I had the same experience, Carolyn. I basically didn't notice the smoke too much until I came back to the US. In the village where I lived there was one restaurant. It was quite small and in the winter they would close all the windows. The one-room establishment became a big, hazy cloud of smoke. The smoke didn't bother me too much; it's just something you get used to. Hopefully it didn't have any long term effects on my health.

I wrote a thing on smoking in Bulgaria two years ago.

http://backinbulgaria.blogspot.com/2008/11/smoke-it-up.html