The kids and I spent the Columbus Day holiday weekend travelling to Sofia, Bulgaria, an ancient city inhabited since at least 7000 BC. It was really just a quick trip, mostly to meet up with friends and for me to run a marathon (number 52, and in country number 14 for me), but we did get to spend some time seeing the sites and looking at some ancient artifacts in the museums.
Also, Hans was thrilled to discover that the Sofia International Motor Show happend to coincide with our trip. Sofia's public transportation system is both fantastic and cheap, and the five of us made our way to the expo center where we did not purchase the new Rolls Royce.
The race on Sunday morning wasn't a particularly good one for me, especially with some intense sun and a few miles of cobblestones, but I crossed the finish line before the clock stopped, so it all worked out ok.
This was the kids' first trip into eastern Europe (that they can remember, at any rate), and it was fun showing them some of the old Soviet-style things I remember from my years in Kazakhstan, from the architecture (the Ministry of Finance building has a window for committing suicide in case of a financial crash), to the old elevators. Hans appreciated the Lada cars, and we enjoyed the gardens of the green city (every city in the Soviet Block called itself a "Green City" and bragged about all of the parks, I think), and I got to dust off my Russian. All in all, a nice little trip to a beautiful and reasonably priced city.
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