Sofia and Belgrade!

Just got back this morning from my trip to Sofia, Bulgaria and Belgrade, Serbia. Overall, it was a great trip, but I am glad to be back in Bucharest.

Sofia

I started out the trip with an overnight train from Bucharest to Sofia. Despite the fact that I was technically in "first class", the experience left something to be desired. The train was from the USSR in 1988, complete with sickle and hammer on the outside. The inside didn't have any air conditioning and the windows were stuck and wouldn't open. Needless to say, it was extremely uncomfortable, bordering on dangerously hot.

I arrived in Sofia bright and early, dropped my stuff off at the hostel, and went on a 3 mile run. Nothing wakes you up better! I then went on my own little walking tour of Sofia. Now, despite the fact that Sofia is technically poorer and lower on the development list than Bucharest, I actually found it to be more put together than Bucharest. Better quality roads, no stray dogs, no downed power lines. Sofia also had some cool places to check out; my particular favorite was the Alexander Nevski cathedral. Like most Eastern European capitals, there was enough cool stuff to keep me occupied for a day, but not much else. I spent the second day mostly relaxing in a park, reading a book. Then I was off to Belgrade!

Belgrade

The overnight train to Belgrade was much more pleasant than my previous one. Even though I was in second class this time, the windows at least opened. And there was a nice Portuguese engineer who was chatty enough to keep me entertained until I could sleep.

Belgrade was a very cool city. Unlike Bucharest and Sofia, Belgrade's architecture seemed to have survived communism much more intact. It was also fun off these really great streets lined with great little restaurants and shops. They also had a lot of really cool Orthodox churches. I think my favorite moment in Belgrade was eating a great meal of homemade sausage, potatoes, and beer on one of those cute streets.

Finally, there was my last overnight train last night. A highly unpleasant experience, for several reasons. First, a train employee threw a massive fit that I had my feet on the seat across from me, even though I was the only one in the cabin. Didn't make a lot of sense, since they lower into beds, so people's feet on the head rests every night. Europeans are strangely assholes when it comes to shoes on seats. After a few hours, a Romanian man joined me the cabin and committed two sins that are SO Romanian it made me want to scream. First, he shut the window, despite the 95 degree heat and lack of air conditioning. God forbid there's a breeze in the cabin! Second, he spent like 4 hours on his cell phone in the middle of the night, with no regard whatsoever that I was trying to sleep. I was so close to smacking him when he finally lost reception and went to sleep.

Other than that, good trip! I leave Bucharest tomorrow morning, have a few hour layover at Heathrow, and then I'll be in Baltimore for a couple of days. I'll be back in KC on the 15th.