Journal / Balkans / 2014-05-02

Food

So I’m doing a pretty terrible job blogging, but it is what is. The first night we were here, we had a great dinner comprised of a salad-like appetizer with fresh tomatoes and sliced cucumber. The meal consisted of chicken and potatoes — both of which were really flavorful. The dessert was some sort of Carmel pudding that had the consistency of flan.

After dinner, we just played some cards back at the hotel and hit the sack pretty early. We are all pretty tired from the plane ride.

The hotel we are staying in is really nice. It is in a large complex that almost resembles some sort of resort — there are a bunch of attached restaurants and a beautiful central garden. The breakfast buffet in the morning was really good as well. It consisted of the standard European breakfast cuisine of meat, cheese, bread and fresh tomatoes while also incorporating more standard American options of eggs, sausage, bacon and mushrooms. There was also a large selection of fresh fruit and juices.

After breakfast yesterday, we had a walking city tour of Sofia. The hotel is just outside the main metro area. I was told it is only a twenty minute walk or so, but we ended up riding our bus down to the city center and starting the tour from there.

It turns out that May 1 starts a series of consecutive holidays in Bulgaria. Meaning that the majority of the city is off from work and most people leave the city for their hometowns or vacation resorts. Yesterday, they were practicing for a parade later in the week.

After the tour, we had some free time to grab lunch. We were dodging raindrops but luckily it ended up holding out for most of the day. We ended up having lunch at a restaurant that had a bunch of different food — everything from Italian to Asian to BBQ. I ended up having a Prosciutto sandwich. Not really the most authentic Bulgarian cuisine, but it was pretty good.