Arriving back in "Cote de Soleil", the French moniker for Sunny Beach, at 1 in the morning didn't leave me well-disposed to head for Varna on Saturday morning.
Sleep instead beckoned, and today's activities have been modest, even by my oft-sluggish standards. Lunch of dining room fish (the Riu serves a lot of it, and is a damn good non-pork option, even if I can't trace its provenance). A copy of The Times, and articles explaining the potential collapse of the governing dictatorships of Iran and Formula 1 motor racing. A stroll along the tacky but impressive beachfront. And, naturally, a quest.
Ever since my abortive attempt to play rugby at London Business School in the 1990s, I have been and ever-increasing rugby fan. I even have chosen favorite countries--Argentina (following a great conversation with a true Argentine rugbyman in andean Bariloche), and Wales, because they have the best in-stadium singing.
Today's quest was to see a match between World Champs South Africa, and the "British and Irish Lions.".The Lions are one of rugby's most revered traditions. Every four years, they gather the best of Britain's and Ireland's rugby pros for a three match series against one of the sport's fearsome Southern Hemisphere powers--Australia, New Zealand and New Zealand.
Rather than seen as an all-star jolly to sunny climes, the Lions series actually exceeds Rugby's World Cup in prestige--particularly with the World Cup incumbents as the hosts. So this year's epic first match demanded viewing. Being in Bulgaria was no excuse. And two rules: no empty venues and no Boliarka beer. As a haunt with a fair British clientele, seaside pubs with satellite tv were quite common here. But venues with the Lions were fewer on the ground. Some were showing Formula 1 qualifying, others obscure Norwegian League football matches. One, conveniently located, was pouring Boliarka, the ugly duckling among Bulgaria's otherwise competent local brews, the one on tap at the Riu.
I walked another half hour down the strand, and a seaside restaurant with 8 flat screens beckoned, along with a dozen brits wearing football shirts from the likes of Swindon Town and whomever has FourFourTwo.com as its shirt sponsor.
The crowd was unsociable, my Wisconsin Badger shirt and Americanized cheering failing to produce any response from the throng. But the match was more than worth the stroll and the surliness--with an epic brittanohibernian fightback following some easy early points yielded to the South Africans, only for the hosts to stymie the hybrid nationals at the end.
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