Rila, 28 September 2007

Looked around Sofia in the morning.


Rather striking sculpture of a head in a park we happened to come across.

Had a look at the most obvious must sees - the strangely shaped parliament building, Russian Orthodox Cathedral,


(really impressive inside as well, people praying , candles everywhere),
oldest building in Sofia



originally built by the Romans then later remodeled into a church... Bit hard to get info as I could only eavesdrop on an Italian tour-group that happened to turn up.



Sofia too has fancy guards like at Buckingham Palace. I should have tried to get a pic with one but it's hard to tell how tourist friendly they are...

Then we organised our car and headed off. We had some vague directions as to how to get out of town but didn't really know which highway we were supposed to be on - so when I took over navigating with the help of the gps... we ended up in one of the mountains around Sofia and had to backtrack by an hour or so. Annoyingly I actually have a Bulgarian roadmap on my pocket pc but the gps kept on wanting to automatically change to a more detailed map, so I knew we were going in the right direction but couldn't spot that the road finally ran out.

When we finally made it to Rila monastery we found that the hotel next to the monastery was closed for renovations.



Luckily there were some hotels back down the road and we picked one that turned out to be superb. Great room, great price, out amidst glorious scenery.



Finished the day with a few beers, some wine, some rakias and a lavish feast of food.

Sofia Airport

Modern new airport in Sofia. First time I was here this was run down. Now it's super modern. It certainly makes a good impression. I had to wait for about four hours for Sally et al. to turn up from Rome, so I know it pretty well now...



Sally's family's private dorm in Sofia... unfortunately the travelers in the other rooms had to go through this one to get to theirs. But they were nice enough to light their way with a cigarette-lighter rather than switch on the light when they came back at three in the morning.



At Sally's hostel they had a nice big bathroom, but normally the shower curtain is inside the bathroom... here it actually serves as the door into the bathroom. Oh, this bathroom was shared between all 16 or so people that might be staying there... plus the bloke at reception's mates any time a good looking bird checks in...

Sally doesn't look too embarrassed though to poke her head around the door.

September 27 2007 - Update

Security at Vienna airport was crazy. Jackets off, belts off, scarves off - the lot. They didn't spot the liquids in my bag though despite the fact that they continually ask about it. Actually I still haven't worked out how carrying your liquids around in a clear plastic bag neutralises any explosive qualities they might have.

I suppose it's just a matter of time before everyone has to walk on board naked and pick up their clothes at the other end.

Sally's staying at a hostel - so a backpackers. I thought it was typical that as soon as I turned up to look for them I found them chatting to some Pom who was staying there. This seems to be the nature of these places - travel the world and hang out with other travelers that speak your language - this usually also involves spending the evenings knocking back beers in the Irish pub next door.

Anyway, we took a taxi into the suburbs and found a great pub with outside seating. It was packed. Great beer, good food. Good start to the trip.

As I had my gps with me it meant we could walk back to the hotel. This meant another couple of beers on the way back in. Certainly the gps is brilliant. Opens up new possibilities for wandering around. I can't believe no-one's come up with a decent website yet so that people can share points of interest. They don't mean much when they're just a vague description but when accompanied by a gps kml file that's a different story.

Vienna, 27 September 2007

So far I seem to have been able to sleep a fair bit. Unfortunately it's only midnight thirty in Vienna right now and there are still 4 1/2 hours to go so it's now that I should be sleeping.

Just looked out the window and saw lots of lights of cities. I was rather surprised to look at the inflight map and find out that we're over Afghanistan. Looks like we're about to fly over the Caspian Sea towards Armenia.

It certainly felt strange to be heading off to the airport not quite as early as I normally head off. I must have had countless 6 o'clock flights... it just felt like I was wagging school.

I also felt like I couldn't be bothered with the trip and that I would have preferred to cancel it if I could. Now it remains to be seen whether a couple weeks traveling around the Balkans will be worth the effort. Some people make the trip just to stand in queues at places like Disneyland and to see the Mona Lisa and I suspect my trip will be a bit more eventful than that.

Met up with Sally, Neil and Lewis at Sofia airport. They're in a great bohemian area but their hotel is too bohemian for them. They paid extra to have the room to themselves - all four bunks... but it turns out that the 20 people in the other two rooms have to go through Sally's room to get to their dorms. Needless to say they are not too happy about this.

26 September 2007

As per usual, I'm going to go the night before without going to bed. Well, when you've got a 24 hour or so flight the next day... who needs to sleep?

It's now 3:37 in the morning... I feel pretty good so far. Packing's no problem... I hope... it's just getting maps and software for my ppc/gps that usually gets a bit hectic around this time. One of these days I'll prepare... at least a day before.

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Update: I've made it to Melbourne. I suppose I didn't need to catch the bus after all. My neighbours from dewnstairs were on the same flight and one of my classmates from uni was out at the airport seeing his sister off.

The bastards. They seem to have started weighing hand-carry luggage at the entrance to immigration! Why don't they weigh the people???