Sofia, Bulgaria

This last weekend we decided to go to Sofia, Bulgaria since we are both on duty at school next weekend (holiday weekend), so we won't be able to take advantage of the three day weekend. Our trip started very early on Saturday morning. On Friday night we had a student call to arrange a taxi to pick us up at the school to take us to the airport at 3:40 am for our 6:00 am flight from Sabiha Gokcen Airport to Sofia. We received a call at 2:55 am from the taxi and all I could communicate was that they were supposed to come at 3:40. We received another call five minutes later from the security guard telling us our taxi was here. I told them we needed the taxi at 3:40 so the security guard had them wait. There were only eight people on our flight so the check-in counter didn't even open until 4:45. We took off on time at 6:00 am from Istanbul and landed in Sofia at 7:10. We went straight to the hostel to drop our bags off and after sitting down with one of the staff at the hostel and having her walk us through the map of the city we decided to do the day-trip to the Rila Monastery. We left for the trip at 9:45 with two girls from Australia and an older Japanese couple. It was about a two hour drive to get to the monastery in the Rila mountains, but the drive was very scenic...at least for when we didn't fall asleep. We probably picked one of the best days of the year to visit since the sky was clear blue and the trees in the mountains were in bright fall colors. We first hiked up to a cave where Saint John of Rila spent many years of his life. After the cave hike we went back down to the monastery and spent a couple hours walking around and having lunch. We ate at a traditional Bulgarian restaurant where we had Shopp's salad (a Bulgarian specialty) and potatoes with cheese (fries with shredded goat cheese on top). Katie had chicken wrapped in bacon for her main course and I had the pork mixer which was five different kinds of pork. The pork mixer filled the entire plate and I could barely finish. The meal was awesome. After our time was up we rode back to the hostel, again falling asleep in the car. When we got back we did a little walking around the city before heading back to the hostel for dinner. The hostel offered both free breakfast and a free spaghetti dinner with beer. We even got our room for half off since we booked a private room, but they overbooked so we chose to stay in a six bed dorm, so it was a pretty good deal with the meals included too. We talked for a while after dinner with two Australian girls and a girl from Vienna, Austria before we headed to bed. The Australian girls were headed to Istanbul the next day and were planning on taking the train (about 12 hours overnight), but we told them the flights were only a little bit more so they ended up booking a flight instead. The next morning after breakfast we followed the map and walked around the entire city with another girl, Sita, from Vienna who we met at breakfast. We saw all of the main attractions, the most famous being the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. For lunch we went to a pizza place that was really good and after lunch Sita and Katie had coffee in one of the big parks since it was such a nice day. The city center wasn't that big so we had a few hours to spare before dinner, so we decided to walk around the mall before heading back for spaghetti again. After dinner we went to the airport with the two Australian girls for the 10:15 pm flight home. We sat on the runway was 45 mintues because of heavy traffic but landed at 11:50 in Istanbul and rode a taxi home. We were exhausted, but it was a lot of fun.

As a side note, Sita said if we ever come to Vienna to let her know and she will show us around. She said one of the best times to visit is around Christmas when all of the Christmas markets are open, so maybe we'll go a couple weeks before Christmas since we'll be spending Christmas with Brian and Steph in Turkey.