A hot sunny day ...

... is a perfect day to visit another Unesco World Heritage site, the Boyana church. Similar as the Rila monastery, also the Boyana church is located in the middle of a forest, but can be easily reached using Sofia public transport. It takes about an hour to get to the Boyana village on the south-west of Sofia outskirts. The village itself looks a bit odd as some people have built enormous palatial residences, which really don't fit next to few humble little pigpens. However, the only reason a tourist would come to Boyana is to see the church, so commenting on these Playboy-like mansions doesn't exactly fit into the story here.

Boyana church, which was added to the Unesco WH list in 1979, dates back to the 10th century. It's world-famous mainly due to fascinating frescoes. In 2008, a two-year restoration was completed and now the church even has air conditioning, which keeps the inside temperature at 17-18°C, and a special non-heat emitting lighting system to keep the frescoes intact. To keep the regime even more strict, the church can visit max. 8 people for 10 minutes only. I have to admit, I haven't seen the frescoes myself, as I've refused to pay 10 leva for the ticket, but judging from all the measures taken to protect them, the church is by no doubt a must-see for every art lover.

A much lovelier part of the trip was hiking to the Boyana waterfall. Having checked a few forums and asking some friends beforehand, I was sure I could handle the way perfectly, but things (of course) turned out a bit differently. Firstly, not having a (proper) breakfast had quite a negative impact on my energy level. Secondly, I had realised how unfit I've become over the past few months working in an office. My fitness level is obviously not just very low, but even below zero. I immediately turned tomato red in the face, my heart was racing and I was gasping like an elephant being chased across a savannah (or at least I felt like that). It's quite painful realising how unfit working in an office (and not having proper time to work out) makes you. I was pretty sure walking to work (40 minutes one way) in a fast pace would make a difference, but I was way over-estimating this. Secondly, I was wearing sneakers, which didn't cause me many problems going uphill, but when we were going back to the village ... oh dear. We had decided to take the faster path, which mostly turned out to be nothing but rocks. Consequently, (or as I have found out later) at some point, my shoes had eventually given up on me and I came home with torn soles. Well, destroying my shoes (which were already in a bad condition) was a small toll to pay to see such a beautiful waterfall and I now at least I have a good excuse to go shopping for new ones. Nevertheless, the next time I go hiking, I'm wearing proper hiking shoes. I've definitely learnt my lesson.

Христос воскресе!

As a mostly Orthodox country Bulgaria celebrated Easter last weekend and even though I'm not religious, I just couldn't say no when a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to celebrate Easter with her and her friends. Generally, there aren't any special events when it comes to celebrating Easter in Bulgaria. Usually, eggs are coloured on Holy Thursday or Saturday. People go to church on Saturday night and they walk around the church three times with lit candles. There's a saying that if your faith is strong enough, the candle won't be put out no matter how strong the wind is. After midnight and then on Easter Sunday people greet each other saying Christ has risen! Indeed he is risen! (Христос воскресе! Воистину воскресе!). After the service on Saturday night and on Easter Sunday people exchange Easter eggs and have an egg fight. Egg fight or egg tapping is a traditional Easter game. People tap Easter eggs against another egg and the unbroken egg wins. The tapping is then repeated with other eggs. The person that manages to break all other eggs without breaking his own egg, will be lucky and healthy until the next Easter. On Easter Sunday people mostly just have a special Easter lunch, but in some parts of Bulgaria celebrating Easter includes also some special festive customs. One of these parts is also Blagoevgrad Province, where I have been invited to and took part in some lovely local traditions.

Elešnica is a just little village close to Bansko (Blagoevgrad Province) with ca. 1,500 inhabitants, but every Easter locals from near-by villages are meeting here either to see or to take part in a special Easter tradition. More or less everyone in the village dresses up in national costumes and people dance traditional Bulgarian dances from one side of the village all the way up to the main square. Some people also dress up in goat-fur costumes with bells, similar to Slovenian kurent, and their job is to jump around, make a lot of noise and scare away the evil spirits. These costumes smell so bad that I'm sure the evil spirits were scared away just because of the smell. Anyway, as I was actively participating in the dancing tradition I was also dressed in a national costume and saying that I felt special is a bit of an understatement. Not only my friends, but also their relatives really made an effort to make me feel welcome and I have to say they are one of the warmest people I have ever met. Anyway, back to the dancing.

