Bulgaria...home of Happy Bar and Grill
Trip Start
Sep 14, 2008
1
19
25
Trip End
Dec 15, 2008
Sofia,
Bulgaria
Sunday, October 26, 2008
room at our Hostel
. He didn't speak much English, but started rattling off a bunch of different prices like 15 and 20 euro. I showed him the ticket and said we already paid 12 euro. We eventually came to figure out that you had to pay more to stay in the section he had put us, so we picked up our bags and got off. At this point, the train was going to leave in another 5 or 10 mintues, and we still had no idea where to go. All of the cars looked like sleeper sections and we did not pay extra for that. We walked towards the back of the train and ran into another one of the ticket men and asked him hoping for some better assistance. He looked at our tickets and pointed to the last car on the train. Apparently there, it's every man for himself and you just take your pick at a seat rather than having assigned ones. We climbed our way up to the last car and immediately felt like we had stepped into another world compared to the previous car we were in. The whole car smelled like a dirty bathroom with toliets that didn't flush. We made our way down the narrow walkway and peered into the boxes to see if there were any available seats. The lights in the car made it seem like a horror movie because most of them were off while others flickered every so often revealing the dirty walls and seats. All the boxes we passed were either full of people or there were people who looked crazy or homeless sitting inside of them. This was going to be a fun ride. Jared and I stopped at the last box which had only one person curled up in the corner of it. We slid open the door and sat at the edge furtherest away from the person inside. I don't know if it was a man or woman, but they were wearing a huge jacket and kept their head down the entire time execpt for when they would wake up with a terrible hacking cough. There was no way we were going to get comfortable and get any sleep on this train. The seats, which were supposed to be red, were mostly black from wear and dirt over the years
oh the comfy beds...
. The cushions were ripped all over and some were patched up with another type of material or held together with tape. Yep, Jared and I were definitely in a horror movie now (or at least I felt so). When the train got moving, we put in our ipods and tried to pretend we were somewhere else. We rode for a few hours before we made it to the border and the train had to stop for inspections. Soliders came onto the train to check our passports several times, and we got finally got some more stamps! We didn't really know what was going on for awhile because the train would stop and then reserve and go back the way we had came. Jared and I were so confused. We eventually started moving the right way again and stopped at the border for a second time. This time though, we had our passports taken away for a long time and I was worried we weren't going to get them back. We finally did about 20 minutes later and after being stopped at the border for about an hour we were were back on track again. The person in the corner of our box ended up leaving before our stop, so we had the place to oursleves for a while. We kept trying to find comfortable sleeping positions because we were so exhausted, but it proved to be impossible. It was also freezing on the train because there was no heater or anything. We arrived in Sofia at 7:43am and made our way off the train. We thought the train was cold while we were on, but we had no idea what cold was until we were outside again
great view right?
. I'm pretty sure I have never felt so cold in my life. I had a jacket on, but the cold air felt like needles piercing my skin and my teeth uncontrolably chattered while my lips became a deep blue color. We walked to the underground area below the train station to find an ATM so we could have some Lev (Blugarian currency) to buy breakfast. We found one and then searched the area for an indoor cafe where we could sit and warm up for a bit. Unforunately, they were all full and we had to settle for a pastry at one of the window cafes. Thankfully, since the lev is so cheap, breakfast only ended up costly me what converts to 30 cents. It was a huge fresh-baked croissant with some type of filling in it (Jared thinks it was fig) and actually pretty good. Jared and I shared that and then made our way to the top of the station to find our hostel. We weren't really sure exactly where our hostel was from the train station, but the website said it was within walking distance. I really wasn't in the mood for walking since I felt like an ice sickle outside and we weren't even sure which way to go, but Jared was determined to find it on his own and not take a cab. We would have taken one of the buses or trams, but we had no idea which one to get on and we really didn't want to end up in the bad side of Bulgaria. We ended up walking for a bit down the street in front of the station, but after a little while I decided that we needed to ask directions or get in a cab because we had no idea where we were going
View on a chilly morning
. Jared didn't want to ask for directions, so we walked back to the train station and got in a cab. We showed the driver the address to the hostel and he agreed to take us. Now, Jared absolutely hates taking cabs because he thinks every single one of them is out to rip you off in any way that they can. I don't competely disagree, but at this point and time I knew it was our only way to the hostel. Well, this time, Jared was right--completely right. The cab driver's meter was jumping up so fast it was ridiculous. We sat in traffic for awhile and the meter jumped up 10 lev just while we were sitting there. I looked at the sticker on the window which shows how much the fair is supposed to be and it definitely wasn't the same as what we were being charged. It's against the law for cab drivers to over charge, but since we didn't speak the language and the guy wouldn't listen to me when I tired to tell him that we were not paying that, we had to do it anyways. It ended up costing us 34 lev just to get to the hostel which was not that far away (but still definitely not within walking distance). When we got to the hostel, the outside gates were closed and a door on the outside said they did not open until 10:30am. I couldn't believe that a hostel wasn't open 24 hours a day. It didn't make any sense. We figured there had to be people inside, so we started yelling up to the windows, but no one responded. It was only a little after 8, so we still had a while before the place would open up according to the sign
Gotta love the color of the leaves
