Metropolitan Hotel Sofia

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

... we couldn't stomach the idea of getting something from its neighboring food stand, which doubles as a cigarette vendor looked a bit dodgy. So we set out on our final affiar of the night, a 45 min search through the neighborhood for any fast food joint. In the end, dejected and unwilling to venture further afield lest we cross into prossy/mugger/gipsy territory, we headed back to the hostel, stopping at the food/cigarette stand for a hotdog. The sausages were taken ...

... and I went back to Olive's with Hannah and had some drinks for a few hours. It was nice to relax and have some idol conversation. We met back at the apartment and decided to find a place that was authentic Indian food. When we got to the place, there was a sign outside that was different than in the travel guide, so we milled around wondering what to do next. While we were waiting, we bumped into a couple of Frenchmen who were looking for the same place to eat. Together we decided ...

... the inspector jumped on. Leah got a fine of 10 lev (5 euro) as she had been on the bus at about 5pm, tram and now another tram, but he said mine was ok. Then when Leah used the ticket puncher on her fine ticket he said I had to pay a fine also as mine had been punched on the last tram. We argued this with him as the pamphlet says in English that tickets are valid for 2 trips within 1 hour which was what I had done. We eventually paid our fine ...

... d stop somebody straight away, where 2 of us had to wait for a little while. We caught a lorry with a Turkish driver inside. He took us to the Bulgarian-Serbian border. We had to wait for him there for about 2,5 h, as it took a while to get with the lorry through the customs. We stopped for a night several miles behind the Serbian border. Me and Marcin wanted to pitch our tent, right next to the car park and the lorries, but our Turkish friend - Jaser ...

... salads at smoky restaurants (everybody here smokes except small children) and had a really cute blue room. headed out the next day for Plovdiv. It was POURING rain, but we were brave, put on shorts and sandals and went out to see stuff. It was just too much, so we gave up, went out for chinese food and a movie. Typical theatre experience, it was a huge old place, full of empty coat racks and grand staircases and a lady with an apron who took our ticket to go into ...

... feels a lot like Colorado and reminds me of being at a ski resort with how thin and cold the air is, yet the sun is hot and close enough to keep it pleasantly cool outside. The mountains are close to the city, rocky, reddish brown, high.... snowcapped. Beautiful from the  airplane coming in.  When I arrived at the airport there was a driver from the hostel I'm staying at tonight holding a sign up, waiting to take me back to the hostel. He was a ...

... have it on the dance floor (those that know me well will realise the humour in that, those that dont will think Im extremely arrogant... Im happy with either). We spent the night raving to some funky early 90s tracks, which they really love in this part of the world, including such greats as Snow (informer) Ini komoze (hot stepper), Bon jovi (who cares...not the name of the song... its just that I really dont care for Bon Jovi and the only pleasure he gives me is to Cuss him ...

... reported quietly that he was going home. We never saw him again. An hour later, the place was closing. I had been on water for a while so starting to sober up ever so slightly. Still massively drunk, obviously. We managed to prise Paul away from the stage, but rather than join us he entered fevered negotiations with the strip club 'madam'. "Guys!" He reported with glee. "It's only 100 [thirty quid] for an hour! What do you think?" "Goodnight Paul", said we ...

... Serbin zu nem Calwer Bub mit herrlichen ungarischen Fluechen reichte. Polyglottes Meeting also. Ich lernte die naechsten Tage viel, das ich schon gewusst hatte, und dazu noch dass ich zu viel arbeite, in Chisinau. Es waren nette 3 Tage in einem Hotel, das seit dem Sozialismus kein Update mehr bekommen hatte, auf einem Berg neben einem Dorf vor den Toren Sofias. Am Sonntag dann war ich mir unsicher, ob ich den 30Euro-Nachtzug nach Bukarest nehmen sollte ...