Bulgarian dances may seem easy to perform, but they sure aren't a piece of cake to learn. It can be quite tricky to catch the rhythm of the music and without the rhythm you are pretty much lost. However, for a non-Bulgarian I think I did actually quite well and hearing comments such as I'm really impressed cause you've picked up the steps so quickly and You dance like a Bulgarian felt pretty good (yes, I am boasting a bit and I am aware of the fact that these comments might have been exaggerated, but I've decided to believe they weren't). So, as mentioned, people dance through the village and when they finally get to the main square, there's still some dancing to do on the main square. As Elešnica is divided in quarters, each quarter forms its own dancing group and they compete against each other and basically, the one that dances the best, wins at the end. The dancing goes on the whole morning, until lunch, and in the end you feel quite tired. The music, which is played by a group of gypsies, gets a bit loud and the costume actually gets heavy around the waist. At such a point you try your best for the very last dance and after the winners of the day are announced, it's time to go home and have lunch. Traditionally, Bulgarians eat lamb for Easter. The last time I had lamb was some 15 years ago at my aunt's place (and I didn't really like it) and considering I'm very picky when it comes to meat, I was a bit sceptical about having lamb, but I actually loved it. Obviously prepared by a professional, this tender meat just melted in my mouth. Another traditional dish Bulgarians make for Easter is kozunak (козунак) - a kind of an Easter cake. It's basically very soft sweet bread, similar to Italian panettone. So goooood ... 

I really had great fun the whole weekend, but I was a bit dead after lunch. Quickly, my Easter weekend came to an end as I had to get back to Sofia on Sunday night. My friends took me to the bus stop, which actually wasn't an official bus stop, but sort of an unofficial one in the middle of nowhere and even though it was just around 150 km to Sofia, the bus trip took three hours. It felt good to be back in Sofia, but I'm definitely coming back to Elešnica some day. 

A little Sunday get-away

Ever since I've started working weekends seem to having had merged into one day. In comparison to the whole working week my weekends are so short as I try to do all the things I didn't have time for during the week. The majority is these things consists more or less of shopping, going out and sightseeing. As I usually go shopping on Saturdays, Sundays are the sightseeing days and last weekend I decided to get out of Sofia with a Polish friend of mine. We visited the Rila monastery. 


In 1983, the Rila monastery was put on the Unseco World Heritage list. It was founded in the 10th century and according to Unesco, it "symbolized the awareness of a Slavic identity following centuries of occupation" (http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/216; 2012-03). The monastery was built in the middle of no where, on a remote location in the Rila mountains. Today, it is one of the Bulgarian gems and a must-see for every Bulgarian and non-Bulgarian tourist. Considering it is so well-hidden, it is not exactly a piece of cake to get there if you don't have a car. We managed to get there by public transport (bus), but as everything in Bulgaria, the trip was anything but ordinary.

First, we had to get to a bus station outside of the city and in theory, one of the trams was supposed to take us directly there. However, one stop before ours the tram stopped and decided not to go further. As we found out that we are just one stop away, we sprinted to the bus stop and found the right bus. Well, it was actually a mini-bus, already completely packed. However, this didn't stop the driver to sell us the tickets and get us on the bus, but we had to stand for more than two hours. In that moment I was happy I was short as otherwise I wouldn't be able to stand straight. On a small mini-bus there isn't even a lot of space between the seats, so it felt a bit suffucating sometimes. At some point the bus driver even started smoking, but he had opened the front window a bit and I was standing far away enough not to be disturbed by the smell too much. What was slightly more disturbing was the music on the bus. The driver was namely playing old Italian songs, mostly from Toto Cutugno, such as Lasciate mi parlare, Solo noi, Serenata and Felicita and also Ci sara from Al Bano e Romina Power. Considering there were some Italian tourists on the bus, I guess the driver wanted to make them feel more comfortable and the trip more enjoyable for them, but after an hour of old-school Italian music even the "Italian part" of the bus got fed up with it and started complaining that we're in Bulgaria, not in Italy. The driver then changed the music to Serbian music and the atmosphere in the bus changed in the blink of an eye and somehow everything became more authentic. 

