My host, Max, will be here this weekend and has given me the green light to go to Sofia from his arrival on Saturday to Monday morning. I’m starting to get a wee touch of cabin fever, so this outing will be most welcome!

This won’t be my only trip to Sofia this summer, so this first outing is going to be more logistical than touristy in nature. I need to figure out how to get the bus there and back, how to navigate the city, and find out where to buy groceries and home goods. I’m really tired of my cooking (food options are very limited at the stores I have access to, so I’ve basically been eating the same four things since I got here) and can’t wait to eat at a Bulgarian restaurant for the first time.

That said, it’s my understanding that there really isn’t much in Sofia apart from lots of churches and a couple of museums and that most tourists find that two or three days there is plenty. So I may decide this weekend to squeeze in the few things I know I’d like to see in the Bulgarian capital so that for my next weekend off, I can go to Plovdiv, a more touristy city.

While doing a little research today (procrastinating on work), I spent quite a bit of time looking at bus schedules and maps, trying to figure them out. I need to find an English speaker who routinely takes the buses because I suspect that I can take a bus right at the exit to the village that would, in one direction, take me to Yablanitsa and on to Sofia, and in the other, take me to Teteven. Teteven is much larger than Yablanitsa and would be a much nicer shopping destination for me, but is really too far to walk to. This might be wishful thinking since just because the bus passes somewhere doesn’t mean it will make a special stop and, surely, someone would have mentioned this possibility to me by now. But, of course, the folks I’ve had contact with have their own cars and car owners tend to not be the best sources of information about public transportation. So it’s worth investigating.

I can’t believe that I’ll have been in Bulgaria more than two weeks by the time I get to Sofia this weekend. Time is flying by! I knew before I got here that my summer would be mostly about working and doggy sitting in a very small community, but it’s nice to know that my promised time off is going to materialise and I will get a chance to see some more of this intriguing country!