My sister Vicki and I had made plans to go our separate ways for a few days after a month of traveling with a small group in Israel and Jordan. The plan was to meet in Bulgaria, at Sofia's airport lobby on November 2, 2018; she'd be flying from Dubai, United Arab Emirates and I'd be flying from Aqaba, Jordan where I was SCUBA diving for three days. After a month of looking at sand and sand-colored buildings . . .
. . . I was looking forward to trees and colorful autumn leaves in Bulgaria's capital city of Sofia. My flight arrived about three hours before Vicki's flight.
Our plan was to spend a couple days touring downtown Sofia including an overnight visit at the Rila Monastery in the mountains southwest of Sofia. Then onto Budapest, Hungary.
While I sat in the airport lobby waiting for Vicki's flight to arrive, I studied Sofia's public transportation map, figuring out the best way to get downtown to our hotel room. I also had a chance to observe many people at the airport. Without knowing a thing about Bulgaria or even its political history, I observed that Bulgarians are not animated or gregarious, nor demonstrative in their interactions with each other. People didn't smile. When Vicki arrived and we found our subway, I mentioned this issue to her when we were sitting in a subway car full of non-smiling, non-communicative people. She too had noticed that folks were a bit too subdued and withdrawn. The movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" did cross my mind . . . but fast forward about two months, a friend of mine in Austin upon hearing I was in Bulgaria, said "The most unhappy people in the world!" What??! Yep, polls and criteria for "happiness" rank Bulgaria low on the list of countries. So there ye go :) un-tainted observations, I kid you not.
. . . I was looking forward to trees and colorful autumn leaves in Bulgaria's capital city of Sofia. My flight arrived about three hours before Vicki's flight.
Our plan was to spend a couple days touring downtown Sofia including an overnight visit at the Rila Monastery in the mountains southwest of Sofia. Then onto Budapest, Hungary.
While I sat in the airport lobby waiting for Vicki's flight to arrive, I studied Sofia's public transportation map, figuring out the best way to get downtown to our hotel room. I also had a chance to observe many people at the airport. Without knowing a thing about Bulgaria or even its political history, I observed that Bulgarians are not animated or gregarious, nor demonstrative in their interactions with each other. People didn't smile. When Vicki arrived and we found our subway, I mentioned this issue to her when we were sitting in a subway car full of non-smiling, non-communicative people. She too had noticed that folks were a bit too subdued and withdrawn. The movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" did cross my mind . . . but fast forward about two months, a friend of mine in Austin upon hearing I was in Bulgaria, said "The most unhappy people in the world!" What??! Yep, polls and criteria for "happiness" rank Bulgaria low on the list of countries. So there ye go :) un-tainted observations, I kid you not.
Sofia's smog is supposedly a huge European problem, but we didn't notice any smog November 2018.
We visited most of the historic sights in Sofia.
Including the outside of the residence of the country's President.
Sofia is a fun-city to walk around and visit; there's a Huawei office here (if you're into world affairs and controversial business relationships, you'll understand). We did a tremendous amount of walking in Sofia to see all its downtown historic sites. And I felt wonderfully planted in this city in a good way; sort of like Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore Show) when she tosses her hat downtown Chicago with this huge smile because she's feeling like she owns the city.
Vicki and I needed to catch a couple of city trams with transfers and an intra-city bus to the Rila Monastery which would be an all-day adventure. Our hotel clerk at Sofia told us no tram driver would speak English, so she wrote two notes for us in Bulgarian, instructing the driver where to tell us to get off the tram. We'd board an electric tram, I'd give the driver my note written in Bulgarian (my notes were numbered so I'd know which note was which) and after three transfers and some walking, we managed to get to the Monastery via a beautiful two-hour bus ride (our third ride) on a colorful-fall-leaf rural mountainous road in the Rila Mountains.
It's a huge complex; our room for one night was on the top floor. We ate at a restaurant nearby with a wonderful view of the mountains and a wood-burning fireplace near our table but with the most disagreeable non-smiling wait staff (by now we were accustomed to this behavior). The restaurant was selling "Monastery Bread" (no description on the menu) so we asked to see it (what the heck is Monastery Bread, eh?). Our waitress (with dyed red hair, lots of women in Bulgaria dye their hair red), said "No" with authority (and a frown of disdain). I don't think she liked us. We opted out of the Monastery Bread.
The bus back to Sofia the next day traveled through several small towns; one town had quite a few huge stork nests built on chimney tops. These storks (click here for a touching stork story) are unique to European countries. Back in Sofia, on a tram-ride back to our hotel, an automobile hit our electric tram! Police arrived to do a report; it was pretty exciting for a country gal like me :)
Across the street from our downtown hotel in Sofia was a Japanese restaurant that we frequented. Vicki was surprised I had never drank Sake! Living in rural Texas for 27 years can be somewhat limiting . . . . so this was my first taste of warm Sake in these little itsy bitsy cups. And on a fall crisp blue-sky day in Sofia, Bulgaria after a tram accident, a monastery stay, and a couple of cold days walking around a historic Communist city where folks don't smile, it was the perfect time in my life for a warm rice wine with a distinctive memorable taste.
We visited the nearest farmers market of course, and the walk there was wonderfully European (hard to explain, there's no comparison to USA cities at all). I bought eight Asian persimmons here for the same price that the USA sells one persimmon! Felt like I had won the lottery; they were all gloriously ripe :) like eating nature-made candy.
The people of Sofia may seem subdued, but Vicki and I had a wonderful time laughing and smiling at everyone. We made a game of it . . . we'd see unsmiling folks and chuckle and smile, hoping it would be contagious and they'd return our smiles (it wasn't contagious, but it was fun trying) and then we'd laugh together because it was an inside-sister-joke between us :)
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