Why am I doing it at all, and why Bulgaria?

Another question I get asked a lot is "why do you want to leave the country?" and "why Bulgaria?" which I suppose is pretty understandable. Most people would not consider leaving the country, or if they did would be able to persuade themselves to not go because of all the things which could go wrong, or some imaginary ties they have with people or places here.

This makes anyone who has taken the opportunity to leave appear either crazy or lucky to these less adventurous people.

So, first of all, what has prompted me to decide that I want to leave the country?

Here you should imagine me looking at you as if YOU are mad as I really cannot understand why anyone would want to stay! I should warn you that he be politics and angriness.

The cost of living over here is disgusting, increased by punitive taxes which target those who go out and try and make something for themselves to punish success and restrict and control us.

The friendly British Bobby on the beat

On top of the taxes the state is inserting itself further into a position of total hegemony over every individual and all the choices they may take. For one example I no longer have any power to allow or deny a customer from smoking in my studio. The state has abrogated this to themselves. All of this offends me but the state would consider my offense a crime if I were to act upon it however, if I were to say anything to offend certain minorities (or even to cause someone to THINK that I may cause offense by my words) then that offense is now a criminal matter.

How much more broken can a country get?

English weather

On top of that is the weather. It sucks.

There are many more reasons around wanting a new challenge, being excited about learning some new skills and wanting to become self sufficient and therefore remove myself from a daily grind of being stuck in offices, but I won't bore you with this any more.

Why Bulgaria, then? It is cheap to buy a property (I was looking at houses about £5000 until I found and fell in love with the School) which means the risk in buying out there (if that were a worry to me) is massively reduced. The cost of living over there is pretty low still (so long as the Euro keeps away) and people in the villages where I am going still live a life very close to the soil; this means that when I move I will be able to learn from them, rather than just relying on books for my training. Bulgaria has a flat rate tax system which I think is the fairest form of tax. The people there are lovely; very welcoming and always happy to share what they have with you. Finally, the weather is real weather with a very cold winter with snow, and the rest of the time nice and hot.

Happy sun

What's not to love?

So there you are. I will not be introducing politics to this blog very regularly but I could not avoid it with this one.