We made it to Bulgaria!! The flights went well, except we didn't sleep much at all. (Although I did make time to watch The Big Short, which was excellent!) By the time we landed at the Munich airport, we were both exhausted. Brad found a row of chairs to spread out on by the gate to our next flight, but I had too much nervous energy and went to walk around.
The Munich airport is great! Lots of food options, a kid play area, and.... an entire napping area! I woke up Brad, and he decided to rent a nap cab for an hour to get a little extra sleep. It's basically a cube with a bed and small desk. It was pretty cool and every airport should have these!
We did get to document the flights with a photo from each one and we were able to watch the sunrise from the most unique vantage point I can imagine!
I finally slept on our flight from Munich to Sofia. Or course, I pretty much missed most of the amazing views, including this one of the Swiss Alps, which Brad took pictures of.
Upon landing in Sofia, our friend and translator came and picked us up to drive us to the Airbnb. We made it through customs without any issues (although they asked Brad more questions than they asked me), and we were able to exchange our dollars to Bulgarian lev. We were just settling in at the apartment when there was a knock at the door. Due to a mixup with our agency and the dates we were coming, there was actually another person staying at the Airbnb that day, and there she stood, wondering who we were and why we were there. We eventually figured out the issue, and our agency put us up in a hotel. From there, we decided to explore the city a bit.
Sofia has AMAZING food. Lots of healthy eating here and fresh vegetables on almost every dish. Sometimes unnecessarily, as we saw a sign for pancakes with cucumbers. Our translator gave us some homemade banitsa, which is a Bulgarian pastry with filo dough and cheese. It is SO good. Pictures can tell a better story, so here are some of the meals we've had so far.
Some of the cons of Sofia include graffiti literally on every nook and cranny of the city. Also there are a lot of smokers, so the hotel smelled like smoke and most of the restaurants have smoking sections. The people have been friendly though, and many speak at least a little English. The city is also next to Vitosha Mountain which makes a beautiful backdrop for the city.
Today we went to the mall and looked around. Brad is a fan of the Bulgarian women.
We also went grocery shopping which was a fun experience. Trying to read Cyrillic labels is a little like a scavenger hunt - things look familiar and every once in awhile there will be an English word to give you a clue. We think we know what we bought, but we will find out for sure! The grocery store is like an Aldi's experience - you pay for your cart and bring your own bags. We flew with reusable bags in order to help with shopping, and we carried a backpack and 4 bags of groceries back to our apartment.
Now, we are unpacking and getting Niko's temporary room ready! It's so crazy to think that tomorrow we will be with him! Brad and I agree that we are both feeling so many emotions that we feel almost nothing - everything seems to cancel the other feelings out, but when we focus on one, it sort of floats to the surface. We are very excited to meet him. A little scared. I think it will become easier when we get back to the US (although the plane ride is going to be brutal). The orphanage asked us to bring clothes for him, so they can have the ones he is wearing back for the other kids. We have his diaper bag packed, and once we pick him up, we will immediately go to a Bulgarian police station to apply for his passport.
We can't wait to share him with you! We will be with him in just 13 hours (and counting)!!!
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