Bulgaria Part 3

We woke up bright and early the next morning and got on the bus to head to Plovdiv.

One last shot of the view from our hotel room. 

Bulgaria has some beautiful countryside!

 

Plovdiv is an ancient city with on old city center and Roman ruins. 

 

We walked up through the old city to the top of the old city wall - the view from up there of the new, sprawling city were pretty great. 

After stopping for lunch in a little cafe, we finished exploring the old city.

 

I loved the old architecture, to save space on the streets the upper levels were built out further than the main floor. 

There are a lot of Roman ruins in Plovdiv - including this great old Roman theater. 

 

 Our concert that night was at a college right next to the theater, Dad skipped the walking tour earlier that day, so I had to get a picture with him after the concert.

Of course, we went exploring again after the concert and had to stop for gelato.

Dan found a cool fountain he had to get a picture of.

More ruins we saw from the bus on the way back to the hotel.

Unfortunately internet reception wasn't all that great at our hotel, so everyone gathered in the hotspots in the hallways to check in with family. 

Bulgaria Part 2

Our second morning in Sofia started with a group tour.

We saw more of the ruins found when excavating for the subway. 

And saw the changing of the guards. 

 

One of my favorite things about Sofia was all of the different churches - Eastern Orthodox temples, Muslim mosques, Jewish synagogues - they all had a place in Sofia. 

One of our friends was told she had to find a certain Schwarma place in Sofia, so for lunch we went wandering through the streets of Sofia trying to find this place. 

 

We finally did, and it was worth it! So good!

 

The best part though was that while we were wandering I found a Russian store - I ran I quickly and found my favorite treat, made in Tula! I was so excited to get a пряник!

The beautiful view on our way to dinner. 

 

For dinner we went to a Bulgarian restaurant that did a traditional dinner with a show, folk songs and dancing! It was a lot of fun. 

Unfortunately we were all still battling jet lag - soon it was time to head to bed!

Bulgaria Part 1

In May Dad, Lauren, Dan and I all went on a choir tour to Bulgaria and Turkey. After a long plane ride, we were excited to finally arrive at the Sofia airport.

 

We got to our hotel, and even though we were looking pretty special we decided to check out the neighborhood. There was a park across the street from our hotel with a strange monument - we weren't sure if it was supposed to look like that or if it was just never completed. 

The next morning, after a rehearsal, we set off to explore the city. Our first stop was to purchase gelato, obviously.

Lauren was pretty excited to find Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle car to ride. 

I tried to push Dan into the pretty fountain we found. 

I loved all the old tombstones around one of the museums in the city. 

I really felt like I was back in Russia for most of trip. I loved that I could figure out a lot of the signs and read their alphabet! 

I also loved this old church in the middle of their government complex. 

By the statue of Saint Sofia in the middle of town. 

With the invisible man street performer. 

I had read about a mineral spring that people would come from all over to drink from. It was kind-of a let down once we found it, the bath house was closed and it was just this little drinking fountain, but I still had a nice drink of warm water, yuck!

 

I never realized how old Sofia is. They are very careful to preserve the ruins when they find them. I love this subway station which was built around the ruins they found while they were excavating. 

We stopped at a little street cafe for lunch. Lauren, Dan, and JP were pretty thirsty, so when the waiter asked if they wanted large or small bottles of water they said large and I said small. They ended up with HUGE bottles, and I ended up a normal bottle - the waiter thought we were crazy!

We really wanted to try authentic Bulgarian food. The minute we saw the words "in the form of a ship" we were sold. So, we ordered the meat boat to share. 

 

It really was a meat boat! I think this was one of the best meals we had on the trip!

We did pretty good going through the entire boat!

 

We jumped on the subway and headed back to our hotel to get ready for our concert that evening. 

The poster advertising our concert, which was a live broadcast on Bulgarian national radio. 

After our concert we walked back to hotel while being serenaded by Bon Jovi. That concert was right next to the radio station. It was a little surreal hearing "living on a prayer" while wandering the streets of Bulgaria!