As you can probably guess from the title, I accidentally went to a protest in Sofia. As we were walking through the streets on Sunday, we noticed all the cars honking really obnoxiously. At first we figured it had something to do with soccer, but then we noticed that most of the cars and pedestrians were headed in the same direction and decided to follow them. We found a pretty large group gathered by a statue in front of the EU building; there were a couple of people speaking into a megaphone and police preventing anyone from getting too close to the EU building. Of course, we had no idea what the protest was about, so we were worried we'd get caught between the police and the protesters. As it turned out, we had nothing to be concerned about. Although there were plenty of police present, there was not even a hint of violence, it was all quite civil. After a bit, the protest moved to a major intersection where many of the protesters parked their cars to impede traffic. Later we found out that the protest was about high gas prices, so I guess the idea was to keep as much of the city from driving as possible. But it was definitely a great way to get a taste of Bulgaria and see proof that the brutality of its Soviet history does not continue into the present.
After a full weekend of walking around, we were all exhausted and slept pretty heavily on the bus. But on re-entry into Turkey, I got two more stamps on my passport; I'm starting to look like a world traveler!
A picture from the Soviet park. Apparently some people want to tear it down since Bulgaria is no longer a Soviet republic, but for now it's a place where young people hang out, skateboard, and graffiti the statues.
I don't know what's in that building, but it looks quite European and excellent.
Most of the group at the hostel.
One of the many famous churches in Sofia-- I think this is the one that got partially destroyed by Communists.
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