The two-hour bus ride finally ended when we arrived to a little village called Rila, which is 30 km away from the Rila monastery. In Rila we had a half-an-hour break and it was so lovely to get off the little bus and strech my legs a bit. Rila is a little village of 3,000 inhabitants that have got quite used to every-day tourist groups taking photos of the misspelled Pharmacy sign, the old locomotive and the view of the Rila mountain range. 

Considering the bus that took us to Rila was so small, we weren't really expecting a better bus for the Rila monastery, but Surprise surprise!, a comfy 55-seat bus was waiting for us when we finished with the Rila tourist tour. Like little children we hopped on the bus, sat down and reclined the seats. I can't remember when I had last experienced such comfort! We dozed off in a flash and woke up just before the bus arrived at the monastery a few minutes after 1 p.m.. As we only had two hours (a bit less, actually, as the bus for Sofia was leaving at 3 p.m. already), we didn't waste any time and hurried towards the monastery. 

When you enter through the main gates you get struck by the beauty of the whole complex, which consists of the residential part, where the monks live, the monastery museum and the main church. The residential part is surrounding the whole complex from all four sides and, therefore, it looks more like a fortress than a monastery. The interior of the church is decorated with pure gold and the outside of the church is full of magnificent frescoes. 

Apart from the church there was another thing that quickly caught my attention. While I was taking photos of the monastery I spotted a few people with little plastic bags full of some kind of doughnuts and round loafs of bread and it reminded me of a comment I saw on some travelling forum. The comment was about the monastery's bakery where tasty doughnuts and bread can be bought. After wandering around for a few minutes, we found the famous bakery, which actually wasn't hard to find as a crowd of people in front of the bakery and a lovely smell of fresh doughnuts undoubtedly indicated we have to stop there. We bought a loaf of bread and two doughnuts each and sat at one of the wooden tables in front of the little bread-doughnut heaven. There was even icing sugar on the tables and as I tried to sprinkle it on the doughnuts, it flew everywhere (including other people's faces) because it was so windy, but after a few tries I got the doughnuts covered with a sugary layer. I have to admit, I could probably eat five or more of these doughnuts and continue even when my stomach was full, that's how good they were. If I ever come back to the Rila monastery, I will definitely buy (and eat) more than two.

After this little break we took a look at the souvenir stands and the surroundings, but there wasn't much to see, plus it was really cold, so we decided to go back on the bus. We took one last glance at the monastery and on the bus we dug into the bread we had bought at the bakery. Oh, the joy of freshly-baked bread ... 

Getting out of Sofia just for a few hours was incredibly refreshing and battery-recharging. I'm already planning the next little excursion to Bulgarian countryside and like this one, I'm sure it's going to be pretty special. 

One swallow doesn't make a summer, but still ...

I can't remember when it was the last time I have been waiting for spring so impatiently. After such cold two months and enormous amounts of snow it has finally got a bit warmer. Sofia streets suddenly seem so wide as immense piles of snow have started melting and as it has been sunny more often the whole city really seems lovelier. 

Over the last few days the city has turned all red and white, thanks to a special Bulgarian holiday to shoo away winter and welcome spring. It's called Baba Marta and everyone, but seriously everyone, is celebrating it. It's celebrated on March 1st and the tradition is to exchange and wear a martenica - a small piece of adornment made of white and red thread, wool or other types of yarn. Martenica comes in all shapes and sizes and people wear them tied around their wrists, pinned on coats or tied on bags. A martenica has to be worn from March 1st until the first stork, swallow or budding tree is seen. Then, it has to be tied on a tree to give it strong health.  I have to say, it's a beautiful tradition and I have quickly become very fond of it. Having received more than ten martenicas and having them tied around my wrist, I felt like a Christmas tree, so I have decided to tone it down a bit and wear just one or two at once. 

