Day 481: Heaven On Earth

Buongiorno!

I have something to tell. I was dead for 3 days and since I had always been a good boy I went to Heaven. Where is it? Pietra Ligure, Italia.


A few things you do in Heaven: wake up at 12:30, drink cappuccino, eat ravioli, pasta with parmigiano cheese, tiramisu, swim in The Mediterranean, enjoy Italian riviera, Genova, San Remo, Sun ... and, well, not Italian football (Spain-Italy 4:2).

Many thanks to Daniele and his "La Familia" for their warm hospitality.

Photos ... and even more photos

Ciao. Ci vediamo dopo.

Day 456: Eurostar - train faster than airplane

Hi.

Monday was a Bank Holiday here and I thought it was time for a new trip. This time I decided to try the high speed train - Eurostar - that
goes down The Channel. Starting from central London you can be in Paris or Bruxelles in about 2 hours. Amazing. Speed like 250/300 km/h is nothing for this train, I've read it has experimentally reached something like 550 km/h. Are we still talking about trains? The real train is very comfortable and spacious, with a nice snack bar inside, air conditioning and so on ... you can't feel the speed at all, your only task is to enjoy the scenery.

I forgot to tell you that I was going to Holland which is a further one hour away from Bruxelles. I've been in England for a few weeks and already started to miss some friends and football games in Delft. Agenda also included visiting an African restaurant in Utrecht and drinking coconut beer, and also driving a VW Beattle car built in 1968, but now registered in Italy and using a GPS navigational system "Tom Tom", version 2008 :-)

It was a great weekend, many thanks to Massi, Giulia, Francesca, Marta, Daniele, Marta's parents, Nikola, Marinela and my friends who I play football with. Have a look at Bas & Kas :-))

A few more photos here.

Tot zo.

Day 436: Mind The Gap

Hello.

I'm starting a new project and job, this time in London. My first impression is that it's a very interesting and challenging city but quite crazy. What a surprise. I have the feeling time is running faster here (Einstein was right!). You must see central London Underground on Monday morning. Simply unbelievable. Nevertheless there is something for every taste in this megalopolis, from sports and cultural events to historical places, museums, typical pubs and restaurants, its potential is unlimited.

A thing you are reminded all the time while you travel here and there is to "mind the gap between the train and the platform". Sometimes they stop informing about the train schedule ... just to announce the very important thing to "mind the gap". May be they want to remind you the gap between all cultural, educational, and religious differences you can find in people from all over the World who land in this extraordinary city called London.

Some photos here.

Good night and mind the gap!

Day 411: Hola Barcelona!

... and one final weekend of holidays. This time it was Barcelona - the capital of Catalonia, Spain.

Again remarkable city, sun and tasty food. Thanks to Marta (Muchas Gracias!), our strict but fair guide, we could see it in 2-3 days walking for about 10 kilometers per day and meet most of her friends, mainly young people from Mallorka.

I really enjoyed the long green street for pedestrians called "Las Ramblas", the Columbus statue next to the sea shore, the view from "Gaudi" park and "The National Museum", typical Catalan dishes, fruit and see food market (poor crabs), all this narrow "Mediterranean" streets and small balconies with flowers, and of course the pleasant company of Nuria, Marta, Carlota, Roi and Dany (see photo).

Don't forget they don't (want to) speak Spanish(Castillian) in Barcelona but Catalan language. People are quite patriotic and proud in that region. We had a funny story when sat down in a restaurant and Roi and Carlota who live in North West Spain couldn't understand the menu :-0 This language happened to be quite different.

Another thrilling moment was taking a photo in front of the mythical "Camp Nou" stadium - the place where the great Bulgarian football star Hristo Stoichkov became Legend.

Maybe my photos will be able to tell you more about this trip ... I have to go back to work.

Adios.

Day 391: Paris, you are simply the best!

Bonjour!

Few weeks ago I had the chance to go to Paris and I am simply dazzled by this city.

