It’s been a more than a month since I was there, but I’ll try to explain why Bulgaria was so awesome

Our plane landed and we took the most terrifying taxi ride ever to our hostel. Our taxi driver actually cut off a cop, and got away with it- you can’t make this stuff up. In between being slightly convinced that I might die, I got really excited about all the Cyrillic everywhere. It was like signs had become an awesome puzzle- what initially looks like complete gibberish becomes something you understand if you just sound it out. 

For example: g-a-r-a-j

            We arrived at our hostel, and checked in.

Hostel and Kitty

            Then we went off in search of food. We were planning on eating at a place that the hostel had recommended to us. A random American we met at the atm by our hostel joined us. But she ended up being ridiculously pretentious:

Her:  I teach english in Istanbul- I HATE English.

Us: (later, after she was gone) That first part is really cool, but the second part, not so much. Also, if you hate it so much, why do you teach it?

And then she bailed on us at a random pizza place that we later frequented.

The food at our restaurant was good a ridiculously cheap. It was awesome.

The next morning we had planned to join a walking tour of the city, but it ended up being canceled. Therefore we took ourselves on the walking tour (which was conveniently labeled on our map).

I saw my first mosque looking mosque I’ve seen:

It kind of pales in comparison to the mosques I saw later in Istanbul...

Sofia was a city of dogs, inexpensiveness, and awesome broken downess. The company was great, and the city was great. And I suppose that’s all that’s necessary for awesome. 

We saw the bathes, which were closed, and then we went into an appliance/ electronics store. Then we continued towards the former building of the communist party. This required us to do a rather large loop because they were blocking off a section of road inexplicably. So we saw lots of pretty things- I am quite fond of yellow buildings. 

Then we saw this: 

Orthodox cathedral...

Which is the main attraction of Sofia, I guess. There was a huge line to get in the whole time we were there. But the people who were in line weren’t necessarily touristy type people.

In fact, Sofia was very untouristy. I get the impression that the touristy parts of Bulgaria are the countryside and the coast which feature beautiful nature, and possibly resorts. Sofia was not a resort. But I thought it was beautiful, even if lots of it was falling apart.

We visited a mall on the out skirts of the map (our map didn’t show all of Sofia, just the main city center, we kind of felt that this implied that if you go off the map you might die/ be abducted by aliens or other creatures.) Then we sat on a grassy knoll and talked and admired doggies. 

Then we headed back to the hostel for a nap. When we arrived in our room it was empty except for one girl, sitting in her bed watching something on her iphone. It was around 3 o’clock.  We left a few hours later to get dinner – the girl was still sitting there with her iphone. We ate pizza at the place pretentious girl abandoned us at (1.60 lev, or 0.80 euro cents per gigantic slice). And then headed to bar that the hostel had recommended. We spent the most of the evening there just hanging out. Later we stopped at another bar for one drink, and then we came back to the hostel.

We made friends with a Dutch girl and New Zealander guy who met in Peru, and accidently insulted a girl from Georgia. And we talked to a guy who wanted to drive down the coast of California, which led to Tristan and I arguing about whether or not the 1 goes all the way to San Diego (I WON) during which the guy walked away which was funny. We also talked to a guy who was teaching English somewhere in eastern Europe, which I think sounds really awesome. So all in all we had a fantastic first day.

The next day we had considered getting up early and taking a train to another Bulgarian city, but we ended up being up until around 3 (the girl was still sitting in her bed watching her iphone) so we decided that getting up early would not lead to happiness. So we wandered around Sofia again, and took pictures to prove that we were actually there. Then we came back and took naps- but they were unfortunately fail naps due to our newly acquired French roommate. When we entered the room we found him wearing just underwear- so we both figured he had just gotten out of the shower or something and we had caught him at an unfortunate time. So we get in bed. Then I hear grunting/ heaving breathing, which turned out to be because he was in the middle of out room still wearing just underwear doing sit ups. Weird- no?  So I put on my ipod and turn it up. Enter two more new roommates- French Canadians. Underwear guy scoots to the side and continues his sit ups while conversing with them in French. This displeases me, but I’m not willing to give up my nap yet. Then I feel a presence near my bed, and I look to find that this man, still wearing only his underwear, is using the top bunk to stretch- ie his foot is by Tristan’s head, despite the fact that there were three other vacant bunks, one of which was his. Thus, we quickly gave up on the nap because this was hella uncomfortable making. We went into the common room and lounged about- Tristan watched a soccer game and I fell asleep. Nothing much happened this night, except that we went to sleep earlyish, and then got up for a midnight snack at 3 am. Yeah. (I’m not sure why I wrote yeah here, but I’m leaving it.)

The next day we had some time to kill before our flight. So we walked to the train station. This walk took us through some less nice areas of Sofia, but they still looked better than Bordeaux 3. The train station itself was kind of epic- especially the subterranean store area which was completely abandoned except a few dogs.

Then we took a taxi to the airport and arrived WAY early. This led to me buying some Bulgaria playing cards with a different picture on each cards (and some postcards). And then we played an EPIC game of war, using the jokers as gods who pawn everyone else. One of the gods was quite fickle and he kept switching sides. The other stayed loyal to Tristan almost to the end, however, he eventually jumped ship, leaving me the undisputed winner. Unfortunately, these cards have disappeared of the face of the planet, which is sad because they were kind of awesome.

We flew to Paris, stayed over night in a hotel, and left early the next morning on a train for Bordeaux.

And that is why Bulgaria was awesome.