Room for More: Bulgaria in photos #2

*I just realized I had never posted this!!! I'm so sorry! I'm going to back date it so it's in order with the other photos, even though it's two months later when I'm getting it up!**

Tuesday morning: step one. Get down six flights of stairs. Echoing in my head are Silvana's words about the elevator in her apartment when she and I were emailing the week before we left for Bulgaria: we should plan to meet at a restaurant and not have dinner in our eighth floor apartment because our elevator is broken, and they're going to fix it next week, which in Bulgaria might mean next summer. So we made sure Bobbi had everything she needed (toilet? teeth brushed?) before we carried her and her chair back down. Down is easier than up!

Today we went with Lili to a larger park (the north end of South Park) where she enjoys people and animal watching, and we rode on one of the newer buses that we'd seen around the city. It has, in the floor, a fold-out ramp, and the ability to lower the bus down slightly on that side. It would take quite a strong person to wheel themselves up the ramp, but with someone pushing her (thanks, Dad) getting into the bus was pretty easy.

Gotta love the Batman hat (a nod to her grandpa, who she's nicknamed Batman), and the floral shirt (a gift from her teacher). It's very Bobbi, and I do love it!

Oooh - pretty, tasty things in the mall we walked through to get to the park.

Walking through the park. I have a great appreciation for cities that use up real estate for public parks like this. There were people biking, walking dogs, or pushing babies, or sitting on the grass, dogs running and playing - a very active, pleasant space.

Look! I really was in Bulgaria, too. This small monument talks about Bulgaria and the US partnering to plant these trees.

There are quite a few small parks throughout the city, too, like this one - just half a block wide and a block long, but provides a nice breath of fresh air in between the tight together apartment buildings.

This was so cool - out in the country/villages, almost every house has one or more grapevines and other kitchen garden things in the yard - no lawns like we're familiar with here! So, what do you do if you live in an apartment? Well, you share! These units, one above the other, each have trained a branch of the vine to grow across their balcony, and the picture below shows clusters of green grapes just hanging there. Pretty neat.

This pretty stray reminded us of Tani!

We split up around lunch time, letting Lili take the bus back home because we intended to do some serious walking, and with her artificial limb, that wouldn't be something she'd want to do! The path that google maps marked out for us took us through this incredibly delightful wooded trail. We passed a few moms walking babies and dogs, a few older people walking alone, and lots of time just to ourselves on a nearly perfect day.

This was an interesting bridge, built completely from 3-4" diameter logs.

And when we came out on the other side, there was the entrance to the Sofia Zoo! (We knew it would be here, as we were going to try going through if Bobbi was interested.)

Notice the marked accessible parking. I don't remember seeing these when I was in BG in 2013 the way I did in my 2016/17 and current trips. Of course, in many places they're marked on cobblestone streets with no curb cuts, but the infrastructure is slowly, slowly coming.

Black swans:

An interesting statue:

Nasty big snake:

Meerkats!!

This chameleon is So. Awesome. His colors, his eyes (can move independently! and even if they didn't, they were just cool), his feet - entirely amazing.

Tiny, perfect snake.

This is Slavcho. :)

A really cool bear:

Awesome horns!!

Ever heard a zebra before? Well, we did. Wow. Here's a link to a youTube video so you can hear it yourself. That's really what it sounds like!!

Aren't these neat? Bottle caps!

Bobbi's favorite. And more proof that I really was there.

More lovely sidewalks. Though, really, solid paved surface is a truly lovely Bulgarian sidewalk.

A pretty, lush garden along the way.

Getting close to where we were staying - brand new buildings and empty lots...and more solid paved sidewalks.

Another newer apartment building near where we stayed - this was Bobbi's favorite:

Oh my - this restaurant was so very, very tasty. Just a little place near our apartment. Those potatoes in the upper right corner are some of the best I have ever tasted - garlic and dill and piping hot and perfectly balanced soft inside and crispy outside. Wow. Bobbi decided to try the lamb, and didn't like it (but I did) so we told her to go ahead and order something else. Matt's meatballs, also shown below, were beautifully presented. Without dessert, but with plenty of appetizers and the lamb on top of the other entrees, we got home to find that it only ended up being $39 on our credit card. Insanely inexpensive for the quality!

The next day, Wednesday, was the day we left the apartment. Here's Matt and Bobbi with Lili as we were getting ready to head out.

We're stubborn, so didn't want to get a taxi, but decided we'd walk to the Metro station. Google maps thinks its a 40 minute walk. We'd tried it earlier in the week (remember the snake!) so we knew the sidewalks were good enough that we could manage the bags. Still, we must have been quite the sight. We purchased a roll of packaging tape at the grocery store the night before and taped the walker to the huge suitcase, and the smaller of the two small suitcases to the handle of the red suitcase, and off we went. Matt had the two smaller and Bobbi (and the backpack.) I had my shoulder bag and the big cumbersome one. It took us an hour. Not too bad. Here Bobbi and Matt are waiting while I crossed the street to pick a big handful of junki.

Walk, walk walk.

And we made it! From the metro, we had to transfer at Serdika station, and then got off at the Lion's Bridge just a few blocks from our hotel. The rest of the afternoon we spent wandering our way through around the center of Sofia and picking up the last things we wanted to bring home. It was a delightful day of just sightseeing around the center, too. So many things to see, like this funny painted electrical boxes! Chickens and balloons in a cage??

Beautiful breads. Oh, look - it's another photo of me! Kind of...

Cute cats:

This one was...weird. Why does the sad, young girl have a fish skeleton tattooed on her arm?

These make moving around with a wheelchair challenging...and these covers are actually pretty flat and intact compared to some! But check out the spalling right before the first cover - that can hang up a chair pretty well if you're not watching! Something new is the yellow textured paving stones marking the crossing - they've been putting something similar in around where we live here in MN over the last few years, too. (This is a not-too-bad intersection!)

Does Bobbi look like the grafitti??

All the way across the ocean, and Subway. We did not stop. But check out the price. 3,69 lev! That's about $2 for a 6" sub.

Neat lion:

And, oh, the ice cream selection. We went back to the Confetti restaurant from Sunday and went in the other door so Bobbi could see the freezers. The labels are in Bulgarian and Italian. I did better with the Bulgarian! I tried raspberry mint this time, and it is now my new favorite flavor.

This view reminded me of a trip to NYC nearly 20 years ago:

Another box:

Road work - pull up the old cobblestones, pack it back down, and lay them back down again.

Does Bobbi look like the statue??? This one has always been rather ominous...I think I posted photos of it while we fed Krassi lunch one day in this same plaza.

Bobbi wasn't so sure she wanted to go see the old cathedral, but we told her she really should. It's pretty impressive, and a significant Bulgarian landmark.