Wednesday June 10
Yesterday we woke up early, got a cab to the train station, and took a long bus ride from Thessaloniki to Sofia. We got another cab to our apartment called “Heart of Sofia,” settled in, and I took a little nap while Caleb and Aba did a small grocery shop. When I woke up Caleb wanted to go to a record store and then we walked around the town and saw lots of beautiful buildings, churches, and sculptures. We found a street market vendor selling real silver Yads, pointers for reading Torah, from the time of Russian occupation! There were a lot of vendors selling Nazi and USSR memorabilia, which Caleb thought was interesting but I thought it was icky. We also saw the president’s building and the dressed up guards that switch posts every hour, and we got to see them do the switch! Inside the courtyard of the president’s building, we saw the oldest intact building in Sofia, Saint Georgi Rotunda church, which is from the time of the Roman empire! We also saw a lot of ancient ruins in and around the Serdica subway station, which was really cool. We walked around for a long time and then went back to our apartment and rested a bit. Then we went back out looking for dinner around 9 or 9:30, but everything was closing, which was really different from the schedule we got used to in Greece, where people start going out around 9 or 10! The attitude here is really different too, the restaraunts and bars don’t seem very eager to welcome us in like they were in Greece. We were looking for a traditional Bulgarian restaraunt, but all the places we asked in were closing, so we just settled on the first place we found where the kitchen was still open, an Italian food place called La Bottega. Mom got salad, Aba got 4 cheese pizza, Caleb and I got fish called sea bream, and Sophie got spaghetti. When we finished our meal, Caleb told our server that he likes the musician Ivo Paposov, and the server broke out in a smile and said his name is Ivo too! It was nice to connect and see his personality come out a bit, and it gave me a little more hope that we can break down people’s walls here with music and dancing!
This morning we woke up, had some yogurt and granola and coffees for breakfast, and then Caleb and I took our bags to the Serdica station to check out the baggage lockers which I spotted yesterday. We figured out how to use them and pay for them, locked up our bags, and then we went back to the apartment to help with the rest of the bags. We made a second trip to the subway station and out the rest of the bags in the lockers, and then we walked around in the city some more. We showed Mom and Aba the president’s building and the St. Georgi Rotunda. We showed my mom the market vendor selling the Yads, but they were very expensive because they are made of real silver. Me and Caleb also showed my mom the ancient complex under the Serdica subway station, and we met a homeless guy who had a really beautiful voice and he was singing and we sang with him and he was really happy. We figured out the subway with some difficulty and help from a German lady, and took the yellow subway all the way to the airport in Sofia. We met up with Donka and Nikolai and Marin and all the campers and we drove in three cars for about two hours to Rose Valley camp in Karavelovo. It is very quiet and beautiful here, in between the Stara Planina mountains and the Sredna Gora mountains. and we had dinner and first night dance party! After the dance party I borrowed a beautiful tambura for classes this week, and Caleb helped me tune it up and one badly repaired tuning peg fell off so Belle gave us a plier for tuning it. Caleb and I stayed up till midnight practicing chords and singing together!