Places I've Been: Bulgaria

I think that, before I start describing this trip, I should first explain what made this particular journey possible. When I was in Second year, Debbie stopped by my room (well, Paul's room, actually, but his was right beside mine and I am nosy) to tell us that there was a new arrival over in the nunnery (the 'girls only' section of Lady Eaton College at Trent - believe me I was a don and they were anything but nuns over there...). So we went over to meet this 'Mira' girl. We knocked, she opened the door and there she was. 'Pretty', I thought (no, not in that way - I was attached and unnasailably monogamous). I didn't know it from her cheeky grin, but at that moment, she was thinking 'who's this overconfident overbearing guy? Probably a Jerk'. In any case, over the next little while, we eventually were thrown together enough to get over our (her) initial predjudices and are now good friends. I realized that Mira is one of the smartest people I know, and Mira realized that my overconfidence and overbearingness can be borne.
Flash foreward five or six years and Mira is coming to visit us in the UK before heading off for a rare summer trip to see her parents in Bulgaria. She says 'wanna come with?' and to her surprise (and, possibly, dismay), we say 'yes!'. And we're off. British airways is one of three european carriers that make regular flights to Sofia, Bulgaria.
First of all, let me say that I was very excited to get to see an eastern bloc country. And that none of this would have been possible without Mira and her parents generously offering to be our guides. Their combined efforts made our trip absolutely spectacular. Their attitude towards hospitality was absolute - whatever we needed (or wanted, even) was immediately offered without hestitation of expectation of reciprocation.

And now with the trip. We touched down in the afternoon. I should say that flying over Sofia was interesting in itself. Mira mentioned that virtually all of the buildings were residential because it never occured to the soviets to build anything else. And boy was it true. You could instantly see the origanisational difference between most european cities and Sofia - even from the air. We got our first glimpse of Bulgarian - Bulgarian interpersonal interactions when Mira went to talk to the passport control guy. The contrast was stark. All of the warmth that is normally in her voice was gone, replaced with a flat, efficient and slightly annoyed tone. This, it turns out, is the normal conversational tone among unrelated Sofians.

Mira's parents picked us up at the airport and we got our first look at the city. From what Mira had fille our heads with about her homeland, we expected something along the lines of Dresden circa 1946. But what we saw was more like a typical European city. OK, maybe a little more run-down but far from a disaster zone. And everwhere there were signs of investment. I'm sure I'm going to harp on this point constantly throughout this post, but, I cannot describe the amount of new money pouring into this system that was for so long starved for cash. This investment is in anticipation of Bulgaria joining the European union. And investors aren't the only ones in anticipation - the minitry of foreign affairs has a clock that is counting down the days.

We stopped off at Mira's parent's place to drop off our stuff before taking a walk around the neighbourhood. The picture on the right is of us in the courtyard behind the Bachvarova's appatment. If it looks nice, that is because it is. It even has a completely useless, 24 hour security service (which is a way of paying off organized criminals not to rob the place). We also got to see a lot of 'history of Mira' type places, including her kindergarden (pictured left with the protagonist), high school, english school and the park where she got robbed. Plus we saw the russian embassy (which is like - no - is a big evil fortress) , a kind of statue thingy that was sortof made to comemorate nothing and is pretty indescribable (but cool).

That night we went out for an authentic Bulgarian... pizza. Yep, the bulgarians do love their Pizza. Sofia is kindof built into the side of a mountain chain and the place was up the hill a bit. I should mention that most bulgarian restaurants (inlcluding this one) have english menus. They are definitely ready for european tourists, but they get few enough that europeans (and north americans) are an exciting curiosity. They absolutely love foreigners. The next day was to be our 'Big Day Out' in Sofia. Mira gave us an excellent tour of the city. We started off at Mira's old university. Now picture a soviet classroom. I'm going to guess that you probably came up with something like this (right). We also saw about a billion other things including the national library (which has a big statue of the brothers (religious) responsible for introducing the Bulgarian alphabet), but the real highlight was a trip to the top of a mountain that overlooks Sofia. We hopped on a 1960's era soviet ski lift, which was a little scary, but not too bad, to get to the top. This gave us an excellent view of the city, but the best view was from the chairlift on the way down (left). Then it was back into the city center.

We saw way too much stuff to describe here in detail, but here's the gist: There was the Gia Sofia (a small, but for some reason very famous cathedral), the very large St. Peters (right), the parliament, the Bulgarian academy of science (left, with the three of us in front of it), the eastern orthodox cathedral, the military building, the St. Sofia statue, a chruch built beside roman ruins (in the middle of the city), a giant stadium and the national theater. I should say that Sofia seemed very organized, and very european, with the exception of the occarional pack of wild dogs. Public transit looked to be in good shape, the Bulgarians having recently purchased a whole fleet of 'slightly used' vehicles from Germany.

But there's more. That night, we went to a real traditional Bulgarian restaurant. Now, the bulgarian diet is very much to my liking especially in that it is heavy on the meat. This restaurant had a dish that was aptly named, the 'master's platter' and, being the deeply insecure man that I am, I had to have it. The 'master's platter' consisted of I think almost 1Kg of meat with a few vegetables interspersed. Perfect. The next day was our trip to the second largest city in Bulgaria, Plovdiv.

People from Sofia think that people from Plovdiv are much nicer than they are. Since everyone was nice to us, I'll have to take their word for it. Plovdiv was a pretty city built on trade with an excellent old city (right) and roman theater (the first one I've ever seen, actually, left). Again, we saw way too much stuff to describe in any detail, but here are a few pictures to give you an idea.

On our last day, before we had to go to the airport, we visited the national museum. This was built in the house of the old dictator, who was selected by the soviets on the basis of his low level of intelligence. Because stupid people are good at blind loyalty. Very Orwellian. Anyhoo, the museum had all kinds of interesting artifacts, although the biggest item (the thracian treasure) was off on display somewhere near the balck sea. A depiction of a thracian grave is to the left. There were items associated with the other major periods of Bulgarian history as well including when they were under the 'Turkish yoke' that was the ottaman empire, soviet rule and eventual liberation.

Then it was Bulgaria adieu. Seriously, one of the best trips ever. If you have a bulgarian friend, highly recommend forcing them to show you around their homeland. To Mira's parents, you were the best hosts ever - when you are next in Canada, expect to be wined and dined. And Mira, well, we may not be able to play hosts for you on a Canadian trip (you know about 10x more about Canada than we do), but I'm sure we can think of something.

Happy trails.