31C in the Shade by 10:30 a.m.

It’s a bit of scorcher today! I got up “early” (7:30) to walk the dogs before going to town and it was already hot and sticky. Sausage took off like a mad man, but soon flopped down on the trail panting before resuming at a more sedate pace. We walked a good 20 minutes roundtrip and I made sure they had lots of fresh water when we got in.

By the time I’d had coffee and toast as well as checked my email, dressed, and packed, it was getting close to nine. I grabbed my bag and headed out. There was a nice breeze out in the open and the sun wasn’t pounding down yet, so I decided I’d be quite happy to walk all the way to town, but would make an effort to get a lift home.

I was in Yablanitsa by ten and started with produce. There didn’t seem to be much choice today, especially in the fruit department. I’m tired of melons and stone fruit (peaches, apricots), so I just got tomatoes, zucchini, and onions since I still have heaps of carrots and potatoes at home as well as a couple of grapefruit.

My toast already felt quite far away by the time I was done with my produce shopping, so I grabbed a kebapche. This seems to be the go-to fast food in Yablanitsa and I’m so glad that I’ve figured it out. Market days just don’t feel right if you don’t indulge in some street food. I’d seen the kebapche every time I was in town and recognised it was what it roughly is (sausagey thing in a bun), but had no idea how to order it and hadn’t managed to time things to get in line behind someone and point to their order. I really felt like a local today as I put down my 1BGN coin and said, “One kebapche, please.” The lady gave me a huge smile that was even warmer than the sun.

After I ate, I went to the ATM to take out money for the month and I’ll admit to being relieved that there was no problem with my debit card!

Next, I wanted ibuprofen as I’m almost out. I thought the pharmacy (apteka/аптека) would be a good place to go for that. I did some research first and learned the Bulgarian name for Advil (nurofen/нурофен). The lady at the counter apologetically said, “No.” I tried again with ibuprofen (ибупрофен) and she said, “No,” again. Hmm. Well, can’t say I didn’t make a valiant effort! I’m sort of kind of thinking of going to Sofia on Monday, so I’ll try there.

I then popped into the grocery store for a bit of a top up (still have tons of stuff left from my unexpected trip to Botevgrad) and was surprised that I could not find baking soda. Google translate put it as “soda for bread” so I tried that and got an apologetic “no.” Oh well… I didn’t have any more stops after (I thought at that point), so I rummaged through the ice cream case and got a chocolate orange cone!

Needless to say, I tore into my treat the second I got outside and it did not disappoint, a super dense dark chocolate ice cream with orange liqueur and candied bits of zest scattered through it. It was a bit bitter and not too sweet, rather like eating a creamy grapefruit. I hope I can find one of these again!

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I was done with my ice cream by the time I passed the other food store, so I went in to see what kind of produce they have. It’s a tiny bit more varied than what the supermarket has and I picked up two apples that looked good. I also asked them about baking soda and got a no. Another thing to add to my Sofia list!

It was then time to head home. I climbed the long hill out of town and when I got to the top, a car roared to a stop beside me. It was full, but the man in the passenger seat got out and the driver called to me, pointing down the road. I said Malak Izvor and a lady in the back said something that I assumed meant, “Would the turnoff be okay?” and I replied in the affirmative. She motioned for me to get in.

They tried to engage me in conversation, but I was pretty useless, of course. Then, they started to say things in English, like good day and thank you, to test my Bulgarian vocabulary (it would seem). When we got to the corner, I said, “Thank you.” Then I realised that wasn’t quite right. They had just saved me walking 4KM under a scorching sun in tropical heat. So I amended that to “Thank you so much/Mnogo blagodarya.” The driver did a double take and said, “Brava”!  It’s lovely to have my meagre efforts rewarded. 🙂

I’d no sooner walked about ten steps toward the village that another car roared to a stop beside me. It was… the handyman who has been working on the house all week and was headed to my place!!!

Well, it’s been a lovely relaxed morning, but I need to get to work. I’ve already got as much as I can handle for the next week and a bit!

A Successful Day Trip to Sofia

Mission Star Trek was a success! 😀

The first thing that needed to happen for today to be a good day was for me to get to bed early enough last night that a 5:30 wakeup call would be reasonable. I’ve been staying up late, often to midnight, since I got here since my clients and friends are online in my late evening, and then getting up between eight and nine (!!!). Well, I was beat yesterday and managed to not only shut the lights at 9:30, but fall asleep before ten. So I woke up without my alarm at 5:30!

The dogs were so confused by this early wake up call that they did something they’ve never done: took a runner. I walked a few minutes without being able to hear them and was rather concerned that I was going to have to wait for them to come home. I called for them and Sausage eventually came. I headed home with him and left the gate open for Mechka. She turned up as I was making their breakfast (which was much more elaborate than mine). So thank goodness! Max told me not to freak out if they run off and that they come home, but what I day this would have been for that to happen!

I hurriedly gulped down some coffee and toast, dressed, double checked the contents of my backpack, and was out the door by 6:25.

