Salt Palace Sofia

got to the airport at half 4 in the morning, flight left on time at half 6, 3 seats between the two of us wohoo i can stretch out!

Got off the plane and was sooo excited I was going to see my dad in the next half hour I wanted to just leave the bas and get outside and meet him!! gray had to calm me down a bit!

Once we had bags we went to the entrance and turned the mobile on...argh it ...

... center looking for a place with a bit of character. It was going dark and we needed to stop.

Baz went straight to bed, still feeling under the weather and 'flu-ish' as he had for the last few days. Tim, Pete and myself had a quick beer in the hotel bar and headed out looking for a restaurant - "just down the road on the right" said the hotel bod. After walking for ages, we asked at a garage and ...

... the manager to finally figure out to use the card machine. As soon as we were good, Megan and I booked it out of there and headed back to our hostel to plan out the next day and get the smoke out of our hair and off our skin. The beds were actually quite comfortable, partly because they were slightly larger than ours back in the apartments, and we managed to get a decent night of sleep. The next morning we woke up early, ate some more amazing breakfast pastries and some coffee ...

... anywhere that has attractive women serving beer is bound to be exceptionally expensive. I elected instead to go to Lavazza next door. This is basically just a small wooden hut with a few tables under some parasols. Nevertheless I got a bottle of the quite palatable, yet unpronounceable, Wymehcho lager and a huge slice of pizza (a Bulgarian favourite) for around £1.32. That is the sort of price I want for a beer and pizza, even the fat beggar who sat at my table ...

... place to camp. I gave the orthodox nuns who lıved there a letter kındly dıctated by Nemanja and written by Tikana on my last night in Belgrade. I thınk the nuns were ımpressed as they showed me to fıeld adjacent to the monastery. A lıttle of Ernest's rakia would take the chill off a cold night. In the morning the nuns invited me for breakfast before I set off. The weather was cold the next mornıng and everythıng was numb by lunch tıme. I warmed up wıth ...

... stop, which was entrance into Bulgaria, we were held up even more because the border police didnt recognize the Korean and Mexican passports from the group. So we were held up while they called another office to see if they needed visas to enter. This took about 3 and a half hours where we had to sit inside an unairconditioned bus. Overall the border took about 5 hrs to pass. After the ...

... yelling match between people on the tram and her ensues. Only one lady ended up helping her out. But I keep saying I don't understand. I get off and they get off too. I was hoping just to get away from them but they wanted to take me to policija. They show me a pamphlet about how to validate tickets. I didn't even see the validation machines on the tram. It looks like a handle to hold onto. Not validation things. Furthermore I just entered the city, the ...

First, I forgot to mention a quite interesting fellow I met in the hostel and hung out with for a couple days, Ernest. He was very smart, funny, kind, and generally together. This all made his past, which I eventually got him to disclose using a combination of tact and curiosity-induced rudeness, all the more surprising. His life story goes roughly as follows... Age 15 his family moves to Phili, he is suddenly in public instead of private ...

The escalators into the bowels of Sofia rail station haven't worked for years. You can tell by the thick rust build up on them. Dimly lit, cold and dirty...and scary, that's Sofia rail station. Ellen and I looked at one another, both wanting to say "Let's get the hell out of here." But there was no point in saying it. Leaving wasn't an option. The northbound train headed towards Budapest that we had gotten off left ten minutes earlier and was long ...

... soot from winters heated by coal. Another idiosyncrasy of Sofia is the difficulty with which stores change even small bills. One would think that these stores take in quite a bit of cash over the course of the day, and yet change is often provided in an odd combination of money, band-aids, gum, and whatever else they have on hand. But without a doubt, my absolute favorite quirk of Sofia is the ability of their Guinea Pigs to tell your fortune. Alex and I had our ...