Sofia
BULGARIA
An Excellent Plan B
By LYNDI
Saturday, February 17, 2018
It was the first (but perhaps not the last) time Donald Trump would ruin our vacation plans. With two weeks off in the winter, Aaron and I had plans to do some hiking and touring in Turkey – with the Mediterranean climate, it would be just the place for some grand mosques, incredible food and epic hiking.
However, when in November President Erdogan of Turkey and President Trump had a hissy fit and revoked each others’ respective tourist visas, we had to rapidly change plans. We had great flights to Istanbul, so where could we go nearby that would give way to good outdoor activity in winter, interesting history, and nights of drunken stupor in ice hotels? There is a place…
And so we were off to Bulgaria and Romania! We were attracted to the region because it holds beautiful mountains and affordable skiing, and even though they are both a member of the European Union, they still maintain their own currency and other cultural (read: former commie) ties.
We were hoping to get a European ski vacation at eastern European prices, with some good Roman ruins, castles and vampires thrown in the mix. A “budget” ski vacation is nearly impossible to find, so we did our best to target Bansko, Bulgaria early on, and build a tour of the two countries around it.
As part of our “budget” tour, San Francisco hardly fits in. Yet we had a 7.5 hour layover between Portland and Istanbul – and seeing as how we had disposable income – decided to store our one checked bag and venture in to the city.
Even though we would go on to buy two lift passes and stay in a mountain chalet and enjoy multiple hot wine and beer stops with copious amounts of meat and potatoes in future days, this layover proved to be one of the most expensive parts of our trip. After paying $35 to store our bag in SFO for a few hours, we then paid $40 for 2 round trip tickets in to San Francisco from the airport on BART, $21 on a single beer in the city – plus a “cheap” lunch stall at $13 – and we were way off to a good start on the bank-draining goals!
When we got back to SFO, I took a nap in the departure lounge while Aaron had what must have been a $20 whiskey at the bar, and while reading through our Bulgaria/Romania Lonely Planet made a new Bulgarian friend. Stephan ran a tech start-up in San Francisco but was originally from Bulgaria and was traveling home to visit his grandma. He was really excited to see that someone was headed to his home country and was on-hand to lend advice and tips – as well as to expand upon the virtues of Bulgarian women (“the most beautiful in the world”).
The flight to Istanbul was excellent, and then during our brief layover at the airport we met a guy we’d actually seen in the Mission district in San Francisco, so struck up a conversation with him. Between Stefan, Mission district guy, and about 30 people wearing white bathrobes and towels, we had a full plane to Sofia. (Just checking to see if you were paying attention. I have no idea why so many people were wearing white bathrobes and towels – even our resident Bulgaria expert was perplexed.)
And so we arrived! By the time we got to Scottys Boutique Hotel in the middle of the city it was about 9pm. Of course, our clocks were totally thrown, so we decided to check in to our little place and head out to find a bar.
Two problems:
1) the ATM at the airport wouldn’t allow us to pull out money. We tried another one enroute to finding a bar, but again – no luck. Not to worry! We had placed travel notifications on Aaron’s credit card, so we were sure everything would sort itself out the next morning….
2) There were no bars! How lame is this city? We were in the city center and nothing was open at 10pm on a Sunday night. Not to be swayed, we walked to the nearest Billa mini-market and bought what can only be considered standard rations: 1.5L of beer (for a dollar!), a bottle of whiskey (for $5!) and oranges. We were going to like this place.
So we settled on to our micro-porch at our hotel in Sofia and bunched up our legs to be able to fit our chair and toasted to our newest adventure! The oranges were delicious, the beer was pretty crap, but the whiskey was toasty – and all for under $8US – we were in for a great vacation.
We woke up early with the jet lag and set out to try to pull out money from an ATM. Sofia is a fairly unremarkable city – to be fair, we didn’t give it much of a chance, and the weather was freezing cold and rainy so it was pretty gloomy while we were there.
After trying our fifth ATM with no luck, we knew we were in trouble. So Aaron made some emergency calls to USAA (who had placed a hold on his account when they saw someone tried to make a withdrawal in Bulgaria – even though we had notified the bank we would be traveling to Bulgaria) and after hours of stress and determination we were able to withdraw cash and be on our way. We packed up our belongings and walked to the bus station in Sofia (only after enjoying a much deserved and sinfully cheesy pastry called “banitsa”) to catch our bus to Bansko to begin our ski adventure.
It’s been awhile since we were taken advantage of – so we felt fortunate to get it out of the way in Sofia. After arriving at the bus station, someone from the “tourist office” was on hand to help us buy the ticket to wherever we were going. As seasoned tourists, we didn’t feel we needed any help – BUT! With backwards “b”s and “pie” symbols for letters – and not knowing we were looking for the city Банско, we figured a nice, honest, licensed helper would be useful. So after he got the tickets for us, he demanded a $5 tip. Welp. Here we go – a scammer vs Aaron. True adversaries. The man got away with a $1.50 tip (and his life) and Aaron and I were on our way to the ski adventure of our dreams!
