Guus Bosman

Chestita Baba Marta!

Today is a special day in Bulgaria. On March 1st Marteniza (see the picture) are given to friends and family to wish them health and happiness. The red and white colors symbolize the end of winter and the coming of spring.

These decorations are worn until you see a sign of spring, such as birds migrating or trees blooming.

Read more about it here or here.

Mr. Chirac is very unhappy about the pro-American stands of many East-European countries. Yesterday evening at the EU emergency meeting he called Bulgaria's behavior "childish":

"They missed a great opportunity to shut up," he chided the candidates, and their pro-US stance could feed public hostility to EU expansion. Their position is already very delicate, he said, and if they wanted to diminish their chances of joining the EU they could not have chosen a better way. "When you are in the family ... you have more rights than when you are asking to join and knocking on the door," he said.

We have seen our fair share of 'new politicians' this year in the Netherlands.

In an article about Emile Ratelband in the Washington Post:

He calls EU expansion "crazy," saying, "we don't need these gangsters, like Bulgaria." But he thinks Turkey should be allowed into the EU.

Obviously Bulgarians were not very pleased. The spokesman of the Bulgarian government, Todorov, declined to comment. "The ministry will stick to its practice and will not comment statements of foreign politicians made during pre-election campaigns".

Interesting enough on the agenda of Lijst Ratelband it said: "TV opnames voor de Bulgaarse televisie, Bulgarian National Television voor het programma ”Every Sunday”. LIVE!".

In a few days Tamara Burton will visit Bulgaria. She is the granddaugther of John Vincent Atanasoff, one of the most famous Bulgarians ever.

In this newspaper article (in English)
he is referred to as the person who invented the world's first electronic digital computer.

He worked an the Iowa State College, USA and designed a machine that could solve lineair equations electronically. He worked on this project with an assistant, Clifford Berry but in 1942 they were forced to abandon their project due to the war.

In 1947 a patent was requested for the ENIAC, which was called the first all-purpose digital computer ever. In 1964 this patent was granted and the owner of the patent started to sue other companies building digital computers. However, these companies convinced the judge that Atanasoff's machine was designed before the ENIAC, and had in fact influenced the ENIAC's design. The judge agreed and cancelled the patent.

A friend of Sasha told us about a cheaper way of calling Bulgaria. It's called Teledump. The rate to Bulgaria is 5 ct per minute, including tax.

Calling using KPN is at least 32 ct per minute, using 1658 it's also at least 32 ct per minute so it's a big difference.

The quality of the connection wasn't extremely well, but then again: 5 cts.... When we call my parents we pay 3,7 cts per minute.

I've just added a new link: Bulgarije.tk, a website for Bulgarians in Holland.

I think it might also be quite interesting for people who are just interested in Bulgaria. The site is in Dutch and Bulgarian.

today we went to the Bulgarian embassy; Alex voted in the Bulgarian election. Let's see what will happen: will the king win? How big would be the democrat's defeat? The first results will come in a few hours.

Also we saw Tibi & Janneke, it was very nice. Played Carcassone. The bus connection between their house and hours is really good.