A Day in Sofia

I made a promise to myself when we started this blog that I would add something at minimum once a week. Then I promptly broke that promise. I didn't realize how much time would be spent in preparation for our first week of classes. It took a lot of time and I went to bed every night completely exhausted with no thought whatsoever about catching up on the blog. Still exhausted, but less brain-dead than the last week or so, I will endeavor to make up for lost time by posting this thrilling installment!!! So, without further ado...

I'll start with the day of Jeff's post about the taxi driver. Just over a week ago - I think it was September 8. We spent the afternoon and evening in the center of Sofia. We had a tour guide, Velin, who showed us all the hot spots downtown. And by hot spots, I mean the historical buildings and monuments.

We started at the National Theater in a bit of a drizzle - we kept hoping it wouldn't actually rain, but as the tour got started the skies opened up. Luckily the tour company provided us with an umbrella and Jeff and I had rain jackets on (so Jeff's friend, Paul, got the umbrella). The National Theater was recently renovated and is a beautiful (and colorful) landmark downtown.

(That's me in the middle with Paul on the left and Velin on the right)

Next, Velin took us to the Sofia Sheraton. Yes, the hotel chain. The Sheraton was the first capitalist company to make an investment in Bulgaria even before the communist regime ended. So I suppose it is a symbol of breaking away from communism in Sofia. This building is rather interesting because it has four different uses: The Sheraton facing West, the Presidency facing East, the President's residence facing North, and a mall facing South. AND to top that off, it has a courtyard inside that is basically an archeological site: part of a Roman road, a small portion of a partially excavated town, and the church of St. George (St. George Rotunda), which dates from the first half of the 4th century. Talk about variety! We arrived too late to go inside St. George's, but as Velin said with a shrug of his shoulders, "No problem, you will come back." I expect we will.

Within less than a kilometer from one another in downtown sofia you will find five Bulgarian Orthodox churches (St. George's, St. Sunday, St. Sofia, St. Petka, and Nevski Cathedral), the Bashi Baths Mosque, the Sofia Synagogue, and the St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker Russian Orthodox church. Again, so much variety! And such beautiful buildings.

(Nevski Cathedral)

We were told by Velin that the Russian Orthodox cross has great meaning. The top, smaller, cross represents the plaque that was hung over Jesus' head. The sedond cross is a representation of the beam where Jesus' arms were stretched out on. The third cross, which is at an angle, was where his feet were nailed and points up towards the criminal that believed that Jesus was the son of God (in case you don't know the story, Jesus was crucified with two criminals, one whom believed in him and for that reason was saved, and one whom did not believe in him and was not saved). Finally, at the bottom of the cross is a crescent - the symbol of Islam. I think this might be unique to the Balkans, where the Turks ruled for many centuries. The crescent is not there as a symbol of tolerance, but rather as a symbol of how the Orthodox church is mightier than Islam since the Turks ultimately gave up their rule in this area around a century ago.

(St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker Russian Orthodox Church)

My favorite moments of this trip were when we were in St. Sofia and Nevski Cathedral. At both churches we got to hear some of the choir sing. Wow. The acoustics were amazing and the voices were so heart-stoppingly beautiful. I don't know how many were singing in St. Sofia, but it was quite a surprise to see that only 3 were singing in Nevski Cathedral - it sounded like a large choir. The sound just went through me. Simply wonderful. I understand that the choirs here are often made up of some of the most talented and famous opera singers in Bulgaria. I will go to Nevski Cathedral for a holiday sermon just to hear the choir.

We got to see a changing of the guard at the Presidency. The guards goose stepped for 8 steps, then ambled for another 8 or 10, then back to the goose step for 8, then ambling, etc. For some reason the guards were stationed outside of the guard huts (even though it was raining). Looked like a miserable job. The changing of the guard we saw had no pomp and circumstance, but I'm guessing when there is an important event it could be quite a sight to see.


One of the coolest things we saw on this tour was actually down in the subway. In order to gain access to the turnstiles to ride the Metro, you must walk through the ruins of the fortress and part of the eastern gate of an ancient Roman town, Serdika. I've never seen anything like it - such a strange juxtaposition of ancient and brand-spanking new (did I mention that this particular subway station opened only 2 days before? - although the underground walkway has been around for several years).

We saw many monuments and many museums. All in the rain. By the time were finished (2 1/2 hours later), we were all pretty soaked and cold and tired. But we really enjoyed the tour. Now we know what to show everyone when they come visit (hint hint)! We asked Velin for a good local eatery and he pointed us to Pri Yafata (При Яафата). After a wrong turn and a few blocks the wrong way, we finally found this lovely restaurant and breathed a sigh of relief when we sat down for dinner.

We arrived just before 6pm, which is practically breakfast time in Sofia, much earlier than most Sofians would deign to be seen out, so we mostly had the restaurant to ourselves. Our waitress, Marina, was from Ukraine, but has lived in Sofia since 1992. She was very excited to practice her English with us and give us a few lessons in Bulgarian. She even took a picture with us and moments later came out with the picture for us to keep.

(Marina is between Jeff and Paul)

Next was our interesting taxi ride home that Jeff describes in great detail in a previous post.