However, having a martenica tied around your wrist or wear it as a brooch is, obviously, not enough to dispell winter. People have tied martenicas on dogs, windows, doors, on ropes between two buildings, bicycles, etc.  There's a small street in Sofia that reminds more of an Italian street where neighbours have tied a rope between houses to hang wet clothes, but is in fact just a rope from which martenicas are hanging. Then, on some other building, there's a huge martenica in a shape of Pizho and Penda, which is one of the most typical Bulgarian martenicas. 

Apart from the whole Baba-Marta enthusiasm I have started learning Bulgarian (meaning not just looking at the book, but actually doing exercises and learning new words and grammar rules too), which could be a lot easier if I actually put a considerable amount of effort into it. I try to learn while I'm at work, when there's nothing to do, but it's far from being sufficient. The only thing that's saving me when it comes to understanding Bulgarian is the fact that many words are the same or very similar to Slovenian or Croatian words. However, this can sometimes cause quite a misunderstanding as similar-sounding words may very often be false friends. One of the phrases that I use a lot when I'm talking on the phone with clients is in fact. In fact in Slovenian (v bistvu) sounds very similar to убийство, which in Bulgarian means murder. The other day one of my Bulgarian colleagues carefully asked me what I was talking about on the phone cause she had heard the word убийство and she didn't understand why would I be talking about a murder. I had no idea what she meant with that, but when she explained what she had heard, I just started laughing and so did she, when we solved the mystery. The "murder" joke has quickly become our inside joke.

Having such beautiful weather this weekend I have had many things planned, such as visiting a few museums, checking out the Kambanite park outside Sofia, where more than 70 bells from differents parts of world can be seen, making marmelade, ... By now I have only managed to do my weekly shopping and tidy up the flat a bit. My productivity level is on minimum and it doesn't look like it going to change by the end of the day. My neighbours have been honouring me with free piano concerts all weekend and even though it was very soothing at the beginning, after an hour it got annoying and I'm only happy my radio is loud enough to override Beethoven and Liszt. Ah well, as long as they're not playing an accordion or any kind of chalga music, I'm not really complaining. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, it feels like my productivity level is up a bit and the least I can do is get myself outside and soak up the sun.

Ice ice baby

What a long and exhausting week it has been! The amount of work I had to cope with often made me wonder how long I will manage to do this kind of work. Not having fully recovered from the cold and trying to fit in all daily/weekly challenges and missions was pretty tiring, but I have accomplished everything. Moreover, my supervisor(s) have told me I am doing my job great and that they are all very very satisfied with me, which has given me quite a motivation boost. I have also managed to squeeze in two shopping evenings. I have finally bought an audio course to learn Bulgarian with a very promising title Learn Bulgarian the easy way and a camera. Having a fully-functioning camera again is a lovely feeling. I've been very touristy the whole day today and it definitely is one of the best ways to relax and recharge my batteries. 

Vitosha Boulevard, Palace of Justice, Aleksander Levski Cathedral, Chupa Chups :), Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard, pavements of Sofia, streets signs, "Attention, avalanche!", Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard 

(from left to right, top to bottom)

I have been admiring all these majestic buildings ever since I have arrived to Sofia. The Aleksander Nevski Cathedral is enormous and the Palace of Justice also. Having entered the Saint Nikolas Russian Church and the Hagia Sofia Church made me feel like an intruder and I've just quickly looked around and escaped. I guess having such a feeling made me refrain from entering the Aleksander Nevski Cathedral. Therefore, I have just continued roaming the streets admiring all the beauty around me. After walking for a few hours I went home and decided to take another walk in the evening which has (not) been a smart idea. I might have mentioned already how slippery Sofia streets get when the temperature drops below zero. I have tested that a few times already, but not as hard as tonight. Firstly, I slipped on a side-walk I had no idea it was icy and somehow landed on my left hip which was perfect considering I was holding my (brand new) camera in my right hand. Luckily, I have enough flesh on my hips, so the pain wasn't (isn't) so bad. However, my second fall, in which I have landed on my back on a side-walk I know how dangerously slippery it is as it's covered with the thinnest layer of ice possible, was much more painful as I have first landed on my left arm with a full swing and only then on my back. Fortunately, I haven't hurt myself more, but somehow one of the key chains on my keys (which were in my bag) broke as I had landed on stone-hard pavements. I have no idea how I have managed to do that, but what's done is done. My little cute colourful fish I bought in Paris a few years ago has had its head crushed.  

