Sofia, Bulgaria

I woke up around noon today (after a long night), shaved, showered, dressed, and then walked down to reception, where I hired a taxi cab to take me to the National Museum of History. Along the way, the taxi driver picked up his daughter and granddaughter (sigh), but eventually I reached the museum. I exited the taxi, paid the entrance fee, and then took a tour through Bulgarian history. The museum had many artifacts, which were interesting, but not particularly spectacular; I suppose the artifacts that I enjoyed seeing the most were the dolphin-shaped currency (before coins became the standard), the different ethnographic dresses, and the contents of the Thracian exhibition. Unfortunately, no photographs were allowed inside the museum (I need to buy a spy camera). After touring the museum for nearly two hours, I walked to Boyana Church, which is a small church that was built in three stages (in the tenth-to-eleventh centuries, the thirteenth-century, and the nineteenth-century AD); inside the ground floor (there is a second-floor, but visitors were not permitted up there) there were many frescoes, covering the church’s wall (one appeared to show Christ leading St. Peter by the hand to take his place as the head of the church over a sea of keys). Of course, photographs were not allowed inside Boyana Church, so I’ll have to be content looking at photographs found on the internet). Lastly, as far as UNESCO World Heritage Sites go, this was one of the least amazing or historically interesting sites I have ever been to. Anyway, after touring the bottom floor of this small church, I walked back to a bus stop on Daskal Stoyan Popandreev Street and took a bus back toward the hostel. I got off the bus next to the Ravkovski Sports Complex and then walked back to the hostel, stopping at the grocery store near the hostel to buy some food. Once back at the hostel, I relaxed and had some Bulgarian yogurt, dates, dried fruit, nuts, and fruit juice. Later on, I had the bottle of Bulgarian Muscat wine that I had bought three nights ago; the wine was white, dry, crisp, and tasted of orange blossoms and pears. After finishing that bottle, I had a small (250 mL) bottle of Bulgarian Traminer wine, which was white, dry, and tasted of lychees and flowers. I ended up staying up late, past 02:00, before finally allowing my body and mind to rest.