I’m writing this as I leave the Sofia, Bulgaria International Airport bound for Brussels. It’s about 7:45 a.m. on Wednesday, August 25th Sofia time or about 10:45 p.m. Pocatello time yesterday. The flight is fairly full and the airport was very crowded and a hubbub of noise and confusion this morning when we arrived. This was a very busy two days with not a lot of time to do much sightseeing.

The flight leaves Sofia, flies over Serbia, Hungary, Austria, and Germany before arriving in Brussels, a distance of about 1,500 kilometers and 2.5 hours of flight. We’ll fly over the cities of Budapest, Vienna, and Nuremberg on the way.

Some impressions of Bulgaria:

“Money from the wall” is a term I’ve heard several times referring to getting money from an ATM machine.

There are police at many intersections directing traffic. The policeman holds a short, white rod with a small red reflector on the end. When it’s time for the other direction to go, he blows a whistle, steps into the middle of traffic holding up the white rod and traffic obeys.

Lots of cobblestone streets. They are very rough and the ride on these streets is bumpy and uncomfortable.

The traffic drives VERY fast. Lane markers are “suggestions” and one needs a good grip in a taxicab! In fact the taxis are quite the spectacular ride. They all drive like it’s the end of days if they can’t go pell-mell down the road. Problem is, most roads are in pretty bad shape and a ride down the road is accompanied by loud screeches and squeals as vehicles barrel around corners and come to an emergency stop.

I spent some time in a government tax building. It is very typical of many buildings — a nice building when it was built, but no maintenance at all in the meantime. This building hasn’t seen paint in at least 50 years. The chairs in the hallway were cast off chairs that the fabric was worn off, the padding long since gone, and because no one throws anything away, they’ll still be there in ten years. The copy machine was in a corner closet with boxes of paper files all around the machine. There were paper files in the men’s room stacked beside the toilet. I haven’t ever seen so many official government paper files so haphazardly stored and managed.

Red hair is the desirable trait. Lots of females have dyed their hair red and the brighter the red, the more flamboyant the clothing. In many cases, there isn’t much clothing left to stimulate the imagination as it is.

Everyone carries cigarettes and more than half the population smoke, but no one smokes in offices or hallways. It must be against the law.

English is the common language. Most everyone in Sofia speaks a little bit of English. The second most common language is German. If two people from different countries meet, they’ll speak English.

When you get into a taxicab, at least one person always sits in front beside the driver. If there’s only one passenger, that person will be riding in the front passenger seat.

At all the stoplights in the morning there are people walking through the traffic selling newspapers.

The women in Bulgaria dress very sharply at the office and are very feminine. It’s sometimes quite distracting.

There are a lot of people walking outside all day long. But after about 9 p.m., no one seems to be out walking anywhere.

Beer is available for all ages and it wasn’t uncommon to see young boys sitting at the restaurant table drinking beer as their preferred drink.

Lots of Gypsies — mostly begging. They are easy to pick out of the crowd as well as they have distinctive facial coloring and mannerisms. They are VERY insistent in their begging. They are really despised by the people and the Gypsies get a lot of verbal and occasional physical abuse. In Bulgaria, they’re called "Roma".

The large churches or cathedrals have flea markets in front of them. Lots of old cameras, old microscopes, and old sextants for sale. Bargaining is the rule and aggressive bargaining might yield pricing only twice what the goods are really worth.

All of the larger parks have tented table seating where one can buy beer, soft drinks, pizza, and other snacks. Some of these kiosks are quite large and at noon they are very popular.

One of the side effects of Communism is that most women work. There are very few stay-at-home wives. Pay and promotion ability are supposedly equal for either sex. The meetings we had with Bulgarian companies substantiated this observation.

The roads aren’t in very good shape and the sidewalks are in terrible shape. Getting around in a wheelchair would be impossible. Lots of buildings are missing large chunks of fascia. Because of that, it seems to me to e a good idea not to walk on the sidewalk!

The people were very friendly and the food was delicious. We had two dinner meals – one at a country restaurant on the outskirts of Sofia and the other in a restaurant downtown. Good food and great atmosphere.

Perhaps I’ll never get back to Sofia, but two days wasn’t nearly enough. It’s a delightfully fascinating city.

I’ve arrived in Sofia. My big luggage did not — it’s in Vienna and will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. I’m at the hotel, have had a brief shower, got everything plugged in, and I’m ready for bed. Since I arrived well after dark (it’s just after midnight on Monday, August 23nd whereas it’s just after 3 p.m. Pocatello time on Sunday, August 22st). Descriptions and impressions of the city will have to wait until tomorrow. The Radisson Hotel is very nice along with high-speed wireless internet in the room. I’m happy!

We were 45 minutes late leaving London and I made it to the connecting flight (barely), I’m quite sure my luggage did not. Good thing I brought a change of clothes!

I’m waiting for the gate to be put up on the board for my flight to Vienna. There’s some internet terminals here and I bought 1 pound’s worth of time and the British keyboard is driving me nuts!! I’ve got about half of my time left. There are a LOT of people in this terminal where all of the European airlines are located. Most of them are speaking some other language, including a lot of French as there’s a flight to Algiers in about 45 minutes. It’s interesting to see all the different kinds of clothes people are wearing as well. Some are quite outrageous and are generally worn by the young twenty-somethings. The older women tend to wear clothes from their home country. It’s a lot of fun. There are also some folks here who obviously have money and are dressed to the 9’s. I’m down to a few coins left, so I’d better get this signed off before I’m kicked off!

It’s about 2:30 a.m. Pocatello time, which I think is about 8:30 a.m.
London time. We came over the coast of Northern Ireland about 15 minutes
ago which is when the Flight Attendants started serving breakfast. We
should be on the ground in another hour, I think.

The flight has been quite uneventful. We left pretty much on schedule with
a nearly full airplane. Our flight path went just north of Pocatello. I’m
sitting on the right side of the airplane in a window seat and could see
the area where our house is located. I don’t think there are any empty
seats in Economy. I’m in what is called “Premium Economy”, which means:

1. A bigger seat than Economy. There are two seats on each side of the
airplane rather than the three seats in Economy.
2. We get the same service as Economy, but get served first.

I think there are 12 seats in Premium economy — three rows of two seats
each on each side of the airplane with a galley in the middle. Economy has
three seats on the left, four in the middle, and three on the right. The
seats are very close together and it isn’t very comfortable. I tried to
snooze with no luck, so this long day will get even longer.

This is a very British airline. The food, service, and demeanor are all
very British. I don’t think I’ll fly this airline again unless I’m able to
fly in Upper Class. The captain just said over the intercom that we’ll
start our descent into Heathrow in about 5 minutes for an on-time arrival.

The entertainment system on board is pretty good. There is a choicce of 52
movies, more than 30 CD’s of music, a number of radio stations and TV
programs, as well as some 15 video games to choose from. My monitor didn’t
work very well, so I didn’t do much. I bought the book The Da Vinci Code
and read most of the book. It’s a good story and I’ll likely finish the
book today.

I’ve been told that I have to turn this off. Hopefully it’ll send while I’m
making my way through Immigration in London Heathrow Terminal 3. It’s
overcast outside — not much to see. By the way, the airplane ran out of
fresh water sometime during the night!