Sofia, Bulgaria Day 2

Sofia Day 2

This last day in Sofia has culminated in a rumbling get together of friends at the hostel's lobby. During the time here we have made fiends, traded stories, and even gone out together in the city. The Rila monastery was spectacular and today we took a very involved tour of the city. The hostel recommended a free walking tour called "Free Sophia Walking Tour." We were a little late in making the tour and started walking around ourselves. After a little walking, we happened across the group and followed them around for the rest of the tour. The guide was well versed in the history of the city and only having a brief background of the history, we were quite overwhelmed. Pretty much my summation of the tour was that Bulgaria has an interesting past with quite a few dealings with the Ottomans, Russians, Germans, and now a democratic country. After most recently ditching socialism and possible communism, if it all went according to plan, there is still a great feeling of the past through interactions with people and the architecture of the town. We saw the presidential building with the guards, mosque, huge Eastern Orthodox church, and many of the busy streets. The history goes back far enough that the Romans even valued the area form the geothermal hot springs and set up a settlement and outpost. Today, close to the town center, locals fill their bottles with clean hot water only to cool and use to drink. When water becomes an increasingly valuable resource, Bulgaria should have plenty and comfortably be able to drink. The Romans had an extensive wall around the town for protection which is today still being discovered and displayed. The peaks surrounding the Sofia valley are huge and offered a natural protection to oncoming invaders.

Back at the hostel we mingled with all sorts of new people. There were Peace Corp volunteers finishing their 2 year obligations, Americans on long vacations, a professional traveler that has been out for 7 years, a Scotsman that returned from Malaysia, a French Canadian that plays college soccer that I went for a morning run with, a cyclist that has been riding across Bulgaria, some kiwis that were older and have traveled the world, students studying archaeology heading to Varna on the Black Sea to help with a dig and a few others. Conversations have been across the board and some don't even know where Las Vegas is. I love it when we get those people. They seem more normal than the rest. We had a pool table, but not like Atilla's, which made for an few intensive games. The hostel life is comfortable and I can see why people want to stay out for months at a time. As I finish this little report, we are on a night train to Varna in a room with our friend Nick from Nebraska and 2 other Bulgarian teenagers. They must think we are nuts! I thought sleeping on an airplane was difficult...