I could spend a weekend there - time sufficient enough only to point out the places you should visit when you come again for a longer period. Nevertheless, I managed to go on top of the Eiffel Tower, Arc the Triumph, walk down the "Champs Elysees" boulevard, have a look at the Louvre and Notre Dam Cathedral.

This is the first time I am really impressed by architecture, incredible structures. A friend of mine had to come and bring me back from the terrace of the Eiffel Tower, I could stay there for hours. Streets in Paris are so wide, I read the city was totally reconstructed around 1850 when, on his way back from London, Napoleon III said he wanted to see Paris as organized as the England capital. Then the government bought all the properties in the center, destroyed old medieval like buildings, laid down canalization, broadened streets and created laws saying houses must not be higher than a certain level. That's why Paris looks so beautiful today.

French language is like music but very difficult to write, quite different from Dutch for example :-)) where every second word contains 'g' produced with difficulties by your throat and nose. French food, bistros, wines, cheese ... I still remember that girl who after dinner said "Monsieur, what kind of cheese do you want ... blue, bri ..." and brought a plate full of all kind of cheese.

You can see photos from the trip here.

I definitely want to visit this city again in summer.

Au revoir! Viva la révolution!

Day 381: Some thoughts about MOSS, Workflows, InfoPath and WebServices

Hi. Lately I've been involved in a tricky project and would like to tell you the way I tackled it. While fighting with it I found lots of useful blogs ... so I thought now it's my turn to share some knowledge.

The main part of it consisted of a custom workflow that is attached to a SharePoint document library. When started the workflow creates several tasks that fire up InfoPath forms. InfoPath forms themselves query a web service to populate its drop down lists with data.

The first key moment was the use of Visual Studio 2008 and VSTO (Visual Studio Tools for Office). Now debugging the workflow is a breeze - right click your state machine or sequential workflow project, configure "SharePoint Debug Settings", place your breakpoints, click F5 and enjoy. That's all. VS 2008 will do everything for you, open a browser and navigate to the appropriate document library. No more manual IIS resets, GAC assembly deployment, detaching, attaching ...


Another interesting thing was where to deploy my web service. Knowing where most SharePoint web services are, I headed for the /_vti_bin folder of the moss web application, created a virtual directory to put the .asmx, web.config file and bin folder, configured the directory as application and pointed it to the the correct application pool. So far so good. Problems began when I started to receive this error message: "Unable to connect publishing custom string handler for output caching.". After googling for a while I read that the SharePoint page processing model may cause this because it overrides the way pages are parsed. I needed to modify the web service web.config, as described in this blog, to restore its standard handling. Ok, sounds pretty reasonably, except the fact that it doesn't work. I looked in disbelief for a few minutes when the idea to move the web service to another folder struck me - I put the web service files in the /_layouts folder and now everything was fine.

The next challenge was how to publish the InfoPath forms so that they could still find the web service when we move the application to test environment, for example the web service url in my dev environment looks like http://mossdev/_layouts/DemoWS/Service1.asmx but in the test environment it looks like http:// my.test.server/_layouts/DemoWS/Service1.asmx. I read the following MSDN article "InfoPath Support for Relative Paths to Web Services" but it was not appropriate for my case. It was time for Universal Data Connections. You can create Universal Data Connection File (.udcx) if you "convert" a data connection in InfoPath. What surprised me here was that though I wanted to centrally manage my connection, I had to upload it first to a data connection library, then download a copy and then upload it through Central Administration, InfoPath Forms Services section. The UDC file is a XML file that describes how to access a specific datasource. You can find the following tag inside the file: <udc:wsdlurl> http://mossdev/_layouts/DemoWS/Service1.asmx?wsdl</udc:wsdlurl>.
When you move to another environment you have to edit this file, for example replace the host header for the web service, and upload it again in central administration. The only thing your InfoPath form is interested in is to find the UDC file with certain name located under the IP section of CA. That's all. Very flexible solution!