I made it as far as just past the restaurant when a gal about my age came to a screeching halt beside me to give me a lift to Yablanitsa! Wow! That was a best case scenario because I’d have a choice of a lot more buses. We were in Yablanitsa by 6:40 and so I had a choice of two buses around seven and another at 7:30, which is the one I expected to be on. I flagged down the first seven o’clock bus. The cost was 6.50BGN.

There was quite a bit of construction and traffic and I’m pretty sure the buses drive only about 75KPH or so (it feels sloooow), so we didn’t get into Sofia until around nine. I was going to get off a couple of blocks before the bus station then realised that it was my only guaranteed bathroom stop before the mall, so I stayed on the bus! My breakfast had been meager, so I grabbed a still warm and flaky cheese croissant on my way out of the bus station.

It was only 1.5KM to “downtown”, so there was no point in taking a taxi. I just walked down boulevard Knyaginya Maria Luiza to the Banya Bashi Mosque, stopping en route to get some more top up cards for my phone.

This is the Lions Bridge. If you squint, you can see a yellow Billa sign on the right. How convenient! I popped in to check it out and decided to do my grocery shopping there on the way home. All I really “needed” that I can’t find in Yablanitsa is more peanut butter!

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Before I knew it, there was the mosque!

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I took a slight detour to check out the synagogue:

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Behind the mosque, I checked the opening hours for the Sofia history museum, and it was 11:00. Dang!

Since I had so much time before the movie, I took my time strolling through the ruins of Serdica. Here I am looking through one of the street-level domes down to the ruins:

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In case you missed that in the text, here are remains of an ancient Roman sewer system! WOW.

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You can walk all through the ruins. There were placards in places I would have assumed I wasn’t allowed to walk.

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I took a closer look at this building in front of the Presidential building and learned that it’s the archeological museum, as well as a former mosque. Unfortunately, they didn’t open until ten. 🙁

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I went behind the presidential building to check out the famous frescoes at the Church of St. George Rotunda. No photographs allowed, so you’ll just have to take my word that they were AMAZING. 😀

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Relative of my late Bitha? Very suspicious of me!

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There are more Roman ruins outside the church.

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Then, I just wandered! I grabbed a gelato on Boulevard Vitosha, then walked down Boulevard Aleksandar Stamboliyski towards the Mall of Sofia.

The architecture in this city never fails to stop me dead in my tracks.

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Surreal to see signs pointing to Belgrade!

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And here I am at the Mall of Sofia. I went in to make sure I could find the cinema and to confirm the showtime of 12:30. There was also one at 11:30, but it wasn’t in IMAX 3D and I decided that if I’d come all this way, I should do the whole experience. There wasn’t much of interest in the mall and it was about 10:45, so I headed out to explore the neighbourhood.

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The blocks of flats from the Communist era entranced me! They are all over Sofia, but this was my first time actually seeing them up close.

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This is across from the Mall of Sofia and translates to Sofia Technical School.

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Here’s a good example of how Bulgarian is often like French, only easier. Ниво sounds like “nee-vo” and means “level.” It sounds exactly like the French word for level, niveau. Only it ends with O rather than one of French’s 50 billion spelling combinations that sound like O but look nothing like it.

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This building was rather interesting!

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As a new reader to the language, I read everything I come across and when I see something like плюс that looks particularly “alien” I make an extra effort. I laughed when I realised it says… “plus”! The word above means store and it’s one of the first Cyrillic words that I can just “read” rather than sound out.

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Not an abandoned building…

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I was rather put upon that this kid wearing what appears to be a Mexican sombrero is advertising a pizzeria!

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Loved this pink lady!

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By 11:30, I was feeling peckish. I didn’t have time for a proper sit down meal, so this sign across from the Mall of Sofia caught my attention, advertising pizza and donairs. I wasn’t in the mood for pizza (!), but Middle Eastern food would be a welcome change of pace!

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I scanned the menu and most items were immediately familiar — donairs, shish kabob, fattoush salad, shish taouk, shawarma, and… фалафел! Falafel!!! A “medium sized” sandwich was only 2BGN!

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Since I’m not a picky eater, I just motioned for the guy to give me everything when he started to hold up each ingredient. I almost burst out laughing when he put French fries in my falafel! I took it to go and found a planter outside to sit on to have my lunch. It was nowhere near as flavourful or yummy as the falafel I had at the Holmes Grill on Baker Street in London, but the super garlicky sauce gave it ample flavour and I relished every bite! Speaking of relish, it had sweet bread and butter pickles, too, which totally worked!

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I photographed more flats after I was done eating.

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It was then time to go to the movie. I wrote “12:30” in my notebook and headed back to the mall. At the cinema, the cashier let me muddle through “One, Star Trek, *holds up notebook with the time,* please,” before asking me in perfect English if I needed a pair of 3D glasses. LOL Yes, I did. The ticket was 12BGN and the glasses were 1.50BGN, so about 10CAD total for both. Two reports out of Quebec put a 3D IMAX movie at being between $14 and $18CAD, so I got a good deal! I was amused that the tickets are printed on a dot matrix printer!

