August 6, 2018
Last night, I stayed up late because I was trying to finish packing and fill out my evaluation form for the Balkan Heritage Field School. There was a lot I had to say, but I kept hearing people being loud, so I went to the landing where Siyu, Madeline, Ivan, and Mathilde were sitting and sat with them for a minute and then headed outside to see what the ruckus was, but they were busy playing a drinking game, so I came back inside and finished packing and went to bed. I woke up at 4 a.m., talked to Folklore Fiancé for a bit, especially because there was a dog barking for a solid hour and a half, and fell back asleep.
My alarm went off around 7 a.m. so that I could get up and get ready before grabbing some breakfast before I had to leave. I was about 99% packed, and Mathilde had offered to weigh my luggage for me with a little device she had. Once I had brushed my teeth and packed my toothbrush and toothpaste, Mathilde came back to weight my luggage for me (it was 21.60 kilograms, and the limit is 23, I believe). She offered to help me carry down my luggage to the restaurant where I was going to await the bus. She took the heaviest piece of luggage, and I got the rest.
Once I had my luggage settled and sat back down in my usual seat for breakfast, Mathilde sat back down with me where she usually sat, even though we were both done eating. Then Siyu sat next to me, and Ivan sat across from me, pointed to my suitcases and said, "it's real." We all talked for a bit about various things; tattoos because one of the people I follow on Instagram has a trowel tattoo on their wrist, and I talked about the tattoos I wanted to get and about Folklore Fiancé's tattoo.
Then, eventually, I told the story of my engagement with Folklore Fiancé and how we had planned it together and set it on a particular day, but we each had our own proposal to the other person so that part was still a surprise. Mathilde thought it was super cute, and I showed them all pictures of our engagement rings, and Mathilde was definitely swooning. Ivan said, "I think Mathilde wants to marry you now, too."
Ivan then told me he was bad with goodbyes, which is why he ghosts everyone when we're hanging out, so I told him I won't make any eye contact when I said goodbye, I would just show up at his hometown in New Zealand unannounced one day. When it was around the time for the bus to be there, I began to gather my things. Nico gave me a coin from Macedonian coin before I left and offered to help me with my luggage and took it outside for me. I said "Au revoir," and Mathilde said she didn't like that, it's not au revoir, so I told her "see you later" in Japanese instead because she and I both study it.
We got all the luggage outside, and the bus rounded the corner shortly after. Everyone came outside, and we all hugged. We were wished safe travels by everyone as well. When I got to Ivan, we both sort of avoided eye contact and did some weird punch-in-the-shoulder-fist-bump hybrid nonsense that felt super awkward, so I just said "okay, now give me a real hug," and he did. I said bye to Angela and hugged her and told her I would be back. She helped us with our luggage and we all loaded into the bus (I realized at nearly the last moment that I still had my room key in my pocket, so I hopped off the bus to give it back to Angela before returning onto the bus).
I waved out of the back of the bus window at everyone, and Shahruz saw me and waved, said something and everyone waved before I shut the curtain. When we started moving, everyone waved again out the side window, and Mathilde was waving with both arms until we couldn't see her anymore.
The bus driver left around 8:50 a.m., which was a little concerning because Jenny and Lina had a flight back to Sweden at 11:15 a.m. The bus driver stopped once for gas and another time for reasons unknown. However, they made it to their flight and safely home.
Cyrene and I left with Linda and Jenny, who were on their way straight to the airport, but Cyrene and I had another day left in Sofia before we had to leave Tuesday morning, so we planned a few things. We were able to check into the hotel early, which was nice - the receptionist who helped us even gave us rooms across from each other. Cyrene opened the door, and it hadn't been serviced yet, so she was given a new room, so we were a few rooms down from each other. We both got settled before heading out, and I decided to shower later.
We headed back down to the lobby to ask where we could find a taxi to take us to the National Archaeological Museum (also known as the National Archaeological Institute with Museum) in the city center. She said that she would call us a taxi and we could wait at the entrance outside. He showed up maybe less than five minutes later, and we got into the cab. He began to drive, and Cyrene and I talked, and when we got closer to the area we knew we had to be in, he pointed to either direction, and neither of us knew, but he went left, which seemed right when we looked at the map on Cyrene's phone. She showed it to him, and he pulled over and called someone. He handed me the phone and said "English," so I tried to talk to the person on the other line.
