Our first morning in Bulgaria was pretty hard considering how tired we were, without nowhere to go or sleep.
After getting off the bus we found out that the train station wouldn't even be open for another 2 or 3 hours so we tried to sleep for a bit on the hard metal, grated benches (the background of the croissant picture) until security made us leave. It was freezing outside though so we went to the train station and sat in the waiting room with some very poor looking Bulgarians until the ticket office opened. The waiting room was just a 15'x15' room that was closed off from the wind. At one point 3 very old people in Red Cross garb pushed a wheelchair with a pot in the seat inside and gave tea to some of the others in the room. (Bad picture because I was being discreet.)
And here's a short video of the inside of the train station while Wight was in the rest room. Immediately when I walked in I just thought, "eastern Europe".
Then I went to use the DAMES facilities and was blessed with such glorious sights as these.
Soooo, when the ticket window finally opened we found out that the only direct train to Bucharest was a sleeper train for that night and that it would cost extra (instead of free with our passes). We got the tickets and decided to spend the day discovering Sofia. We got onto the public transport system and rode across town. I took this video through the window.
Here are some of the neater pictures and videos.
After lunch we walked more and saw more wild dogs. These two were play fighting and almost ran into Wight.
Since we had ridden the trolley/train/subway/bus thing into the middle of town, it took us a couple hours to get back to the train station. We stopped into one last bar, mostly just to wait for our train somewhere warm, and ordered one drink each. Beer was so cheap, and on par with the most expensive, imported beers in the US, that I couldn't help but drink pretty damn often in Bulgaria and Romania. It was a very modern bar, full of young and older people and everyone was very stylish, especially compared to me. For most of my time in Europe I was wearing unwashed clothes and an over sized snow jacket, haha. But our train was leaving in an hour so we went and got boarded onto the train.
I really, really wish it hadn't been so dark and cramped on the train so I could have taken pictures but I'll try to describe it. The interior was all dark wood and red carpet and curtains. Everything looked like it had been aged about 40 years or more and I overheard someone else walking down an aisle that the train had probably been recommissioned during "the war" (WWII?) for officers before being turned into a passengers night train. The compartments had one tiny, dim, yellow light each that was less useful than a cell phone screen if you wanted to see anything. There were 4 bunks in each compartment and each compartment was 6'x6'x8' or so. There was barely room to do anything but lay flat on your back in your bunk. Wight and I shared a compartment with a silent, middle aged gypsy woman. Think 45 year old Esmerelda from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Anyways, I slept alright after a snack of fresh bread, sausage and delicious juice from a tiny grocery store in the train station.
I took that picture the next day in our hostel in Brasov. I looooove the variety of juice in Europe, by the way. It's all so much tastier too. Thicker and more natural I guess; like most food in Europe.
Anyways, our Eurail passes were taken before we went to sleep so that they could be verified at the border checkpoint or something, even though they woke us all up at the border to check out passports anyways. Three times actually. I think we crossed from Bulgaria to Romania then back to Bulgaria before going back into Romania to stay. Weird train routes I suppose. My temporary passport was stamped 3 times that night.
And here's where it gets even more fun. The next morning as we were waiting to stop, two official looking men came into our compartment and started telling Wight and I that we hadn't marked our Eurail passes correctly. Instead of writing down the day of departure AND the day of arrival, we had just written down the day of departure and so we needed to pay them 50 Euros each for some reason. We paid (I had to borrow the money until we got to an ATM later that day, thank you again Wight) and they gave us back our tickets after marking them for the arrival day and left before we realized that we had probably just been scammed. Eastern Europe is known for corruption a bit more than other places but it was way too late and we all we could do was get over it. We sure as hell couldn't wait to get off that train though.
After getting off the bus we found out that the train station wouldn't even be open for another 2 or 3 hours so we tried to sleep for a bit on the hard metal, grated benches (the background of the croissant picture) until security made us leave. It was freezing outside though so we went to the train station and sat in the waiting room with some very poor looking Bulgarians until the ticket office opened. The waiting room was just a 15'x15' room that was closed off from the wind. At one point 3 very old people in Red Cross garb pushed a wheelchair with a pot in the seat inside and gave tea to some of the others in the room. (Bad picture because I was being discreet.)
And here's a short video of the inside of the train station while Wight was in the rest room. Immediately when I walked in I just thought, "eastern Europe".
Then I went to use the DAMES facilities and was blessed with such glorious sights as these.
