:Thank you:For the personal invite I had via my email, interesting and hopefully a lot better than these other sites.

My wife and I moved here almost 3 years ago, the reason we moved here was to start a new life, live it and not work it.....like we did in the UK. We have been fortunate to have not had a bad experience with being ripped off, although my first day living in Bulgaria was almost "
MAYBE I MADE A MISTAKE"
, but we came through that and it worked in our favour. We bought a house in a small village, where there were a few British, it had been renovated by Bulgarians and pretty good standard, but like everything-we British do like perfection for our money.....doesn't happen here that often.

Anyway, we are not rich, never have been and I do need to work, so I thought..carry on doing over here what I had done in the UK for the past 15 years, which was a Multi-task internal builder.........big mistake! Having never lived abroad before, little did we realise how clicky and selfish a lot of people were in the English community, they didn't have a nice word to say about anyone.....this was a big culture shock. People who we had met and thought were ok, were saying 'don't talk to them because we don't get on with them, and if you do we don't want anything to do with you'.......ALARM BELLS.....we have come to a country where the English community dictate who we can be friends with and who we can't.....Sorry folks, WE choose our friends and if YOU don't get on with them, them that doesn't mean WE won't. So, we now keep ourselves to ourselves.

It will amaze you all on here that there are a lot of people in Bulgaria who have heard of me, I went to a village only 2 weeks ago, never been there before....delivered some goods from the UK, introduce myself as Kahl and they said 'not Kahl from Stefan Stambolovo?' Imagine my surprise when they said they had heard that I was a dodgy builder, a rip off merchant, arrogant and a nasty person.......also not someone to cross. I said that if you believe everything you hear, then you are as bad as the people who are spreading these lies.....I talk about no-one, I never slag anyone off and if I do have something to say, then I will say it to the face of the recipient, not anyone else. If that is wrong, then sorry folks.....I was born on Mars.

Apart from all this, we are happy here...we grow all our own vegetables, we keep chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbits, 2 pigs and 1 bullock..all for food. I am not a butcher, but I do all my own slaughtering and butchering..we have lamb chops from the Lambs we slaughter, we have pork chops from the pigs we slaughter and when we slaughter our bull, we will have topside beef, sirloin and steaks....all because I did my homework and I don't mind eating my own home grown food.

To all who read this through and think that I am slagging off...I am not, I am expressing myself...I am normally a happy go lucky person, a bit of a joker and on rare occasions will go that extra mile to help my fellow comrades or customers........

PS I do drink, but not often...perhaps 1 beer a month.....that was more than I did in the UK, so perhaps I am on my way to being a fully fledged alcoholic.

Hi All that you have written here sounds all very familiar to me I certainly can relate to others having an opinion of me when they have never even met me, I found that I got on better with the Bulgarians regardless to what others may say I made my own mind up and that's how my life is I don't listen to others and never have done so I guess you could say I'm one of the black sheep :Very funny 2:anyway its good to read some honest points of view and I'm sure others will appreciate this too I look forward to reading more form you in the future

Great post mate and I to know what your talking about good luck for the future and keep these posts coming great read thank you

for your responses........I do have more, but as this was my first post, thought I'd keep it to the basics of an introduction......Most of my posts will probably jokes, so I hope you all like a good joke.

excellent post Kahl1963....
unfortunatly also very true of some communities now since so many more foreigners have arrived...glad your still happy here tho...

Very refreshing and honest thank you for being so frank its what Bulgaria needs in the ex-pat community

Great post and yes on here we all like jokes actually there is a joke thread so you may want to post some in there but general humor on here is always appreciated, as you have said its your intro you might want to say a quick hello in the introduction forum its a good way of other knowing you here as most of us always look there first anyway love you post and honesty is always the best way good for you

Brilliant read and so sad but so true why can't Brits just behave themselves I thought that the idea of moving away was to change their lives not to take it with them and destroy others

I wrote a reply to this but my Pc seems to have ate it

Well like nets has said I also have had experience of the not so nice Brit Brigade. But never mind life goes on. I also agree that these people should have started a new life not to have brought the old one with them ::

and honest, this I like as I'm also Frank and tells the truth sometimes to my detriment but I also say 'what you see is what you get, like it or lump it it's me'

Look forward to some interesting points of view.