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Now, get this: I was the only one in the theatre!!! That worked out well since I didn’t like my assigned seat (too close to the screen despite my expressly sitting farther back than I normally do, anticipating this problem), so I was able to move back to a better one.

The movie was good and worth the trek (ha ha, see what I did there?). But the sound wasn’t great and with all the accents I know I’ll need to go back and relisten with English subtitles. I was surprised by how much did I manage to get out of the Bulgarian subs, especially when the aliens were talking their language and there would have been English subs at a US or CAD theatre. I would have just enough time to sound out the words/transliterations for things like captain, beware, Enterprise, Federation, etc. to get enough context to muddle through the plot. It was fun to see all the familiar Trek terms and names transliterated into Cyrillic.

Without going into any spoilers, I have to say that what I took from the movie was how it accurately, in my opinion, expressed the curse/blessing of having the nomad/explorer gene.

It was about 2:40 when I came out of the movie and I really wanted to make the bus to Teteven at four since that would save me a cab fare or, worse case, a 6KM walk, plus I was exhausted. I was a little disconcerted when I exited the theatre and was directed down a rather isolated staircase with no signage. I went down many flights until I saw a door marked “Mall of Sofia” and went through it to emerge on the main cinema level. I was surprised because I hadn’t realised I was sitting that far up!

I hoofed it to the previously scouted Billa, arriving around three. I didn’t get much and was a little (lot) annoyed with my language skills when I got to the cash register and the clerk pantomimed that I should have done “something” with my grapefruit and oranges and that she couldn’t sell them to me. I imagine it’s something along the lines of the City Deli on Isla requesting that you have things weighed first. I apologised and motioned for her to leave them since I didn’t have time to start all over.

It was 3:30 at this point, so I headed straight to the bus station. There, I went to the bakery again and got a ham and cheese croissant for the ride home. What can I say, their croissants are really good! 😀

I double checked the schedule I’d put together for myself and saw that the bus at four terminates at Teteven and should be leaving from gate 30. So I checked the electronic screen and, sure enough, that was the info listed. I scurried over to gate 30 and was one of the last to board. It was the same driver as last time, so I knew I wouldn’t have any issues getting off at the junction 2KM from home.

While I waited for the ticket lady to get to me, I pulled a map up on my phone. I didn’t want to get charged full price to Teteven so I wanted her to be aware I was getting off early. She seemed to understand me quite quickly and said, “Seven. Five to Yablanitsa, two to Malak Izvor.” That was a good deal seeing as I’m told a taxi from Yablanitsa to Malak Izvor is six to eight BGN!

The ride home was sloooow. Around Botevgrad, I understood snippets of a conversation between a woman and the driver and from what ensued guess that she said that her child really needed a bathroom and the driver figured he’d use the time to get fuel. So he pulled into a gas station and what seemed like half the bus got off to pee! The bus was a sauna and I was beyond ready to get home and rather annoyed by this little detour, but it was what it was.

We then detoured to Pravets, got back on the highway, and finally reached the turnoff for Yablanitsa. Holy smokes, it felt like the ride took forever! My phone was dead by this point, so I couldn’t check the time.

No one got off in Yablanitsa. As we approached the Malak Izvor turnoff, the ticket lady caught my eye and shook her head, which is the equivalent of nodding in Bulgaria. She called to the driver to give him a heads up and I heard “bagag” (luggage). I called out that I had none (literally said “no luggage”) and she gave me a big smile even as she did a double take that I’d understood that part of the conversation. Yay for my mother tongue again!

I hopped off the bus and took off at a pretty fast clip. Its only 2KM from the junction to “downtown” Malak Izvor, so really just a stroll. A few cars passed, but I wasn’t intent on getting a lift.

The dogs were super happy to see me when I got in! I quickly changed so I could take them on a short walk and then came in to collapse with a cold beer at 6:30. Dang was it a hot one today!

Max was right that a day trip to Sofia doesn’t make sense if you’re going exploring for the first time, but it was a perfectly sensible thing to do now that I have the lay of the land and was content to just have a couple of to-dos there. The bus fare is only 10CAD roundtrip and with lifts to/from Yablanitsa and/or being able to be picked up/dropped off at the junction cutting on my travel time considerably, it makes for a very reasonable day, no worse than going on a supply run to Moose Jaw.

Today was a Good Day.

I’m Really Liking Market Day

Market day in Yablanitsa is “something to do” that is much appreciated in my little quiet corner of Bulgaria!

The project that I have been expecting since I returned in Mérida (yes, the beginning of March!) has finally dropped and work is about to get insane. So I wanted to make sure I was well stocked up on groceries and made room in my schedule this morning to go to the market to get some fresh veg.

I set off around 8:45 with the hope of being home by no later than 1:00, and, of course, much earlier if I lucked out and got a ride. It was mercifully cool at that hour and I enjoyed my walk to just past the village limits, about a kilometre.

The sheep were bleating loudly.

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Notice something different with this house?

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Soon after, I encountered the “goat man.”

