Aug
13.
13.08.09 – Tel Aviv – Sofia
By Garik and Lena
- The way to the airport from my parents’ home we did without any delays. Within half an hour we were at the Ben-Gurion airport. As usual, we got stuck in the check-in post because of some family with too many kids. So we waited and waited with patience.
- After a short visit at the duty free shops we reached our boarding gate B3 even though on the ticket it’s B2. Moreover, the flight was a mix of two flights, Bulgarian Air and El-Al. We bought tickets for the Bulgarian Air; they were almost as twice as cheaper. I guess there were some people who weren’t so much happy with it; after all they probably wanted to fly with El-Al and not with Bulgarian Air Airbus. As a result of mixing flights and changing boarding gate, there was a little delay with our flight. Half an hour later, the gate was opened and the boarding started. Couple of nice looking Bulgarian stewardesses met us in a small A319 Airbus airplane. Lena was amazed by the fact that there was no TV in the airplane and the safety instructions were provided “live” by the stewardesses. More amazing was to watch the plane takes off while they still standing and waving with their hands!
- Later we got our breakfast “special”, yes breakfast … a box that looked really nice but contained only a small cheese sandwich and a chocolate waffle. After that, we got coffee and tea in a plastic cups… This amazing aircraft equipped with 25 rows of seats, we got ours on the 24th, close to the bathroom. Lucky us, we got the window and the middle seats, the woman who sat near the passage suffered more! People with big asses thought that she is some kind of resting couch. This woman was part of an organized tour (www.eco.co.il) that headed to the Rila Mountains just like us. We wondered whether we are going to meet them there. The flight was full with small children that didn’t stop crying and there was one frightened mother with two small girls; they all wear masks on their faces as a protection from the swine flew.
- When our airplane approached the landing stages, the stewardesses still didn’t sit.
- In Sofia airport we realized that one of the passengers got so much drunk during the flight that he couldn’t stand on his feet… He was 100% Bulgarian, but how he got so drunk in a period of couple of hours flight, I still can’t understand. When we had to pass the passport control, as usual, we were last to go… But at least we didn’t have to wait for our backpacks too long; they came out a moment after we finished the passport control.
- We took OK taxi to HostelMostel in Sofia. It’s about half an hour drive from the airport to the hostel and costs 10 Lev. When the taxi stopped, the driver showed us the sign on the wall and got away. We thanked him, paid him and started to look for the entrance… No entrance… its midnight in Sofia, dark, no one in the streets… spooky! We stood under the sign of the hostel but didn’t see the entrance! We heard music from some fishy bar-coffee restaurant, so we didn’t ask there. We started thinking about calling them and asking how the hell do we get in, when Lena saw a small door with a small sign on it pointing on a small bell. “Ring the bell to open”, Said the sign. They just couldn’t make it smaller!
- A guy, Christo was his name, met us in front of the hostel that was hidden in a courtyard. Though the time was after midnight, he was very nice and informative. He showed us the rooms, showers, kitchen. In the morning there was an “eat as much as you can” breakfast and at the evening pasta with a glass of beer. He gave us a map of Sofia with a suggested foot route and started to explain us what to see and where, what are the most important sight places etc, but we had to stop him because we didn’t intended to see Sofia. We leave Sofia tomorrow morning. We took a glass of water from the tap (water is clean and drinkable) and went to sleep. We got a room for 8, because no other rooms were available at the time of booking. Later when we were already in our beds, more people arrived.
- In general, the place looks like a couching place, for young to come and do nothing. They can seat there all day long, playing pool, reading books or updating their status in Facebook. But still, the place is very nice, clean, rooms have magnetic keys and the place has lavatory seats!
Tags: 2009, August, Hostel Mostel, Sofia, Tel Aviv