The hotel was up two flights of stairs. It contained private rooms and a small sitting area where coffee and tea were being prepared. We happily accepted some tea and declined the cakes set out in the middle of the table. We chatted with other guests to get a sense of the city and what we should see.
Two people we met were Maria Jose and David, a Spanish couple planning on renting a car and driving around Bulgaria for a week. They generously offered to drive us to Rila Monastery that morning, after they picked up the rental car. We thought this was a great idea because it meant we didn't have to figure out the buses. First we hailed a taxi to take us to the car rental place. This was quite a challenge because the first taxi didn't want to drive us there and other ones completely ignored us. Luckily one agreed to take us. It took a while for the Spanish to agree on a car because David only speaks Spanish and Maria Jose (who speaks English and Spanish) had to translate between him and the rental guy. (I was NOT getting involved.)
Along the two-hour drive, we chatted about Spain and I think I learned more in those two hours than I had learned in all the months I've been living here. They gave us an idea of what life in Spain was like before Spain joined the EU. In the 1950s, people were lucky if they had one car and in many pueblos indoor plumbing was unheard of. There were almost no highways in Spain until the 1980s and 90s when money started coming in from other EU countries. This helped me to understand Priego a bit better.
We got to the town of Rila which is at the bottom of the snow-covered Rila Mountains. From there we followed a windy country road to the monastery. It was founded in 927 AD and moved to its current location in 1355. The monastery is currently used as a hotel, and we were able to visit its courtyard and church. It was a very colorful building: the balconies were red and white. The church was complete covered with frescoes. These were unlike any frescoes I had seen before because they were outside in small domes above what can only be described as the church's front porch. Inside it was dark, like many of the other orthodox churches we visited. The vibrantly painted frescoes were interesting to look at, although I'm not really sure of the meaning behind most of them.
We snapped some pictures and said "adios" to our Spanish amigos who were heading south. Then, we got on the bus bound for Sofia. This bus went through a whole bunch of tiny towns (remember we're only 100km from the CAPITAL city) in which people used horses to get around. The majority of the economy seemed to be based on agriculture and generally roads were in disarray. It took a little more than three hours to get to the Sofia regional bus station, four miles from the center of the city. We hopped on a tram (after a confusing attempt to tell the driver where we were going), paid, and punch-validated our tickets. Luckily a guy on the tram spoke English and was able to tell me how to get to Blvd. Vitosha, the main shopping street in the city.
Wandering down Vitosha we found our next destination, MANGO. A few women working there understood some English, but we couldn't find my mom's sweatshirt anywhere. It had been on sale in Barcelona, so I wasn't really expecting to find it here. We then went to dinner at a place recommended to us by our Spanish friends. The restaurant was called Divaka and it served grilled seafood (and meat) and tons of salads! I got a shopska salad and smoked mackerel. Shopska is awesome. I shouldn't really eat it because it has cheese, but it has the only cheese I really like - white, salty Balkan cheese. It's kind of like feta, but it's not feta. It's better. The rest of the salad is tomato and cucumber with red onion and green pepper (these are optional. Shopska has to have tomato, cucumber and the cheese). Mom got a more American-style salad and pan-seared salmon. We were quite content.
Back at the hostel, I got another great night sleep, while Mom barely slept. Before bed we showered (we were super gross at this point). This shower was a hand-held one but didn't have a place to hang the nozzle to the wall; it was also located in the middle of the room rather than in an enclosed space. I have encountered these before, so I tried to give my mom a usage lesson....we still managed to soak the place. Actually, it probably would have been fine if the drain worked properly.
The next morning we slept late. Our first stop was the Ladies' Market - a combination produce and flee market where you could buy anything from bras to handmade brooms to kiwi the size of softballs or cabbage the size of basketballs. Instead of all that, we bought a banana. The market was chaotic and crowded. It stretched on for blocks and across streets. Some stands were inside, some outside. We were horrified by the lack of sanitation (I've seen this all over the world) as we watched a woman use her bare hand to put a cut of meat in the window of her stall - right up against the foggy plexiglass.