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It’s quite a sight when he takes his herd through the village! The noise from the bells is something I got used to once I understood what I was hearing!

A lovely elderly gentleman pulled over right after the goats. He asked if I was going to the market in Yablanitsa. Yep… He then said something from which I understood that he was going to Pravets, but he could let me off at the square in Yablanitsa (not a detour for him). Great! I hopped in and as we got to the town limits where one access road is closed off before the market, he did the universal hand motions for “I’m going around” and again mentioned the central square (ploshtad) to make sure I knew he wasn’t taking me for a ride. Soon as we got to a corner I recognised, I said, “tuk dobre” (here’s fine) and thanked him profusely.

I passed the infamous taxi on my way to the market and made a note of the very reasonable rates.

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In order to ensure I get a modicum of exercise while living here, my rule is if I get a ride into town, I can’t take a taxi back (being picked up is okay). So the taxi would have to wait for another day.

I also completely photographed the bus schedule (here’s a bit of it):

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I got my veggies, going to the vendors I know as their stuff has been top notch. I had a lot of change and small bills today, which was great because it enabled me to realise something important when someone is rattling off a price — it doesn’t matter if I don’t understand how much change (stotinki) they want if I understand how many leva. For example, my potato/courgette/hot pepper/carrot vendor said 2BGN something. I handed over 3. The tomato vendor’s number was huge, which meant it was only stotinki, so I handed over a 1BGN coin. Much easier than trying to wrangle a notebook and pen for them to write prices and it’s harder for someone to short change me (not necessarily intentionally) than if I give them a big bill.

One thing I find annoying when I go to market is that being with a backpack, my change purse and phone are not easily handy. My skirts don’t have pockets and so I tend to find myself juggling bags and personal belongings. I thought it would be nice to have a very small cross body bag into which I could stuff my change purse, phone, change, tickets, etc. when I’m using my backpack and don’t have my purse. This wasn’t quite what I wanted, but for a mere 5BGN, I was very happy to pick it up today!

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It just fits my phone, but my notebook is too big for it. I could put the change purse in another zippered compartment and put the notebook in here, leaving the compartment unzipped. Again, for 5BGN, it’ll be great until I find something better. This one didn’t have a price tag and was a little different from others marked at 5BGN so it felt like another small victory to say, “Pet?” (Five) and get an answer in the affirmative.

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I then went to get groceries. Like in Mazatlán, I find myself referring to things differently than do the expat locals who have been here a while. They call this the “green store.” I call it the “food store” because that’s  what the sign says (well, actually the word that starts with the X translates to English as “grocery,” but I recognised the first part of the word as being “food,” so food store stuck). This is more of a deli-type store where you have to order things at the counter.

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I like this building. Imagine what a little love could do to it!

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This is a pharmacy (aptekа).

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This is a bookstore (knidzarnitsa — the k is not silent!).

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The Yablanitsa church.

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And this is what the other expats call the “red store,” and I call the supermarket, because that’s what the sign says.

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I showed immense restraint in not buying this even though I got super excited at the word bacon. 😀

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Had another little linguistic victory when I got to the deli counter to buy butter and they now had two sizes… and I knew how to say big! I didn’t know where the adjective goes in the phrase so I stuck it before butter as I would in English or French (so “I would like one big butter, please.”) and the smile the attendant gave me made up for so much of the rudeness I got when I was in Sofia! “Little” is easy to remember because it’s in the name of the town where I live, malak/maluk!

I was famished by the time I got my shopping done and decided to try some Bulgarian street food at a little stand in the market that smelled like heaven (which I apparently imagine smells like cooking meat and spices…). I wasn’t too sure how to order and so watched a few people until I felt confident enough to get in line. Well, I didn’t have to do that because the cook motioned for a guy to wait while she served me! What a lovely lady. 🙂 I ordered the first thing on the menu, which I thought would be something along the lines of “kebab” since it was kebapche (кебапче). She asked me for 1BGN and then cut a huge piece off a baguette, cut a slit into the piece, smeared it with Bulgarian ketchup (similar to Mexican ketchup — very thin), and then held up what looked like a meat patty and said, “Okay?” I said yes. My snack was mostly bread (which is soooo much better in Europe) with the incredibly savoury and delicious meat thing the middle:

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I approve of kebapche. 🙂 Next week, I will try it with ljutenica, a spicy Bulgarian relish. I saw it at the stand, but didn’t investigate since I had the ketchup already.

It was then time to make tracks. I walked about 2KM when people who recognised me as staying at Max’s picked me up. They dropped me off at the guesthouse since the road up was blocked by a giant cement mixer!

I got in at 11:00, not even remotely exhausted, and happy with my morning. Now, work!

