Day One and Two

Well, I managed to arrive safely in Sofia and, despite Tam's best efforts to make me think ill of the place, I think this is a city that I could spend a bit of time in.

My big adventure started at half eleven on Wednesday when, in order to avoid the problems associated with last trains, I headed to Gatwick super early and slept on the floor of the airport with a number of Faro and Malaga bound people. As you can imagine I was pretty shattered after only getting an hour's sleep total and spend most of the way to Sofia thinking about a nice afternoon nap. There's nothing much to say about the flight, except how old I felt talking to the lovely young man who had just finished his first year of uni and was off to teach English to the Bulgarians... ah bless.

Having been to India, Italy and more recently Bosnia I feel I am pretty resilient when it comes to being shocked by bad driving... I was picked up from the airport and driven through the back streets of Sofia by a slightly odd man from the Hostel - it was slightly nerve raking but did give me a chance to size up the city. (But nothing compared to the drive to Rila today!!)

Sofia is an odd mix... it has a little bit of the Athens-es about it, with a pinch of Ottoman Turk and a slight hint of Austo-Hungarian thrown in. It isn't the biggest captial (1.1 million) and as a result there isn't really the feeling of pace and hussle that get in other capitals. I'm definately looking forward to exploring it more when I come back at the end of the month with Jade. (Woot! Woot! Walking tour!)

In terms of the hostel, I need to state that I have never found such a great deal nor met more enthusiastic staff. Free internet, breakfast, dinner and evening beer - all served up inside a 19th century inn. (Anyone coming here needs to stay at Mostel hostel.) After my afternoon nap I spent the later afternoon chatting with some of the other guests. This is what I love the most about travelling alone and staying hostels - you are forced to talk to other people and step out of your comfort zone. In return you meet amazing people who, simply because of a shared situation/outlook on life/etc, you develop an instant friendship with.

After a meal of spag and sauce, my first evening away was spent playing cards and later dancing... having found a bar called 'mojito' we were all expecting a minimalist bar, playing house music. What we got was hip hop and rap (V - Both old skool and new stuff) - usually one might feel a bit out of place but in this bar even the guys with afros were white. So we ended busting moves left, right and centre into the wee small hours of Friday with the only dissapointment being that there wasn't a place to buy some chips on our way home!!

I had decided that, as I had been so good going to the gym of late, that I would continue my fitness regime in Europe - as I found out this morning, it turns out that the eastern europeans don't really go in for exercising outside and I was the only person in the whole of Sofia who was out for a run... meh, I'm leaving tomorrow so who cares!! I am thinking of using the blog not only as an every-two-days update but also as a means to amking sure I keep up the running - feel free to bug me via Facebook.

I spent today at the Rila monastry - Bulgarian's largest and most revered. Rila is two hours south of Sofia so I was treated to another display of horrific driving. Luckily I was still tired from a) that Gatwick experience and b) dancing at 'mojitos' so I may not have been conscious for the worst of it. The monastry is located above a winding gorge - one fo the most peacful and beautiful I have seen. It was started by St Ivan, who for a time lived in cave above where the monastry is now located... yes I did go to the cave and even had to squeeze through a tiny hole to get out of the place!!! From the outside the monastry looks like a fortress but after going through a frescoed gate you enter a beautiful, balconied courtyard - all dark wood, white wash and pretty leaf frescoes. The place could hold up to 450 monks but only 8 live there at the moment - all orthodox and black wearing. I got to have an upclose look at some great doom paintings (lots of fire and monsters eating doomed souls) and, much to my delight, got to indulge in some religious icon shopping and relic admiring. (Inside the church was a case with 30 odd individual parts - each with bone fragments from a different monk/saint - excellent!)

I'm off to Veliko Tarnovo tomorrow (home of Bulgaria's most prestigious university) - will write again soon!!

Rose xx