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I first came to Bulgaria 13 years ago for a digital art workshop at the National Film Academy. For the next eight years I travelled back and forth from the Netherlands which was very tiring and then, because my wife is from here and we wanted to start a family, we decided to settle down. I like: ItÕs a lot more relaxing here than the extremely uptight life in Western Europe where everything is done by the book. I donÕt like: I live on the first floor of our apartment block and all the windows have metal bars on them, itÕs like a prison. I find that hard to accept. About the bureaucracy: When Bulgaria joined the EU they made a new document for EU citizens with your name and a number on it. The number has no meaning anywhere else. However, Bulgarian administration requires your social security number and permanent address of registration on your documents. My Dutch passport doesnÕt have my address but does have the number, but in the wrong format. So to make up for this Ð and it took almost a year to figure this out Ð they invented yet another piece of laminated paper for which you have to file another request and pay another tax. This paper certifies that the person with such-and-such an address, together with the original document are the same. So instead of fixing the problem by having one card with all the necessary data, they came up with yet another piece of paper.
