Balkans - Part 6

10 Jan 2016 . category: Travel . Comments
#Balkans

Day 8: Sofia

We left bright and early that day for Sofia (7AM…blargh). Strangely, we spent a whole hour at the border leaving Macedonia (non-EU), but only five minutes to enter Bulgaria and the EU. Evidently Macedonia wants to really make sure we’re not smuggling stuff out of the country? At a rest stop along the way, I needed to use the rest room and discovered that it required some amount of local currency which we sadly did not possess. Thankfully a helpful old man gave me some lev to pay for it. We generally observed over our time in the Balkans that locals were welcoming and kind (a bit of a cliche, but nevertheless legitimately true).

Leaving the Sofia bus station, we unfortunately were not very vigilant in selecting a taxi driver, and ended up getting totally ripped off. I think we ended up paying the equivalent of like 15 dollars, which while not a lot for a US cab ride, was pretty exorbitant given local prices.

Upon arriving at our hostel…the fun began! We discovered that our Lufthansa flight back to Boston was canceled due to a pilot strike. Something about preserving early retirement benefits for those young people entering the union now? I’m certainly no enemy of labor rights…but in the moment I was pretty frustrated. (Sidenote: labor strikes are categorized as “acts of god” in the EU passenger bill of rights). We then spent the better part of the day on the phone with Lufthansa Bulgaria and Lufthansa US (we got our parents woken up by asking friends on FB to call them). This really pissed off the hostel manager…a guy who would’ve fit in perfectly in the 1970s, complete with anklets, flared jeans, and a headband. Here’s me on the phone with the airline…sadly the second year for which such a picture exists:

Finally, we were booked onto a flight two days later than we initially planned…darn. We wondered about whether Lufthansa would cover our expenses over these two days (they eventually did) and thought about moving to a luxury hotel, but decided against it on the off chance we’d have to cover the costs.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant described as “expensive” by the hostel employees, but main dishes still available for less than $10. The Balkans are amazing.

Day 9: Sofia - Actual Sightseeing

We were originally supposed to have left today, but instead we made up for our sightseeing losses from the day before. This was the day of churches, as we ended up seeing five overall, with the highlight being the famous Alexander Nevski and its icon museum. There was another one that had this cool archeological exhibit that let you walk around ruins (Sveti Sofia).

We also saw the National Gallery (lots of Socialist art…but within a palace) and the changing of the guard. Here’s a great shot of American Corporate Imperialism from a local square!

We ended the day by watching Despicable Me - woo hoo!

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