Nikola Zdravkov Ivanov is a 29-year-old Bulgarian who lives in Sofia, where he runs a laundry/dry-cleaning service. He has born in 1977 in Bulgaria to Bulgarian parents, but in 1991 moved to the Dominican Republic with his father, who was in charge of a large electrical station. He stayed there through 1996, a five-year period in which he visited the US on several occasions, as well as receiving his high school education through American schools. His father still lives in the Dominican Republic, but Nikola returned to Bulgaria for one year in 1996-1997, where he found time to graduate from the Maritime Academy in Varna.

So it was that when he left Bulgaria again in 1997 to move to the States, he found work at Seaboard, on-board a cargo ship plying the Caribbean, from Venezuela to Florida. Originally assigned as a fourth mate, he was promoted several times over the course of his career there, and his original intention had been to remain in the United States.

After the election of President George W Bush in 2000, however, he didn't like the direction that America was taking.

"As a lifestyle, it's great, it's all worked out, it's perfect" - but there was growing suspicion and distrust, and a pervasive feeling that people had to watch out because someone might be watching. He also mentioned America's falling standing in the world due to its increasingly war-like stance, and the resulting difference in treatment and experience between an American abroad, and, say, a Canadian.

Another reason for his moving back was that he didn't like the idea of doing just one thing, and had a certain feeling that he had "seen it all" - having been sailing the Caribbean for so long going back and forth between the same US and Central American ports, he was ready for a change.

So, in 2005, he moved back home to Bulgaria, married his long-time girlfriend, and started up his business. When I asked if he intended on staying in Bulgaria, he said simply, "For now I'm here"- he has no plans to move away, but doesn't rule out the possibility for the future.

He acknowledges that Bulgaria is not without its problems - "no one thinks twice" about making a mess, he says, gesturing to the pile of debris outside the window of his store from construction work elsewhere in the building. Then there's also driving - he hopes, however, that Bulgaria's entrance into the European Union will help to solve many of the society, economic, and political problems created by the fall of communism.

"We'll see what happens," he says, "and if it doesn't work we'll re-think things".