Bulgaria

Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, sits in a large valley ringed by mountains on all sides. Both the heat and scenery remind me of the one that holds Salt Lake City in Utah. The brightness, dryness, and vegetation remind me of the south of France near the Mediterranean.

Lindsay and I flew in on an Air France flight direct from Paris. It was only slightly delayed due to a scare at the airport which ened in the Police-led explosion of an unattened briefcase, according to the late passengers who sat behind us. I saw a number of US passports in line and was two for two talking to Americans seated near us.

The passport stamp you get when entering Bulgaria looks just like the other EU ones (they want to join as full members) with stars surrounding the Latin character abbreviation (why is this word so long?) of the country, in this case BG. The airport name is also given in Latin characters, Sofia. (My Blackberry can’t write the equivalent in Cyrillic, so I’ll let you figure out what they are.)

The Cyrillic overload gently began at the airport with all of the normal airport signs being in Latin (English) and Cyrillic (Bulgarian). The Cyrillic alphabet lesson I took last summer with my grandmother in Russia slowly came back giving me a slight feeling of comfort. Of course I’ve forgotten most of it and at best sound like a 4 year old trying to make the sounds corresponding to the somewhat foreign shapes. The taxi was about the same with both languages, except the driver didn’t speak English, but did understand Bus Terminal (Kal emailed me the English spelling of the word in Bulgarian). We were greeted with a taste of home as our taxi driver enjoyed a frequent export of the US, pop radio.

The overload kicked in full force as the doors to the newly constructed bus terminal slid open. We were greeted by a waiting area and ticket sales bonanza. There were slots for 40 companies to sell tickets for their buses under small plastic banners and all with laser printed city names taped to the sides of the windows. I took it as a good sign to see about 35 in use. Apparently Latin character using passengers are rare because all of the signs were completely in Cyrillic, and I didn’t recognize our destination, <a href="http://maps.google.com/xhtml?q=gabrovo+bulgaria&site=local#query">Gabrovo</a>. I had to curse Saint Cyril for a moment before Lindsay pointed out that the Departures monitors had magically switched to English, for a moment I felt like I had the Babelfish from "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" in my ear. We figured out that there was a bus to Gabrovo at 4, but had been warned of a not so nice company running at that time.

When I saw Information written in English and two pretty girls, I ambled over and began to ask for Gabrovo. I was ready to have to awkwardly repeat my destination to a blank stare with the eventual recognition and cracking of a smile that often follows an interchange of two people without a common language. Instead I was met by a shaking finger, like you would at a bad dog or child, and a stern "No". Apparently I had interrupted some important reading. Both girls returned to their reading as if I wasn’t there at all. It was almost as if they were just passengers who managed to get behind the giant Information sign. My text message to Kal must have gone through; he appeared at an opportune moment on Google Talk and offered the guidance I needed. It turns out that Union is a good line, so I made a peace sign for two tickets and got the locals price, about $10/person after a little confusion.

We walked out to Sektor 39 to find a brand new bus already cooling in the shade. Once we got moving the flip-down LCDs started an American movie that I don’t recognize with Bulgarian subtitles about some rappers and their exploits. I wander what the rap audience is like here? Even though I can’t hear it at all, I can tell it’s in the good old USA. I’m now sitting on the bus looking out the window at the undulating hills of the countryside.

Looking out the window it’s interesting to see the foreign brands with their regular logos and colors. We passed a street in Sofia that appeared dedicated to car repair because the storefronts were all covered with giant logos of popular European and Japanese brands. I wonder if the ones with dozens of duplicates are the place to go? I say service because there were no shiny new cars in sight, these were just small store fronts. Shell seems to have a strong presence too with a number of stores on both sides of the road.

I’m really excited to set out and see a country that has thousands of years of history.