I read in a guidebook before moving to Bulgaria that you could easily see Sofia in a day and then continue on to one of the surrounding countries. (Really!? This is how the guidebook is "selling Sofia?) That was as you may imagine kind of depressing.  I'd already made my commitments to the Fulbright and that was that.  I was moving here whether or not you could see Sofia in a day and frankly, now that I am here it's clear that a day wouldn't do Sofia justice.

I've got a friend coming to visit this weekend--R.  She's on a Fulbright too but she's living in Hungary. Budapest to be exact. At Christmas, I went to visit R. (and Vienna) and now R.'s on her way to visit me (and Istanbul).  She told her Hungarian co-workers that I was coming for Christmas and get this, they told her: Oh she'll love Budapest after living in Sofia for five months.  (What?!)

Of course what ensued was my friend and I engaging in a long drawn out back and forth (or battle if you will) about which city was better and why.  I told her that Bulgaria is awesome because every time you leave the country you get a stamp in your passport, that the night life is hopping, and there is tons of great shopping.  I can't remember what she told me about Budapest because well, Sofia is clearly better (sorry, R.). Oh and at one point at the end of my visit, I started crying after some point had been made that Sofia was dirty and backwards.  Hey, this is my city and I don't think you can say things like that until you've visited.  So instead of using words to stand up for myself and my city, I started crying.

Now I am determined to give Sofia a better sell than I did last time.  I also think  it helps that she'll be in my city and on my turf this time.  Sofia is I believe an easier sell in person.  Here's what I plan to do:<!--more-->First, I plan to pick her up at the airport (I wrote out my address and directions in Cyrillic and Latin for her but she still made me promise to come and meet her--apparently Cyrillic is scary and it is at first...).  Then I suggested that we go shopping, have coffee at some point, maybe a cocktail later, then we're going to meet friends at Veselo Selo for a traditional Bulgarian meal and probably go out dancing after that.

Saturday I plan to take her to the major tourist spots so that we can do some serious sight seeing: Aleksander Nevski Cathedral, the Russian Church St Nikolai, the Church of Saint George, Sveta Nedelya Cathedral, the Mineral Baths, the Banya Bashi Mosque, the synagogue (the largest Sephardic synagogue in Europe), the Sofia monument and the Women's Market.  If all goes well and R. still feels like walking and drinking, we'll go to Griffin for dinner and then maybe grab some drinks at either Bilkova or Hambarat.

Sunday it seems will be a good day to explore a museum or two, to have a coffee at Toba &amp; Co and if the weather's good to walk through Borisova Gradina and maybe even by NDK.

When asked my students at school all suggested that I take R. to the Mall of Sofia or to KFC.  I don't think either of those are on my "to-do list" but maybe I'll tempt her with Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts. If I remember correctly, Budapest doesn't have either one of these American chains.

The one thing R. asked to do was to go to a smaller city outside of Sofia for a day and I've reserved Monday for this adventure.  I've already been to Plovdiv, Veliko Turnovo, Tryavna, Gabrovo, Melnik (twice), Rila, Koprivshtitsa (twice) and Pazardzhik.  So maybe we'll go to Kazanlak, Shipka or Vratsa.  But really I'd be open to any other suggestions for a day trip or even to spend the night.  The most important thing in planning this day is that I have to teach at Sofia University on Tuesday afternoon at 4pm so I've got to be back for that.

And on Tuesday night, we'll head to Istanbul for the next leg of our adventure! If I am lucky, Istanbul will pale in comparison.  Okay, that's unlikely but what I'd really like is for R. to leave at the end of the week and say: Bulgaria was a great unexpected surprise and then to tell of our other friends how great Bulgaria is. There's a lot to like here after all.