Sofia

Just 3 days amidst the warmth of the Chilovs and I'm back in my toughened, solo-traveler guise. I miss their caretaking. I miss having my evenings filled. And I'm working at figuring out how to fill the evening on my own in Athens without attracting undo attention or whiling away hours in front of CNN at the hotel. Internet cafes are good for the female on the road - techno, coffee, ashtrays.

The Chilovs treated me, only son's (only) girlfriend - like a princess. I drank from the Meisen tea cup, was given a small wardrobe and driven (with R) everywhere - museum entrances paid...

Vladimir bought us walnut cookies at the monastery on the hill.
R took me out with high school friends for nights of the town.

Sofia's a handsome city - I'm sure I'm wrong and know it's historicall incorrect but it a little bit reminded me of Rome. The colors at least. (I suppose I don't know enough European cities to have a handy comparison). Broad boulevards, byzantine churches, stooped old women in thick hose and headscarves beside the twenty-somethings in stretch jeans. All the usual eastern bloc/western-world-of-evils juxtapositions. Our first night out was a whirlwind of city's hotspots. First drink at Tabacco (Bulgarians favor single word names, other hotspot - missed this go - Lipstick - hangover from mid-80's perhaps.) - a glass vestibule (green house?) off the chapel of the king's summer palace. Then Opera - formerly a Swedish restaurant (?) now re-imagined as a stunning, towering black space of baroque mouldings and light fixtures from the euro design fair. And hip bulgarians of course, smoking of course.

And then to a club that might have been any club in any country (anywhere) but may be more smoking.

And last night a meal of many plates and courses, and a few rakias, at a Bulgarian mehenatta (farm-ish restaurant) housed in a former bomb shelter now hung with plastic grape vines, blankets and costumes. And bulgarians smoking.



Sad to say goodbye to R, the Chilovs and Sofia this morning.

NOTED:

The rest of the world (outside US) is still smoking, lots. Commented on this to R as we sat in a coffee shop with smokers on all sides (2, 3 even 4 to a table - all, amazingly, simultaneously smoking). He noted that Hungarians smoke far more - for instance, they also smoke on public transport whereas Bulgarians abstain.
All Athenians speak english - learned en masse for the olympics?
Route to the Parthenon surprisingly vaguely signed. It's been there for a while, yes?
They have olives on their olive trees in Greece!
Bulgarian food is wonderful - hybrid of heavier northern cuisines with the lighter Mediterranean ones.
Dollar not strong.
Bulgarians drink a lot, but never appeared rowdy or drunk. R says that's the way they are.
Sofia a very very chic city - buy property now before it enters the EU in 2007

C - observing