The Alien Diaries: August 2025

Bulgaria, I reflected as I walked back to the hotel, isn’t a country; it’s a near-death experience.

Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson had visited Sofia in 1990. His experience post communism was totally different than mine. He described shortages of consumer goods with long lines in the stores for food and clothing.

It is a totally different world than the States and Western Europe. The culture, food, and music are unique..And when I was there were no shortages; the stores had a variety of consumer goods, On the main street in Veliko Tarnovo there were many small shops selling jewelry, artisanal wares, rose oil, Bulgarian folk costumes and CD's. I spent a morning browsing and purchasing souvenirs for friends and family at home. One of my favorites was a shop I called the "Folklore Store." The owner and I had a long chat about folk music; he was quite impressed with my knowledge (I also spent quite a bit of money in there).

In a village near Veliko Tarnovo (Arbanasi) our tour guide took us on an excursion to visit a few churches (Bulgaria is one of the most holy places on Planet Earth judging from the number of houses of worship that I saw). The Orthodox churches in particular were beautifully decorated with artwork and icons; depicting scenes from the Bible. People learned about the Bible in pictures before literacy became widespread.

After the churches it was time to try some homemade traditional Bulgarian food. We were to gather in a small restaurant where in front of every place setting was a serving of yogurt and banitsa. Banitsa is a savory pastry made with filo dough, eggs, sirene (cheese similar to Greek feta) butter, baking soda and yogurt.

Below are the ladies who prepared the samples for us to taste. I don't remember their names so I'll call them the Yogurt and Banitsa Twins. I had to get a picture of them since I'm a mother of adult female fraternal twins (these two look fraternal to me).

They welcomed us with this song before we ate. My husband and the rest of the group were amazed that I was familiar with the lyrics (I had heard it many times on BNR Radio Blagoevgrad) The entire song is over four minutes long; so they only sang the first verse. It's in the video below. The lyrics are about welcoming friends.

The near-death experience? That happened several days later. The tour was scheduled to end on 16 September, on that date we were off to Sofia airport to catch flights back to the U.S. For a few of us this didn't happen. Our flight had two legs: Sofia-Munich, then Munich to Boston. The problem? Southern Germany had been inundated by some serious rain, so flights to Munich were cancelled. There were no other flights available that day. The agent at Lufthansa was able to schedule one to Frankfurt the following day.

Lufthansa gave us a voucher that included a hotel room, two meals and a cab ride from the airport to Sofia and a ride from Sofia to the airport the following morning. The ride to the airport for the departing flight was when things got a little scary.

The driver hardly spoke. His knowledge of English was minimal, Besides the driver, there were three of us in the vehicle: my husband, myself, and a woman named Glenda, who was part of our tour group: her flight to Munich had also been cancelled.

The driver violated every rule in the book: he cut in and out of heavy traffic, ran red lights, switched lanes too quickly (the driver behind us really had to apply his brakes to avoid hitting us), We almost had a head on collision when he passed another driver and he was on the wrong side of the road. He had a lead foot: nothing was stopping him.

I was worried we were going to end up in a Bulgarian hospital if not the morgue. It was a relief to get out of the cab and into the terminal.

Would I visit Bulgaria again? Not with a tour group. I would prefer an itinerary with a personal guide, and for a longer visit (to factor in getting over jet lag). It would take a lifetime to see everything.

If you enjoyed this you may also like:

The Alien Diaries Visits Bulgaria Part Five (backlinks to previous posts). Part Three has a photo of the homemade yogurt and banitsa.