Bulgaria - July 31

With all the excitement of settling down I suddenly couldn't sleep, despite not having slept more than 3 hours in the past 27. Since it was 7am in Bulgaria and the Hotel was serving breakfast, I decided to go and fill my growling stomach. It was well worth my efforts... Scrambled and boiled eggs, sausage, bacon, a cold cuts platter, a cheese platter, three types of yogurt, including Greek yogurt which is delicious, croissants and jam, two other types of bread, two types of cereal, juice, coffee and tea. All levels of delicious.

I slept well after that. Too well. We had only meant to sleep until noon at the latest but I didn't wake up until 2pm. Oops. That mistake really messed with my jet lag too. I only slept for 3 hours the next night then too :( Although, maybe it wasn't the jet lag, maybe it was my excitement for seeing Sofie!

Once we finally woke up we walked a few blocks to do some sight seeing. We first stopped at a sushi place for some lunch. It was the only place that we could find that was open on a Sunday and would either accept Euro's or credit card since we hadn't changed our money yet.

 Alexandar Nevsky Cathedral

After our tummy's were satisfied, we went to Alexandar Nevsky Cathedral. It is “only” 200ish years old but amazing. It is an Orthodox Cathedral, not Catholic as many of us westerners might assume. We are in Eastern Europe remember :) I actually got a little choked up with the awe of it all. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside though :( There was also what used to be a crypt under the Cathedral, which has been turned in to a museum of icon's. One piece dated back to the 4^th century.

Over the front doors. We weren't allowed pictures inside.

An icon of St. Nick in the crypt.

We did a little more looking around that day, a lot of walking and headed back to the room for some more, or less sleep. We get to meet Sofie tomorrow!