I went to a cafe in my neighborhood to do some work--read some student papers and make lesson plans for next week.  I go there fairly often and was greeted with a "good afternoon."  I ordered a long coffee and a bottle of water.

There are two non-smoking tables in the back of the cafe.  This has always made me laugh because it forces one to walk through the cigarette smoke and smokers to reach one of the "non-smoking" tables.  It's like this or worse in most cafes and restaurants in Bulgaria.  There's a perfunctory sign but it doesn't mean a lot.

After an hour at a "non-smoking" table in a cafe in Sofia you'll still smell like you've been smoking a cigarette--man the smoke really clings to your clothes and hair and I can't help but wonder what it's clinging to in my lungs.  Luckily at the end of this year, I'll be able to go back to the states and detox from second hand smoke.  <!--more-->

The really great part of today came when all of the table in the cafe were full.  An older man came in and both women working clearly knew him.  He asked to sit down with me.  I told him yes.  The waitress came over with his drink (what appeared to be a double vodka over ice) and pushed the no smoking sign on to my half of the table so that she could plop down an ashtray.  Sweet.

Now only half of my table is non-smoking.

Not that it really mattered anyway both women working had already been standing behind me smoking cigarette after cigarette.  It was just such a wonderfully funny thing to me.  The metal sign which say in English (on both sides) no smoking and has a picture of a circle with a line through it covering up the cigarette<strong> </strong>and right past the sign the ashtray and a 70 year old Bulgarian man drinking vodka and smoking.

This is probably an image I should keep in mind the next time I am frustrated by something in Bulgaria.  There are rules and then are there are <em>rules</em>.  Sometimes these are followed and sometimes not.  Or sometimes these rules are sort of followed.  It seems to me in this country that in someway almost everything is flexible.  And this is a hard lesson for me to learn.  Maybe it's a lesson I will never really learn but it's good to remember that not everything is always as it seems.