First Weekend in Sofia, Buying Groceries, the Bus Station from Hell, and the Nicest Man in Bulgaria

I knew there aren’t many buses to Teteven so I decided on Monday to aim for the second to last bus of the day, to play it safe. I had to do some serious digging on the bus station website to determine that my options were 12:30 or nearly 5PM. I didn’t want to take the chance of being stranded, so I planned my day to be on the 12:30 bus. My only real priority was going grocery shopping. This meant that when I woke up around 7:30AM desperate to go back to sleep, I didn’t. 🙂

I debated whether to take my suitcase with me or come back to the hotel to check out later and then realised that it was a no brainer. I’d brought the suitcase for the sole purpose of holding my groceries. Moreover, a quick check of the map the hotel provided showed me that there was a road just a block from the hotel that would go straight to the bus station and the grocery stores were at the halfway point. Talk about convenient!

One of my two tour guides had told me where to go for groceries downtown, Billa, and Lidl, so it had just been a matter of figuring out the closest ones, something that is not easy to do with Google Maps since the app is stupid and won’t show you the nearest results, but rather random ones. But I thankfully found the correct locations. The plan was to walk up to them to make sure they would be suitable, then head to Makis on Vitosha Boulevard for breakfast, stopping at the Central Post Office to mail Bast a post card.

The post office stop was… interesting. I walked into a cavernous room with wickets all around it, kind of like at a bank. I was ignored, of course, so I translated the signage at each wicket, trying to find one that would sell stamps. I also Googled how to say stamp in Bulgarian and came up with “marka” as being the most likely candidate. Finally, as I circled the room for the third or fourth time trying to decide who to approach to be told to get lost, a lady directly opposite the entrance motioned for me to come to her. I held up the post card I’d bought the day before and said, “I would like a stamp, please.” She sighed and reached into a desk drawer, pulling out a binder from which she extracted a sheet of stamps. After much sighing and muttering she tore some off, passed them to me, took them back, and then repeated the exercise with another binder. The stamps totaled, I believe, 1.70BGN. I only had a 20BGN note and I got the now common, “OMG, don’t you have change?!” eye roll. She didn’t have a till system, but instead reached into her own purse, pulled out her wallet, and came up with change for me! Wow. I thanked her, went out to the hall, licked the stamps, affixed them to my post card (one being upside down by accident), and dropped the card in the mail box outside. Now, to see if it gets to Virginia!

Needless to say, I was ravenous by this point and was very glad to get to Makis. The English speaking gentleman wasn’t there, but I earned a “Dobre” (the Spanish equivalent of claro, okay or got it) when I said “Bik iskal edno kaputcino c edno sandvich klasiko.” I am making progress! 😀 I didn’t like my Monday sandwich as much as my Sunday one (needed some sauce), but it was still very good!

I then headed to Billa. It’s about as close to a “proper” grocery store as you’ll get in Bulgaria, but very tiny. Like the stores in Yablanitsa and Teteven, it felt very haphazard in its layout. I circled twice before committing to purchases. I wanted to buy things like spices, sauces, and salad dressing to jazz up boring rice or veggies and also cheese and yoghurt since the store in Yablanitsa has been out of them. It wasn’t a very hot day so I wasn’t worried about my dairy going bad on the trip home. I also found some of that thick bacon at Billa! I spent about 66BGN (50CAD) on what amounted to mostly staples and things like shower gel and lotion. I even found (Greek) peanut butter! I was pretty happy with my haul, but decided that since I still had room in my suitcase, I would go check out Lidle, especially since I hadn’t found almond milk.

Lidle felt more like a North American supermarket in terms of the products available, including a lot of Tex-Mex stuff! I didn’t pick up much there, but I did snag some tortellini and what appeared to be pimento cream cheese, something I love but have a hard time finding these (spoiler: it was pimento cream cheese… but spicy!). They didn’t have almond milk either. I only spent about 20BGN there.

Grocery shopping in Bulgaria is delightful since there is food from all over Europe and labels are in a kazillion different languages. The tortellini, for example, were in Italian on the front, but the cooking instructions and ingredients on the back were in Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech, and Romanian. Romanian is rather mutually intelligible with French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, so I was glad to see it. 😀 Just before the till at Billa, I saw cookies with an English label clearly identifying them as being the Central and Eastern European version of McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes from the UK, but the ingredients on the back of the package were in German, Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, and more, with no English. I was glad for the English front since I hadn’t picked up any “treats” and I adore Jaffa Cakes. These were half the cost as the McVitie’s version, so I grabbed two packages (spoiler: they are just as good!).

It’s also interesting to see what other palates like and how they interpret various cuisines. The irony of “Mexican-style cheddar” had me chortling in the aisle. Many foods that are considered luxury imports in North America, like some premium jarred Italian sauces, are just normal goods over here and a fraction of the cost.

Grocery shopping in Sofia was a positive experience, but I’m not sure it would be worth planning a day trip there to do it again since the buses are rather erratic. I would be better off making an effort to go to Teteven.

It was 11AM when I came out of Lidl and I decided to head straight to the bus station. I knew it had good bathrooms, several restaurants, and a waiting area, so it would be worth getting there with lots of time to kill in case I had trouble finding my bus. I must be psychic…

I hailed a cab and the driver appeared put upon with taking me the couple of klicks to the bus station (really, I could have walked, but I knew I had to lug my suitcase that far once I got home so no point getting fatigued to save about 4.50CAD). We got to the station and my total was just under 6GBN. I handed the driver two 1BGN coins and a 5BGN note. When he realised I was giving him a tip, the driver’s demeanour completely changed! He had popped the truck for me to get my suitcase and now hurried to get out of his seat to pull the suitcase out for me!