Tony

Pure honesty and thats what I like about your post and the replies to I think if we could all be honest with each other then what a wonderful life we would all have but then I would think your saying "
And the bubble burst"
well yes your right it would be a bubble but no harm in hoping hope to read more from you soon

An amazingly straight insight about your thoughts and experience of the Bulgarian way of life and your thoughts on the Brits which I'm sure some will find hard to swallow but for me all you have said does ring some bells with me and I know that the Brits not all of them come to Bulgaria and the lord it above all the others its almost like some sort of competition I would liken it to keeping up with the Joneses you know the story my pool is bigger than yours and did you know that Joe blogs is doing this or doing that and then there are the ones that say I was told? yes its sad that these Brits exist in Bulgaria but no matter where you go they are not far away. good to hear someone who has had first experience and it not afraid to say so

bigsavak wrote:

An amazingly straight insight about your thoughts and experience of the Bulgarian way of life and your thoughts on the Brits which I'm sure some will find hard to swallow but for me all you have said does ring some bells with me and I know that the Brits not all of them come to Bulgaria and the lord it above all the others its almost like some sort of competition I would liken it to keeping up with the Joneses you know the story my pool is bigger than yours and did you know that Joe blogs is doing this or doing that and then there are the ones that say I was told? yes its sad that these Brits exist in Bulgaria but no matter where you go they are not far away. good to hear someone who has had first experience and it not afraid to say so

This just about sums up what I was saying, but this doesn't just happen in Bulgaria, it happens all over the world and I can't for the life of me understand why;
perhaps they were dropped on their heads at birth or even more so, deprived of their mothers milk [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] All I know, is that I can't be doing with it! My first experience of this was we befriended someone, I thought they were good people, until one day we were sat at the table and out of the blue comes.......'we used to associate with a better class of people in the UK"
......huh......where did that come from? I got up, said something on the lines of 'well, what's that make me, a piece of ****.....' the reply was......'if the cap fits'. I was gobsmacked, and they actually wondered why I never went round there again. My wife went round because unlike many out here, she had to make her own choice about them, not me do it for her.....needless to say, she found out later what they were like and she has nothing to do with them.

Anyway, all is not bad, we have found some great people here and they have gone out of their way to help us and vice versa. We are honest to each other and the best bit is that we can fall out one day and we're mates the next day...his wife slaps me at every opportunity, but when I am in the UK, they make sure my wife is ok and regularly pop in to see her. Then we have our holiday home friends, they are just brilliant.......bringing with them all kinds of funny, witty stories and just putting a spark into our lives when they are here. And lastly, we have our Bulgarian friends, neighbours and families....without them, I think we would of left and got somewhere else.......my neighbour borrowed my ladders for about a month, when I asked for them back....his wife gave me a bag of goodies.....inside that bag was.....wait for it....3 baby Turkey's....now that's what I call FRIENDSHIP. Where in the Uk would you get such a nice gift of food for basically nothing, all he did was borrow my ladders and in Bulgaria, you don't say no to your neighbours.........What a great life it is here!!! ::

Don't you just love this thread when someone like this writes from the heart you can tell and its so obvious that what you have experienced is so very true yet most people never seem to say what they feel directly to others yes behind closed doors a lot will have too much to say but not to a persons face :Very sad:thank you for your share this is a real pleasure to read

Thank you Kahl. We have had similar nasty experiences from some expats. I thought we were getting paranoid when people who live in our village ignored us and even connived to get us out of a bar that we had used for years before they arrived. We had looked after some of their houses and even went to the local court on behalf of one of them when someone was using their property illegally. My partner has done all sorts of jobs for them when they were back in UK and we were at a total loss as to why we were being shunned. It really spoilt our happiness in the village but fortunately, we integrated with the Bulgarians and have them as our friends. We too have learnt to keep ourselves to ourselves and unfortunately, we will now think twice before helping any newcomers until we have got to know them better.
So thank you again for taking the time to post your experiences because it seems to have helped a few more of us. Its difficult to write of experiences like this because there are some people around who like to make things even more difficult by posting nasty comments. Then of course, there are those who just love to gossip even if they don't know you personally. You are a brave soul.