"Houston, we have another problem!". One of the web methods needed an input parameter. How to supply this value at run time? I felt I could do this from the workflow ... When you define a data connection to a web method that needs parameter, InfoPath creates a Secondary Data Source and exposes this parameter as a field. You know that you can supply information to your form using that ItemMetadata.xml file and ows_field. Ok. I decided to create a rule "set team=ows_team" ("team" is the parameter) that applies everytime the form is loaded. The ows_team value I supply programmatically from the workflow when I create the task with a line like this: spWorkflowProperties.ExtendedProperties["ows_team"] = "team value"; One final problem: My web service was called before the parameter could be set from the workflow. To fix this you have to modify your data connection and uncheck the box "Automatically retrieve data when form is opened", place a control(for example a button) and create a rule saying "execute this data connection when button is clicked". Prima.

Tot zo.

Day 339: Genius died. Genius was born.

Goedenavond, dames en heren,

During the past two weeks my attention was attracted by the super super super tournament of Corus. It was held in the town of Wijk aan Zee, a small village located in the north-west part of Holland. It's amazing how this, in the middle of nowhere place, can be the venue of one of the biggest chess tournaments in the World. The strongest chess minds challenged each other in Wijk besides being subject of the unceasing wind, non-stop "stop and go" rain, and of course "without a glimpse of sun" days.

The tournament was bombastic in many ways - it was won by the youngest participant Magnus Carlsen, ahead of two ex World Champions and the current World Champion; the handshake scandal; the fantastic novelty played by Topalov and kept in secret by his second - Cheparinov - for 3 years "until the appropriate occasion has arrived" ... and for a chess fan like me, being part of all this, was an unforgettable experience. The thing I really like in chess is that it is accessible to anyone and you can even sometimes sit behind the board playing against your idols.

Unfortunately, another thing that this tournament has to be remembered for is the announcement of the sudden death of Robert Fischer or as chess lovers know him Bobby Fischer. Bobby died at the chess age of 64 - the number of squares on the chess board. He is a Legend and whatever we say won't be enough, he is the one who made people, who even didn't know how to move the pieces, attracted by this game and follow his match in Reykjavik in 1972 against Boris Spassky, the match during the Cold War that was filled with so much tension.

The genius died but a new star appeared on the horizon - the Norwegian boy wonder Magnus Carlsen. What impressed me most was the way Magnus outplayed his opponents. I could understand over calculating them in complex positions or beating them by preparing a stunning opening variation, but his style is so logical and patient as if he is a grandmaster with 20 years of experience behind him, something totally untypical for a 17-year old "kid".

I'm a bit disappointed I couldn't get an autograph from Magnus but I'm sure we'll see and hear from him more and more in the future.

Well done, Magnus!
Rest in peace, Bobby.

Day 275: Short trip to London

After surviving very busy two months I could find some time for a short holiday and a trip to London. I had only three days but managed to visit a few interesting places. Though quite expensive and not very secure I always enjoy visiting this city - it's a great mixture of tradition and modern elements.

On Friday had the chance to see the England capital from above by trying "London Eye". It's an amazing construction, right at the heart of the city, that offers a tremendous view over The Thames and The Houses of Parliament.

At night met one class mate from high school who I had not seen for about 10 years. She spent the past 7 years studying for a bachelor degree in Japan. Wow! Respect! After that we joined a "thanks giving dinner" organized by some American students. I didn't know this is such an important event for the North American people. I could hear the story of Pilgrims and the Indians.

Sunday was reserved for going to "Millennium Dome" and seeing the exhibition of the famous Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. This boy took the throne very young but died mysteriously at the age of 19. Some artifacts from the king's tomb were present but the mask and the mummy are strictly kept in the museum in Cairo.

Good night ladies and gentlemen.

Day 274: Finally MCPD

After planning for an year to upgrade my old Microsoft certification and failing to do it two weeks ago, I'm finally happy to announce that I passed the exam and am now Microsoft Certified Professional Developer.


