I've become interested in learning Bulgarian because 1; I like Cyrillic and 2; I may be moving to Bulgaria for business opportunities.
So I'm wondering how is this language? I've just started teaching myself Cyrillic and I'm not finding it too difficult. And a native Bulgarian I know tells me that Bulgarian and Russian are the same language, but that the Russians don't want to admit it.

Another problem I have with learning online; I have a standard english keyboard. Short of buying a Cyrillic keyboard, will I have to stick to alt codes if I want to type in Cyrillic?

No, download Transliterator (also known as ToCyrillic) for Firefox.

You can install the Cyrillic keyboard layout without buying a Cyrillic keyboard. The problem is that the keyboard layout is completely different than QWERTY. It's not like Greek where it's kinda-sorts the same.

здравей

>>1
They're not quite identical languages, but they are close enough that a native speaker of one can understand the great majority of the other. It's probably slightly easier for Bulgarians to understand Russians than vice-versa, on average, because Russia is so much more powerful politically and economically (that's the way it works with close languages--speakers of the more-dominant language have less incentive to understand the "lesser"). Also back in the commie days, Bulgarians all studied Russian. But they're close enough to be largely mutually intelligible in both directions. I'm a student of Russian with only moderate proficiency, and I can read and understand spoken Bulgarian fairly comfortably.

OP Here. Thanks for the input.
A friend in Bulgaria has decided to teach me some Bulgarian. He is also a computer tech so for a start he sent me a keyboard layout for Cyrillic. I push Alt+Shift and I can type in Cyrillic. They match up with their English equivalent(Save for a few)ДЖБИПЛЦЧЮЩ. Yeah. makes things easier. And I've just about got Cyrillic down.