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  • Day 31

    Sofia

    May 4, 2017 in Bulgaria ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    Slept in again until 1 o.O I dont know what is happening to us lol.
    We are doing the Arvo tour now haha
    We are about to either walk to town or catch a bus. I want to walk but we should probably catch a bus because we are booked in to a day tour tomorrow to the Rila monastery that starts at 9am in the center of town and we have to be there on time meaning knowing how the buses work is the safest option.

    So, we ended up walking lol.
    And less that 1km in it started raining -.- so the next 5km were super fun!..
    It's lucky we brought our rain resistant coats but they were trapping all the heat in so it was very hot in them.
    We skipped the park and stuck to the main roads to make it quicker even though the trees would have offered us some protection.
    It took an hour an a half but we made it to near the church again. We stopped in to maccas for breakfast and cover as it rained harder. There were a few good thunder bangs too.
    We stayed In maccas for an hour or so. The toilets smelt like b.o and old wee.
    We then walked to the meeting point even though we were 2 hours early just so we knew where to meet. We walked up vitosho* boulevard and are sitting in a gelato bar with the worlds worst service. I asked 3 times for a menu and ended up getting it myself.
    I looked them up on TripAdvisor because I plan to give a crappy review and had a giggle because the last 15/20 said such negative things about the service too.
    I've complained about other places but this has been worse because in other places they have just not taken initiative to talk to you but once you have their attention they have been fine.
    Here they have purposefully ignored our requests several times.
    "Can we please have a menu"
    "Yes"
    *stands still and doesn't get one*

    We then walked back to the meeting place and ran into old mate from yesterday who walks around like he is a bodybuilder but is skinny as crap. I took some sneaky photos of him. What a tool.
    We kept seeing him. He might be high. We was doing laps.
    It was still raining and we needed to pee so we bought water from a different maccas to get into the toilet and sit inside until we went to the meeting place again. I gave 2 buskers some money. Carrying around 1c and 2c is just annoying.
    We waited out front and were thinking maybe it had been called off because we couldn't see anyone and were making plans for a 3rd attempt another day but bless Wills height, he spotted the group. We waited for a while and over 30 people showed up!
    Our tour guide was Martin and you could just tell he was bullied in school. But he was so cute, he was putting in so much effort I felt like I wanted everyone to like him and no one walk out of the tour cause I didn't want his little heart to break.
    He had really big nostrils.
    We started at the palace of justice which he didn't walk about much other than the symbol of the lion. Which essentially is the symbol of Bulgaria. Once it's pointed out to you everywhere you look you will see a lion. Their currency is Levon* which means lion too lol.
    Next we went to a church - Sveta Nedelya. It's the site of the highest act of terrorism is Bulgaria.
    Basically someone wanted to kill the king so they blew up the top. 200 people died, 500 injured - the king survived because he was late and hadn't arrived yet...
    We saw sofias cost of arms which has a lion, mountain, church of Sofia and something else.. :S a goddess?
    We saw a big lady statue called Sofia which has no historical value because the politicians got the history wrong and thought this statue was how the city got its name. It's not. It has no relevance to Bulgaria so now it just sits there with no purpose. The lady was Italian..
    Hehe
    We saw some Roman building ruins as every city has them and we saw the only mosque in Sofia. Even though apart of the Ottoman Empire most of the mosque buildings were turned into museums etc.
    We drank from a hot spring bubbler- water temperate is about 37 degrees and smells/tastes a little of sulfur. It's suppose to have healing powers. Ooo
    We walked through town which had all the buildings from the communist period and into a train station which had more Roman remains.
    The talk about communism was interesting and we got vouchers for a communist tour we might do on Saturday.
    Apparently it's a very controversial topic and opinions are 50/50 on it.
    Martin has 2 grandparents - one who is extremely pro and one who is extremely against.
    We walked out the tunnel to an area I recognized. The guards with the funny hats were back! :)
    They are not nearly as well trained as any other guards I've seen. They move their eyes around and one scratched his leg with his foot. Naughty naughty.
    They are guarding where the president works.
    We walked through to its sort of backyard where stands the oldest church in Sofia - 1700 years old. (St George's church) in front of it is more Roman ruins.
    Our guide, Martin had been giving out lollies for people who answered questions correctly. Will got one right and gave me the Lolly :D it's a Bulgarian favourite. I wasn't fussed by it but I ate it. It's like a mint lozenger.
    We walked past the national theatre then to the St Sofia church which is how the city really got its name.
    Apparently because it is on top of the hill it's the first things traveller use to see when visiting the city so they would say "ahh Sofia" and eventually after centuries they name stuck.
    It's the cities 3rd given name.

    There was a crazy Greek lady on our tour who didn't give 2 fucks about whether her political views offended anyone.
    She made it very clear that Macedonia is Greece and Macedonia the country is the republic of Skopje.
    While I recognize that that opinion is very common - ones opinion does not take away legal fact.
    It's a country.
    And ALSO a section of Greece.
    But she kept mentioning it. Lucky no one from Macedonia was on our tour they would not have been impressed. She was so vocal in her views that the guide whispered Macedonia to people so she couldn't hear him hahah
    Also the idiot woman wore heels on a walking tour?
    The cathedral square was littered in Military personal with big big guns. A little confronting at first but we were told they were only there because in 2 days it's some big celebration day so they were just practicing procedure for Saturday.
    Hundreds of them though.
    We said bye to our tour guide. Bless his socks - he made so many bad jokes - tipped him 20 Lev then walked to an Asian resturant nearby.
    AHHH THE MOCKTAILS <3 <3
    My fried rice was great and Will said his calamari and chicken was good too.
    We caught a taxi home. This guy actually had a meter so we weren't ripped off. We asked to go to club 35 because that seems to be a well know spot near by.
    Now home and keen for bed. Big day tomorrow!

    Forgot to mention that yesterday Will had to close some guys back door for him because it sprang open and the guy seemed to know but not care that he was nearly banging everyone's cars.
    Crazy drivers.
    Which has reminded me this morning we saw a car crash. Not a bad one.
    Dude spun out of the corner, did a 180 and dinged another car. The other driver was not happy. I wanted to watch the outcome but Will isn't as nosey as me and wanted to move on lol.

    I read this to Will every night before I post and he would like it known that the big big guns were in fact AK47's.
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