Random Thoughts in Sofia
Running though the history of a place in our memory we only get a brief glimpse of what has taken place there before our existence. It’s an impossibility to index all the events that marked the time of our surroundings. The recycled air particles can tell us more stories about ourselves and our history than we can.
It’s like the emotions after we finish reading a good book. Our senses and body are overtaken by thoughts and emotions that fill us for a little bit and then slide away only to come back again when a situation reminds us of what we had read
When we visit a beautiful place you get a similar feeling, the buildings, the squares, the traffic, the trees and the people, make the mind wonder.
I can’t say that Sofia Bulgaria is a beautiful city. Every time I come here for work I see and discover more things. I have come a long way from my first and very traumatic to the sense visit.. Yesterday while rushing around in taxis from meeting to meeting, stuck in traffic and feeling sick from the endless chain smoking of the taxi drivers, I caught myself admiring the old buildings around the city. There are indeed some really beautiful building still standing proudly but sadly in the midst of dilapidated cement monstrosities, left over from the Soviet passing. Mentally I traced the glories that the same streets had seen but also the misery and heartache. It seams impossible to have one without other.
The people looked happy enough. At least if it was any misery it was masked very well. There were new developments everywhere. This country, or rather this city has been growing very fast in the past 5 years, I have seen, ugly old buildings being brought down and new moderns ones come up. I have seen better cars in the streets and peoples fashion have changed too. Actually where before you would struggle to see a well dressed person in the streets now there are plenty roaming around. Still Bulgarians like many other Eastern Europeans love bling, maybe not in the alarming rate that the Russian people do, but it’s there present, making the visitors look really like visitors.
They are friendly people, but not overly approachable or open. Well let me rephrase that, they are not until you get to know them and then they become extremely hospitable.
All these of course are my own observations and by no means a concrete portrait of the Bulgarian people.
BBC news on the back ground informs me that France is now # 6 in alcohol consumption in the world… what does this have to do with Bulgaria you might ask? Nothing much unless we look at the consumption of alcohol in Bulgaria as well; something I am not planning to do at the moment. It’s too early in the morning to surf for trivial information, especially when I should be getting ready for a meeting. I need a coffee, my eyes don’t really open until I have a coffee! Off to get a serious coffee…
It’s like the emotions after we finish reading a good book. Our senses and body are overtaken by thoughts and emotions that fill us for a little bit and then slide away only to come back again when a situation reminds us of what we had read
When we visit a beautiful place you get a similar feeling, the buildings, the squares, the traffic, the trees and the people, make the mind wonder.
I can’t say that Sofia Bulgaria is a beautiful city. Every time I come here for work I see and discover more things. I have come a long way from my first and very traumatic to the sense visit.. Yesterday while rushing around in taxis from meeting to meeting, stuck in traffic and feeling sick from the endless chain smoking of the taxi drivers, I caught myself admiring the old buildings around the city. There are indeed some really beautiful building still standing proudly but sadly in the midst of dilapidated cement monstrosities, left over from the Soviet passing. Mentally I traced the glories that the same streets had seen but also the misery and heartache. It seams impossible to have one without other.
The people looked happy enough. At least if it was any misery it was masked very well. There were new developments everywhere. This country, or rather this city has been growing very fast in the past 5 years, I have seen, ugly old buildings being brought down and new moderns ones come up. I have seen better cars in the streets and peoples fashion have changed too. Actually where before you would struggle to see a well dressed person in the streets now there are plenty roaming around. Still Bulgarians like many other Eastern Europeans love bling, maybe not in the alarming rate that the Russian people do, but it’s there present, making the visitors look really like visitors.
They are friendly people, but not overly approachable or open. Well let me rephrase that, they are not until you get to know them and then they become extremely hospitable.
All these of course are my own observations and by no means a concrete portrait of the Bulgarian people.
BBC news on the back ground informs me that France is now # 6 in alcohol consumption in the world… what does this have to do with Bulgaria you might ask? Nothing much unless we look at the consumption of alcohol in Bulgaria as well; something I am not planning to do at the moment. It’s too early in the morning to surf for trivial information, especially when I should be getting ready for a meeting. I need a coffee, my eyes don’t really open until I have a coffee! Off to get a serious coffee…
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