<em>I've been thinking about this for sometime now and here it is. I am starting a regular "column" on my blog titled "Notes from Sofia."  The idea is this: every week or so I invite/ask/beg/steal/cajole/borrow a Bulgarian or expat living in Bulgaria to write a guest post about some aspect of their life in the city. This is the first installment. </em>

I asked one of my regular followers if she was interested in writing. She has a Bulgarian blog that I look at from time to time.  Most of the time I have no idea what she's writing about but she always makes such thoughtful comments on my blog I thought: ask <a href="http://just-helen.blogspot.com/">Helen</a>. So that's exactly what I did.  Luckily, she said yes and what you're about to read is her guest post:

Carolyn has asked me to write a guest post for her new column in the blog. This is because I am a renowned expert on two things:

a) taxi drivers

b) public transportation

I am flattered by this possibility to express my thoughts in front of her fans but bear in mind that this is me speaking; it is not Carolyn. Oh, and, Carolyn, I insist to call you Carolyn because you see Karolina or Karolinka it is not really a common name in Bulgaria. <!--more-->It is not in the Eastern Orthodox tradition.  It is more typical for Poland and the Czech Republic. And I know that you want to get closer to Bulgaria, not to any other country into the former Eastern block. Although, I do love Prague; Prague always on my mind.

Notes from Sofia. Well, I’ve been living here for some 13 years now. And I like Sofia. It was a conscious decision to come to live here. I love the Big City because it is full of opportunities. You have choices here. You get to choose where to live, what to eat and how to keep yourself amused. You get to choose on the labour market. You don’t have to put up with some nasty job. And if money is not enough you could always find additional assignments like tutoring or writing or …. I don’t know, driving a cab? You have a choice of movies or shows to see. Cafés and leisure activities. Bookstores and clubs. You have a choice for transportation. And at the same time you get to be accountable only to yourself. You don’t have to care about what other people are thinking of you because 1) they do not actually know you; 2) they have seen stranger things before. So they don’t care about you and you get to not care about them. The inconspicuousness of the Big City.

Mind you, I don’t say that this kind of nonchalance should go into extremes, either. Like it is the case lately in Sofia. The holes in the roads and the uneven pavements have become far too obtrusive. And so is the case for the general rudeness and aggressiveness of people’s behaviour. I guess what we all need to do now is to put some healthy boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not.

P.S. Sorry, Carolyn, but missing the “u” in words like “labour” and “behaviour” feels simply wrong to me.

<em>So, if you like the idea, think you have something interesting to say or you want to write just let me know. </em>