Lion Hotel 4 Bansko

Hallo zusammen,<br><br>wie im vorigen Eintrag erwaehnt bin ich zum Rila Kloster gefahren, dem Jerusalem Bulgariens, UNESCO Weltkulturerbe und in 1000m Hoehe in den Pirin Bergen gelegen. <br><br>Von Sofia bin ich zunaechst mit dem Bus nach Dupnitsa gefahren, 60km im Sueden, 2,50 Euro fuer die Fahrt. Dupnitsa ist tiefste Provinz, englisch spricht hier niemand (und ...

... late and missed the gondola ride that would take me up to the mountain, so I was stuck in a city where half of it was empty (its major industry is skiing in the winter), having nothing to do. I walked the streets, used the hotel&#8217;s wifi to go to internets and relaxed. I ate a simple dinner and tried their "draft wine", I guess it means homemade wine without filtering, and it was cheap and nice.

8th June<br><br>Sofia to Rila Monastery<br><br>Sunny am 27 degrees Late storm<br><br>After breakfast we left our lovely hotel room in Sofia to drive to Rila Monastery. We made one detour to see some sign-posted rock formations where we drove up a goat track for a while, then climbed a hill and got to see a nice view but with no sign of the rock formations ...

... out towards departure time to make sure we had gotten on it! The scenery was pretty average - could have been anywhere really with fairly flat regions all obviously under cultivation with something or other throughout the year. The little villages were a bit run down but better than I expected in some ways - all characterized with every house having several grape vines and often long ropes of what looked like drying ...

... but I will stress that we have not encountered anything like this. The majority of the group (6 out of the 8) have now departed for Sofia for the last day, whilst 2 of us have stayed in Bansko, we have arranged a transfer back to Sofia. As of this post I have not heard if they made it OK :-) We plan to regroup at Sofia airport for the trip home tomorrow (Tuesday). As for the two remaining, we ate at the hotel and were delighted to find that the Liverpool vs Aston Villa game was ...

... everyone else early in the afternoon and we set out on the 2hr bus ride to the Dancing Bear Rescue Park in Belitsa. The road there was so rough that even I couldn't sleep, I think my bottom might be bruised from flying of the seat so much. I know my head hurts pretty bad from bouncing off the window the one time I did try to sleep! The Dancing Bears Park in Belista was founded in 2000 and it ...

Had a lazy morning since we weren't leaving Sophia until 2. Got moving just before noon and then went in search of food. Quick piece of pizza, of course covered in Ketchup. I'm actually starting to get used to the ketchup on pizza slices! Then I tried to do some travelers errands. Browsed some stores and bought a bracelet for my mama while I waited for my pictures to be burnt to a CD. Made friends with the girls at the picture shop and then went to find more ...

... before. I also spend between a half hour and hour reading the Economist, which counts as part of my daily studying quota - I'm studying for the Foreign Service Exam which I'll take in April at the the embassy in Sofia, I might want to be a diplomat when I grow up, but let's not talk about that right now. Usually once a week I meet with one of my colleagues around 11 or 12 because they couldnt make it that week to my English class, and I ...

... is the last week of training, and we have our final LPI (language proficiency interview) which is a 20 minute oral assessment of our skills. instead of a grade they tell you your ability, either novice-low, novice-mid, novice-high, intermed-low, -mid, -high, advanced-low, -mid, -high, or superior. i'm going for somewhere in the intermediate range, i think i'll get it, and i think that's just really cool to be there after 2 months of a new language.

... know how she feels about being married so young, if she thinks it's weird that other people outside bulgaria get married late, what she thinks about politics, if she wants to have another kid, whatever. But for now I just have fun getting across ideas like I'm hungry, I want to shower, Valerie is at her house, I don't want vodka with dinner (Giorgi tries every night.) Just picture these thoughts as extremely broken sentences and that's my level of bulgarian.