them rightside up going in the other direction. 5 leva!"
Despite the fact that seeing my cat walking around tearing tickets would have made more logical sense than that statement, she was raising her voice. Not wanting to make a scene, I made another mistake and gave her the five leva. After I did that she refused to listen to any argument I made. She refused to believe that I could show her the other half of my ticket in her pile, she just wrote out her 5 leva ticket, gave it to me, and shuffled along down the tram, lifting her head and saying "no" whenever I said something.
Frustrating.
Posted by Rob at July 20, 2005 04:55 PM