I got into the station and went to the electronics departure board (very small). It listed the departures until about 1PM and there was no Teteven on it.

There are about 28 wickets for the various bus companies, each listing the towns serviced and the departure times. I went through them repeatedly and… no Teteven.

I went to the information desk and asked, “Bus to Teteven?” The woman sighed and replied in perfect English, “Figure it out yourself.” Really! And she had been equally rude to the Bulgarian ahead of me as he literally left her counter in tears! Now that I think about it, that makes me feel better…

I went to the one window where I had seen Yablanitsa listed, thinking that might be it. The woman told me, in perfect English, to go to information!

It was almost noon by this point. I pulled up the bus station website on my phone and managed to get back to the screen that had suggested to me there might be a Teteven-bound bus at 12:30. I’m telling you, if I wasn’t as comfortable as I am now reading Cyrillic, I would have been at a dead end because I only had the stress of copy and pasting to Google Translate anything I wasn’t sure about, not the stress of staring at a language that might as well have been hieroglyphs. When I got to that screen, I saw that there was another name after Teteven, Ribaritsa. I looked up at the departure board and there was Ribaritsa, at the very bottom, leaving from “sector” 32 at 12:30. I had a departure gate, but still no idea where to buy a ticket.

I went to all the windows again and did not see Ribaritsa. I decided to take a chance that I could buy a ticket from the driver and to just go to the departure spot. En route, I picked up a cheese croissant to eat on the bus (spoiler: yum!).

I got to sector 32 at 12:20, just as a bus marked Ribaritsa pulled up. Soon as the driver was available, I asked him, “To Teteven?” He said yes. So far so good! He then wanted to put my suitcase under the bus. That wouldn’t do because I wanted to get dropped off at the turnoff to the village and was sure it would be hard enough to get him to do that, never mind get out and pull out my suitcase. His helper was pretty insistent so I said, “Not Teteven, Malak Izvor.” That stopped them dead. I mimed, “Here’s Yablanitsa, here’s Teteven, here’s Malak Izvor,” and got some confused looks. The driver then become my first hero of the day when he very patiently waited for me to pull up a map on Google. By the way, Google is as slow on blazing fast Bulgarian Internet as it is on slow poke Canadian internet!

Once the map was up, I pointed to Yablantisa and said, “Bus,” then showed the bus route to Teteven. That got me a “Da.” I then showed the turn off for Malak Izvor and then said “I” and then “walked” my fingers from the turnoff to the village. He went, “Oh!” and then “Two kilometres.” I replied in the affirmative to which I earned a “Dobre!” He then tried to take my suitcase again and I let him. When he came back, I asked, “Ticket?” (which, mercifully is “bilet,” so close to the French “billet”) and he motioned for me to go in and said what sounded like conductor. I went in, got comfortable, and just before we took off, his helper handed me two tickets totally 7BGN (1BGN more than the trip to Sofia) and had change for my 20!

Knowing that I would be let off at the turnoff meant that I could sit back and enjoy my trip without worrying about getting stranded in Teteven. I read for a bit, then enjoyed the scenery. We detoured to the town of Pravets before going through Yablanitsa. No one got off there. Next stop was me!

The nicest man in Bulgaria got off the bus with me (at least, I think he did, because I have no idea where else he could have materialised from). He earns his title in that he… lugged my suitcase all the way to the village!!!!!!!!!!! He wanted to take it straight to my place, but I made him hand it over at the guest house, before the final slog, because I didn’t want to take advantage of him! He babbled to me the whole way and I just shook my head apologetically. I don’t know who was more pleased when he said, “Ulitsa?” (street) and I had an answer for him! But even better, he had no idea where my street was and with my saying, “Store, hotel, [my street name],” miming the location of each, he understood!

Just the little slog at the end was exhausting so I can imagine what shape I would have been in if I’d had to drag the suitcase the whole way (although I suspect I would have gotten a lift if I’d been on my own). The bus driver and this man both made up for a lot on Monday.

The dogs were very happy to see me when I got in and the feeling was mutual! Max had left me a list of things to add to my chore list and a note that he’d be back on Friday.

So that was my great big Sofia adventure! It broke the ice on a lot. The next thing I want to try is to take a bus to Teteven and back, but that might be very tricky and could require me to leave at the crack of dawn and not come back till early evening. I might be better off finding out how much a taxi would cost. But I’m glad I figured out the buses, ate at restaurants, and was forced to use some of the Bulgarian I’ve been stowing away in my brain.

I will be taking about a week off at the end of August (when Max will be here with his daughter), renting a car, and going on a grand tour of Bulgaria. In the meantime, I will try to get out into the environs a bit and possibly return to Sofia one more time. I can’t believe we’re already three weeks into July! I knew my time here would fly by!

