I spent the last few days of this week on business (mostly) in Sofia, Bulgaria. After spending a day up in the mountains, we came down to the city on Friday and went to the office. After a few meetings, I headed out to do some site seeing with a coworker (thanks Radost!). Sofia is a big, vibrant city that is recovering very nicely from decades of communism.
Bulgarians speak Bulgarian, which sounds like Russian to my ear. It is written using the Cyrillic alphabet, which constantly reminds you that you're not in Kansas. The Bulgarian Orthodox church seems to be the most common religion.
The Downtown Hotel where I stayed was modern and centrally located. After checking in, I got a nice tour of the major landmarks and a bit of a feel for the city. A teacher's strike was in effect and elections are today (Sunday, October 28) so there was a lot of political activity in the streets. One of the little differences that I thought was cool were the timers displayed on traffic signals so you know how much time you have before it changes.
That evening I had dinner with coworkers at a nice restaurant that serves typical Bulgarian food and, of course, rakia. My favorite was the apricot, although the grape and plum varieties were also excellent. We then went to a jazz club where we could only take 30 minutes of the lame garage band that was wayyyyy too impressed with themselves. We left and the rest of the folks headed home. I went to a cool bar near the hotel, the Candle Club, and had a few more drinks. The DJ there was on fire. The place was small and absolutely packed when I left around 2:00. On Saturday, we headed up to the mountains again. This time, we went to Rila monestery. More on that incredible experience in another post.
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