A few from Sofia

Here are a few of my last pictures from Sofia last week. 

                                            I love the stray animals in Sofia

                                                       Church of the Seven Saints

                                                   A big American tree

                                                       Fall Colors

                                                         Selfie

                                                      More Fall colors

                                                     Strange monument

On Wednesday we took a tour with my buddies at Sofia Green Tour( Sofia Green) - click on that link for more information. 

It was a little bittersweet leaving 'ole Sofia, but it was nice to leave for a little while. 

Ten Days

and as of tomorrow, four countries. Talk about an long ten days that will make.  So I will sum things up real quick here:

On Sunday the 20th at 5:30 am, I returned from my trip to Thessaloniki for the half marathon.

On Monday the 21st at 8:20 am, I met my good friend Lauren from WKU, along with a young boy from California, who joined us at the hostel for about 24 hours.

For the next three days I showed Lauren around the city of Sofia, proudly being tour guide in the city that I called home from about August 1st to October 21st.

On Wednesday the 23rd at 11 pm, we boarded a bus for Istanbul, Turkey. Around 5 am we crossed the border, which meant we had to get off the bus and pay a man to put stickers on our passports. Those stickers were our little visas that allowed us to enter the country of Turkey.

On Friday the 25th at 11 pm, we boarded a bus for Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Around 3 am we crossed the border, and received our exit stamps on the visas. Then we crossed into Bulgaria and received our entry stamps back into the country.

On Saturday the 26th at 6 pm, we arrived in Plovdiv, and were driven to our marvelous lodging place - Old Guesthouse Plovdiv.

Yesterday, Sunday the 27th at 1:30 pm, we boarded a bus from Veliko Turnovo, where we met old friend Jimmy around 6 pm yesterday evening.

We have really enjoyed this city, and now we will be heading to Bucharest, Romania during the middle of the day tomorrow.

Over the next few days I will be posting some pictures and stories of the different places we have visited, and will be visiting.

Ciao!

Thessaloniki Night Run

So on Saturday evening last week, I took part in the Thessaloniki Night Run. This was a run that consisted of 21 kilometers, or 13.1 miles.

Had I eaten a little healthier lunch, the race result would have really been amazing. I did finish in my race goal range of 1:45:00-1:50:00, at a time of 1:49:10. I also completed another incredible task. It was not all that incredible, but I did finish the complete the race without stopping at all.

My first 8k (almost 5 miles) 44 minutes
Second 8k (almost 5 miles) 40 minutes
Last 5k      (about 3.1 miles) 25:10

The event was very well organized. The whole town seemed to have shut down at the same time as the race, which meant plenty of spectators for the three laps of fun. Water bottles and isotonic drinks seemed to have been in endless supply too. There were about 2500 participants in the half marathon, and about 7000 spectators in the 5 k race. All of the finishers in each race were given medals. The medals were beautiful pieces of hardware too.

I forgot to mention that the sunset at the same time as the race started. The race started about half of a mile in front of the White Tower. The race eventually ended at the White Tower. The temperatures were freakin' amazing - perfect fall temperatures.

                                                      Representin'

                                                  Awards stage

                                                      Runners getting ready

                                                      Getting my warm up going

                                                      Start line was somewhere up there

                                                  Sunset - almost race time

                                               a little excited about what is about to happen

                                                         DONE!

                                                       Finish line was here

                                                         That is awesome

                                                       Beautiful medal

Where am I?

So I recently departed Sofia for the next few months. It was a somewhat sad departure, but I was ready to hit the road to get a little traveling done. I left Sofia last night about 11 PM, and headed toward the east about 350 km or so. So I will load some more photos about this place with some info about it tomorrow. 

A few from Saturday

Here are some of the pictures from before the race activities began on Saturday. I spend most of the day walking through a few markets and squares, before lunch, and then afterwards I found a lovely park bench and took a nap. 

                                                   Greek Cats

                                                     Evidently they love the old ruins too

                                                        Lovely Orthodox Church

                                                    Not sure about this fellow here

                                                             I liked the design of this place

                                                   Cats are great at guarding history

                                                     Check out the pigeons here

A few pictures from Thessaloniki

Hey Ya'll!

My sincere apologies for not updating over the last five days. I had a great trip to Thessaloniki last weekend. On Friday I arrived around 4 pm, and found my hotel somehow without too many hiccups for someone who had never visited the city. I also did not even have a map in my possession as well. The hotel was not all that great, but it was only a $50 dollar a night room that I stayed in. The service from the staff though was wonderful. Service allows me to overlook the negatives in a hotel or hostel.

Thessaloniki was a nice town to visit for a weekend. There is a little history there, and the people are very friendly. Many of them speak English, and though the food is twice as much as Sofia, the taste is wonderful. I can not really say I ate anything native though, since I was stuck to carb-loading for Friday evening and Saturday at lunch time.

My idea of location was not a great idea considering location of the local sights. The sights were a good twenty-thirty minute walk away; at least the bus/train station were about ten minutes or so away from the hotel, so I was a sort of a winner there. I entered one church during the thirty-six hours I was there and just walked around and examined history in the great outdoors otherwise.

Here are a few pictures that I took.

                                           Great graffiti

                                                      I love the positioning of this cross

                                                  What's Up Park?

                                             Sunsets are wonderful in this city

                                                    White Tower

                                                           Not such a great pic of this church

Soup Anyone?

As I was working around the hostel on Tuesday morning, Jimmy came up with a wonderful idea. Soup. Well, we did not have any meat, but we had plenty of veggies - eggplants, pumpkins,onions, tomatoes, potatoes, and some tomato puree. Jimmy did throw in a few spices as well. I will let the picture do the talking. It is nice to buy food sometimes, and have someone else prepare it, while I am doing a little dirty work around this hostel at times.

This will be the last post for the next two - three days, since I will go run in Greece on Saturday evening. There is a chance that I will have wifi on the bus though.

             Interestingly enough, this was the first time that young Jimmy had ever eaten Veggie Soup