First Weekend in Sofia, First Evening and Morning

This post will share some general thoughts about my weekend in Sofia and then I will do a couple more posts about the tours I did on Sunday. I did some wandering around on my own when I arrived Saturday and saw some things that I revisited on Sunday. So future posts will have more details on some of the things I photographed in this post, which covers up to 11AM Sunday morning, ie. my departure from Malak Izvor, the ride to Sofia, my arrival in Sofia, the hotel, my first evening, and my first morning.

So Max showed up as promised Saturday morning. We discussed a few things, then he left me to book a hotel before driving me into Yablanitsa to catch a bus. I was surprised by how hard it was to find a hotel. I’m past the point of wanting to sleep in a dorm or in a roach motel and all the reviews for anything affordable were offputting. I finally found something that had the right mix of location, price, and positive reviews. More on the hotel in a few paragraphs. 🙂

Max thought there was a bus at 1PM, but there wasn’t… There are a couple of signs around the plaza in Yablanitsa showing the schedule and one of them had the 1PM bus crossed out. Damn. I managed to decipher the sign and figured out that there should be another bus at 2:15, so I sat down on a bench for a long wait. An old man came to me multiple times offering me, I eventually figured out, a lift to Sofia, but I wasn’t that desperate. It was just too odd!

Thankfully, the 2:15 bus did materialise! It was a whopping 6BGN/4.50CAD to go to Sofia. I should stress that I’m being sarcastic!

Off we went. At first, the scenery reminded me of the Okanagan.

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But then, it got greener and more lush.

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The villages all looked the same, white houses with orange roofs.

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All the signage on the bus was en français.

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I don’t know if all of Bulgaria looks like this, but, dang!

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See what I meant about all the villages looking the same?

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Approaching Sofia, we passed immense sunflower fields.

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The bus had an ashtray!

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Coming into Sofia, I saw a restaurant menu that made me hungry. The third item is what caught my attention, пица — peetsa. 🙂

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I arrived at the huge and still fairly new Централна Автогара — Centralna Avtogara — the bus station. From there, I got a taxi to my hotel. I’d done my research on taxis and knew not to get in one without posted prices and a working metre. The price was 0.79BGN/KM and I’d calculated it shouldn’t cost more than 5BGN to get to my hotel… I was right! I was so pleased that taxis are as cheap as I’d been told they would be. Here is a map of my universe this weekend:

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So I stayed at Hotel Zenith. The location was absolutely fantastic, just 10 minutes or so walking from nearly anything you’d want to see in Sofia, but on a quiet street. The staff all speak English. I forgot to grab a picture of the outside, but it’s really unassuming, just a small sign saying “Hotel Zenith.” The carpet inside is ugly, but the hotel is new and clean:

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Here’s my room:

I hadn’t had lunch and it was almost 5PM by this point. Famished doesn’t even begin to describe my mood. I decided to head to Vitosha Boulevard, Sofia’s pedestrian street, as I figured it would be my best bet for finding food quickly.

I have no idea how I picked the restaurant I did, but it might have had something to do with the fact that someone asked, in English, if they could help me. I was seated and given a huge menu, in English, with pictures. It was more like a catalogue! They had everything from burgers to pizza to sushi!

I’ve been meat deprived since I got here, so I decided to take a chance on their bacon cheeseburger. I didn’t bother with the fries, but, damn, the burger was good! Look at that thick bacon! This was exactly what I needed. I asked for no mayo on the burger and it came with ketchup. Not my first choice, but mustard is not common here so I didn’t even try. I like dill pickles now, so I liked the added flavour in the burger. The meat was seasoned, too. A great burger by any standards.

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The restaurant served gelato and I wanted some for dessert, but had no luck getting a dessert menu. So I decided to settle up and look for ice cream elsewhere. I did a quick Google and learned “smetkata, molya,” which means “the check, please.” I then walked around a bit and discovered there were at least a half dozen other gelato places on Vitosha. I picked one at random and got a huge chocolate waffle cone, figuring it was my belated lunch. 🙂

I passed a telenor store and popped in to buy some top up cards for my phone. I have not, and probably will never, figure out their pay as you go system, so please don’t ask about it. 😀 As far as I understand it, it’s like in Mexico, where you put money on your account and buy various packages. Because I only use my phone when I’m in town, I’ve just been putting 10BGN on my phone and using it until I run out. Probably not the least expensive way of doing it, but it’s been working fine. I’ve only spent 36BGN for my phone since I got here, and that’s, I’m told, super expensive compared to having an actual plan. Of that 36, I still have money on my phone and I have a 10BGN top up card I still haven’t used. The folks in this store was fantastic and went out of their way to find someone who spoke a smidgen of English even if what I wanted could easily be done with a bit of miming and holding up fingers.

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It started to pour when I came out of the store. And I’d left my raincoat at the hotel! Thankfully, I was wearing my wonderful Ipanema‘s, so I didn’t care if my shoes got wet.

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It ended up raining on and off for a bit longer, but I just got wet once the initial deluge was done.

I passed the courthouse (had to translate that from the French for a second — like in French, it’s a “palace of justice” in Bulgarian), and this would end up being an important landmark since the walking tours started from here.

