bulgaria - sofia

So, on from Istanbul, we took our first train ride through Eastern Europe.  It was much nicer than the 3 day extravaganza we had in Africa, although we still had to wake up in the middle of the night to get our passports stamped.  We had a nice time in the chilly city, are here is a list of some of the things we did there.

*  Took a walking tour of the city, where we saw:

The Russian Church

The Mineral Baths

Statue of St. Sofai

March 1st good luck charms

My excitement to eat something pumpkin ended badly when I discovered it was ICE cold.

Good luck egg

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

*  A day trip to the Rila Monastery

*  Couchsurfing hosts Eli and Niki hosted us for a few days and made performed traditional Bulgarian music for us, made us delicious food, brought us to Vitosha Mountain for a snowy hike and survived their first fender-bender ever with us quite graciously (everyone was fine - no one hurt).