Sofia

We rolled into Sofia, Bulgaria tired, smelly, and hungry. The train station wasn't welcoming either. We almost got run over by some street cleaner. Our first priority was to make sure that we were indeed in a sleeper for our overnight train tomorrow. We got tossed around from ticketing office to ticketing office until we got to the right one and confirmed that we were in a sleeper. Ideally, we'll luck out and there will only be the two of us again, but who knows. Unlike the Budapest train, this is the only train that goes from Sofia to Bucharest. At least we get beds.

Also, trains in Eastern Europe make Italian trains seem prompt. This one arrived three hours late. While we're training into Bucharest tomorrow, we're ultimately trying to get to Brasov that day. At Budapest, they told us that we didn't have to make reservation for the Brasov train. I was going to do it anyway, but it migth be better that I don't. Who knows when we're going to arrive in Bucharest on Wednesday morning.

Anyway, we got out of the train station and everything smelled like pee. We had to make our way through a million taxi drivers and peole advertising hostels before we made it to the tram. The area of Sofia that we saw on our tram ride reminded us of some of the less touristy areas of Mexico. There were definitely some dirt roads and the streets were not completely done or in disrepair. That might have been fine, but add the rows of communist-era architecture and you'll get our first impression of Sofia.

We finally made it to the hostel. It's a pretty cute hostel, but because we got a private two bed room, we're in an apartment a couple streets away. Thus, we did not get to partake in the free pool table because we did not want to have to wake in the dark Sofia streets more than we had to :(. Anyway, we checked in, but they told us that it'd take a couple of hours for the room to be ready. We had the option of doing an 11 am free walking tour, but we were too tired hungry and gross feeling to do that. Instead, we sat around and hung out in the hostel. We also dug into the bag of mini croissants that we bought in Belgrade. They weren't that good, but we made them better with the packet of knock off Nutella that we also got.

Our room was supposed to be ready at 2, but it ended up being ready at 12. This was great. We showered. They do a laundry service here for 8 lav (equivalent of 4 Euro), so we decided that our train clothes from the past few days either needed to be burned or washed, so we went back to drop that off, pay for our room, and book ourselves in the tour of the Rila Monastery that they put on. Once that was done, we ran back to the room for the much needed sleep.

We were up and out by 5 and decided to do the 6 pm run of the free walking tour that we missed earlier in the day. This was a very tough decision for us. Included in the hostel price, they'll make you pasta for dinner. But that only happens from 7-8. On the other hand, this tour lasted from 6-8:30. We almost tried to do both and were going to leave the tour an hour into it, but we actually ultimately really liked the walking tour. The Sofia we saw on the tour was a lot nicer than what we had seen in the morning. There are a lot of underground Roman ruins in the city, so when our tour guide would take us to the subway area, you'd just see old walls all around. There are a lot of really pretty churches scattered around the city, some of them going back to the 11th century. The biggest church and the one pictured below is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It was huge. We saw a palace, the president's building (but just missed the changing of the guard). The tour guide was pretty funny too. 

Oh, another cool thing about Sofia is that they have a lot of mineral springs all over the city. It's completely safe to drink, so we got to fill up with some natural mineral water.

The tour ended around 8:30, right after the dinner. :( All in all, though, we were glad that we did the tour because we saw a lot more of Sofia and did a lot more than we would have otherwise.

Tomorrow we check out and we take an overnight train to Bucharest. Instead of having an awkward day, though, we're doing the hostel's tour of the Rila Monastery which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We could have taken public transportation to the monastery and it would have been a lot cheaper, but seeing as they only have three trains to and from Rila each day and the trains we've encountered so far have not been particularly reliable, I think the private transport is the safest bet. It's also a pretty long drive to and from the monastery, so we've got a full day ahead of us.