Yesterday was a long day-the highlight seeing the UFO.
But first, after breakfast, a van picked us up and we visited an old working town-where I saw old water mills that made clothes, old clothes, and old buildings, it was somewhat interesting. After that, I went to the UFO.
I had first heard of the UFO way back in Poland. A guy I met with told me he visited this giant, abandoned building on a mountain top that was a symbol of the communist party, complete with Hammer and Sickle. Ever since meeting this guy, I was determined to see what he was talking about.
As you can imagine, the UFO isn't really a UFO-just a word for what is a extremely creepy, extremely large building on a mountain top, literally in the middle of nowhere. The building is a large cylindrical space that used to be a meeting place for the communist community. It is called Buzludzha. This is the spot where Bulgarian and Russian forces met to discuss the origins of what would later be the communist party.
The creepy, UFO-like coliseum sized building on the mountain is officially closed to the public, but we we're able to get in by climbing some rocks and into a cut-out door. (as does everyone else). and went inside, which is practically amazing. Although the nearly 25 years of disuse is showing with numerous giant holes in the ceiling, and cracks in the expensive marble tile, a large mosaic of Lenin, Marx, Engles and symbols of the Bulgarian workers can still be made out. On the ceiling is a giant red hammer and sickle. The auditorium itself is quite impressive in it's weather-and-time destroyed grandeur. All of us looked around in breathless amazement.
After getting a good look at the auditorium, we climbed the tower of the UFO, which was supposed to be 30 stories, but seemed to be more along the lines of 18 or so. This involved climbing a staircase of very thin stairs in the dark, (we all had flashlights), up to the third from highest flight-where we climbed ladders up to the top. It was foggy on this day, so I couldn't see much.
After CAREFULLY climbing back down, we looked at the UFO one final time. As it was a foggy day, the tower kept coming into and out of view.
After spending a few hours at the UFO, we drove in the van to a park, where we did a short hike to a point where we overlooked some cliffs, and then down to a waterfall. We then had dinner at a restaurant in the park-where we had some authentic Bulgarian food. I just had a salad.
We returned to the hostel at 10:00 pm, tired and ready for bed after an exhausting day.
