It's Been 3 Weeks now

Mostly an uneventful day - we had our Bulgarian breakfast (after S2's morning bike ride). Packed up the car and headed for Sophia.  

The outskirts seemed to exude prosperity.  New highways, construction on roads that showed they would be bigger and better, huge hardware and building supply stores, large shopping malls, glass, chrome, consumerism, capitalism, whatever you want to call it.  

With Carmen's help we were able to drive right to Ploschad Nevsky, park the car, walk inside the cathedral, have lunch, wander through the flea market, admire the artists' paintings, and be on our way within the two hour parking limit.  

Boyana church was the next stop.  It had redwood trees planted there in 1907.  They weren't the purpose of the visit, just a notable sidebar.

From there it was on to the Rila Monastery, started in 927.  During the Ottoman Empire it was this secluded monastery that kept Christianity and all things Bulgarian alive.  There is no doubt, the paintings/frescoes were incredible.  It is massive, seemingly a fortress by the aerial view on the postcards.  We didn't have enough cash to stay the night, so we headed up the road to the campground/bungalow park.

Whew! Talk about rustic, talk about basic, talk about no frills, talk about simple!  I'll spare the most gory details (like the condition of the communal toilet and shower) and tell you about the beds.  Let's just say, my first thought upon laying down was 'I better not turn over at all, this bed could collapse.'  

After dinner (S2 cooked spaghetti in the well equipped kitchen, well, the stove was a bit slow for him so he used our cook stove), S2 asked me if this was the second worst place we stayed.  I asked incredulously, "on this trip?"  He meant ALL our travels.  I laughed and said, "second worst?  What do you think was the worst?"  He recalled a room in China, where we had to wait for a ferry.  The bed was merely a metal frame with a rattan mat on top.  I reminded him of the place in Nepal where they had to chase the chickens off the beds and out of the room and he couldn't even stand up straight in the room.

No one could complain about the temperature.  We were in the MOUNTAINS and got to wear long pants and sweaters.  The neighbors were incredibly friendly.  They invited us over to share some homemade wine and Raika (the local firewater).  The 4-year old with them was not the least inhibited by the linguistic communication gap.  We just shared enthusiasm as each new star appeared in the sky.