Sofia is the capital of Bulgaria and the biggest city of the country. It lays on a huge valley at the feet of the Vitosha Mountain (quite impressive view from the airplane window), and the city centre shows a modern aspect. Lots of posh places to be seen at, good restaurants, lots of renewed buildings, and centuries of history within their walls.
I particularly liked the variety of ruins from different times: Thracian, Roman, Ottoman years, Communism, and also the amount of churches from different religions which have outlived the different type of governments and people.
Specially amazing was the Свети Александър Невски or the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, one of the biggest orthodox churches in the world.
The Balkans are a well-known seismic area, and hot springs are relative common. In fact, Sofia has got several public fountains directly connected to the underground streams, where people go to collect hot water to drink at their places after some cooling. The reason behind this, apart from the cost and the quality of this water, is the quality of the piping not being in very good shape.
The WTF! moment of the day in Sofia was when we met the UN Secretary, Ban Ki Moon, while watching a temporary exhibition of painted bears representing each country in the world… It was easy to recognize him, even though there were only around 30 people surrounding him…
And of course, as a good alcoyano, I found St.George…
Some more pictures from Sofia (and other parts from Bulgaria) in this slideshow.
If you think all weddings are the same… you have not been to a wedding abroad. Weddings are one of those events where local culture plays an important role. In Spain, I am used to the church/townhall+quiet dinner+drinks+dance weddings. There are always some differences among the different weddings, but the format is pretty much the same.
Well, the Bulgarian wedding I attended was not the same. First, the actual marriage ceremony was a combination of symbols I knew (the rings, the wine, …) with some new ones: a white carpet to walk in, a flower arch to go through, or the bread the bride and the groom had to split in two parts… and the one who kept the bigger portion was meant to provide the main economical sustenance. During the ceremony, there was a traditional folk group singing and playing, as well as some traditional dancing.
Then, we moved on to the dinner part… and it also starts differently. We picked a champagne glass and we queued to go in, and toasted with the bride, the groom and the respective parents, as well as giving them the presents and some flowers for the bride. After that, there was another ceremony, with some more new symbols for me. One of them consisted in breaking a glass in hundreds of pieces… According to the speaker, each piece meant a child… no pressure.
After all guests, bride and groom sat down, we started with the dinner… but not for a long period of time. After 15 minutes, we were all up dancing хоро (the traditional Bulgarian dance), and after that we could sit down to continue with our dinner… until we had to dance again, either хоро or any other music…
If we were not on the dancefloor, it was not empty… there was always some entertainment going on. Either some kind of theatre involving the bestman, bestwoman and best friends, or some traditional dancing (see video), belly dancing (!) or speeches…
A last difference: while in Spanish weddings, guests are often quite direct to make the bride and the groom by shouting “Que se besen!” (kiss!). In Bulgaria, they do have the same act of shouting something to make them kiss, but there is more symbolism on it. There, they say “горчив” (Gorchivo), which means “bitter”, and hence they kiss to make it sweeter. Quite nicer.
El pasado domingo fue la puesta de largo de los Bayou Trio. En un ambiente bastante íntimo, probaron cómo suenan las canciones compuestas por mi amigo Jorge para este nuevo proyecto… y la verdad es que los fans quedamos encantados. De aquí a un macroconcierto en el Calderón no va mucho.
Los fans sólo nos quedamos con ganas de un speech contando el origen… aunque en el post-concierto nos dijo que tenía algo que ver con esto… Buena suerte, ¡Bayou!
Bulgaria is a very interesting country. Historically speaking, it has got a great variety of cultures who have lived there: the old Thracian, the Roman, the Ottoman, and in the last century they also had a comunist government, and all those ages are still present in the architecture of the cities.
Bulgaria is also the origin of the cyrillic alphabet, used in several slavic languages, like Russian or Bulgarian. In the beginning, you feel like in Korea, China or Korea, as you are not able to read almost any sign in the street. But after a couple of hours, you start “reading” that alphabet. If the word happens to be written similar to any known language, you can even survive.
Bulgarian food is also quite good. My favorite dishes there were most of the meat-related ones, as well as the sausages, together with the Шопска салата. Bulgaria is also a major wine producer (I tried some good ones, especially for the strong meat dishes), and they have their own “poison” called Rakia, a beverage that they say it is healthy to drink on a daily basis (with its good 40% -or more- alcohol content.
Some other curious stuff is the way they say da (yes) and ne (no) with their heads: exactly the opposite as we would expect in the rest of Europe. If they nod the head they are saying ne, while shaking your head means da. Strange and Bulgarian are quite unique in this part of the World in doing so.
The presence of weapons is unfortunately a reality in the country. At least, everybody is frisked in the airports and in the entrance of the discos, in search of weapons. Also, in the entrance of the restaurants, instead of signs prohibiting smoking, they prohibit carrying guns in (and using them!).
But weapons are not the only thing present in the country, also the familiar face of Hristo Stoichkov, the former FC Barcelona player, can be found every 10 km in the main road of Bulgaria, in wine advertisements.
Last but not least, it is always nice to have a name which sounds familiar to the locals. Nacho is also a name in Bulgarian (and not only “the Mexican dish, but in singular”). I wonder how it would be written… начо ?
(Some more posts and pictures about the wedding, Sofia and Plovdiv coming soon, as time permits)
I guess there is not much left to say about the Moros y Cristianos festivities of Alcoy. I have written several posts about this topic (see the Related Posts in the end of this post), but it is compulsory to write a new one with some of this year’s shots.
More pictures in this slideshow.