I have a love/hate relationship with public transportation in Sofia.

I have an especially fond spot in my heart for the 76 and the 111 buses. These are my buses. I don't even care if the 76 is so poorly heated that the window frost on the inside of the bus and my glasses never fog up when I climb on.  And the 111 at 7:30 am? I've got one word for you: c<em>ozy</em>.

I've already confessed that I regularly ride without a ticket and I've paid my fine on the spot without complaint when I've been caught. I think that the ticketing system for the buses is not very user-friendly and to a newcomer a little confusing. Really this system could really stand to be modernized. Ideally, I'd like an electronic card that I could swipe on all public transportation.

I dig the metro. I think it's funny there's only one line and I despise the person who designed the left-handed ticket entry. And sometime this spring a new metro stop is going to open in Mladost 1A next to my apartment. That's going to be really exciting. And I heart the electronic card that I can use on the metro.  T

The thing is I am not a very serious rider. I take the metro to the city center every weekend--that's about 5 or 6 stops and really the only stops I ever use are the stadium, the university and serdika. As for the bus, I hop on Monday-Friday to get to school. It's something like 4 stops.

I've taken a marshutka once but I'm afraid of them. I don't really understand how they work, where they go or why I'd want to take one if I can take the bus, the metro or a taxi. This is probably a fear that I should work through.

Anyhow, I have great news. My friend P. has started a really funny and intense new blog about public transportation in Sofia called: <a href="http://sofiapublictransport.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Running for the Bus as the Doors are Closing</a>. Really it's about the intersection of public transportation and his life.  It's about life in a city--the good, the bad and crowded rush-hour buses. What I especially like is that it's not a laundry list of complaints because lord knows there's plenty to complain about when it comes to public transportation in this city. Check it out.

So I'll end with a little story. I was climbing on to the 111 recently with a friend. I looked up and there were four controllers standing in the bus. I said to H.: if you have a ticket you should get it out to stamp it. She's digging around for tickets. I am carrying my purse, a bag of school work as well as wearing my gloves and I'm also rooting around for my tickets. I extract one but H. doesn't have any in her purse.

The controller is waiting patiently for us. When H. determines that she doesn't have any tickets, she gets 10 leva out to pay her fine. Up until this point we've been speaking to the controller in Bulgarian and to each other in English. H. hands over her money with a big smile on her face. This clearly confuses the controller. Who is happy about being caught and paying a fine?

Then the female controller goes on to explain to H. in very slow but grammatically correct English that she's going to get a  10 leva ticket and on the back she's writing some information and on the next bus she can stamp the 10 leva ticket to validate her ride and do we understand? It's very important to her that H. understands the validation part. H. thanks her and in Bulgarian tells her to have a nice day. This renders the controller speechless.

We get off the bus and H. and I ponder the exceedingly small fine because really if you can validate the 10 leva ticket on the next bus the fine is basically 8 leva seeing as a single ride at full price is 1 leva.