I've never been to Bulgaria, but will never forget some seven or eight years ago when I heard a man speak Bulgarian, I was bewildered by how much of what he said I could understand effortlessly - probably around 80%.... I had previously never been aware of the similarities between Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian. Naturally, I always thought of the distinctions between Serbian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Bosnian as completely farcical.... ππ