Specialist say this will be one of the hottest certifications for 2008:

"This has been a rocket since last year. Demand for these developers are up over 80% compared to last year, and does not seem to be slowing down any time soon. There are only a little over 3000 currently with the certification. If you are looking for a certification track, I would give this one a lot of consideration."

... and here is what Microsoft says:

"The Microsoft Certified Professional Developer: Web Developer (MCPD: Web Developer) certification demonstrates that you have the comprehensive skills that are required to build interactive, data-driven Web applications that use ASP.NET 2.0 for both intranet and Internet uses."

Yeah, I guess so.

Day 256: Dennis - wat een goal!!

Eens in de zoveel jaar scheidt een historische gebeurtenis de generaties. Hoe vaak wordt door grootmoeder niet nostalgisch gerefereerd aan de tijd voor de oorlog, of wijst de vader zoonlief er fijntjes op wijst dat hij nooit getuige is geweest van het ontstaan van Michel’s en Cruijff’s totaalvoetbal? Meer recent is natuurlijk het EK1988 reden tot het maken van onderscheid tussen de bewuste getuigen, onbewuste getuigen en de generatie die nog verwekt moest worden op het moment dat Van Basten met zijn wreef niet alleen zichzelf, maar ook Mьhren onsterfelijk maakte. Een mooie quizvraag is dan overigens altijd of het nu Arnold of Gerrie Mьhren was die de pass verzond. (dit was natuurlijk Arnold Mьhren, die op zijn beurt de bal van Van Tiggelen ontving)

De goal viel op zaterdag 3 november 2007, even voor 14.00u. Een waas van stilte waaierde uit over het sportpark van het voormalige Duinoord/De Jager, tegenwoordig spelend onder de naam svLY. Het bladerdek achter het doel was momenten later bewoond door een juichende, in het traditionele blauw-rood gestoken, menigte van uitgelaten jongemannen, waarbij ййn onblote torso zich het centrum van de feestvreugde mocht noemen. De oude handen, behorende tot de al sinds 1965 in functie zijnde voorzitter van de supportersvereniging “Duinoord 3”, handelden door de as uit de goed gevulde pijp te kloppen, waarop vervolgens de elektrische signalen binnen deze oude knar de lippen aan het werk zetten, waarbij er een welgemeend ‘wel heb ik ooit’ soepel over deze kleine lappen vlees rolden.

Aanstichter van dit alles was Lyubomir Mishkovski , voetbalnaam “Lubo”. Dit Bulgaarse toonbeeld van onverzettelijkheid, hierin slechts geлvenaard wordt door Jaap Stam in zijn hoogtijdagen, veroverde op de hem typerende wijze de bal ter hoogte van de middellijn. Een stapje links, een klein tikje rechts en een subtiele heupbeweging later vonden zijn ogen die van de gretig wachtende Djoffie Wieske en niet veel later legde het lederen monster dezelfde weg af. Zich nog onbewust van zijn nederige, doch belangrijke rol in dit nieuwe hoofdstuk in de geschiedenis van het veldvoetbal, kaatste Wieske de bal.

Tot dit moment kon dit tafereel symbool staan voor alles wat een normale amateurwedstrijd op reserve 6e-klasse niveau zo heerlijk maakt. Een puffende 40’er die net teruggekomen van zijn 2e burn-out in evenzoveel jaren tijd beseft dat hij te laat is, een wanhopig naar een zweem van buitenspel zoekende grensrechter en een vrolijk keuvelend publiek langs de zijlijn. Tot de bal met de juiste richting en de juiste snelheid de weg tussen Wieske en Lubo heeft afgelegd was alles nog het oude. Het moment hier onmiddelijk op volgend beroerde Lubo de bal met de buitenkant van de rechterschoen. De toegesnelde keeper ontdekte tot zijn afgrijzen dat de voorwaarts gerichte snelheid van de bal werd geлvenaard door de opwaartse gerichte snelheid. Twintig hondersten van een seconde later betrok het gezicht van de tot op dat moment vrijwel onverslaanbare keeper. Op deze finesse had ook de Van der Sar van de Haagse binnenstad niet gerekend. De pogingen die de sluitpost vervolgens ondernam om het tij te keren konden alleen maar bijdragen aan de magie van het moment. Een halve seconde verder bereikte de bal zijn hoogste punt. Toen duidelijk werd dat er onder het aluminium voldoende ruimte was voor het in Taiwan met de hand vervaardigde object om in te verdwijnen openden de kelen van de omstanders zich reeds. Zeven-en-twintig honderdsten later bereikte de magie zijn hoogtepunt met de lichte streling van de netten.