Soooo, when the ticket window finally opened we found out that the only direct train to Bucharest was a sleeper train for that night and that it would cost extra (instead of free with our passes). We got the tickets and decided to spend the day discovering Sofia. We got onto the public transport system and rode across town. I took this video through the window.
Here are some of the neater pictures and videos.
Here's the main thoroughfare of Sofia.
Wight discovered this weird little store front. It was advertising candy bars, soda, aspirin, phone cards and liquor and they do all their business from ankle level. Crazy.
We stopped in for food at a restaurant listed in one of Wight's guidebooks. It was ala carte style, you just picked up a tray and put items on it until you got to the check out. And let me just mention here (for the first of many times, I'm sure) how AWESOME the exchange rate is in eastern Europe. In February, I got about 1.6 Bulgarian Lev per 1 USD and all the prices on almost everything was super cheap anyways. I got a huge portion of some chicken, mushroom, tomato wrap with cheese sauce and a large piece of the best tiramisu I've ever had for around 5 Lev, or a little under $3.50.
After lunch we walked more and saw more wild dogs. These two were play fighting and almost ran into Wight.
Then it started getting a lot darker and snowed a little bit so we went to see a cool brewery listed in the guidebook. I'm not totally sure that we found it but we did find a brewery so that was cool enough for us.
This was the menu for the restaurant/brewery. We each had two 500ml beers for a total of almost 1.85 US dollars each (That's under 2 bucks for a beer that's bigger and far more delicious than the 12 ounce bottles of crap that everyone serves in the States). I had the Kmetsko Pivo Red and the Dark, Wight had the Wheat and the Dark I believe. All of them were very good. Also, you can see on the menu that for 28 lev you can buy a meter of beer. For that they literally just bring you a tall, glass cylinder about 5 or 6 inches in diameter and a meter high full of beer and you just pour from that. They had them at the Edelweiss as well.
As Wight and I headed back to the train station I took a couple more pictures; one of a sweet old alleyway and another of our reflection in a much more modern building.
Since we had ridden the trolley/train/subway/bus thing into the middle of town, it took us a couple hours to get back to the train station. We stopped into one last bar, mostly just to wait for our train somewhere warm, and ordered one drink each. Beer was so cheap, and on par with the most expensive, imported beers in the US, that I couldn't help but drink pretty damn often in Bulgaria and Romania. It was a very modern bar, full of young and older people and everyone was very stylish, especially compared to me. For most of my time in Europe I was wearing unwashed clothes and an over sized snow jacket, haha. But our train was leaving in an hour so we went and got boarded onto the train.
I really, really wish it hadn't been so dark and cramped on the train so I could have taken pictures but I'll try to describe it. The interior was all dark wood and red carpet and curtains. Everything looked like it had been aged about 40 years or more and I overheard someone else walking down an aisle that the train had probably been recommissioned during "the war" (WWII?) for officers before being turned into a passengers night train. The compartments had one tiny, dim, yellow light each that was less useful than a cell phone screen if you wanted to see anything. There were 4 bunks in each compartment and each compartment was 6'x6'x8' or so. There was barely room to do anything but lay flat on your back in your bunk. Wight and I shared a compartment with a silent, middle aged gypsy woman. Think 45 year old Esmerelda from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Anyways, I slept alright after a snack of fresh bread, sausage and delicious juice from a tiny grocery store in the train station.
I took that picture the next day in our hostel in Brasov. I looooove the variety of juice in Europe, by the way. It's all so much tastier too. Thicker and more natural I guess; like most food in Europe.
Anyways, our Eurail passes were taken before we went to sleep so that they could be verified at the border checkpoint or something, even though they woke us all up at the border to check out passports anyways. Three times actually. I think we crossed from Bulgaria to Romania then back to Bulgaria before going back into Romania to stay. Weird train routes I suppose. My temporary passport was stamped 3 times that night.
And here's where it gets even more fun. The next morning as we were waiting to stop, two official looking men came into our compartment and started telling Wight and I that we hadn't marked our Eurail passes correctly. Instead of writing down the day of departure AND the day of arrival, we had just written down the day of departure and so we needed to pay them 50 Euros each for some reason. We paid (I had to borrow the money until we got to an ATM later that day, thank you again Wight) and they gave us back our tickets after marking them for the arrival day and left before we realized that we had probably just been scammed. Eastern Europe is known for corruption a bit more than other places but it was way too late and we all we could do was get over it. We sure as hell couldn't wait to get off that train though.