. We definitely were not going to wait outside in the cold, so we walked down the street to a little cafe and got orange juice and sat and did our homework for a few hours. When it was 10:30, we left and walked back to the hostel. The door was still locked. So far this was not so great of an experience in Blugaria. We looked in the window, but the place was dark and we thought it was odd because the place didn't even look like a hostel inside. We waited for a while and then an old lady came to the door and unlocked it. We told her we were here to check in and she looked at us like we were crazy and then walked over to the wall by the gate and rang a door bell behind the bars. Whoops. We had been waiting at the wrong place. Apparently that door was for an art store and the hostel was upstairs and to the right of that place. A man came out of the other door and welcomed us to the hostel. He carried my bag up the stairs and asked us how our trip was. We didn't tell him about our mistake because we didn't want to sound stupid. He led us up the inside stairs and offered us breakfast and coffee in a little nook. It was a pretty cute place and had a nice homey feel. The owner seemed very nice and made me a cup of coffee which was actually really good (and I don't even like coffee). He prepared our room while we ate the coconut breakfast bread and pasties upstairs. When the room was ready we dropped off our suitcases and were ready to crash since we were running on virtually no sleep for the day. Our room was very nice, with only three beds in it (unusual for a hostel because there are up to 10 beds in each room at most of them) and we had our own bathroom attached to the room.After taking a moment to recooperate after the extremely cold weather, we headed upstairs to find out from our host Peter where we should go/the fastest way to get around Sofia. Pointing out the two major roads in Sofia that will lead you to most of the sights, Megan and I bundled up with a few extra layers...well a lot of layers actually lol...and headed out into the slightly warmer day
Lion statues that are on the currency
. The contrast between the chill and the sunlight was nice, and it made for some really crisp pictures of the city around us. Following Peter's instructions we headed down one of the main roads and found our way to the first stop--the one and only mosque in all of Sofia. It was well, interesting, and after a few pictures we decided to try and make it to the antique fair our friends told us about. Of course directional sense isn't one of my strong suits, and being in a new place without a map (we had to pick one up from a tourist agency near the market) didn't exactly work for Megan either. So we thought we were heading straight towards the Alexander Cathedral, but in reality we ended up making a squiggly line all over Sofia and totally blew past the Cathedral. But we did find a gorgeous theatre along the way, as well as some really nice parks. One of the defining features of the city was in fact the number of parks they had everywhere. After walking a bit of ways we decided that maybe we should turn around and head back the way we came (that didn't work either). So once again carving across downtown Sofia we found the University (didn't know it at the time) and a really interesting statue that was literally a few feet away from the Church. How we missed it coming back I'll never know, but we did eventually find our way back to the main road with some luck found a tourist agency that gave us a map to use. So with some actual direction in mind, we headed to the Cathedral that literally was Sofia's center
Lions again
. We waded through the antique markey that Megan's uncle would have loved, and contemplated what gifts we wanted to bring back from there. After getting some prices we decided to come back with money later and try to haggle for a bargain. So we crossed the street and took some great pictures of the Cathedral, went inside to see the architecture and all the beautiful artwork. It was a bit more grand than Agia Sofia in Thessaloniki and sitting in there I decided that this was the perfect example of Gothic architecture.After our walk through the Church, we headed back to our hostel with plans to visit the restaurant that sponsored the city map, Happy Bar and Grill. It apparently served barbeque, and having no idea what Bulgarian food might be, decided to play it safe. Or so we thought.
To start things off, since it was a little crowded they sat us with another pair of customers at a small table...in the smoking area. Megan and I pretty much choked on the ridiculous amount of smoke in the air and waited patiently for our food to arrive. We got some form of chicken...it was supposed to be an Asian influence, some kind of teryiaki, but it definitely wasn't. We also ordered some bread with our meal, and well that was interesting to. If you've ever seen a Tostinos pizza, that's what it was. Just the crust of a Totinos. Really made me miss crazy bread from Little Caesar's.
city had great architecture
Well after we finished our wine, and food, we tried many different ways of getting the waitresses attention to pay our bill, but Europe in general just loves to leave you sitting there. So about 30 min later she comes back with the check, and of course we had one more complication to go through before we could leave. I paid with my American Express card and it showed on their menu that they took it. But apparently the waitress was new to the whole sliding a card thing and well, to make things short, we had to get 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 (that Megan actually liked!) and decided to head down to the antique market to try and get the gifts we contemplated the day before. The best part about Sofia though, was the exchange rate. Megan and I really felt like millionaires walking around, our 50 euros converted into 100 lev. Now this is the part where I would describe the things we looked at, and the gifts we got, but that would be spoiling the surprise :)
Needless to say, what we got rocks and were really excited about Christmas
there's gonna be a lot of architecture photos
!We took our bags and stuff with us to the market so from there we jumped on the tram and headed to the airport at the far end of Sofia. It was really interesting seeing how the city changed so abruptly, we went from a nice part of the city into some really slum-like areas. In fact on the way there a man jumped on a few stops away from the airport, and we was that really weird color of dirt and tan mixed together...and for whatever reason he decided he was a compass in the fact that he held his finger pointed in one direction and as we went up and down streets he never lost track of that one direction. As I was trying to figure out what he was doing, Megan was dodging the things falling out of his hair. Yep. Kinda disgusting.
But he got off two stops later and we got off a few after that and headed to the check-in area for EasyJet for our voyage into Italy!
(sorry this took so long to post...but things as some of you know have been a bit hectic...)