Nu rest slechts de vraag: waar was u?

03 November 2007 | 17:24

Day 242: F R I E N D S

Ok, it's a good idea to show you some special friends from Delft. I could create another blog dedicated to them and the funny stories we had but this time I'll confine only to introducing them. From left to right:


Daniele - The KormoranO, my Italian friend from Pietra Ligure (Genova) who is working over a master thesis project in the area of gas explosions. Several times a day radio stations in town warn about Danyele's experiments. He can tell you that increasing too much gas velocity may prevent ignition or explain why Berlusconi won the elections with an almoast 100% score in Sicilia ... but his ultimate goal is to blow his company in the air and become an idol for generations of chemical engineers. Salute, Dany!

Roi - my "crappy" spanish friend from Cantiago de Compostela who is working over a master thesis project in the area of mechanical engineering and especially heat pumps. He can demistify that lesson in physics from 9th class that you didn't understand - "the reverse cycle of Carnot" ... or simply said, why your fridge actually works. Que pasa, Roi?

The Tiramisu - my best friend!

Marta - the sunny girl from Mallorka who is already an ENGINEER! She can make a very nice tortilla for you and guide you through the subtleties of the Catalan and Spanish language. Bueno, Marta!

Lubo - sorry, i don't know this guy ... looks like a crazy chess fan.


Marta, Dany, Roi! I'm glad to know you!

Day 241

... sorry, nothing interesting these days ... maybe a hush before the storm?

Day 200: The name of the game - Footballllllllllll

Saturday, the 8th of September 2007, 20:30, "Amsterdam Arena", EURO 2008 qualification match, group G, Holland vs Bulgaria, result 2:0.

One of the most beautiful places (not stadiums) I've ever been is called "Amsterdam Arena" - the home ground of the famous football club "Ajax". Add to that The Bulgarian National Team was playing ... and I'm running out of words.

It was a great game. Bulgarians played well, we must be proud. Unfortunately our goalkeeper allowed a surprising goal that turned the game upside down. Anyway, everyone was very well motivated and wanted the win. Berbatov was incredible - very technical and fit. I had the chance to watch the game from 5-10 meters. I tell you, it's very difficult to play good football.

Actually I was lucky because 2 hours before the game I didn't have a ticket. I went to the stadium with the last hope that I would meet one of those guys who speculate with tickets. And I met one. Payed for it the double price but I was glad that he didn't know I was ready to give him 5 times the price :-)

There was another funny fact - my ticket defined a place in the Dutch sector and I had to sit with my white shirt amongst the thousands of orange shirts. Genrally Dutch people are very tolerant and again I didn't have any problems, just the opposite - they were smiling. Going to a football match for these people is similar to going to a spectacle/theater. From my position I could see very well the Bulgarian sector who didn't stop to support the team during the whole game. Also it was very nice to see 4000 Bulgarians in Amsterdam, dancing typical folklore and singing, "singing for a win".

For more photos from the game check here.

8th of Sep!


P.S.: Forgot to tell you that I finally joined the Ariston football club and played 90 minutes on Saturday. We finished 2:2, the opponent equalized from a penalty in the last minute. It was very disappointing ... and very difficult to play on a 100 meters field.

