We were attacked...by gypsies...very small ones

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The day started with an early 6am train from Thessaloniki, Greece to Sophia, Bulgaria. Which meant a 4am start for us the get ourselves and the baby washed, dressed and packed, and then a hurried scramble to the train station dragging our suitcase behind us (we were too cheap to pay for a taxi, so dragged that thing for 30mins semi-jogging - almost broke my arm off half a dozen times when the wheel would get stuck in pothole). Grabbed a final taste of Greece from a bakery before finally dropping down exhausted into the train - made it with 2 minutes to spare!

The train was quite a clean but bland affair and a bit stuffy. Sesame decided she would give us some grief by being a bit hyperactive. Okay - it was kind of cute watching her point at every cow whizzing past yelling moo but it got rather old pretty quickly. I don't think our weary fellow passengers were particuarly thrilled either so we were feeling a tad embarassed. Coupled with the fact that she decided to make a mess of her wheatbix and banana mash left us not in the greatest of moods.

Traveling with a kid is not easy - even when you have an incredibly well-behaved one like us - who unfortunately was having a rather poorly behaved day. There is the occasional perk though - and today was one of them. The kindly guard, decided he either was sick of Sesame's muttering, or just had a compassionate heart and decided to upgrade us to our own first class cabin. Cool!! Will be encouraging Sesame to make a bit more fuss next time we're on a plane in economy - who knows what could happen!

Anyway, our introduction to Bulgaria was through the window of a train. Rolling hills of pastural land, all rather unbelievably immaculately trimmed. The occassional cottage perched on a hill. And fields of yellow dandelions. A rather pretty little sight. In fact, the most memorable thing about Bulgaria was the countryside. Its just very green and plush and healthy looking - a stark contrast to the dry brown scrubb that passes for countryside back home in Australia.

We disembarked in Sophia just before 1pm at a rather tatty looking central station. You can tell Bulgaria is definitely a step back on economic ladder from Greece. But it does have its charm - specifically cheese. Yes, everything in Bulgaria is covered in the local specialty - white cheese. Kind of like Feta but more solid and flavorsome. And simply everywhere and in everything. We walked through the station salivating at baked cheesy delights in shop windows longing to change some money so we could get ourselves some of that.

Our first step into the open air of Sophia alas was a bad one. Thanks to a shify taxi driver guy who turned out to be a scammer. We're reasonably well travelled but still fell for the oldest book in the trick - the taxi tout at the front door of the train station. We hopped in, double-checking and triple checking the officiality of the taxi, looking for evidence of taxi licenses, listed fares - all seemed good. But things started looking poorly when the meter started ticking by at a ridiculous rate. What was suppoed to have been a 4LV trip ended up being 20LV. Apparently they have little push peddles in the dodgy taxis here that the driver can use to pump up the meter.

Anyway, sour as we were, I wasn't about to fight with the guy because Sophia does have a bit of a reputation for being a little unsavoury. The driver must have been rather surprised because he looked rather shocked when I just accepted his price - so much so that he started helping us with the luggage and even started playing with the baby. Oh well, we will leave it to his guilty conscience to gnaw away at his insides till he feels just as rotten as he really is.

After dumping our stuff at the hostel we headed into the historic and scenic part of town. Bulgaria is ex-soviet and thus has lots of ostentatious buildings and large boulevards that are meant to awe and inspire. Our starting point was a rather pretty little bulgarian-equivalent-of-a-piazza with a cute little orthodox church on the end. Orthodox churches are grand - lots of gold everywhere and intricate designs - those western european churches look rather bland in comparison. We then started down a fairly standard tourist route to check out various standard tourist checkpoints, including an old mosque, museums, fountains and even a rather sombre changing-of-the-guard. And that's when it happened.

Gypsies. And not the nice kind. There we were just walking along when suddenly a heavily pregnant lady and her husband walked up to us and started yelling at us - kind of like they were asking us questions. In tow they had about 5 kids that suddenly swarmed Sesame's pram. Melenie being the good mother panicked and stepped in front like a good little mama bear - a tad aggressively I must say. But seems that this was not out of place, because she was just in time to catch a small little hand of one of the little girls - must have been about 5 years old - trying to poke her hand into the little backpack hanging on the back of the pram. Mama bear snarled and shooed them away. I didn't realize what had happened and just though my wife was being rude. And just like that - they were gone. One snarl and they simply vanished. Literally vanished. Gypsy magic I swear - just faded into thin air.

Well - the claws were out now. Every person who walked past us was a suspect - and any person that even took so much as a step towards the baby was greeted by a narrowing of the eyes and a snarling of the teeth. Okay - I exaggerate - but heck we were definitely on the watch out now. Gypsies - ooh - they made me mad. Yes - I realize I'm being rather politically incorrect but I repeat - I was rather mad!

Next up were the rather perplexing water fountains. Bulgarians must love water because they have natural springs everywhere. In the heart of the city they have about 30 taps that are constantly belching forth water and apparently lots of locals make special trips to fill up massive water tanks. We saw one lady fill up 4 large barrels. The water tasted nice, but I don't think I'd bother driving out of my way to fill up. Possibly its a cost saving thing? Who knows - anyway we disrespected their sense of privacy and took lots of photos of old ladies filling up their barrels.

We then headed over to the Sveti Alexander Neviski (St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral) church, one of the largest orthodox churches in the world. Sveti actually means Saint but its more funny to say it as sweaty. This church is a gawkable yet sombre experience. The inside is plastered with Orthodox-styled paintings of saints and scenes from the Bible. They are starkly different to Western European church paintings - for example, everybody is black haired and kind of middle-eastern looking. Along the sides are coffins some containing the bones of saints. Devotees reach inside and what looks like (couldn't quite make it out in the dim light) touch the bones before doing lots of signs of the cross and praying - I guess these are viewed as some kind of sacred bones that bestow blessings. Other devotees light one of the numerous candles that are arranged in front of open books and icons. Meanwhile rather macbre monks in long black robes and big beards look on rather mystically. Its all very old-school catholic with a heavy serving of ritualism. As a visitor you have to be absolutely quiet. Its actually kind of awkward gawking at the devotees - we did feel like we were intruding. Nevertheless, a nice experience and an insight into the importance of religion in this country.

Meanwhile old ladies stand outside the church doors selling roses. Apparently the bulgarian pension is terrible, so a lot of pensioners resort to selling flowers to make ends meet. It is rather sad as many of these ladies are very old and really do look like they have come out of communist Russia. This is in stark contrast to the nearby youths that sport the latest fashions funded by the ever growing affluence of their up-and-coming industrious parents.

That night we crawled the streets looking for Bulgarian food. That was rather hard to find in the downtown area - it seems bulgarians prefer anything but bulgarian grub. We did however finally stumble across one that hard a hybrid of German and Bulgarian food. The pictures below say it for themselves - lots of cheese and potato and cream. Heavy stuff that will kill you but its worth dying with that in your mouth.

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Photos

Sveti Alexandar Nevski Cathedral
One of the largest orthodox churches in the world. Eerie but impressive inside and out.

A pretty government building
Large, imposing and pretty

Free Water
There are 30 of these fountains in downtown Sofia. Citizens flock in droves to fill up big buckets and barrels of the stuff. Thrifty people? Tasty water?

Cuckoo Clock Guards
A little guard dance is done every 5 minutes, very similar to a very very very slow cuckoo clock guard march.

The compulsory food photo
Bulgarian cheese on potatoes with lots of cream. Not uniquely Bulgarian but really really really good!