Vitosha Hostel Sofia

... oops we forgot to tell you the airport is stupidly expensive...cheers dad!

car ride was looong but its quite a nice journey scenerys lovely. you go out of sofia and through the mountains then its through farmers fields and small villages dotted about. notlooking forward to the bus trip back though, the parents don't fancy a 10 hour round trip to take us back to the airport too, damn!!

... the serbian government when she checked her passport, and the bulgarian one, too. We got checked three times...First two times, she bribed in cigarettes, third time, she gave 10 Bulgarian lev. I'll try to get the video of her on the seat, after we passed the border guard. ****en crazy cigarette smuggling Bulgarians.

I walked around Sofia, today. Nothing here. Not really impressed, but i stopped here cause it was cheap and i didn't want to go straight ...

... around and head back the way we came (that didn't work either). So once again carving across downtown Sofia we found the University (didn't know it at the time) and a really interesting statue that was literally a few feet away from the Church. How we missed it coming back I'll never know, but we did eventually find our way back to the main road with some luck found a tourist agency that gave us a map to use. So with some actual direction in mind, we headed to the Cathedral ...

... to be preparing to give a conference nearby, I snapped a photo of him quickly in case any of his thuggish looking bodyguards took exception to this. I next passed the St Nikolai church, a beautiful little building opposite, inappropriately, a self proclaimed "gentleman's club" (one of many in Sofia). Orthodox crosses and pink images of naked women are quite a combination. The parliament building and various smaller churches and statues in the area are also worth a ...

We were only in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria since 1879, for a night. Sofia is named after Saint Sofia, meaning wisdom in one language or another! : < ) Sofia had other names but has been around since Roman times and you see remains just laying around the city. We feasted on HUGE slices of pizza for about a dollar for lunch at a park. Of course, we then wandered around the city to see a few sites: Changing of the guards at the President's ...

... a rough-looking bag lady as she attempted to find a comfortable sleeping posture on the unforgiving benches. Each time she flinched he would let out a high-pitched howl and jump up and down like some infantile chimp. Then he would look over to me to see if I was equally amused, and I would sheepishly bury my head in my book and wish his antics and his odour away. Completing the sorry parade were two lame dogs that limped from bench to bench looking for food and ...

... Christmas-party and many others things we were too much out and -of course- in the last days I socialized more than before going out with every possiblle waiter for example. Funny it was, but also really superficial. Luckily, on the last week i got also ex-EVS-volunteers Kristi and Moritz for a visit who at least a bit helped to keep my feet on the ground. They had just felt their EVS-positions in Bosnia and we could exchange our thoughts. And the ...

... has lived it. After that we saw more churches, and then to the St Alexander Cathedral which was golden domed. It was really, really pretty... maybe my favorite church yet just because of its uniqueness. Inside the chandelliers dropped over 100 m to head height and te ceilings were covered in gold and paintings. Beautiful. Afterwards the tour ended and we had a free day. I went to the market across the street and saw some really cool WWII memorabilia which ...

I apologize for being lazy lately, but I will try to catch up over the next few days. Memories and antecdotes slip away very, very quickly I am learning. Anyway, Sofia, as well as I can remember... Day one was spent recovering from the bus trip. I stayed up about 40 hours straight, with perhaps a 10 minute nap on the bus. A new record. Day 2 was spent on a tour sponsored by the hostel. It was a law student in Bulgaria .it ...

... from the coast, talking about their experiences growing up under a communist regime and watching that regime fall. Travel can be so surreal sometimes. Alex and I said our goodbyes this afternoon, and I'm just about to touch down in London to catch a flight back to the States. It was so wonderful to see Alex and her boyfriend (a term I love, given his - ahem - "mature" nature!) They were the best of hosts and made sure that I tried All Things Bulgarian, except for the local ...