This was stressing me out because the meter was still running while we were sitting there and a cab that should have cost only ten leva became almost thirteen once we got there (stay tuned to find out why that's not the worst thing that can happen with a cab money-wise). We got out somewhere nearby and walked the rest of the way. There was an underpass and we ended up right in the Serdica Ruins, which was a place we were planning on seeing anyway. I believe it was the East Gate area of the place, so we stopped to take pictures before we continued. We saw some souvenir shops on the way and decided to hit them on the way back before the walking tour since they closed before the walking tour ended.
Finally, we found the Archaeological Museum. It wasn't as small as I would have imagined, and I bought the tickets since Cyrene paid for the cab. We were both stoked because as soon as you walk in, you see a ton of statuary, stele, two large sarcophagi (on the right, but they're hard to miss) and glass cases full of figurines and other assorted objects that I've never seen in a museum before. Cyrene and I walked around slowly, taking pictures, and I kept asking to get pictures with the statues - especially the one of Fortuna; that thing was enormous. It took us almost a whole hour to get through just the first floor.
The upper floor had a lot of Byzantine icons, which didn't interest either of us all that much (once things move to Late Antiquity, both of us tend to lose interest), and then we saw a sign about staying a certain amount of centimeters away from the icons or an alarm would sound. So, we avoided them for the most part but made sure we walked past it. At the end of the upper walkway, there were two more small galleries: one about Bulgarian history from the prehistoric times up until when the church became prominent, and the other one was about Sports in Ancient Thrace, which we were both excited to see. The color scheme (orange and black) seemed like it would be obnoxious but it worked pretty well for the setup they had in the room.
The next step was the Treasury Room, which we almost missed, but the security guards pointed out the door and that it was open (the other doors to the rooms were just a doorway, but the Treasury had heavy iron gates with a plexiglass-like top door over them that we had to pull open). The artifacts were amazing - there was a lot of armor, gold treasure, a bronze head that still had the eye inlays intact, and several other objects such as death masks and several small beads.
We eventually made our way to the prehistoric hall and meandered around there for a bit, wondering what certain things were, and imagining what it would be like to fully understand the use of something. Cyrene marveled at the fact that people once owned these things and used them; whenever I think about that, I wonder about the things we use every day and whether in one thousand years, people will be digging up our garbage and classifying it as artifacts.
Since we had gotten overexcited and started the museum, we hadn't eaten lunch, and it was still early in the afternoon, so we decided to hit the National Museum of Natural History, which was only five leva each. We got our tickets and went on our way - some of the things in the museum were interesting, but overall, it felt more like a cabinet of curiosities than a natural history museum. There was a lot of taxidermies, but also very corny things like badly done displays to simulate water. There was also plenty of specimens floating in vials or jars on every floor (there were four floors). I suggested we start on the fourth floor and then work our way down so that we would be done and on the bottom floor once we finished. The first floor was my favorite because that's where all the rocks and minerals were - the rest of it didn't feel quite like a museum.
Lunch (or early dinner) was the only things on our minds once we left, so we began to scout out a place for food. On our way towards what looked like a busier area with a few options for food options, we found another part of the Serdica Ruins, so we made a pitstop there. Many pictures were taken, and the hunt for food continued. As we ventured on our journey, we passed a Mosque, and it was the first time I had ever heard a call to prayer in person. I thought it was quite beautiful.
We finally settled on a place called Pizza Einstein, which had a good amount of traditional Bulgarian food options as well as pizza. I ordered a Margherita pizza because I'm simple and I missed just a plain food after having a lot of traditional Bulgarian food for the past two weeks. I did worry that my taste in Coca-Cola has changed though because it's all made with real sugar in Europe, so I'm going to go home thinking the soda tastes bad. It seems like I'm going to have to drink Mexican Coca-Cola to keep my taste buds satisfied.
When the food arrived, I devoured the entire 26-centimeter pizza in less than ten minutes. I told Cyrene to not rush herself, I was just a fast eater, and it was no worries if she wanted to take her time. She ended up finishing her pizza, too, and then we were stuck in restaurant limbo because we had decided to eat inside and everyone else seemed to be eating outside. Thus, we didn't see our waitress all that often. She brought us the bill, and Cyrene used her card, but the elusive waitress was nowhere to be seen once more. Eventually, she came but told us to wait a moment for her because we were using a card, so she brought a machine to the table.
