Bulgaria, Or How I Almost Got Arrested

Arriving in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital, I saw this and was like hmmm, did I teleport to Denver International Airport?

DIA?

My afternoon began happily enough, sitting watching this scene while I ate the cheese sandwiches that Linda made me,

and going into this church and wondering how the massive dome has barely any supports.

Aleksandar Nevski Church

Sigh, but then because my cell phone wasn't working and I needed to reach Galina, my couch surfing host, I bought a new card for my phone.  In theory, this card should have made my phone work but it didn't.  In the store I'm speaking Macedonian, begging for my money back and they are refusing in Bulgarian that I do but don't understand.  There is some controversy about whether Macedonian and Bulgarian are two different languages or dialects of the same language and I will not weigh in.  Suffice to say, they knew what I wanted but since the chip worked in their phones they weren't budging.  This is when, I'm sad to say, I threw the card on the ground and started kicking at the packaging.  The store owner I was talking to disappeared and it occurred to me that I might be arrested.  So, I picked up my kicked-around card and hightailed it.  This is pretty uncharacteristic behavior for me but I think I regrouped well.  I found another phone store that loaned me a phone and I used my card to call Galina.  We agreed on a meeting time and place and then I ate 2 doughnuts at Dunkins because that makes everything better.

Tom Jones says it's not unusual to use doughnut therapy

Staying with Galina was by far the best part of my time in Bulgaria.  We are the same age and have a lot in common, so I enjoyed chatting with her over the breakfast she gave me and when we went to dinner my second night there.  She and I shared her room in her apartment, which is an incredibly nice thing for anyone to do, and I found her couch quite comfy.  Plus, she helped me figure out all the logistics of buses and things to get where I wanted to go, I really couldn't have asked for more. 

Galina at dinner

Sadly my second day in Sofia started with yet another financial blow.  I needed to exchange money and the banks weren't open yet, so I went to a currency exchange that flipped the numbers, so essentially I was charged $15 to change $75--yeah, ouch.  I have heard from many other friends about this type of problem, taxi cons, etc, so Sofia doesn't have a good reputation for travelers.  Fortunately the rest of the day was lovely as I took a bus about 3 hours to a place called Rila Monastery.  The monastery has a striking paint job on the exterior and I got a good look at it during the 2 hours I had there until the bus went back to Sofia.

Rila Monastery

Close-up from Rila Monastery

After my two days in Sofia, I took a bus about 3 hours to a town called Veliko Tarnovo.  I'd chosen that destination based on the recommendation of others and so as to see somewhere in Bulgaria outside the capital.  Unfortunately for me, the office that used to sell international train tickets in Veliko Tarnovo no longer did, leaving me with a dilemma: I'd just arrived in town, but I needed to go to another town 20 minutes away by train to buy a ticket, which wouldn't be so bad except the trains only run once an hour.  Ah yes, and I have to buy a ticket before the office closes at 5 (or maybe 6) PM.  So, stressed, I quickly visited two churches and then carried on to the town selling international tickets.  That gave me 8 hours until my 1 AM train to contemplate the coolness of the interior of the Tsarevets Fortress church with it's modern take on Orthodox art and to rejoice that a town without a working restaurant had free wifi in its train station.  Then by 7 AM, I was in Bucharest, Romania.

Tsarevets Fortress in Veliko Tarnovo

Interior of the fortress church