However, despite all the drama it was a lovely walk and I managed to get a few good shots of Sofia by night. The buildings that seem big during the day are even bigger during the night, being all illuminated and almost intimidating. 

In the evening I also saw some kind of a changing of the presidential guard. In front of the Sofia's Presidential Palace two guards are standing throughout the whole day and as I was passing by at 19.30 they have started walking forward (with their legs up high, of course), then turning towards and away from each other, and walking back. The whole ceremony was over in two or three minutes and ended very funny as the guards just stopped in front of the Presidency closed door and didn't move anymore. Having seen the show is over, I moved on. I have heard the changing of the guard takes place a few times during the day and I really want to see it again, possibly in a fuller version, if it exists. 

I know this post is a bit short, but I'll just let the photos do the talking. Check them out here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150551347700877.371135.630150876&type=1&l=0964b7cfe3. 

Now, I'll slowly go to bed hoping to get some good sleep before another crazy Monday. 

Speed of Light

For the last two, three weeks, I have this constant feeling like I go to bed on Monday night, but I wake up on Friday morning. Time has been passing unbelievably quickly, mostly due to my (lovely) work schedule. Working from 10 a.m. till 7 p.m. isn't exactly human-friendly. I'm also blaming the weather as it has not only been arctic cold, but it's also snowing every other day so unless I wake up into a cloudy snowflake-dazzling morning, I know there's nothing but biting Siberian iciness waiting for me outside, so it's quite a challenge  convincing myself I do enjoy this weather (trust me, the challenge is never met no matter how hard I try). These low temperatures have also caused my immune system to fail me a bit, so at the moment I'm fighting a bad cold and occasional voice loss with loads of fresh lemonade, tea and my best friend these days, paracetamol. 


However, I do have a few secrets to reveal. I'm sure you've at least once in your life found yourself in a situation when you get hungry after a night out, it's 3 or 4 a.m. and a tasteless McDonalds hamburger or a Burger-King's plastic-like cheeseburger isn't exactly your cup of tea. Well, in Sofia things are different. Divaka (Дивака), a 24-hour restaurant, kindly saves you from a growling stomach when you fancy a hot soup, a juicy steak or a healthy fresh salad in the middle of the night. What is more, the ambient is very welcoming, the staff is polite, prices are low and the food is tasty. Seriously, what more could you wish for? Divaka has quickly made it onto my Favourite places in Sofia list and unless some major incident takes place, it will stay there.


My other secret is actually an on-going story about all non-English speaking Bulgarians. I have to admit, I have expected employees in pharmacies, banks, post offices, public-transport offices would generally speak English, but ... Ah well, I was so wrong. The other day when my internet wasn't working, I called the technical support and they sent me one of their technicians who didn't speak English. Considering I don't speak Bulgarian, it was a pretty funny situation when he arrived. I just pointed at the computer and let him do his job. When he finished, I asked Internet? and with thumbs up and a smile on his face he said Internet!. Yes, funny indeed. Then, today I went to the pharmacy to get something for the cold and as the pharmacist didn't speak English, I just showed what's wrong with me and I got what I needed. It's not that it bothers me whether people speak English or not, it's just that I never know if I'll be able to get things sorted out. Sometimes it really takes a lot of effort, but generally people do their best to understand me. 


