First day in sofia and free pasta and beer

07.11.2010 - 07.11.2010

We finally made it to sofia after that long train ride. We were extremely disoriented upon getting here and although we saw the tram we had to take to get to our hostel we decided to treat ourselves and cab it.

When the driver dropped us off at our destination it wasn't very obvious where exactly this place was. The directions said we had to go trough a small metal door and ring a bell but the door we saw was open and there was no bell to ring. We went in and encountered stairs upon stairs that led to what appeared to be business offices. It was hard to tell since they don't use a latin alphabet here but a cyrillic one and it's completely bewildering. If you want to see what writing looks like here go here

http://5ko.free.fr/bg/cyr.html

Anyways we figured this wasn't the place and went down the stairs and headed out, a couple of doors down we finally found the small metal door and we made it!! Upon first look the hostel looked extremely weird since it was the back of an old run down building and a patch of dirt filled with kittens!! lol It seems cats are following around.

The hostel turns out to be awesome though. It's housed in a restored super old building that has been used as a guesthouse for centuries and the staff are extremely helpful. It is very well organized and everything is catered to making your stay easier. The girl at the front gave us a map and explained how to get to the different hightlights.

We took a shower and headed out to check out Sofia. The city itself is not what I would call beautiful but it has its charm. There are many run down ugly communist era buildings but also nice parks and the downtown area has nice monuments and beautiful ancient orthodox churches. We visited a couple fo the churches and even saw a little boy being baptized. We also went to a museum that had impressive greek and roman era ruins and art that are very well preserved. You can see writings and deeds from the first centuries of roman settlers of this area.

We also went to McDonalds and had a burger. It was super funny dealing with the cashier because believe it or not in bulgaria you shake your head yes and nod your head no. Even though I knew this I still did it wrong and she had to make sure whether I wanted ketchup or not haha!

After a long day of walking around we headed back to the hostel. Everynight the hostel provides all its guests with a free bowl of pasta and a glass of beer. The pasta isn't that great but hey it's free. The hostel is pretty full at the moment with people from every corner of the world. We all gathered in front of a tv and watched the final of the world cup. The game wasn't all that but the company was great and it was funny to experience it in this environment.

Tomorrow we are taking a day trip to Rila Monastery which is suppossed to be awesome so that will be next!!

Posted by stanncie 07.12.2010 13:26 Archived in Bulgaria Tagged tourist_sites