Budapest Hotel Sofia

... work we didn't get it set up to work abroad...oops. go outside to find the father...he's not there. ask where to get change and get pointed to a small exchange office. decided that we'd just get a drink at the cafe and get changethat way, picked up a can of coke and went to pay for it....5 LEV. gave a 10 and got a 5LEV note back. but we need change please....go to the bank we don't give change ...

... booze. Mostly just healthy and terrefic juices, teas, and smoothies. Highly recommended. <br><br>We explored Sofia's many churches, synagogues, and mosques - a tribute to its varied history. The most well known is the gold domed Orthodox church, Sveti Alexander Nevski. Much more impressive from outside than in, the gold domes are visible from quite far away. Inside it is a fairly typical Orthodox church, with creepy images of saints peering ...

... front window with marker pen. Considering the fact the train to the city is in such high demand I was somewhat confused when only about eight people got on the bus. I began to wonder why, but it didn't seem important as I slowly fell into beer-fuelled unconsciousness. What better way to enter the Islamic world?. I quickly found out why- because the Turkish border is very much my vision of hell, it seems to have been designed just to be an absolute pain in the ****. The ...

... from C to B when we got there was long too. They need a train system like Atlanta... Finally, when we got to our gate everything was sorted but oddly, instead of boarding the plane we boarded a bus to the plane. The plane (an Airbus 319) is a big jet but we used stairs to get to the plane. I think Frankfurt does not have enough gates to accommodate the number of flights. This seems like an odd solution. Anyway we got to Sofia and grabbed a taxi to the hotel ...

... time at, and everyone seems to take an evening stroll down the main boulevard (Vistosha Boulevard) eating ice cream. It's at these times that Sofia is lovely. It's the other times like when you get sold exhausted/counterfeit batteries (twice), things are closed when they are meant to be open and vice versa and a number of other little annoyances that add up and start to get irritating. I think me and Sofia got off on the wrong foot and never quite recovered fully ...

... right. Sofia must have been the epitome of a communist city in its heyday. It was just more and more concrete spread as far as the eye could see. I keep thinking I would come across a park or a large city square or something interesting, but it was not to be found. Even the Christmas lights weren't very pretty - they looked haphazardly strewn over trees and lampposts by someone who would have much rather been anywhere else. The most central ...

... happy to help us and very soon we were merrily bunny hopping down the road (I should add that I was too chicken to drive myself, although I blamed the fact that my license had been stolen when I was in Edinburgh). We firstly drove about 20 ks north to a Monastery, where we were met by a monk who happily chatted to us in Bulgarian for about 5 minutes, of course none of us could understand him, but at least he was friendly. Behind the monastery was a track that followed a ...

... You buy 100 grams of Bulgarian cheese and two tomatoes for dinner (to make a pseudo-salad or whatnot), and it costs you a total of 30 eurocents. 9) The ministry of silly walks rules at the changing of the guards at the President Building. The soldiers shout "huss" and then high kick their way a couple feet forward while slapping their boots back down on the pavement. I have pictures - no joke! 10) You go see Pirates of the Caribbean (finally!!) and there is an ...

... the hotel room until 2:00 or 3:00. And that ruins the day for sightseeing, and cannot be done if I have to catch a morning train or plane. (It also means I don't get any housekeeping. Ack!) Lastly, it just seems wrong to me - 6:00 p.m. is Happy Hour, not the time to be having your breakfast coffee at a cafe, and I find it hard to make myself wait to start the evening. Hence, my conclusion that the 2:00 a.m. cutoff is good.

... a church, beside which the filming of something was going on. G was quite intrigued, so we hung around for a while, but nothing much happened; people with electronic equipment hanging from their belts walked to and fro, a prop helicopter was wheeled around, that was about it. The central part of Sofia is a pleasant place, with lots of shops, stately buildings and things to see. After we got settled into our room, we ...