Day 193: Annual Company Party

This weekend was reserved for the traditional company party. It happens every year around September and all the employees go to a spectacular destination, either in Holland or abroad. We started at noon on Friday with the opening of a new office in the town of Utrecht. After a few drinks and a short speech made by the boss we went out to lift up the company flag under the fanfare trumpets sound of two disguised musicians. Congratulations, good luck & many cracking projects!

In the afternoon we headed to the small town of Simpelveld. Our base camp was represented by a big monastery. At first I couldn't imagine that we would party here but after a while / after we broke a window or two / I attained a better view of the situation.

The evening culminated with a barbecue in the yard ... and karaoke :-)) I've never thought "the karaoke" is such a big fun. A few colleagues were very artistic and received the warm applauses of the fans. Sandro, our Belgium friend, brought his light show equipment ... aaaaaand we transformed the monastery into a real discotheque. Number one contenders were "I will survive" by Roel, or "Grease" sang by Saskia & Bart, or "Like a virgin" sang by all the ladies in Tam Tam :-)

Saturday morning began with mountain biking around the surrounding villages and "hills". This is the moment to tell that Paul came from Rotterdam to Simpelveld on his bike, about 200km. Crazy dutch people.

The rules of an interesting game were introduced to us after lunch. The idea of the whole thing was to go sightseeing in Maastricht while playing. We were divided to teams of 5, received a mobile phone and GPS locator . We had to pass trough several points in the town and to get the position of these special places we had to answer questions sent by SMS. You answer the question, you get the new coordinates.

Saturday night was also stunning. A big bus came to pick up us (about 50 people) and bring to the "Bozzini" discotheque. Who could guess that one of the biggest discos I'd ever seen would be next to the only 11000 town of Simpelveld. A slight explanation can be the fact that this place is in a province called "Limburg" that is between Holland, Germany and Belgium. Probably people from all these countries come at weekends. /on the photo: Tam Tam colleagues/

Everything in this disco is organized in the best possible way, starting from security and wardrobe and ending up with light effects, sounds, dancing floors and decoration. To feel the atmosphere try these images here.

Very nice weekend but as we know after the weekend there is always that day called "Monday".

:-)

Day 176: The World looks better from 3000 meters!

Greetings from Bulgaria and the tallest peak in the Pirin mountains that is called "Vihren". It is 2914 meters high but I can assure you it deserves every step. The sight from up there is really beautiful. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy and we were forced to go back without reaching our final destination - a very narrow peak called "The Horse". You can see more fantastic images here. As they say in one advertisement: "Welcome to Bulgaria - severe country, mild rakia!" :-))

Day 136: Time for holidays!

Yes. Summer has started and it's time for holidays.

England. The first place I visited was London ... and the occasion was wonderful - the 100th anniversary of an old friend. I'm not joking. Bernard was born in 1907 and had, sorry, is having quite an eventful life - being a broker at The London Stock Exchange, aviator during The World War II /a bomber from the war circled for a while over the party venue especially for Bernard/, founder of the Jaguar club, super golf player and last but not least father/grandgrandgrrrrr father of a big and happy family. He is amazing and full of energy, still follows The Champions League and discusses football. I gave him as a present a T-shirt of the English national football team with his name on the back and number 100 :-) He didn't tell us the secret of his longiness/дълголетие/ but I suspect the key is not to deprive of anything but do it with measure. /on the photo in the left I'm in the beautiful company of my friends - Lili & Silvi/.

Beside the party I managed to see two very interesting museums - The Imperial War museum and Science museum holding artifacts from different wars around the world or the crushed F1 car of Mika Hakinnen, or space costumes from Apollo expeditions. Have you asked yourself how astronauts go to the toilet in space /the answer - at the end of this post/ :-)



...

