Life Is Beautiful But Increasingly Expensive...

... or a brief foray into my recent life, pictures, and events!

I sit, more and more often, like the poet who sits in front of the white writing sheet, pencil in hand, waiting for inspiration to come. Sometimes it comes quickly but sometimes it is so late that I begin to worry. I have an advantage over the poor poet, who has only a pencil and paper.

I rely on and have great help from my photos. All my blogs are full of photos because, unlike real writers, I don't write a story and then illustrate it with a few photos. I always start with the photos. I go to my little archive and search through the photos until their story starts to turn into my story. Generally, that saves me and helps me make another post.

I've been looking at photos for a while without something taking hold. I don't know what to choose... and that's when the idea came. To pick a folder of more recent photos and write about all of them as I remember them from what I did in those days while trying to fit into the theme of writing on Friday when it's #MarketFriday.

I have a feeling this will be a post with lots of pictures and relatively few words.

Glasses

The first photos I see are from the mall near my house. It's the newest mall in Bucharest, a rather tormented mall. It was supposed to be the biggest mall in the city, the name says it all, Colosseum, but when the construction started the real estate crisis started. They postponed it for years, many years. Then, when they decided, the pandemic began, the pandemic ended, the energy crisis began, the massive price increases... Finally, the mall was built, only instead of being the biggest, it ended up being the smallest. A small, small mall with few visitors.

I went to the mall to buy glasses. In fact, to order another pair of glasses, distance glasses, because I had just lost the others.

The loss of the glasses also has a story and proof of the bad luck that is my "good friend".

A few days before, I went for a medical check-up at the cardiologist. A checkup I was afraid of. The result was not so bad, in the sense that it postponed the outcome but at least I didn't have to have surgery. In the euphoria of the moment, I lost my glasses.

Glasses for distance seeing. I could live without them but I couldn't drive the car without them. In a few days, I would be going to Balchik, Bulgaria, so it was imperative to have the glasses.

"My friend", bad luck, is always by my side when I have to go on a trip. There are always extra expenses before departure, expenses that bite into the holiday budget...

In this case, the doctor's visit cost $110, the glasses cost $100, and the medication and travel insurance another hundred dollars. Car insurance, which "coincidentally" just expired, is $200. A total of expenses of over $500, not directly related to the vacation.

Life is beautiful but increasingly expensive...

I've just started writing and I already feel like I'm going to disavow what I stated above. If I were to follow the thread and the order of the photos, it would result in a very long post and I think that is not good. Yesterday I posted something quite long and I noticed something I have noticed for a long time. Namely, that too-long posts started to bore readers. Probably the same time crisis that affects us all...

I jump back in time and over a few photos and reach the road to Balchik, to Bulgaria, to the Black Sea.

High and growing expense. Gasoline. More and more expensive to drive. In fact, by any means of transport.
The gasoline for a trip to Balchik and back cost almost $70.

Time has another dimension in photographs. It flows differently, like in a movie. From the photo on the highway, I can jump straight to Balchik.

Passiflora is a flower that I like very much. Here it is on the wall of the hotel where we stayed on our short holiday. Three nights, a little (two days) before the season opened, so at a substantial discount, cost $110.

Lunch, the most substantial meal for two, cost an average of $25/day. Of course, simple and tasty food. We looked for the usual Bulgarian food.

Breakfast and morning coffee cost, also approximately, also for two, $15/day.

The gorgeous view and the streets flowing to the sea are much to my liking. That costs nothing.

A simple calculation leads me to the conclusion that the three-night trip to Bacic cost $300, that is if I exclude the tickets to visit the castle and Queen Mary's gardens and if I exclude, of course, other purchases of gifts and souvenirs... but these didn't exceed $100.

_{Today is #MarketFriday initiated by @dswigle (Denise, that's her!). It started as a challenge and has grown into a much-loved community here. I can brag about something...}

We always have to put a flower at the end, #alwaysaflower, and now more than ever, flowers from Balchik.

_{If you've read this far and aren't in the HIVE already, may I ask you one question? Do you want to earn for writing? Referral link for a FREE account HERE}