Cabbage is the New Lettuce: The First Days in Sofia

Moving to a new city can be frightening, depending on the circumstances. Some of us have been the archetypal new kid on the block (Not the boy band), some of us have moved to a new town for college, some of us have simply packed up and left home in search of ourselves.

And then there's me. Leaving FISI, I was actually excited to move into a new apartment on my own in a big city where I don't speak the language very well. Crazy? Perhaps. But, as I've become increasingly prone to saying, if it isn't a good time, it will be a good story.

The first order of business was to get through the weekend - reflecting my lack of foresight, I hadn't scheduled the move into my apartment until Monday morning, leaving two days for which I had no accommodation. Luckily, Greg, one of the Fulbright Senior Scholars, was gracious enough to allow me to share his room at the Princess Hotel in Sofia, and then at his new apartment, which he moved into on Sunday.

After arriving at the Princess, we got settled in, and went out for our first walk-through of Sofia later in the day. Being highly sleep-deprived that day, none of what transpired forms a coherent string of memories in my mind, but, as I recall, we did see a couple really cool things. Our first stop was the Banya Bashi mosque, Sofia's oldest (and apparently only extant) mosque, built in 1576, during the Ottoman occupation.

Believe it or not, I had never been inside a mosque before, so I was a bit surprised at what I found - no seats, no platform, no central space at which to direct one's attention. It was, more or less, an open, square floor with elaborately decorated walls and a dome. A picture or two:

The Dome

An inscription on the wall

Georgi and Greg in the women's loft above the main sanctuary

This section of the city has an unusual feature - its only mosque, its only synagogue, and one of its biggest churches are all within a kilometer of each other, so we then set off to Sofia Synagogue, one of only two functioning synagogues in Bulgaria, and the largest in the Balkans. Strangely, it is Sephardic; I can only guess that its founders were descended from families that fled to the Ottomans after they were expelled from Spain in 1492, but this is only a guess. Whatever its origins, it is the third largest synagogue in Europe and features the largest chandelier on the whole continent, at 1.7 tons. Though only attended regularly by 50-60 members each week, the synagogue is still in operation, and it is massive. (Bulgaria's Jewish population, after being largely saved from the Holocaust, emigrated, nearly in its entirety, to Israel in 1948. Less than 2000 Jews remain in the whole country.) Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get any shots of the chandelier before my camera died, but these pictures can still be impressive:

This is what happens when you combine Eastern Orthodox architecture with Judaism

The huge, floor-to-ceiling Ark

Following this tour of the synagogue, we went to go forage for sustenance at Happy Sushi, right in the government district of Sofia. There we met our fellow FISIans, but, still being sleep-deprived, we decided to call it a night after dinner.

The next day we slept until 11:30, our bodies trying desperately to reverse the damage wrought by the last two weeks. We headed over to Greg's new (moderately swanky) apartment, where we were met and greeted in friendly fashion by the realtors. After completing the paperwork and moving-in process, we decided to explore the city a bit more with more FISIans. The first stop, being across the street from Greg's apartment, was Alexander Nevski Cathedral, one of the national symbols of Bulgaria, and paragon of Eastern Orthodox beauty:

Not actual size

Really cool fresco of Mary, I believe

L - R: The Author, Fred, Georgi, Alena, Max

From there, we took a meandering tour of essentially every major tourist and/or recreational attraction that greater Sofia had to offer. While I'm sure you'd be enthralled to hear a description of our time lying on the grass in the park in excruciating detail, I'll skip that. The short version is that we saw a couple monuments dedicated to the Eternal Bond of Friendship between the Russian and Bulgarian people--which were actually pretty interesting, both in and of themselves and in relation to how the native Bulgarians with us felt about them--we had a detailed look at Sofia University, and we saw an interesting wedding party roll through in front of us. We also had a long walk through the Boris Garden and into the woods adjacent thereto.

Orlov Most Square

Detail from Orlev Most, presumably of a Russian soldier holding a Bulgarian baby

Monument in the Boris Garden to those who were prepared to die for their cause

The following day was my own move-in, and it was mostly lost to matters of logistics, documents, explanations, and cleaning. Greg did invite some of us over for dinner, however, and I gladly took the chance to be out of my desolate, lonely, empty apartment. Tuesday featured many of the same things as did Monday, with the added experience of my first food-shopping experience in Bulgaria.

As inconsequential as this would seem, it was actually a watershed experience for me there in the early-going. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the produce section of my local Billa (who seem to be the biggest supermarket chain in Sofia) and discovered that A) Vegetables were less than 1 лев (a лев is about 70 cents US) and B) There was no lettuce to be found, anywhere. Cue my first major gastronomic (if you know me well, you know that things of this nature tend to make the biggest impressions on me) culture shock - lettuce is virtually nonexistent in Bulgarian cuisine. Situation-salvager that I am, I made for the nearest head of cabbage, and 20 minutes later, I was the proud owner thereof. Said plant is still sitting in my refrigerator, less than half-consumed, because this particular head of cabbage was, and partially remains, enormous. And it cost me 1.25 leva - about a dollar US. You could say this cabbage...didn't cost me much cabbage. You're welcome.

In any event, Wednesday saw me complete the move into my apartment, replete with swept floors, a full refrigerator, rearranged furniture, and a few minutes of contemplation of my fate out on my balcony. To celebrate, I had Greg and Fred over for dinner followed by music that was in all ways illicit, as it was after 10 PM. Nevertheless, we played on (quietly), and the night was done. A picture or two:

My living room, which opens out onto the balcony

Kitchen/dining room

After-dinner jammin'

And that was the end of my first week in Sofia, because the very next day, we three went to Burgas. Now it's time for me to do a little more shopping, go for a run, make some dinner, and study some Bulgarian on this unofficial last day of Summer, but the third of the Promised Entries is forthcoming, never you fret. Until tomorrow...