Well, Ive started on the long road back and find myself in Sofia, Bulgaria.
There
were a few amusing incidents on the flight here to Sofia, but that was
somewhat to be expected if you take a budget airline that gets you to
Bulgaria for no more than $50! Flying the wonders of W!zz Air
(Hungary's answer to Ryan Air!) the flight was firstly to Budapest,
then a 5 hour wait to catch a connecting flight to Sofia. The inflight
magazine, which for want of something better came my main source of
entertainment does a write up of all the destinations they fly to.
Rather than give you the word for "hello" or |where is the toilet?" in
the phrasebook section, they just offer one phrase for each country,
that been how to say "Is your sister married?" I found doing anything
official like entering the country or buying an international train
ticket here in Bulgaria much the same as the situation in China. Upon
arrival at the airport the border official will try to impress you and
make you see who's boss by giving you numerous forms to fill out. After
sufficiently satistfying hismelf that he has shown you how important
and special he is though, all you really need to do is put your name on
half of the forms leaving the rest blank and draw smiley faces on the
rest (well, not quite but you get the gist!)
The hostel where I'm
staying is certainly one of the more interesting one's I've stayed in,
but really good nonetheless! It is actually an art gallery that doubles
as a hostel. Downstairs in the basement is a small pub and dancing
floor, normally frequented by local artists here. Needless to say, my
first night here was spent truly embracing Bulgarian culture by getting
extremely pissed. The first warning sign should of really been when we
drunk the bar dry of its Zagorska (the local brew), but all this meant
to us (me, a few other travellers and a bunch of Macedonian students
studying at Sofia University) was we had to switch drinks to rakia, the
national spirit made from plums and as I found out later with
incredibly high alcohol content. It does taste nice though!
Also
been wandering around Sofia which although is still largely built up of
communist sqaut grey buildings, does have some nice churches even if it
is impossible to gain entry to them. The train station certainly wins
the prize for "most overbuilt" station! Undoubtedly built in Soviet
times it is a massive structure, though the architects seem to have
forgotten to put any windows or lights in it. It has oversized
monuments inside, but for all its grandeur the place is by and large
deserted, a building about 20 times less the size would of been more
apt! Talking about transport the rather mean-looking surly ticket
inspectors that regularly patrol the trams and trolleybuses are quite a
sight. They would look more in place outside a door of a nightclub!
Ive
gotten fairly used to reading the Cyrillic alphabet and can say very
very basic things in Bulgarian. It is surprising how similar alot of
the words sound to English making it easy to guess. Ive taken the
executive decision that everything is a masculine object ..... you can
still get the meaning across! Food here is surpirsingly nicer than what
you would think, the Bulgaruians seem to have an obsession with cheese,
not to mention very strong thick black coffees ... you often see people
slurping away with their big caffeine hit in cafes that dot the city,
if not also accompanying the caffeine hit with an equally lagre
nicotine hit!
Anyway, Im here till Friday night where I then head
off to Istanbul, which is sure to occupy me for at least a few days!
Hope all is well in sunny Sydney, its a balmy -3 degrees here.
James