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I think I have an Irish pub radar. Remember that I found one in Mérida too!

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Bulgarians, like Mexicans, apparently like cream cheese in their sushi. *growls*

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Sofia has a tram system.

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Holy Sunday Church. We will return. 🙂

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I liked the paint job on this building.

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I passed many Mac stores in Sofia, including one almost right next door to the hotel. Didn’t seen any PC stores…

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That’s about the same price as I paid for my 13″ MBA.

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Sofia is full of contrasting architecture like this.

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Sofia has a fairly recent subway system that is expanding.

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This is the south end of Vitosha Boulevard.

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We will come back to this. 🙂

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This is the cultural centre where there are exhibitions and business meetings.

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Mount Vitosha. Wow! I knew it was close to the city, but not that close! Very popular for skiing in the winter.

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So many billboards atop buildings.

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This Starbucks is right by my hotel and I’m proud to say I did not make use of it even though finding other coffee was a challenge (there is coffee everywhere, but I haven’t yet figured out the etiquette for cafes).

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I got in around 8PM Saturday night and went to bed around 11PM. I didn’t sleep nearly as well as I would have expected, considering how comfortable the bed was. I didn’t get up till 9AM on Sunday, with my tour being at 11AM.

I went to Vitosha Boulevard in search of breakfast. I ended up having all my meals there because it was the easiest option, if not the cheapest. I walked around for a bit until I saw a sandwich shop, Makis, that didn’t look too intimidating. They had a beautiful display of fresh sandwiches and a full coffee menu. I ordered a cappuccino and their Makis sandwich, which had ham and cheddar. It was a bit of a heavy meal, but I knew I’d be walking it off!

Let’s do a parenthesis here to talk about the value of learning to read Cyrillic before coming to Bulgaria (or Russia or Serbia or Ukraine or…). It is amazing how many words sound like English, especially on a menu. If you can read Bulgarian, you won’t go hungry. You might not get what you want, but you can very likely find something you like.

Examples:

бургер — burger

дунер — duner (donair)

пица — peetsa (pizza)

хот дог — hot dog

Чедар — chedar (cheddar cheese)

сандвич — sandvich (sandwich)

салам — salam (salami)

супа — soopa (soup)

салата — salata (salad)

I had fun reading everything I could see on Sunday and made out that this is the Sofia Hotel Balkan… then noticed the English next to it. LOL

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I thought this luggage was well designed. Notice the built in zipper lock:

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Pedestrians are controlled much like in London, with barriers to keep them from crossing streets where they’re not supposed to. For many “scary” intersections, there is actually a pedestrian underground passage, where you’ll find shops and restaurants.

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I had no idea how important these three buildings are. We’ll come back. 🙂

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McDonald’s was the first international company to take a chance on Bulgaria in the 1990s and it bought up the best locations in Sofia. There are now a lot of the restaurants around the city, but they’re not a popular chain.

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This is what the word Russian looks like in Russian. 🙂 This phrase is Russian, not Bulgarian, and it says “Russian Standard Vodka.” What did I tell you about learning to read one Cyrillic language being the key to the others? 🙂

 

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This is another Cyrillic font and it gives me a major headache! In this one, the m is the T sound (Т), the u is the I sound (И), and the g is the D sound (Д). WTFBBQ, as my best friend would say.

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Looking down Vitosha Boulevard to Mount Vitosha.

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Before I close up this novel and move onto the walking tours, here are some general thoughts on Sofia:

-The touristy part is very walkable and feels safe, but I was warned about pickpockets being abundant. I watched my purse! The city is pretty clean, but there is a lot of graffiti. I was struck by how varied the architecture is.

-I was warned by the Brits I know here that customer service in Bulgaria is very “European,” ie. there is very little. It was intimidating enough to go into a restaurant where I don’t speak the language, but being treated like a pest or ignored on top of that was a bit much. I did the path of least resistance thing my whole weekend. I just tried one restaurant after another until I got service. Makis sandwich shop was my favourite place as they were really nice. I ended up going again on Monday morning and the English-speaking guy wasn’t there, but the gal let me muddle through in Bulgarian and it was fine. It would be really nice to get someone to show me how to get seated at a restaurant since I passed a lot of nice little cafes where I would have liked to enjoy a coffee, but sitting myself down, saying “excuse me,” and trying to order at the bar did not produce results. The gelato place was also really good and even though they were more expensive than other shops, I went back several times. 🙂

-I found being in Sofia was exhausting because of how much work it was to do everything when you don’t really speak the language, but at the same time, it was easier than in Yablanitsa because there’s more of everything. I could wait until I found what I wanted, be it a bathroom, water, or meal, in an accessible and non-intimidating location. But for being a capital city in an EU country, I expcted a bit more effort to help tourists. I’ll do a write-up of my bus station adventure in a future post…

-Sofia is apparently the most expensive place in Bulgaria and Vitosha Boulevard is the most expensive place in Sofia. I found both to be inexpensive! I didn’t worry about prices at all.