Monday, June 28, 2021

Just a little sightseeing in Sofia as we are waiting for our adoption appointments. The city of Sofia is beautiful (“mnogo krasiva” as I’ve been recently taught. I was also taught “mnogo grosen” / “very ugly”, in reference to the t-shirt that I was wearing yesterday. I guess I’ll continue to trust teenagers for my fashion sense, regardless of where they’re from.) and there are many MANY things to see here. I hope we’re able to see all we’d like to before we leave.

The day started with my returning the rental car. I’m kinda torn on this. After being completely ripped off by a parking lot owner whose day (or probably more accurately, his week) I made by over paying for two nights of parking, I was able to better figure out the parking system here in Sofia. It’s really not that expensive to park here. It’s just an inconvenience during the days of Monday-Saturday. We probably could have kept the car and had a little more freedom to see some more sights (I had a conversationwith Sonya about wanting to see some castles, but it’s just not practical without a vehicle). We may be able to see sights on the outer edges of Sofia if we can figure out the public transit system, which we’ll be given the opportunity to very soon (which should make for some interesting blogging).

I downloaded the TaxiMe app and set it up ahead of time just for this moment. We’ll probably use it eventually, but I chickened out at the last minute and just used one of the taxis in line there at the airport. When the cabbies were done circling me like taxi-sharks and fighting over who was going to be the one to take advantage of the clueless American with money just flying out of his butt, I got in the winner’s cab and we were off, back to the apartment.

We got back to the apartment, and just stopped. He turned and just looked at me in silence (the first one to name his prices loses). Me (the loser): “10 leva?”, Him: “Ehhh… 20 leva.” Okay, fine. It was still about a 10th of what it would have cost me for the same trip in San Francisco. I’ll just do my part to single-handedly prop up the Bulgarian economy one parking lot owner and taxi cab driver at a time.

Getting ready to go out today, another braid was requested. Sonya did another amazing braid, which I can’t wrap my head around how to do.

Today we are meeting up with Martina. She was introduced to us by Wilson and Julie Adams who adopted a sibling set from Bulgaria a few years ago and inspired us to consider a Bulgarian adoption as well. Through her volunteer work, she advocated for their children who were in a very bad orphanage and in very dangerous situations. She is now a very good friend of ours as well. She is very humble, has a big, courageous heart, and gives voice to many of the voiceless here in Sofia… all the way at the top.

Martina’s preferred mode of transportation is walking. She lives in Sofia and does not own a vehicle. As a result, her sense of direction is admittedly a little lacking. On our first trip to Bulgaria, Martina went to church with us. She knew the way there and would give me real-time directions as I drove. I didn’t even pull up Google Maps; we were excited to have our own local guide! Well, what was a 15 minute trip turned into a 30 minute trip because of her directions. I kept getting directions like “Um, I think it’s this way… yep it was that way.” / “You want to turn right here.” (as we are passing the street), etc. It made for a funny story that both she and I still tell.

Our general plan for the day was to walk the streets of Sofia, grab some drinks and some lunch, and to enjoy each other’s company. Nothing fancy. Sofia is a very charming city with lots of beautiful architecture and personality. And now some pictures…

Temperatures this week are in the low 30’s C (low to mid 90’s F) so it was a bit difficult to walk around for a long time. We decided to find some shade and have a drink. Since it was around noon we decided on lunch. Mr. Pizza it is! Along with our pizza and calzone, we had water and a lemonade with elderberry drink which was delicious!

Bulgaria has a very interesting history dating back a couple thousand years. Under Ottoman rule for 500 years, they were liberated with the help of Russia in the late 19th century, but not without a price. (The liberation started to turn for Bulgaria’s favor in a battle near Kazanluk in a town called Shipka, which we were able to visit on our first trip in October of 2020.) They then found themselves being under the thumb of Communist Russia until their fall in the late 1980’s. They are still financially recovering from that, as are a lot of Eastern European countries. As a result, many of the monuments, parks, and buildings have both tribute to Russia and soviet-era flair to them.

We walked to the “Borisova Gradina” (Boris Garden) and walked around just a small fraction of this large incredible park. The park is a tribute to the last era of the monarchy in Bulgaria, Tsar Boris III. His son Simeon II was technically the last Tsar, but was an ineffective leader and was later elected as Prime Minister.

After a fairly long and hot walk, it was time to say good-bye, for now, to Martina and to take a rest. Martina is very busy working and volunteering and we are so grateful that she spent some time with us.

After a nap (I wasn’t sure if I was going to wake up from this one), we headed out for some dinner. We ended up at a small outdoor restaurant called Einstein. It was chicken strips and fries for Meagan, spaghetti for Sonya. And for myself, I did a last-minute leaving of my comfort zone and ordered the pictured kabob. I’d say that it was nothing to write home about, but I am literally writing home about it.

The evening was starting to cool a bit so we got the idea to sit out on the balcony and enjoy the fading day. Over the past couple of days we’d seen a gathering of cats on a rooftop below our balcony. It was almost as if they’d caught wind of the leftovers that we kept bringing back to the apartment. We decided it would be fun to throw leftover chicken strips down to them. The entertainment did not disappoint. Apparently we weren’t the first to come up with the idea as there were chicken bones on the rooftop from past nights’ entertainment.

We are really enjoying this view from our apartment balcony. The sunrise is visible in the morning (if we are up early enough to see it) and the colors in the evening are very calming. It was a great ending to the day.

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