Aug 17, 2009 - Sofia ~ Bulgaria

When we arrived at the train station in Istanbul, we were somewhat surprised to see a rundown, unairconditioned train awaiting us - we were heading further into Europe for goodness sakes'! Alas, with the warm wind in our hair and after numerous stops at the border, we made it the next morning to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, a member of the EU since 2007. Our first stop in a country using the cyrillic alphabet, Chris studied up on the train, always the prepared one :) We found Sofia to be an interesting capital - full of beautiful...

Jun 12, 2009 - Bulgaria

We are here. After being harassed in the train station by two or more crazy men. We found ourselves a great angel who exchanged some money for us and asked a friend to pick us up and take us to our hostel. When we arrived at the hostel we were told that we were living in an apartment with five beds for the next two days which was awesome but it was a long way from the original place. Thankfully they gave us a ride. Last night we spent the night with some salad and 1-2 Lev wine. Great!!!! Today we spent the day exploring the city, which I...

Apr 28, 2009 - Sofia

We got on the bus this morning and headed to Bulgaria. We arrived in the capital city, Sofia, and took a walk around. We went inside a church, and walk past some other cool buildings, including one with musical notes on top. There was a park with some intense sculptures of people in agony and pain, which really caught my attention. We walked around another church, this one with a picture of Saint Nicholas. I got my picture taken in front of some guards, then we walked around yet another site of old ancient Roman ruins. There seems to be...

Mar 26, 2009 - Bulgariasaurus

Wow, this place is so interesting. The tallest Mountains I've seen on this trip are off in the distance, but not too far away. They are covered with snow but sprayed with trees on the tops as if the mountain was a pale face growing patches of a beard on its jaw. Too bad I didn't plan on snowboarding here but I didn't know anything about this place. I'm so curious about Sofia. I can't tell the difference between this and Russia. The alphabet looks Russian, but I know its Bulgarian. The people look Russian too. I exchange 10 Euro's for 18.4...

Jan 22, 2009 - Oops, I'm bitten again.

1/22/09 The architecture of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and its surrounding areas remind me of Russia. Huge, ugly, moldy blocks of communist-style apartments rise up amidst beautiful mountains and countryside. The capital sports some magnificent, opulent buildings, such as the university, as well as churches built in the Byzantine style, somewhat reminiscent of St. Basil’s Church in Moscow. One shining example is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, erected by the Bulgarians in the late 1800’s as a thank-you to Russia for liberating them...

Nov 10, 2008 - Sofia - The Armpit of Europe

I have to be completely honest here: Sofia is a sh*thole. I don’t feel bad declaring it so. Not in the least. And I don’t think its citizens (Sofians?) would argue; they’re aware that it’s a sh*thole. In fact, the only thing the city has going for it is its reputation as a sh*thole. Tourists want to come just to see if it really is as bad as it’s supposed to be. They leave, as we did, satisfied that the city really is a sh*thole and that they’ve experienced the true Sofia. We arrived by bus in the early afternoon. We bade farewell to the...

Oct 11, 2008 - Day 16 – Last Supper

As we share our last supper, complete with all our Bulgarian favorites (French fried potatoes with cheese, chicken Sache (Bulgarian stir fry), and a Greek salad) it is time to reflect on our two weeks. Each day was it’s own adventure. The people we met; The disinterested youth that picked us up at the airport; The French foursome that repeatedly crossed our paths in Sofia, Rila and Melnik; the kindly American in Skopje, who followed our advice and retracted our steps through Nis and Sofia; The cast of characters at the Monastiri Guesthouse,...

Sep 18, 2008 - Montenegro, Serbıa, Bosnıa-Hercegovına (again), Kosovo, Macedonia,Bulgaria

We spent a harrowing few days travelling through the Balkan countries, crossing several borders in a matter of hours in order to get to Turkey. There was a huge military and police presence in Kosovo, including UN vehicles and personnel stationed at the Serbia/Kosovo border. There was razor wire and concrete barriers everywhere and camouflaged guard towers. As we crossed through we were given a 90 day tourist visa but could hardly wait to get out after a few hours! İt was a very poor and depressing country. We did manage to spend a few...

Sep 8, 2008 - Sofia, Bulgaria

September 8 Sofia Today, we travelled by bus to Bulgaria's capital (Sofia), a 3-1/2 hour bus ride which was actually quite comfortable. Since we had assigned seats, we had the pleasure of kicking people out of our seats instead of the other way around. It was a short taxi ride to our hotel, but the driver didn't know exactly where the hotel was and simply dropped us off about two blocks away and simply pointed in the direction that we needed to go to. The taxi drivers are extemely rude and they really have no desire to help with our...

Jul 31, 2008 - So the maths is over, now for the serious business...

As usual, the marks for the first paper were up on the morning of the second; I'd managed a stunning 3/120, although at least I wasn't last as there were twelve people who scored zero. I still fail to understand the mark scheme they use here - they gave me 2 for a trivial observation on question 1 which really didn't constitute any progress at all towards an answer, but only 1 for my effort on question 4 which got most of it but just missed the last few cases. Such is life, or at least life in maths competitions. The second didn't go much...

May 7, 2008 - Hotel Lion - Sofıa

Belgrade is the first place on our itinerary that I haven't been to. It is a bit intimidating so we decided to book a 3 hour tour of the city. We visited Tito's grave, the old and new St Sava's churches, and the gardens of the citadel with a local guide. She provided a lot of insight into Serbian people and places that are important to them (like Kossovo). In the evening we all went to the Three Hats restaurant in the old town. I had a huge "mixed meat" plate and a Serbian beer. Between the volume of the group and the traditional music I...

Aug 9, 2007 - Various bits of Bulgaria

The first day's results were up before we started the second: I scored 20 on the first question, which I'd been expecting; 17 on the second, on which I thought I'd got full marks; nothing for my desperate stab at question 6, which I couldn't be too surprised at; and nothing for any of the others, which was even less of a surprise as I hadn't handed anything in for them. I was second among the Warwick team: Ruth scored 44, Tomas 35, Ian 30 and Rupert 22. Question 2 on the second paper was also reasonably easy; there might have been a short...