I've been playing at being a tourist all weekend.  It's great.  First, I love taking pictures of things and it's lots easier not to feel dumb when you're clearly a tourist and second, I've been able to surprise a number of waiters and what not with my Bulgarian and I like seeing the looks on their faces when I use Bulgarian.  Got-ya!

By far the best picture of the weekend is this one:

[caption id="attachment_746" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Me in front of the Presidency"]<img class="size-full wp-image-746" title="CAE at presidents " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/p1010813.jpg" alt="Me in front of the Presidency" width="500" height="375" />[/caption]

It's priceless.  Check out the guard's face.  He's clearly seen this before and isn't amused.  Oh well.   The picture was taken in front of the President's Office.  The building isn't very interesting.  Drab might be the best word to describe it.  The guards aren't much more interesting. <!--more--> They are wearing <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Ruritanian" target="_blank">Ruritanian uniforms</a> (at least that's according to my Lonely Planet guide book).  I am told that on the hour (or maybe every 30 minutes) there's a changing of the guard--I guess it's impressive but it didn't look like it was going to be much when we went by.  Oh and for the record, we didn't stick around to watch after I made a fool of myself.

We tried to go to the Ethnographical Museum (Battenberg 1) but it's closed for remodeling (well the sign said "Techical Reasons"-- so, I am doing some interpreting).  Too bad. The sign gave no indication of when the museum would reopen.

It turns out this museum shares the same building as the National Art Gallery (Battenberg 1).  When you approach the building based on the signage outside it looks like you have to use the left hand door and staircase for the National Art Gallery and the right hand door and staircase for the Ethnographical Museum.  Turns out though that only one door opens and both doors (if they worked) would empty you into the same lobby.  The woman working at the ticket desk for the National Art Gallery (left hand side) spoke enough English to tell us the Ethnographical Museum was closed.  That was nice.

We decided not to go to the National Art Gallery--Lonely Planet describes it as disappointing.  Instead we went to Toba &amp; Co.  It's a great cafe/bar on the back side of the museums--I would have never know it was there but luckily I'd been twice before with Bulgarian friends.  This time, we had coffees, chatted and enjoyed the atmosphere.  I have to say, after having gone to this cafe three different times, it's a really great place.  I've been on a summer afternoon and sat outside, I've been once in the evening for cocktails and dancing, and today we escaped the light rain and had a quiet coffee.  There're not a lot of places in Sofia that can multi-task quite like this.

On our walk home, we passed by the National Theater.  And then browsed through the isles of my neighborhood grocery store so that my cousin could compare the wares between Sofia and Moscow.  I think Sofia did pretty well.  I bought her 1 liter of Boza for .55 leva.  I hope she likes it.  (Oh and for those of you who know what this drink is--don't worry I plan on capaturing her face on camera when she tries the boza for the first time!)