Vega Sofia

... There was one woman on the floor dressed in an embarrassingly short pink and black dress, whom we assumed was a prostitute until we noticed the bartender had a matching outfit. There was a second bar on the other side of the floor with 2 barkeeps dancing to themselves, bringing the staff-to-client ratio 2:3. A TV in one corner mocked us with clips from Ibiza of people doing all manner of things that were not going on at this club: dancing, grinding, partying ...

... lõunat, kui kõik olime end korralikult välja puhanud. "Elukunstnikud" jäid veel magama. Meie läksime peatänavale , mis jookseb meie elamisest teisel pool väljakut, jalutama. Kuradi külm oli! Me ei olnud selleks üldse valmistunud. Anne tahtis kohe saada kusagile poodi, et saada sooja ja osta endale midagi soemat selga. Sellised soovid täituvad kiiresti ja juba esimene sissepõige andis tulemuse. Kampsuni ja dzempri jagu "rikkamana" lahkusime poest. Meie kindel soov ...

Got in on the train 2 hours late and headed to our hostel. Found the hostel easily enough and checked in. He said that our room wouldn't be ready until 1:30 and looking at our watch we thought "that's ages away"! So after a brief use of the net and glance at the Bulgarian rough guide we headed out for another Greg tour of Sofia. Ladies market was pretty good. Pretty much everything and a good variety of food. We enjoyed the herb sellers with ...

... rest of the day was filled with a guided tour of the capitol city of Sofia, taking in the History museum and lots of gorgeous churches. Did you know the monetary denomination is the lev which means LION? There are lion statues everywhere!!! We tried to take lots of pictures with the lions..hope we can figure out how to download them. Off for Bulgarian dinner with several of Iva's friends.

After an early breaky and 3hr bus (that means 3hr nap for me) to Sofia it was already lunch time! We went to a chain called the Happy Bar and Grill and in honor of Canada Day, I had some chicken wings! Almost like home, but without hot sauce and ranch and served with cabbage instead... No kick to them, but still so good. Too bad my mini bottle of Tabasco sauce was in my ...

... we were travelling. "Fifteen," said Rich. "Fifteen, or police." "Twenty-five," said the driver, "Or back to the bus station." "Fine, twenty-five," said Rich. If we turned around, we risked having to pay for this taxi and another one. When we got to Taksim, Rich had the man pull up right next to the Tourism Police. Rich handed him a twenty. The man started to say something but Rich cut him off. "Do you want me to get the police ...

... a place called the rila monastery, which is this gorgeous monastery out in the mountains in the south of bulgaria. we headed out there with some people from the hostel, and with one of the guys who works there as a guide. the monastery looks like a fortress on the outside, because as the guy we were with explained, the turks allowed the christians to have their churches and monasteries, they just also came out and periodically attacked them ...

... made our way to Sofia, by way of two different trains, both of which we sweltered in. The sun through the windows was scorching and the air seemed warm as an oven. We are now taking an overnight train from Sofia, Bulgaria to Bucharest, Romania, this time hopefully, our baggage will be along side us the whole way, and hopefully we won¡¦t have to walk across the border like refugees trying to escape.. None the less, it makes for a good story!

... outskirts of the city (which Bill Bryson has apparently written about quite eloquently enough so no need to try here) accompanied by Zack, a young American 'expert' on all things eastern european. We started to get concerned about him when he had talked for two hours without taking a breath. There did come a breif moment's respite as 'the one hundred and one reasons why you should LARVE Hungary' was cut short we skirted round a group of naked ladies ...

... was only going to get colder from now on in until we hit Finland. Sofia grew on me the few days that we were there. There wasn't generally a main attraction to Sofia, however there was a fairly attractive main centre, local antique market next to the Alexsander Nevski Church, Cathedral and the autumn colours of the parks.