Keep Off!

Day 535
I'd had some crazy dreams the night before, including one that I thought I was awake at 4 pm. It was actually 8 when I got up. After showering and some breakfast I headed out to see the town.

My first stop was the city art gallery. It was a nice collection, but really quite small. All of the paintings were by Bulgarian artists. I actually hadn't meant to go there, I thought it was the icon gallery. That turned out to be a few doors up the road. The nice woman working there let me take pictures even though it wasn't really allowed. It was a small collection, but really quite nice.

I then popped into the St. Constantine and St. Elena Church. A little girl was being baptized and she was not happy. They stripped her down to nothing and then stuck her right in the baptismal font. I would have been just as unhappy as she was if someone did that to me. The most interesting bits were the fresco's, but no photos were allowed.

It was hot out and I had been walking uphill all day. I was really happy when it as time to head back down the hill. I spent some more time online before going back to the hostel. I had them call me a cab and it cost 3 leva, that guy the day before was really trying to rip me off!

The train was packed and I worried that I wouldn't get a seat, but I managed to find one. Once in Sofia I bought a ticket to Nis, Serbia. I tried to spend the rest of my Bulgarian money but couldn't. I should have exchanged it, but hindsight is 20/20. When I boarded the train and went to my assigned seat there were two men in the compartment who had obviously been drinking. The bigger of the two men did not want me in that compartment for some reason or another and shoved me out of it several times. I just started screaming, I don't know what. Well it was probably something like that's my seat and you can't touch me with profanities thrown in. A woman from a near by compartment came first and then the conductor. He made the man let me sit down. I was getting really dirty looks and feeling uncomfortable when the guy lit up a cigarette. I pointed to the no smoking sign. He didn't care. The conductor walked by outside and I motioned to him that the man was smoking. The conductor made him go outside and then moved them to a different compartment. The train wasn't even in motion and it was an eventful ride for me.

Once I crossed the boarder into Serbia a mother and her 10 year old daughter got on the train. I don't think that the little girl had ever seen an ipod before (I was watching a movie) and sat next to me and screamed "tv" when she saw what was on the screen. I gave her one of the ear phones and put on Shrek, she liked that for a while but wanted to play with it herself. We ended up watch the Simpsons before she wanted to listen to music. She was very disappointed with my collection though, she asked if I had any Hannah Montana!

When I got to Nis it was one am. The near by atm didn't work and it took me about 30 minute to get a cab. At least the guy understood that I needed to go to an atm first. He didn't know where the hostel was though and wasted quite a bit of money looking for it. At one point he was even looking on the wrong street. I didn't tip him. I was happy to finally get to where I was going after such an eventful evening. I was even happier when I found out that I had the room to myself again!

Still Lazy

Day 534
I could have gotten a very early train but then I would have missed the yummy free breakfast. Also, my jackass roommates had come in really late and made a huge amount of noise keeping me up half the night. Also, my next stop was quite small and I was sure that I could see it all in one day if necessary. When I did get up I was really grossed out to find that someone had puked in one of the showers. I bet it was one of my drunk roommates! Luckily there were other showers to choose from. I was feeling like being annoying due to my lack of sleep and packed as loudly as possible. I got some dirty looks, but I didn't really care.

After a few hours on the train I was in Plovdiv. I thought that I would just get a cab but the guy tried to charge me 10 leva, way too much so I just got the bus instead. The directions to the hostel were quite bad so I ended up finding the tourist info office first and they directed me in the right way.

I was feeling lazy, big surprise there, and decided to just find the internet cafe. It was located in the middle of the remains of a Roman amphitheater. That was pretty cool! I also got to chat with some friends from home.

When I got back to the hostel I was really excited to find out that I would be having the room to myself, hip hip hooray for no loud and snoring drunk people!

Out of Time

Day 533
The internet had not been working at the hostel the night before or this morning. After my very yummy free breakfast I found myself and internet cafe. I really needed to find out some train times. When I found an internet cafe it was 8:20, the train I wanted was 8:30, I couldn't do my day trip.

Instead I decided to visit the St. Georgy Church. This was the only thing I had wanted to visit last time and wasn't able to. This was an early Christian church built in the 4th century by the Romans. I think that the last time I was here they were having some sort of electricity problem. The fresco's inside were definitely worth waiting for. It's just too bad that I wasn't able to take any pictures.

With the church finished I wandered aimlessly for some time before just going to an internet cafe to screw around. I do remember that I worked on organizing some photo's as well. I had a lot to do.

I then went back to the hostel for a short nap and the free dinner. There wasn't a whole lot going on in the common room so I ended up just sitting there and watching movies before going to sleep.

Rila-ality

Day 532
The cold woke me up several times. I was about to give up and just get my warm pj bottoms out when I realized that the train would arrive in just about ten minutes. Once I got off the train I hopped on the tram and then got myself so lost that I had to get a cab for an insanely short distance. At least the guy understood that I was just really turned around.

At the hostel I got lucky and was able to get on that days tour of the Rila Monastery, the reason I had returned to Sofia. After hanging out for a few hours I got in a car with a nice Aussie couple and away we went. Our first stop was a small chapel in the wood above the monastery. This is where a monk named John, that founded the monastery had lived his life. Well, he lived in a cave and the small chapel is built next to it. We then went to look at this tiny cave. To exit the cave you have to squeeze thru an extremely small hole. I just about got stuck. After no sleep spelunking had really not been on my to do list for the day.

Once our foray into the woods was over we went to Rila Monestery. This is thought of as Bulgaria's Jerusalem. The monastery was founded in the 10th century, but the current buildings date back only to the 19th century. It was really quite beautiful and I explained the different paintings to anyone who would listen. There was another car of three people and all 6 of us pretty much stuck together. As nice as the monastery was after wandering around for about 20 minutes we had seen it all. The 6 of us had a really good lunch at a nearby restaurant before heading back. I slept for the entire ride.

The hostel I was staying at was the same one that I had stayed at 5 years ago when I was here. I hadn't been able to go to my room before, but moved my things as soon as I got back. I then showered and took a bit of a nap. At 7 pm the hostel had its free beer and spaghetti dinner. I ended up chatting with some of the other people at my table. We spent the evening hanging out at the hostel with uber cheap beers.