Once we were free, we went to the Raffy stand and bought a couple of gelatos to eat while we walked on our way to the Free Sofia Tour, where guides take people on an English tour of the city and show twenty different monuments or places of interest on the way. The walking tour took two hours, and I was beginning to feel both the pizza and the gelato coming to seek vengeance, so once the tour was over, we headed over to the cafe so I could use the restroom. It cost me 0.50 leva to visit the porta-potty from Hell, but luckily I noticed there was no toilet paper when I sat down and asked for some before I had any issues. Thank the gods I had hand sanitizer in my bag.
Here is where we both made a mistake because we just wanted to get back to the hotel: we saw a cab sitting and waiting, so we went up and asked about the Ibis Hotel Sofia Airport, and he said yes, yes, get in, and of course the first issue we both had was we couldn't find the clips for the seatbelts, so neither of us ended up wearing one. About halfway through the ride, I leaned over to Cyrene and told her that the meter was already at something like 35 leva, which is ridiculous because it wasn't far from where we were dropped off in the morning, and our final bill was nearly 40 leva. For a ride that couldn't have been longer than ten minutes.
We got back to the hotel and thought about getting a beer, but Cyrene decided to pass, and I thought that was a better idea. I checked in to my flight, but it said I had to print out my boarding passes, and luckily there was a computer I was able to use in the lobby for it, and it didn't cost anything. I scheduled the airport shuttle for us at 5 a.m. and went back upstairs. I kept charging her tablet for her and then I brought it to her room since my phone and computer were dying (since I couldn't charge things when not in the room because the keycard has to be inserted for the electricity to work, which is annoying). We said goodnight around ten o'clock, and I definitely need to go to bed soon because it's half past midnight and we have to be up in about four hours to get ready and catch our flights.
I have a lot of long layovers, so hopefully I don't go mad with boredom.
If you want to know more about the Free Sofia Tour, here is a link to their website: https://freesofiatour.com/free-sofia-tour/
Last night, I stayed up late because I was trying to finish packing and fill out my evaluation form for the Balkan Heritage Field School. There was a lot I had to say, but I kept hearing people being loud, so I went to the landing where Siyu, Madeline, Ivan, and Mathilde were sitting and sat with them for a minute and then headed outside to see what the ruckus was, but they were busy playing a drinking game, so I came back inside and finished packing and went to bed. I woke up at 4 a.m., talked to Folklore Fiancé for a bit, especially because there was a dog barking for a solid hour and a half, and fell back asleep.
My alarm went off around 7 a.m. so that I could get up and get ready before grabbing some breakfast before I had to leave. I was about 99% packed, and Mathilde had offered to weigh my luggage for me with a little device she had. Once I had brushed my teeth and packed my toothbrush and toothpaste, Mathilde came back to weight my luggage for me (it was 21.60 kilograms, and the limit is 23, I believe). She offered to help me carry down my luggage to the restaurant where I was going to await the bus. She took the heaviest piece of luggage, and I got the rest.
Once I had my luggage settled and sat back down in my usual seat for breakfast, Mathilde sat back down with me where she usually sat, even though we were both done eating. Then Siyu sat next to me, and Ivan sat across from me, pointed to my suitcases and said, "it's real." We all talked for a bit about various things; tattoos because one of the people I follow on Instagram has a trowel tattoo on their wrist, and I talked about the tattoos I wanted to get and about Folklore Fiancé's tattoo.
Then, eventually, I told the story of my engagement with Folklore Fiancé and how we had planned it together and set it on a particular day, but we each had our own proposal to the other person so that part was still a surprise. Mathilde thought it was super cute, and I showed them all pictures of our engagement rings, and Mathilde was definitely swooning. Ivan said, "I think Mathilde wants to marry you now, too."
Ivan then told me he was bad with goodbyes, which is why he ghosts everyone when we're hanging out, so I told him I won't make any eye contact when I said goodbye, I would just show up at his hometown in New Zealand unannounced one day. When it was around the time for the bus to be there, I began to gather my things. Nico gave me a coin from Macedonian coin before I left and offered to help me with my luggage and took it outside for me. I said "Au revoir," and Mathilde said she didn't like that, it's not au revoir, so I told her "see you later" in Japanese instead because she and I both study it.