Holland.In the middle of June Toshko visited me with his family - Monica and Mitko. Toshko was as enthusiastic as always and I think they spent their time very well and saw most of the spectacular places in Rotterdam/the port and the tall tower/, The Hague/Madurodam - the Holland minimodel/ and Amsterdam. I could join them during the weekend and we had a nice trip with a small boat through the channels of Amsterdam and a one day excursion to Zeeland - the part of Holland that is separated from sea with dykes/диги/. Mitko was super funny :-) ... and Monika made great dinners rescuing us from starving to death. Thank you people.



...

Croatia. Ok. This one was a challenge. I decided to join my chess friends and go to a chess tournament held in the town of Pula, Croatia. I already can't remember why I've chosen such a strange route to go there - I took a plane from Belgium and landed in Slovenia. The Bruxelles airport is not so far from Rotterdam and the Slovenian capital - Ljubljana - is closer to Pula than Zagreb to Pula. The only thing I missed was that I was crossing several countries and everything might not go smoothly.

It took me 18 hours to get from my bed in Delft to the tournament hall in Pula. Don't ask for the transport, it was something like this - tram from home to Delft train station, train to Rotterdam, train to Bruxelles, bus to the airport/remember there are 2 airports at Bruxelles!!!/, airplane to Ljubljana, changing car/bus/taxi to go Ljubljana center, bus to Rijeka/Croatia, bus to Pula, taxi to hotel. Don't worry if you've missed somewhere the connection. So I woke up at 6:00 in the morning in Delft and was in Pula at 0:00.

Landing /saying "landing" ... it was a weird landing, although the plane was a big A380 it landed so hard and difficult? that the pilot received passengers' applauses after that/ in Slovenia I've immediately noticed two big differences between Holland and The East - the weather and people's politeness. I was hit by a warm wave going out of the plane. The Dutch summer is pretty different - 20/25 degrees, rain, clouds, wind, sun, rain ... People's politeness - merely they don't care about you. For example, in Ljubljana I was asking the lady at the information desk about a bus to Pula but she several times looked at me surprised and told me there was no such bus. I started to think where to spend the night in Ljubljana when an officer told me that there was a bus to Rijeka which is some 100 kilometers away from Pula ... or in the bus I was asking if this was Rijeka when the driver only lifted his shoulders showing he didn't understand a word and made a grimace to go away/it's strange that Slovenians and Croatians don't understand Bulgarian but I could understand them - their languages are like a Bulgarian dialect, very funny to listen them. Learnt "hvala" which means "thanks" or "rachun" which means "bill"/. You buy a ticket for the bus but before you get on they want another 2 euros for your luggage :-) ... I also had to wait 20 minutes for an orange juice ... first impressions were not very good.

Arriving at Rijeka, Croatia, was even worse. Bus drivers were even more unpleasant, people at the information desk had never heard that there is such language like English. At some point I switched to something between Bulgarian/Russian/Serbian language but only English words appeared in my mind. To sum up, I felt that situation in Slovenia is a little bit better than Croatia ... but I think that Bulgaria will surpass them both in the near future.

Finally about the chess tournament - ok, forget about it, I made a kind of an experiment about whose result I'll tell you after some months. I concentrated over the beach and the sea. The water was perfect/more salty than that in the Black Sea/ but there is no sand, you have to lay on rocks. The resort is very beautiful but I expected to see more people. At night we spent the hours in a "80's type" veranda restaurant where you could listen ABBA and Boney M :-) or in a small discotheque with not more than 20 people. Can you compare that to Sunny Beach/Bulgaria for example? Anyway, it was entertaining to watch Norwegian girls dancing or listening karaoke singers.

Going back I missed the last train from Belgium to Holland and had to spend 6 hours in night Antwerpen /Amsterdam 6:33/. I can tell you about all open cafes in late Antwerpen and the history behind the railway station - it was built in 1905 and is a typical representative of Barock architecture ... hahaha ... in the morning met in the train Catriona - a colleague from Tam Tam. She was going to the office from Rotterdam. I was going also to the office but from Pula, ups where was that :-)

Ok. At the end some photos ...