Next we walked by the Sofia Synagogue. The domed roof reminded me of an orthodox cathedral, while the sides were more like buildings in Andalucía. The windows looked like those at the Alhambra. Around the corner we ate lunch at a different market. This one was indoors and the building had been a market since 1909. Mom got pizza and took the meat off of it. I had roasted eggplant and zucchini and more cabbage salad! We were basically eating in a mall food court. Then we got some fruit and went across the street to a plaza to eat it.
Sofia was built in its location because of the natural springs that bring water into the city. One of these just behind the plaza. I wandered over to see it and found a series of facets. Locals were filling empty five-liter bottles with the tepid water. Some people had as many as ten of these jugs waiting to be filled. While Mom knit for a while, I went into a mall to see if they had a MANGO. They didn't. However, the mall did have energy-saving escalator ramps which moved really slowly until they sensed that a person was standing on them.....very cool!
As I was exiting the mall, I could see a mosque (the call to prayer was sounding) and the market and synagogue in the background. It was interesting to see such a blend of religious buildings with historical buildings while I was exiting such a capitalist institution (with Hanson's "Mmm Bop" playing in the background).
Next we walked to Sveti Nedelya Cathedral. It was built between 1856 and 1863 on the foundation of other churches. It's basically the center of the city and 120 people were killed there in 1925 when communists set off a bomb in an attempt to kill Tsar Boris III (he survived). From the church, we walked through the Sheraton Hotel to the Sveti Georgi Rotunda, which is the oldest preserved building in Sofia. It's from the 4th century AD and was used as both a church and a mosque over the years. We could see five layers of fresco painting on the dome and outside the church were Roman ruins. Mom bought a cross and history booklet from the woman working the info booth/concession stand.
Continuing our tour of churches, we stopped next at the Russian Church, which was ugly and dark inside. We couldn't really see anything except a group of people who were either praying or attending some sort of religious class. Outside, however, the church was beautifully decorated with gold domes and a colorful facade.
The final stop on our church tour was Alexander Nevski Cathedral, a huge (I really think it might have been bigger than Belgrade's Sveti Sava) orthodox church. Again, the inside was disappointingly dark. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be dark or if it was just dirty. People were lighting candles (in all of the churches), but here the cleaning woman was taking them and blowing them all out. This made me laugh because people continued to buy the candles and light them and she just went along blowing them out and even throwing some out.
Walking towards Vitosha and the shopping section of town we stopped at a grocery store where I bought orange and lemon gummy slices (the kind sold in America during Passover). We also stopped to check out a street market, but this one was for books. We tried to find a knitting magazine for Mom, but could only find crochet magazines. We stopped into McDonald's to use the bathroom and Mom wanted a chocolate milkshake. I didn't think this was going to be easy, but the guy A.) spoke English, B.) knew what I was talking about, and C.) actually had milkshakes! As we were exiting I saw a Starbucks cup on a garbage pail. I picked it up and removed the cup sleeve from it. I then asked the first group of young, hip looking people I saw if they knew where it was. They told me it was really far away, so I opted not to go in search of it.
Mom and I wandered a bit more and stumbled upon another Divaka (apparently there are two). We decided we had better eat something before heading to the airport where our options would be seriously limited. We got more salads. I got shopska, she got a Picasso salad (red cabbage, broccoli and carrots) and we split a chicken and cabbage salad. It was a yummy and veggie-filled meal (our favorite kind!).
Then, it was back to the hostel for one last email check and off to the airport!
Our flight to Madrid was uneventful. I got to board before Mom because I had checked-in online. Apparently Easy-Jet gives you preferential boarding if you check-in online (who knew?!?!). I got us two seats together in the front of the plane and we napped the whole way to Spain. Once we arrived, we got our stuff and went to the hotel to get some sleep. It was nice to be back to a place where I speak the language and can understand what's going on.
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