Still, I can't depend just on English all the time and hope people will always try to understand me. What's more, I have met quite a few people who were so firmly convinced Slovenian and Bulgarian are so very similar they refused to speak English and just spoke to me in Bulgarian and I had no idea what they were saying even though I was able to understand a third or a half of what they were saying. Therefore, one of my challenges for this week is starting to learn Bulgarian. I've been searching for free online programmes and looking at audio courses in bookshops and there's not so much to choose from, actually. So far I've found just two audio courses in one bookshop and the online courses could be defined as "search in progress". I'll most likely settle down for one of the audio courses and they exploit all my kind Bulgarian colleagues for extra explanations, so by summer I should be able to speak, read and write ... on, let's say, an intermediate level. That's my goal for now, but it may change depending on how the learning goes.


The other challenge of the upcoming week is more a mission than a challenge - a new camera. I hope I manage to buy it sometime after work this week. I really miss taking photos and I have already found so much beauty to be captured and shared. Sofia is just magnificent in snow and especially during the night. Hopefully my next post will be a photo-post, so keep your fingers crossed my camera-related mission doesn't turn into a mission impossible!

How (not) to find an apartment in Sofia

There's nothing positive in my attitude towards apartment-searching. I hate it. Well, hate might be a strong word, but it's definitely close to what I feel when I'm on an apartment-hunt mission – it makes me anxious, nervous, stressed out and it normally includes at least one meltdown. I have never been in a position when I could be very picky when choosing an apartment. It has always been more or less the same situation of having to find an apartment in a few days which has basically forced me to take the first quite nice, kind of well-located and reasonably expensive/cheap (trust me, if the rent is suspiciously low, you have every right to assume there's something seriously wrong) apartment. Now, try to imagine you've just moved to a 1,5 million city (= Sofia), you don't speak the language (= Bulgarian) and you've never lived in such a big city, so you have no real perception of how big the city actually is and what seems close to you, is actually so far away the distance is manageable within a reasonable time frame only by public transport. Yes, that's exactly the shitty situation I was in a few days ago. Considering I am working nine hours a day (including a one-hour lunch break) there's no way I can daily spend more that 30 minutes travelling to work, so there weren't so many available apartments to chose from. I knew from the very beginning I wouldn't be able to find an apartment on my own, so I got myself an English-speaking real-estate agent, who will probably never forget searching an apartment for me. Why? Well, it all started with the first viewing she had arranged. Having sent me the address where we were supposed to meet, I have looked it up on Google Maps, found the location (which was, judging by the map and my real-estate agent's experience, supposed to be 10 minutes from where I work), and left work a few minutes earlier just to be on time. Of course things didn't go as planned. Firstly, Google Maps was completely wrong and gave me the wrong location, then having got lost a few times, I asked a passing-by man for directions. He didn't speak English, but I still managed to ask him for directions, but that didn't really help as he showed me the wrong direction. Then, I got a taxi hoping I would finally end up in the arranged meeting point, but I was wrong again. The taxi brought me to the wrong location, but at least my real-estate agent knew where I was, so after having had waited for more than half an hour at -5°C, we finally met. We showed up at the apartment with a one-hour delay and when I saw the apartment, I was just sad. I don't mind if the apartment is old or if it's furnished in a communist- or socialist-like style, I like it actually, but this apartment was old, dirty and absolutely not ready to be moved into. The only thing on my mind was, oh dear, there's no way I can live here, it'd be impossible to sleep at night and not think what would be creeping up my bed. I was just waiting for a cockroach or something similar to show up. Ah, well, I guess having seen that made me make up my mind really fast when I saw another apartment. Located in the centre, close to the main shopping street, not too big, not too small, within a manageable walking distance to work, clean (it smelled like freshly disinfected, sort of like in a hospital laboratory), and with a wardrobe that reminded me of my grandma the apartment seemed just what I was looking for. When I signed the contract the following day and met the landlady (who is, FYI, one of the kindest, warmest and loveliest people I have ever met) I was incredibly relieved. I slept like a baby that night and the night after and the night after. No more being-homeless nightmares, no more searching, asking, comparing, calculating. I finally have a place called home.