We got all the luggage outside, and the bus rounded the corner shortly after. Everyone came outside, and we all hugged. We were wished safe travels by everyone as well. When I got to Ivan, we both sort of avoided eye contact and did some weird punch-in-the-shoulder-fist-bump hybrid nonsense that felt super awkward, so I just said "okay, now give me a real hug," and he did. I said bye to Angela and hugged her and told her I would be back. She helped us with our luggage and we all loaded into the bus (I realized at nearly the last moment that I still had my room key in my pocket, so I hopped off the bus to give it back to Angela before returning onto the bus).
I waved out of the back of the bus window at everyone, and Shahruz saw me and waved, said something and everyone waved before I shut the curtain. When we started moving, everyone waved again out the side window, and Mathilde was waving with both arms until we couldn't see her anymore.
The bus driver left around 8:50 a.m., which was a little concerning because Jenny and Lina had a flight back to Sweden at 11:15 a.m. The bus driver stopped once for gas and another time for reasons unknown. However, they made it to their flight and safely home.
Cyrene and I left with Linda and Jenny, who were on their way straight to the airport, but Cyrene and I had another day left in Sofia before we had to leave Tuesday morning, so we planned a few things. We were able to check into the hotel early, which was nice - the receptionist who helped us even gave us rooms across from each other. Cyrene opened the door, and it hadn't been serviced yet, so she was given a new room, so we were a few rooms down from each other. We both got settled before heading out, and I decided to shower later.
We headed back down to the lobby to ask where we could find a taxi to take us to the National Archaeological Museum (also known as the National Archaeological Institute with Museum) in the city center. She said that she would call us a taxi and we could wait at the entrance outside. He showed up maybe less than five minutes later, and we got into the cab. He began to drive, and Cyrene and I talked, and when we got closer to the area we knew we had to be in, he pointed to either direction, and neither of us knew, but he went left, which seemed right when we looked at the map on Cyrene's phone. She showed it to him, and he pulled over and called someone. He handed me the phone and said "English," so I tried to talk to the person on the other line.
This was stressing me out because the meter was still running while we were sitting there and a cab that should have cost only ten leva became almost thirteen once we got there (stay tuned to find out why that's not the worst thing that can happen with a cab money-wise). We got out somewhere nearby and walked the rest of the way. There was an underpass and we ended up right in the Serdica Ruins, which was a place we were planning on seeing anyway. I believe it was the East Gate area of the place, so we stopped to take pictures before we continued. We saw some souvenir shops on the way and decided to hit them on the way back before the walking tour since they closed before the walking tour ended.
Finally, we found the Archaeological Museum. It wasn't as small as I would have imagined, and I bought the tickets since Cyrene paid for the cab. We were both stoked because as soon as you walk in, you see a ton of statuary, stele, two large sarcophagi (on the right, but they're hard to miss) and glass cases full of figurines and other assorted objects that I've never seen in a museum before. Cyrene and I walked around slowly, taking pictures, and I kept asking to get pictures with the statues - especially the one of Fortuna; that thing was enormous. It took us almost a whole hour to get through just the first floor.
The upper floor had a lot of Byzantine icons, which didn't interest either of us all that much (once things move to Late Antiquity, both of us tend to lose interest), and then we saw a sign about staying a certain amount of centimeters away from the icons or an alarm would sound. So, we avoided them for the most part but made sure we walked past it. At the end of the upper walkway, there were two more small galleries: one about Bulgarian history from the prehistoric times up until when the church became prominent, and the other one was about Sports in Ancient Thrace, which we were both excited to see. The color scheme (orange and black) seemed like it would be obnoxious but it worked pretty well for the setup they had in the room.
The next step was the Treasury Room, which we almost missed, but the security guards pointed out the door and that it was open (the other doors to the rooms were just a doorway, but the Treasury had heavy iron gates with a plexiglass-like top door over them that we had to pull open). The artifacts were amazing - there was a lot of armor, gold treasure, a bronze head that still had the eye inlays intact, and several other objects such as death masks and several small beads.
