SNAFU

The weekend’s events did not come off without a hitch as my previous post might have suggested. First of all, on Friday, I lost my camera. It was my old camera, so I wasn’t too worried; I just wish I had the picture of the “fortress of solitude” (embassy) that I had surreptitiously made. The good news is that today Ryan emailed me to tell me that someone in our party picked up; here is the picture.

Saturday morning we were all supposed to meet in front of a certain building at exactly 8:15 in order to catch a tram to the bus station to catch a certain once-a-day bus. However, at the prescribed time only Ryan and I were there. Our guide—Svetla—was late, Paris was in the wrong place, and we never heard from Julia. We missed the bus we intended to take, but found alternate routing (that was better anyway) and by 10:00 we were on our way, but sans Julia. She was having problems with here phone, and despite various efforts to contact her and have her come via alternate means, she was not able to join us in Rila. Lesson learned: make sure you know where the meeting place is and that your phone works. Actually it could have been me; first of all I didn’t set my alarm clock but woke up at 7:00 anyway (al la Kramer), and my phone was locked because I turned it off at the embassy and didn’t know the PIN.

Just now, I went by NDK (National Palace of Culture—just across the street from my place) to witness a fire fighters/emergency rescue demonstration. That's the great thing about this location—there is always something going on. BTW, note that the new Heineken billboard (see August 11 post) already has graffiti on it.