추석 Traveling: Sofia, Bulgaria

So, I'm back from my travels for now, and I come bearing pictures.  Posting them has been slow going, as I've been sick and unbelievably busy.  I've got piles of things I don't want to do, and I'm forgetting to do the things I want to do, but that all gets shoved aside, as I come home from work and all but collapse into bed that very moment.  Still, I'm trying to knock out at least one heavy-weighing thing a day.  As you can tell, today, I'm trying to get caught up on the blog.  I have in mind to write about my trip in four separate posts.

Sofia and her poor wardrobe choices.  Call me uncultured, but I still feel that the way women are portrayed in art has little to nothing to do with celebrating the beauty of the female form and everything to do with the way it makes the artist feel to make it as such.

An absolutely beautiful old church. 

A mosque in the foreground with a vast synagogue in the background.  Apparently, Bulgaria originally sided with Nazi Germany in World War II, because Hitler promised them a good deal of land, but, when he came calling for the Jews, the Bulgarian leader said that they were still needed to do labor in the country.  He continued in this habit until Bulgaria switched and sided with the Allies, thus saving all the Jews within Bulgarian borders.

A Russian Orthodox church, with an unpictured Catholic church near it.  These two buildings and the aforementioned two were all quite close to each other.  Bulgaria apparently prides itself on the fact that these four are "within a stone's throw of each other, but never has a stone been thrown between them."

Alex and Vera drinking from the hot springs water that was fixed into fountains.  It was supposed to cure you of diseases, however, I know that Alex and I at least got a cold after drinking it, I'm not sure about Vera.  I think I'd say that it seems rather counter-productive, unless it's a "You've got to get worse to get better" mentality.

Two beautiful shots of Alexander Nevsky, yet another Cathedral in Sofia.  It rekindled my deep-rooted desire to find a way to spend the night or nights inside one of these grand old Cathedrals, although, I'm not sure I could hold my own against the other squatters, and I'm sure the darkest dark that would come with night would frighten me to death.  Nonetheless, I think, as would Miss Anne of Green Gables, that it would be terribly romantic and an adventure worth having.

In spite of the ghastly way I chose to treat my feet while walking around that day, I think it was a wonderful adventure. Jet lag screamed at me from about noon on, which was interesting, since noon in Bulgaria is only 6pm in Korea, but I suppose my midnight departure contributed.  In spite of all that, my biggest regret may have been leaving behind a beautiful violin with a carved scroll that I found in a market.  It was in atrocious condition, having been used instead of paper for someone to track numbers, with cracks around the end peg, so I knew there would be a heart-stopping cost to refurbish it, but I fell in love with it.  Sadly, the woman was asking a bit too much for it, compared to the repair costs, and I couldn't justify it at this juncture in life.  I would have haggled, but she seems entirely non-haggle friendly.  Perhaps it was my clear non-Bulgarian-ness, or because she didn't know that I would have happily gone and withdrawn the money from my bank account if a number came up that seemed more reasonable.  My biggest hangup was that I didn't feel confident in my appraisal abilities.  Perhaps I should study up on that, so that this won't happen again.

Look for more posts about my trip soon!