Around Sofia with Bill

The daytime activities when Bill was here mostly consisted of visiting museums and churches. Everyplace we went to were places that I had not seen yet. Of course, the reason I had not seen them was because I knew I would be getting visitors during my stay in Bulgaria and I didn’t want to go to the same places over and over. As it was I knew I would hit the “main attractions” several times so I was in so hurry over the summer to see them.

We started at the Alexander Nevski Cathedral. This is a large orthodox church in the middle of the city. It is on most of the postcards, visitor brochures, etc. It is also very run down and dirty. The walls have never been cleaned (as far as I can tell) so the frescos underneath are barely visible because of years of candle smoke (and probably smog) covering them up. Some of the chandeliers look like are going to fall out of the ceiling at any moment. It is, however, very big – especially when you look up at the ceiling.

Underneath the cathedral is a nice museum of orthodox religious artwork (re: icons). Obviously the museum underneath had been renovated because it was new looking. We walked around for a while, but quite frankly, icons all start to look the same after a while.

The next stop was the St. Sofia Church, right next to the Alexander Nevski Cathedral. The St. Sofia Church has been around in some form since the 5th century. A few years ago the country spend some money to renovate the church so it is a quite nice attraction now. Currently they are renovating the catacombs underneath the church to allow visitors to walk through them as well. Unfortunately, they weren’t open when we were there. Unlike several other museums I have been to in Bulgaria, this one had descriptions in English.

The next stop was the Ethnographic museum. Not many people visit the ethnographic museum. I know this because the museum employee would walk ahead of us to turn on the lights, then turn them off after we left each room. There was an interesting exhibit on masks and costumes that is part of a traditional celebration in Bulgaria (well, traditional in the country because several Bulgarians from Sofia I asked had never heard of it). Basically, on New Years Eve people will dress in scary looking costumes and go around and scare off evil spirits or the like. My friend Paris actually experienced this as he was in a small Bulgarian town for New Years and a woman broke into their party wearing a crazy costume and starting beating people with branches. The tradition is that you give this person some money. Odd, but interesting.

We also went to another church – the Svetna Nedelya Church. This church is interestingly located in a pedestrian underpass at a major intersection downtown. It was very small and not terribly interesting inside.

That made up most of our daytime activities. Of course there were night time activities as well.

The first night we met up with Joel at Ugos (a popular pizza chain), but he wasn’t looking too well and split off from us after dinner. We then went to a pub known for their beer selections and met up with Julia. We had a few beers there before heading to a bar the The Apartment. The Apartment is interesting in that it actually looks like a big apartment. There are different rooms with couches and chairs in each room. Some rooms have a computer where you can surf the internet. If you want a drink you go into the kitchen and they sell you one from the fridge. Really cool concept, in my opinion. We met the owner and talked to him for a while. Apparently he lived in NYC for about 6 years before returning to Bulgaria. He also convinced us to try some of his homemade pudding (also for sale at the bar). The pudding used honey instead of sugar and I’ll have to say it was pretty good.

At this point we broke off from Julia and went to Hambara. I may have described Hambara before, but basically it is an old barn. You have to walk down a side path and knock on the door to get in. There are no lights, only candles. And, now that it was winter, there were also some very dangerous heaters that shot flames out – great heating system for a wooden barn. Again, thank goodness Bulgaria is fireproof.

While there we heard some English speaking voices from the table behind us. There were 2 girls speaking English with British accents. They were talking to 2 guys speaking in English with Bulgarian accents. We didn’t think much of it until we heard one of the guys say, “Wouldn’t you like to come cuddle on my pillow.” At this point Bill and I both laughed out loud and turned around to talk to them. Apparently, one of the British girls lived here and owned a bar – the other was her friend. The two guys were just annoying. One of them got very upset with Bill because he though Bill was a Bulgarian who was pretending not to be. He repeatedly told Bill how much he hated when people did that. Now if you ask me, Bill looks about as Bulgarian as a Chinese looks African – but that’s just me. The guy would talk to me in English, then turn to Bill and talk in Bulgarian. Eventually after a bit more rambling the two girls decided to leave and (thankfully) the annoying guys followed them out.

After they left we moved to the bar and started talking to another two girls and a guy. The two girls were fairly arrogant – claiming to be the two smartest girls in Bulgaria – and I think they meant it. One was a lawyer in Germany and I don’t remember what the other one did. Regardless, Bill and I weren’t impressed. The guy was apparently a famous Bulgarian theater actor. He looked and acted pretty gay so I cam believe he was a theater actor. He was pretty nice though. After a while of talking to these three we noticed at was now 5am so we thought we should head home for a bit of sleep.

I’ll continue the week of nightlife in my next posting.

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