Single-minded about double beds

THE pleasure of travelling and visiting new countries is learning new cultures, discovering unknown facts, tasting new foods and sleeping in hotels, hostels, tavernas or if nothing else is available then your local barn. This brings me to my particular topic - Double Beds.

I have always taken the subject of Double Beds for granted. If you stay in a decent hotel almost anywhere you should be able to find a double bed. This was never an issue to me until I arrived in Bulgaria about three years ago.

My first apartment in Bulgaria was luxurious by Bulgarian standards - it had a nice kitchen, living area and so forth until it came to the bedroom. Upon opening the bedroom door I immediately noticed a funny bump in the middle of the bed. When I pulled the covers back I saw immediately that there were two single beds joined to make a double bed. Unbeknown to me this was going to be something very common while travelling in Bulgaria.

As I began to travel around Bulgaria I began to notice a pattern. No matter where I went, from mountain to sea there was always a problem. Wherever I went I had always trouble finding a double bed. This didn't seem to matter when I was on my own but when I was with my partner it began to make a huge difference. How are you supposed to embrace late at night with a huge gap between the two beds that threatens to send you to an abyss and then to the nearest hospital with multiple fractures? I can't understand why there aren't double beds in the country. There is wood; there are springs, there are nails and there is paint; what else do you need to make a bed? If I were a business person perhaps I would start making double beds and offering them to hotels all over the country. It seems wherever I have gone I have had to join two single beds together. Maybe there is a secret password for obtaining double beds and I don't know as it yet. Perhaps if you serve the Bulgarian nation with distinction you are offered the

privilege of a double bed wherever you go throughout the land as a reward.

Out of desperation I have even tried to bribe one or two receptionists in the hope I could get this strange rare artefact but I have always failed. Sometimes while laying in a single bed late at night I think `hmmm maybe they think that because I am not tall I don't need a double bed; maybe there is a height requirement which I don't know about'. No matter how much I think about it I never get the answer. At least now I know that a double bed can also be called a French Bed, I learned this from my last stay at a hotel in Albena. I don't actually know exactly what this exotic and elusive French Bed looks like as they had none available but at least now I know I can also ask for French beds.

I began to think `what is about Bulgaria and double beds? Why is there always a shortage of double beds?' At the beginning it didn't really matter to me but slowly this began to get on my nerves. I needed an explanation as to why there were no double beds to be found in most hotels in Bulgaria. Of course there is no point asking people, as they will say "that's how things are" but you respond "why are things like this?" and they respond "because" - the end result is that you get into a vicious circle in which nobody has an answer. Nobody really knows why there are no double beds - it's one of the many mysteries of Bulgaria

Unable to get an answer from people I began to derive some hypothesis - Did someone steal all the double beds in Bulgaria from hotels? Was there a natural disaster involving double beds? Perhaps in their extremely extensive history a Bulgar king forbade all double beds from the land. This had led to further thinking "I wonder if the single bed makers realise that Bulgaria has a very low reproduction rate. If they knew that the reproduction rates for Bulgaria are so low as to have a negative growth on the population perhaps they would patriotically start making double beds and offering them everywhere specially hotels where people go to enjoy their honeymoons.

I live with the hope and dream of one day walking into a hotel in Bulgaria and saying "May I have a room please" and then the reply will come back from the receptionist saying "Of course sir, what would you like? Single, double, queen size beds?". At this point I will either collapse in shock of course or wake up as I would know fully well it's only a dream. QUEEN SIZE bed?!!!! Only in far away dreams. Yes I do know hotels are not in the habit of having queen size beds but you can always dream.

Martin Luther King had a dream. His dream was big whereas my dream by comparison is tiny, almost microscopic. I dream that one-day men and women throughout this ancient land will be able to hold each other in their comfortable double bed. I wish that one day Bulgaria will be a land where double beds (or French beds for that matter) are plentiful in any hotel.

May you go to sleep in peace tonight in your double bed. As you sleep or read your book with your partner next to you think of all those couples out there being forced to join two single beds to make a double bed. Sleep well and happy dreams to you. God bless the double bed makers throughout the world.

Sounding Board is a weekly guest column for members of Bulgaria's expatriate community to voice their opinions or recount stories from their life in Bulgaria. Submissions should be 700 words, accompanied by a photo, and emailed to editor@sofiaecho.com.