Sofia, Bulgaria

My blog must be set to Bulgarian, b/c spellcheck is telling me everything is mispelled, and I know I'm not quite that bad.

Sofia, Sofia, you play with my heart. Promising start, miserable failure in the middle, great invigorating evening, and a night spent in eating my loses.

Sofia (from the Greek word for wisdom, but w/ the accent on the O) should host a winter Olympics. She could use the investment, is so close to being a beautiful European city, and has the closest ski resorts of any major European capital, Mount Vitosha [Or at least they claim to be. I tried to verify this and failed]

Upon being awoken in the Sofia bus station, I groggily walked over to the train station and exchanged 1,500 Serbian dinars for an unkown amount* of Bulgarian whatever-they-use. All I know is I now have 5 currencies in my wallet, and it is becoming quite crowded.
*At least in Thailand I made an attempt to judge how much things cost. I've kinda given up. Oh, 2 marks for the slice of pizza? Yeah, cool, I can do that.

I then found my chosen hostel, Hostel Mostel. Definately the sketchiest entrance I've seen on any trip, but very nice once you pass through the courtyard. Got oriented and got directions. Their instructions for how to climb Mount Vitosha differed slightly from my guidebook, but I wasn't too worried. I then tried to find food, and failed to track down either of the 2 resteraunts they recommended. Should have noticed the bad omen. As it was 11 (or maybe noon. I didn't catch that we had shifted time zones until around 2. I just assumed the buses were posting the wrong times, as the buses in Serbian, despite being on time, had blatantly incorrect clocks), I just grabbed a cheap slice of pizza (nothing special, but I'm liking my Balkan pizza so far. I think it is a slightly different type of cheese rather than dough or sauce, but I'll believ whatever you tell me) and then some bread and brie in homage to my travels with Juile last year.

I take the tram (trolley?) to its last stop. I get out at the base of Mt Vitosha expecting to find bus #61*. No dice. Walk over to a lady at a kiosk. She speaks some English, but not enough, so waves another lady over. She speaks more English and seems to understand my problem, but not enough English to give a solution. Lady #1 writes some stuff on a sheet of paper in Bulgarian with 2 bus numbers on it. Lady #2 puts me on bus #82, after first addressing the bus driver (confused) and the passengers. I ride the bus for the number of stops I think I want, and try to get off. An older lady stops me, and has me wait on the bus.**
*Never did find that bastard. At least bus#93 had some signs hinting at its existence.
**It just dawned on me. Bulgarians reverse the head-nod and headshake. Serious. This may have complicated things during the trip. Damn.

The lady eventually has me sit next to her. We ride 82 for a long time, to where me now thinks is the other (wrong) side of town. We get out, somewhere. Lady is confused, talks to a guy in a kiosk. After awhile, I am told I am to catch #92 and take it to the final stop. It appears that 92 is an express, as it only has ~8 stops listed. But it also appears 92 comes only once an hour. "Very rarely," as a Bulgarian tween tells me in English. Old lady leaves, saying lots of things in Bulgarian. I buy OJ and gum (both excellent purchases; foriegn gum is esp hit and miss b/c you can't trust the brand names to taste the same). I wait. Read SI on my kindle. Wait. Read. Wait.

An hour passes. After 1.15, I give up an catch an #82 it what I thought was the opposite direction. Ride a really long time. Recognize nothing*. Get off at last stop. Walk over to a tram. It's the 11 and 12; tram map is unitelligible**. I guess (correctly!) which way is back to city center. I get off after a few stops as a busy road. I ask a man which trolley to the city center. With minimal confidence, he says #11. I give up and flag a taxi. Amazingly, the words "city center" and the 5 landmarks I point to on my map provide no recognition. Eventually, he recognizes Aleksandur Nevsky Cathedral, this big big big Cathedral nominally in the historical center. About 5 minutes into the drive, we pass the bus station. Yelling at the confused driver to pull over, I pay him the 3 lev I owe, and blowing off steam I walk back to the city center.
*Specifically, recognize a lot. Look kids, there's another nodescript communist apartment block!
**Infuriatingly, the problem was graffeti and too small font, not the cyrillic alphabet as per the usual.

Checked out the City Art Gallery. Cool concept - had 40 odd art critics pick 1 work each from the musuem's collection and write a blurb on why they thought that work was the most important in the collection for Bulgarian art history (no repeats). Resulted in a broad selection of work, and I enjoyed reading most of the write ups and thinking of Lauren H my art history major friend. Interesting to see that art after 1945 wasn't all that different behind the Iron Curtain. Unfortunately, that meant that everything after around 1970 was crap. I was hoping that at least the grumpy commies would call out modern art for being, you know, not good. Or art.* And man, upstairs they had a few contemporary works, and those were just weird.**
*No, we are not debating what art it. But a video of casual sex is not art. Nor are a line of colored boxes, even if you call it "Circle." Come on, people.
**Weird - a (tilted) laptop that is simply generating new pages on a word document. Called, "the generator." Weirder - an upsidedown kayak you were supposed to stick your head into and interact with. Weirdest - a bed frame with springs that you, the viewer, stand up and jump up and down on. The faster you jump, the slower the projection of your image on a screen moves. Wave your arms about, and you image switches between being large and small. Got it? Yeah, me neither.

Day ends with a success! Quality (free) tour of Sofia, with a super nice old Belgian lady who travels solo b/c her husband doesn't like traveling (she was spending 3 weeks in Bulgaria before returning to work. Iran(*1) had been her previous destination) and a lady from Mongolian (new country for AJ!!! Did you know they use Cryllic there also? I was the only one in the group that couldn't read cryllic. American fail(*2)). Tour was very interesting, I learned a lot of history(*3) and culture, but won't bore you here.

*

1. I told my guide that the Bulgarians did a better job w/ street sides than the Bosnians. She said that the Bulgarians drive better than the Iranian. Our guide pointed out that neither of these were all that commendable.
2. Even the Candanian from Saskatchewan(*4) in the Sarajevo hostel IDed as an American within 1 sentence.
3. For example, some Roman emperor I had never heard of issued an Edict I had never heard of that beat the Edict of Milan by 2 years, legalizing Christianity in the part of the Empire he rule. But he died and Emperor Constantine still has the cooler name.
4. Yes, people live there.

The night ends with me eating for dinner the bread and cheese that was supposed to be my lunch, reading NY Times editorials and the Indystar analysis of the George Hill trade. All and all, a workable day, and much better than the disaster of a day I think my sister suffered in Cinque Terre yesterday.
Tomorrow, go into all the good buildings on the walking tour that were closed last night, and then midday (not ideal, but I don't think I can do better) bus to Plovdiv. Night in the Plov, and overnight train to Istanbul. Chapter 2, the Balkans, is almost to a close.