Hotel Orlando 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!!

... know I guess. He took us back to his apartment and we hardly saw him again for the next couple of nights because he was so busy at work. He did however have time to take us to an amazingly interesting bar called "the apartement". It was basically set up like many different styled apartment rooms, each one with a computer so whoever was in the room could control the music and mood. Calling it a bar is a bit of a stretch as it doesn't sell ...

... fully understood where I get those carlsbergs from, I must have hidden a crate somewhere when I was really drunk and can only remember the location when in a similar state). Luckily Sofia is one of the pizza capitals of the world and I spent the last of my Levs on a Pizza and water. Pizza is only fully appreciated after a few beers. Eventually ten thirty rolled around and I strolled across to the bus sitting in the far corner of the station with "Istanbul" written in ...

We spent the whole day heading to Sofia. Two plane trips and lots of weariness. When we got to the airport in Amsterdam, we noticed our flight was delayed which would have forced us to miss our connection. So the staff switched us to flights through Frankfurt instead. In Frankfurt, the airport was crazy. We headed down the terminal to switch from the C to the B terminal and it was clearly the longest airport terminal i've ever been though...was enormous ...

... I've been to and are generally worth going to get a feel of the country and its people, its traditions etc. But it was closed for renovation - there's also one in Plovdiv so I'll go to that one instead. I didn't go to any other museums, I mostly just enjoyed wandering around the side streets taking in the atmosphere. Sofia is basically on a grid system with main boulevards and then lovely little cobbled dusty side streets with pavement cafes that you can while away ...

... Since they didn't seem creepy or like they would spend the whole time trying to convert me, I took them up on their offer (eliciting a cheer of joy from the 8-yr old). After dropping my stuff off at their house and putting together a puzzle with Ruth, I headed out to explore the vast concrete sprawl that is Sofia. Jayne and Dennis had warned me not to expect anything special, but I figured there had to be something there. Unfortunately they ...

Spent one last morning eating feta at the hostel in Sofia, before taking off for Veliko Tarnovo. This involved a very pleasant bus trip through Bulgaria, while attempting to ignore the badly dubbed version of 'The Fast and the Furious' that was playing. I reached Veliko and realised that the bus hadn't stopped where I expected it to, so I had to wonder around a little before I could find my hostel, fortunately I was aided by some friendly locals who volunteered to show me ...

... guy: *after some more haggling* Never mind. 4) When you try to buy water on the train, the man charges the Portuguese guy 6 Leva (about 3 Euro in Bulgarian currency) and then tells you he does not accept Bulgarian currency. Train guy: Romanian money? Yael: No, I don't have any. Train guy: Euro? Yael: No, I don't have Euro. Train guy: Romanian money? Yael: How about one dollar? Train guy: How much is in Euro? Yael: About the same. Train guy: OK. 1 dollar. 5 ...

... sauce portion. It's helpful when deciding what to order, but it seems oddly compulsive (unless you are German), and I can't think of a good reason why Europeans do it and Americans do not; 2. Noted that these alcohol portions can add up. A big pour of a brandy, for example, will be 100 milliliters, or about four ounces or half a small flask. When this is followed by a half-liter of beer (at the higher alcohol levels ...

... wearther was perfect, sunny yet not too hot. I can feel in the air that the season is winding down -- the sun is bright, but the air is cooler and some of the leaves have already started to turn. It's perfect weather for strolling around a city, though, which is what we'll be doing today, as yesterday we did nothing but go to Rila. There's one more update left in me, I think, probably for tomorrow morning before we leave.