Sofia

Woke up at 9:30 because we had to check out by 11 and we still needed to pack.
It was quite the challenge - we have been storing our sleeping bags on the outside of our bags but for the flight needed to squish them into our big bags. 😓a few things didn't make the cut and got chucked out. I squeezed my cat food in though 😋
We checked out and gave our bags to reception to hold onto for the day.
We walked down Vitosha boulevard and stopped at a cafe for a cappuccino and I got an underwhelming tea. They gave me just water and a teabag which would have been fine if the water had been hotter but the tea bag didn't really work out. We were going to eat but this place was too expensive so we went looking for some banitzas:)
We walked up some side streets to a new area and found a bakery - unfortunately they didn't sell them so we left - we walked all of 10 meters up the street when a city wide siren went off - not a normal siren, one we though could potentially be for an earthquake. Everyone around us stopped moving and stood where they were so we copied not having a clue what was happening.
It sounded what bomb raid sirens sound like on tv.
We had the giggles and had a quick debate if we should go stand in the middle of the street - we walked back down to the bakery and saw that everyone was dead quite, the workers had stopped working and the people seated were all now standing.
After a few minutes the siren stopped and everyone went about there business. We asked a local what the hell that was and they said it was in remembrance for the people that have died in the last few wars.
After learning that, it was lovely to see that every person around us, even those by themselves had stopped and shown respect.
Slightly disappointed it wasn't an earthquake - I want to feel one - obviously only a baby one where no one gets hurt and there is no damage, just a little tremor.
Alas, not today.
It was so friggen loud though.
We found another bakery that sold the banitza's at 3 times the price but they looked good so we bought them - but they were truly terrible and went in the bin.
We sat in the park near the culture center. I had a snooze while Will sent an email to vodaphone and grandad.
Afterwards we went to subway - instead of meatball subs they do falafel 😂
They don't do Italian herbs and cheese bread, have marinara or do salt and pepper?? I chose not to eat and played Pokémon go while Will ate what, judging by his facials, was a sandwich that wasn't too crash hot.
We've walked back to the hostel and are in the common room. We will leave for the airport around 5:30.
I read a few chapters and Will watched a movie.
We asked the hostel to call us a taxi - jumped in and went off to the airport without any troubles - woo!
Our journey continued to be easy once we arrived with us checking in our bags with no issues.
We both had to remove our shoes to walk through security - we were the only ones asked to do so - maybe be looked suspicious or they could tell by our accent we were foreign haha either way it was awkward cause I could smell my feet.
I've been wearing dirty socks all day in an enclosed boot.... it was not good.
We ate at the rooftop bar - which we had a good laugh about because all it had was literal view of a industrial roof hahaha not very classy.
I bought some soap with our left over coins because we can't exchange them - we then walked to our terminal and waited.
A humungous storm hit and one flight was delayed because of the weather conditions - this didn't improve my sense of security. Ever since our faithful Dragon Air flight from Japan I've had a lot more fear toward flying. Hopefully everything goes well and we make it 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
We are of course seated directly in front of a screaming child.
There is another child on board that looks like a bug - she would be around 22 months old and must be blind as a bat for them to have picked up on her vision so quickly and because her glasses are just so so magnified. She was so cute and kept touching my hand on the bus from the terminal. I read on the plane. Thankfully the weather died down. I was only stressed for a minor portion of the flight.
We touched down in Charleroi airport and my oh my what an adventure we had!
Firstly, never ever has it before been difficult to find taxis at an airport or location that screams TOURISTS.
And yet, we could not find the taxi rank.
It took us over 15 minutes to find us.
Then scam after scam was thrown at us.
We paired up with another English couple going to Brussels to hopefully half the price but every taxi driver wanted 100€ per person and not overall which we all refused to pay.
The taxi rank was empty, it was midnight, raining and 7 of us all wanting to go to Brussels remained.
Eventually 3 went to the shuttle bus and us and the other couple ( one was a Romanian Geologist who works at the Arizona university - cool job) agreed to a 14p€ set price trip.
He then decided half way that because we weren't going to the same address as the other couple we had to pay 20€ more. We agreed because at this point our hands were tied - our Bnb person was waiting for us and we were already running an hour late, I was sick of arguing and the taxi had a gps which guaranteed going to the right house.
He sped like a lunatic the whole way. It didn't help my anxiety when we drove past another car completely flipped on the middle of the road..
The geologist dude kept making comments about being surprised at how uncivilized it all was which was a direct jab at the driver which I smiled to myself about.
We ended up only paying 15€ extra not 20 so that was a small win.
85€ for 65km was better than we expected. So we were actually very pleased with the end result.
Unfortunately the saga was not over.
We were definitely at the right house - now 1:10am and the doorbell did not appear to be working. We rang and rang and rang but nobody answered. I was so tired at this point I wasn't even stressed but found it amusing if anything.
We didn't actually stand outside all that long - only long enough for the predicament to sink in and us discuss a plan B when a car came zooming round the corner - it was our hosts friend to let us in - WOOHOOO! THIRLLED.
She took us up to the 4th floor - the front door is the elevator door so that was kind of strange. The apartment is awesome! We cashed pretty quickly once upstairs in our attic room.
Turns out our host has left us food for breakfast so I'm pretty happy about that :)
The roof is low so Will will have to watch his head.Read more