I moved to Bulgaria, but why?

1.       It is cheap!

The cost of living in Bulgaria is very cheap compared to my two former home countries The Netherlands and Ireland.

This is the most important thing. What I want is to have more time to live life and do things that make me happy. I would love to travel more. I would love to create more and to learn new skills and get better at what I already do. Maybe it is a sob story and you believe people just have to suck it up, but if you have to work full time to make enough money to pay the bills, there is not much time left to do those things. I like work, I like to be busy, I like to learn, but I also like to have a choice to what I learn and how I spend my time.

2.       The weather is great!

Both Ireland and the Netherlands are beautiful countries and have lots and lots to offer. In the Netherlands the seasons are enjoyable mostly. But in Ireland you are often stuck inside because of the weather. It is best to go out anyway and it is often not so bad once you are outside, but I just feel more comfortable if it is warmer. I can relax more so I am less tense in my shoulders and everything just looks better when the sun shines. For me it is just easier to be happy when the sky is blue instead of grey.

Irish people are tough. They go swimming in the ocean when I am still wearing my winter coat. Sorry but not sorry. As much as I admire the strength, that is just not me. The southern part of Bulgaria where I am now has a subtropical climate. It borders with Turkey and Greece in the south. But in the winter you can go to the mountains and enjoy the snow (or hop on a plane to the ‘real tropics’ with the money you saved by renting for less.

3.       I like it here!

Yes, I could have gone to Spain or Portugal or wherever you would go when you would move abroad, but I didn’t. I chose Bulgaria. I think it is a beautiful country. There are beaches, mountains, cities, villages. Just not many people know about it, because as with many other topics only the bad news reaches us, because the good stuff is not a newsworthy story.

No, I don’t speak Bulgarian, but I speak as little Portuguese and Spanish as I do Bulgarian so language learning will always be part of the story. I am not afraid of it. Bulgaria is very welcoming to foreigners. They seem to appreciate the investment however small it is. There is an easily accessible infrastructure to find a place to live and set up a business.  It is the EU so there are no restrictions for me to settle here.

I think that eastern European countries suffer from an image problem. And maybe it isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. The poverty is very visible, but so is the progress. Also, not everyone can appreciate the soviet architecture. Well, I think that there are prettier buildings than endless rundown concrete apartment blocks, but I rather have a place to live than live in a city with only beautiful houses and not being able to afford one. So far I have seen beautiful old buildings, stuck together shacks, soviet style apartment blocks, modern apartments and hyper modern architecture. History in the making.

I am super excited that I made the move! I have been playing with this plan and many similar ones well over ten years would you believe it!  I actually visited Bulgaria in 2009. Those ten years went really fast. I was doing what I had to do while all the time dreaming and trying to figure out how to get more control over my life and get to that point where I could choose what I do with my live.

In the dark moments the thought crossed my mind that I loved life. Apparently I had to remind myself of that fact. I love the world, it just seemed that all those amazing things that ‘one’ could do with life were out of reach for me. I felt trapped in things I had to do, which took up all money and time. I felt like I made too many mistakes in life and had fallen behind. It felt like I had to figure out some kind of secret to get to the other side of it.

I also had to let go.

Because basically what I was feeling was a shortage of time and a shortage of money. And when you believe that you can’t do a certain thing, you actually can’t. That is the first secret. To get to that place where you can say to yourself, well if I see others do it, it means I can do it to (and actually believe it). I am where I am now. I might not see how I am going to get from A to B but I believe it is possible and things will change.

The list of smaller and bigger steps in between that time in my life and where I am now is extensive. And this move to Bulgaria is only another first step of a journey. Could it go wrong? Yes. Could I change my mind? Yes. Could I hate it here after a while and want to go somewhere else again? Yes. Are all those things a problem? No, I don’t think so.

But if you don’t take a risk, you ain’t living! Am I right?