Barcelo Festa Sofia

... small talk by asking how her vacation was so far. She said that she had been in Skopje for 11 days now and trust me, one is sufficient. So I wanted to know the usual such as if she had been to Lake Ohrid or elsewhere prettier than Skopje, and she said, nope, just Skopje. Now enquiring minds have to know what in the world one does for almost two weeks in this town, and I knew I shouldn't go there. The bait was dangling and I took it hookm line and ...

Sad day, Chris and Buddy left me in Dublin while I flew to Bulgaria for some machine training. After a sad but quick goodbye I hopped on my first flight to Frankfurt where I had a lovely three hour layover, then a flight to Sofia.

On the approach to Bulgaria the pilot decided about a few hundred feet up that he didn't like the angle so he gunned the throttle and slammed us back in ...

So we woke in a haze of smoke (turns out our oil heater gets a bit smokey when left on overnight) but nice and warm. Brilliant suny day outside so we rugged up and headed out to explore the city starting with again good old Lonely Planet and their walking guide to the City. Lots of beautiful places to see and treacherous icy sidewalks to navigate. However being a weekday all the locals were out and about trying to clear the sidewalks of ice - by hand with ...

... er faehrt, der Hoehepunkt erwartet uns aber an der griechisch-bulgarischen Grenze: Nachdem wir dort eh schon eine Stunde nur rumgestanden haben u.a. weil die Grenzpolizei mit den Paessen der beiden Bulgaren fuer eine Ewigkeit verschwunden ist, setzt sich der Zug endlich wieder in Bewegung... aber zu frueh gefreut. Nach nicht mal einem Kilometer bleiben wir wieder stehen und fahren (aus was fuer Gruenden auch immer) wieder zur Grenze zurueck, wo wir dann wieder ...

... of being overly frivolous by not planning anything ahead, so we arrived at 6 a.m. by train with no accommodation to go to, and train station staff that are surely trained to go out of their way to not help you and make you feel like annoying ****. Maybe we just asked all the wrong people. We did find a place two hours later, and it was warm, clean and the lady at the front desk was incredibly nice, which bolstered us a bit. We planned our two days by ...

... girls Loren, Erin and Catherine, and we had a great time visiting with their whole family. Buddy the golden retriever is still in his puppy stage and was happy to have new people to lick. Scott drove us back home after dinner and then I embarked on this incredibly long-winded history lesson for you all. I forgot to mention that Daniela and I hazarded a trip to a local "Magazine" which is a mini grocery store. We bought the major necessities of Coke, a candy bar ...

... By smartly dressed, I should be precise and say that the local youth style here is vaguely reminiscent of the Zoolander "derelikt" line, but it does look good when everyone is doing it. The meal's presentation was as good as its taste, which in some places is not saying much, but it's the best I've eaten since arriving in Europa. The waitress spoke just enough English to compensate for the fact that I've learned virtually no Bulgarian (apart from ...

... Bucharest) (July 10) Had an extra long train ride from Bucharest back into Bulgaria. We went for about 45 min then the train stopped for an hour. Got to the border and it stopped for an hour. Crossed into Bulgaria and it stopped for an hour (another immigration check). So after over 4 hours we'd gone a total of about 80km (~53 miles). After about 7 hours I made it to Gorna Oryahovitsa nearby to my destination. From there I caught a bus to Veliko Turnovo. Walked around lost ...

... to be a ski instructor was that she spoke English now she is constantly trying to keep her image clear of being a shpoinka (spy), seeing as she just kind of wanders around bulgaria, asking everybody lots of questions about who owns what, especially in areas like Bansko where gangsters pretty much supplied the money to start the ski resort development a few years ago and developing right on protected national park lands glad it's her asking the ...

... you could imagine that at this point they were on a boot camp mission to get up the mountain - poor Chrissy and I weren't in the best of shape for this undertaking but we did eventually make it after many stops to catch our breath....we had to meet the boys up the top. The scenery was beautiful though and we did get to see our lakes. Apparently they ski around this area in the winter. The accommodation was a little to be desired - apparently the showers ...