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| The Caucasus - My Journal |
Randomness in Sofia
21st to 22nd July - Sofia
Getting to Sofia from Plovdiv is an easy journey as buses make the connection every hour during the day. So after a relatively painless 2 hour journey, I found myself in Bulgaria's capital city.
The hostel which I'd booked on-line gave very clear directions for getting from the bus station to the hostel, and the first thing I needed to do was to get the tram, making sure I'd bought a ticket first, as I'd heard about the over-zealous plain-clothed conductors who like to spring on new arrivals.
Over the past week or so in Bulgaria and Romania, I'd heard lots of stories about pick pocketing and mugging in Sofia. Both the locals and backpackers seemed to have unfortunate tales to tell. I was a little bit dubious about Sofia being much worse than any other city, but I kept my guard up just in case. In fact, I felt a little like I was in the Matrix...in the movie, Neo has to accept the fact that any of the normal looking citizens around him could actually be an agent (or a vessel for an agent) and as soon as his back is turned, Wham! they strike. Likewise, I was looking around the tram at all of the other passengers...they all looked honest and harmless enough...but how do I tell who, if any, are the bad ones?
I actually got to the town without incident, and the short walk to the hostel was also problem free, like I had expected. The only issue was having to climb four flights of stairs to the hostel!
 After settling into the dorm, I set out to explore the city. Sofia is actually quite a compact place. All of the bits which are of interest to tourists are very central and its easy to walk from one end of town to the other. The southern end is parked by a large park with the NBK shopping centre in the middle, and the northern end is marked by the parliamentary buildings. I quickly decided that I liked Sofia, it's very pedestrian friendly and there are lots of nice places to wander or to sit and have a drink. The large number of cool looking (and very cheap) bars definitely make it a good place to come for a weekend break.
 As I got quite a late bus to Sofia, I didn't see much in the first day before heading back to the hostel for the evening. I was a little gutted to find that the hostel, like earlier, was still dead. There were signs of other people staying there, but I hadn't seen them yet. I began to resign myself to having a quiet night in.
But, just as I was about to be a Friday night loser, a girl staying at the hostel suddenly came back, and apparently equally as bored, asked me if I wanted to grab a drink to pass an hour or so. I took her up on her offer and we grabbed a beer or two in a nearby bar.
It actually turned out that she needed to catch a midnight bus, so after not too long she went to get her bus and I headed back to the hostel, thinking that would be it for the night.
However, as I opened the door, I found an American guy and a Slovakian couple drinking Vodka in the common room, and they invited me to join them! Which I duly did! Then after an hour or so, the vodka and conversation began to dry up, and, once again, it looked like it was time for bed.
But suddenly there was a big commotion and a group of 5 Dutch people turned up having just arrived in Sofia. And although they'd just had an 18 hour bus journey, they were keen to check out Sofia's night life! So the Slovakians and I joined them and at 1am headed out for some late night pizza and some beers.
After this preamble, we ended up passing the rest of the night in one of Sofia's most popular clubs. What was originally going to be a quiet night in, ended up with me going to bed at 6am, just as the sun was rising! I love the randomness of travelling!
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To know the road ahead, ask those coming back
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