We eventually made our way to the prehistoric hall and meandered around there for a bit, wondering what certain things were, and imagining what it would be like to fully understand the use of something. Cyrene marveled at the fact that people once owned these things and used them; whenever I think about that, I wonder about the things we use every day and whether in one thousand years, people will be digging up our garbage and classifying it as artifacts.
Since we had gotten overexcited and started the museum, we hadn't eaten lunch, and it was still early in the afternoon, so we decided to hit the National Museum of Natural History, which was only five leva each. We got our tickets and went on our way - some of the things in the museum were interesting, but overall, it felt more like a cabinet of curiosities than a natural history museum. There was a lot of taxidermies, but also very corny things like badly done displays to simulate water. There was also plenty of specimens floating in vials or jars on every floor (there were four floors). I suggested we start on the fourth floor and then work our way down so that we would be done and on the bottom floor once we finished. The first floor was my favorite because that's where all the rocks and minerals were - the rest of it didn't feel quite like a museum.
Lunch (or early dinner) was the only things on our minds once we left, so we began to scout out a place for food. On our way towards what looked like a busier area with a few options for food options, we found another part of the Serdica Ruins, so we made a pitstop there. Many pictures were taken, and the hunt for food continued. As we ventured on our journey, we passed a Mosque, and it was the first time I had ever heard a call to prayer in person. I thought it was quite beautiful.
We finally settled on a place called Pizza Einstein, which had a good amount of traditional Bulgarian food options as well as pizza. I ordered a Margherita pizza because I'm simple and I missed just a plain food after having a lot of traditional Bulgarian food for the past two weeks. I did worry that my taste in Coca-Cola has changed though because it's all made with real sugar in Europe, so I'm going to go home thinking the soda tastes bad. It seems like I'm going to have to drink Mexican Coca-Cola to keep my taste buds satisfied.
When the food arrived, I devoured the entire 26-centimeter pizza in less than ten minutes. I told Cyrene to not rush herself, I was just a fast eater, and it was no worries if she wanted to take her time. She ended up finishing her pizza, too, and then we were stuck in restaurant limbo because we had decided to eat inside and everyone else seemed to be eating outside. Thus, we didn't see our waitress all that often. She brought us the bill, and Cyrene used her card, but the elusive waitress was nowhere to be seen once more. Eventually, she came but told us to wait a moment for her because we were using a card, so she brought a machine to the table.
Once we were free, we went to the Raffy stand and bought a couple of gelatos to eat while we walked on our way to the Free Sofia Tour, where guides take people on an English tour of the city and show twenty different monuments or places of interest on the way. The walking tour took two hours, and I was beginning to feel both the pizza and the gelato coming to seek vengeance, so once the tour was over, we headed over to the cafe so I could use the restroom. It cost me 0.50 leva to visit the porta-potty from Hell, but luckily I noticed there was no toilet paper when I sat down and asked for some before I had any issues. Thank the gods I had hand sanitizer in my bag.
Here is where we both made a mistake because we just wanted to get back to the hotel: we saw a cab sitting and waiting, so we went up and asked about the Ibis Hotel Sofia Airport, and he said yes, yes, get in, and of course the first issue we both had was we couldn't find the clips for the seatbelts, so neither of us ended up wearing one. About halfway through the ride, I leaned over to Cyrene and told her that the meter was already at something like 35 leva, which is ridiculous because it wasn't far from where we were dropped off in the morning, and our final bill was nearly 40 leva. For a ride that couldn't have been longer than ten minutes.
We got back to the hotel and thought about getting a beer, but Cyrene decided to pass, and I thought that was a better idea. I checked in to my flight, but it said I had to print out my boarding passes, and luckily there was a computer I was able to use in the lobby for it, and it didn't cost anything. I scheduled the airport shuttle for us at 5 a.m. and went back upstairs. I kept charging her tablet for her and then I brought it to her room since my phone and computer were dying (since I couldn't charge things when not in the room because the keycard has to be inserted for the electricity to work, which is annoying). We said goodnight around ten o'clock, and I definitely need to go to bed soon because it's half past midnight and we have to be up in about four hours to get ready and catch our flights.
I have a lot of long layovers, so hopefully I don't go mad with boredom.
If you want to know more about the Free Sofia Tour, here is a link to their website: https://freesofiatour.com/free-sofia-tour/
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