Friday Night in Sofia

If this sign looks blurry to you, you may need some "Drink and Drive Services" - Sofia's answer to Sober-Cab.

Readers of this blog may have noticed that there have been few postings from Anne and Mark for a week or two.  One reason for that is that Anne had ventured north to spend a week in Budapest.  Hopefully, future postings on that trip will be forthcoming, although they will not be in the familiar "Anne and Mark" format as Mark was not involved in the trip.  Instead, they will be either in the "Anne visited" format, the equally-popular "Anne and her friend the hoser from Canada visited" format or the less popular "Anne forgot to write a post so there is nothing about Budapest posted on the blog" format (so... watch out for that).

However, the weekend before Anne left for Budapest, Anne and Mark spent a rainy couple of days in Sofia.  Sofia is the closest thing to a big city that you are going to find in Bulgaria.  It has about a million people, which is respectable.  However, it also has McDonald's, Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, which is what makes it a real city.

After checking into their hotel on Friday night, Anne and Mark decided to head out and check out the Sofia nightlife.  Some of the highlights can be seen in the video below:

For those who favor a description, here is some of what was going on in this video.  First scene: some guys on weird stilt-like contraptions running around and jumping and what not.  Mark saw one of these guys fall, but this was not caught on camera.  Mark assures you that no one was injured, but it was pretty funny.

Scene two: Anne gets rejected by a stray dog.  Anne appears to be on a mission feeding the stray dogs in Bulgaria this year.  Anne has always been a one-woman humane society, but this year she has stepped up her game.   Anne and Mark now both stink of hot dogs and kibble on a regular basis as they walk around town with a ready supply of food for the local strays.  Most of the time, these four-legged friends are beggars, not choosers and are happy and eager to scarf down whatever you have available.  However, this stray in Sofia must have had better options as he sniffs Anne's offering of a hot dog and turns his nose up.

Scene three: Anne and Mark were in a park and there were some performers.  The show started with some music.  It was enjoyable.  If you were the guy in the black leather jacket, it was really enjoyable.   From there the show morphed into a sing-along (the lyrics are on the screen behind the singers, so feel free to join in).

Scene four: So what was going on?  Apparently, it was a rally.  As the sign at the back of the stage states, the people are rallying for decent jobs.  Surely, this is a good cause.  We all want decent jobs.  So, what exactly are we talking about?  What is a decent job?  Manufacturing?  A trade?  Maybe professional jobs?  Well, how about a demonstration?  And what decent job should we demonstrate?  It's almost too obvious - fire dancer!  The show starts with two girls spinning some burning sticks.  Pretty cool.  Then they switch to burning hula hoops.  Also pretty cool (notice the support staff in the background trying to put out a fire that has gotten away from the performance area).  Finally, the full complement of fire dancers get on the stage and start spinning their flames in what Mark has interpretted as some sort of crazy "decent jobs or we'll burn this place down!" finale.  Very impressive (except for the girl in the middle, who appears a bit out of sync).

So, anyway, that was a pretty interesting night in Sofia.  Later, Anne and Mark went to the only nicest Indian restaurant in all of Sofia.  After obtaining a table despite not having reservations (you need reservations at an Indian restaurant in Bulgaria?  Who knew?), Anne and Mark eventually got down to business.  Anne enjoyed her meal, which consisted of hot hot hot and Mark enjoyed his meal, which was of course, green chicken.  All and all, a good night in Sofia.

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