Andrea goes exploring again!

At the time I started writing this blog post, according to my BA app I have 6 days, 5 hours and 26 minutes until my flight to Buenos Aires. The flight time is estimated to be 13 hours and 55 minutes and given the size of Argentina and Brazil (the two biggest countries I'm traveling around), is fairly representative of the long journeys that will be involved in my South American Adventure. To save money, around Eastern Europe I'd downgraded to the free version of Spotify to listen to some tunes, but their New Year offer of three months for 99p has meant I've splashed out and upgraded back to the Premium version (which I'll likely continue until the end of the trip depending on data/wifi availability). I'd had a playlist that I tended to listen to interspersed with various Spotify playlists and specific artists that I'd go for depending on my mood. My 'randoms I like' playlist started with a few songs I'm particularly fond of and then as I thought of o...

So, the last post of my European Adventure! And what a really lovely place to be telling you about: Sofia. The first journey I made in Bulgaria was from Ruse to Varna. I'd booked my ticket the day before (in person of course - none of these online shenanigans for me... or anyone else for that matter!) and turned up super early for my bus that left at 6.50am knowing that it was going to be leaving from sector 9.When I arrived, there were what seemed like far too many people for the minibus I was taking but there was also a bus going to София from sector 9 which seemed to be quite popular. I remember wondering what on earth this place was and being incredibly thankful that for once, Google translate gave me a meaningful translation converting this (at that point) incomprehensible word to Sofia.  As I've traveled around Bulgaria, many people have questioned why I would want to spend time in Sofia, and it wasn't until I got to Plovdiv that I met the first person who really l...

I last left you in Stara Zagora, about to head to Plovdiv, which I did. I then left Plovdiv to head to Veliko Tărnovo and am now in Sofia. My apologies for taking so long for the Plovdiv post but whilst there I become food for some biting insect which then led to the hostel being disinfected from head to foot and I didn't really feel like blogging. This was subsequently followed by a stomach bug at Veliko Tărnovo and very unpleasant night on Wednesday which delayed me further. As such, you're going to get the two cities in one as otherwise you'll likely get neither! Up to Stara Zagora I hadn't taken any trains in Bulgaria. It was for no other reason than I didn't have any journeys for which trains made more sense than buses, but I did feel like I needed to experience a Bulgarian train and the journey from Stara Zagora to Plovdiv gave me the perfect opportunity. It was going to take less time than the bus (such a rarity!) and was at a reasonable time to both leave St...