Road trip!!! This weekend I went on a road trip with my roommate and her brother Greg. We drove to Sofia Bulgaria first which was so very beautiful..especially now that its the fall. It was nice to see such a beautiful eastern european country...it was also nice to drive through the romanian countryside and see a different side of romanian life- one not so marred by communism. Sofia, Bulgaria was beautiful, and we stayed with this nice couple we met through Couchsurfing they showed us these awesome little places- a cafe that doubled as an art gallery and a little bar/pub lit entirely with candles. On the walk home they talked to us about life under communism and they even showed us a piece of the Berlin wall. The wall was almost a spiritual experience for me. The first thing that struck me was how small it was- about 7' tall and about a foot thick. I stood on one side and ran my fingers over the gravelly cement and tried to enter into the miindset of someone touching that during communism- thinking of all the freedom that lay on the other side- canned beans and bluejeans and banned books to read. Then I walked to the other side and thought of how the free europeans felt...so crazy.

After Sofia we went on to Thessaloniki Greece, which wasnt as nice as Sofia. The driving was fun though. The highlight wasn't the ancient ruins, but this restaurant we happened upon. We went into this little pub-ish place and realize there is no menu in English and no one seems to speak english either...but we sit down. So this young man comes over, just another customer and reads us the menu in English...he realizes that we still seem a little bewildered and so he just asks us- you are new to greece (it's our first day" greg replies, so he says "you want to eat greek food?" yes, we say
so the cook comes out from the kitchen and starts scribbling on the order pad asking things like "you like eggplant"? "cheese from crete or the mainland?"

not long after, we have before us a spread of cretan cheese with capers entrees of eggplant and beef, greek salad with fresh feta and enough greek wine to makes our cheeks blush sufficiently. We figured it would be pricey, but it was worth it. However, when we went to check out with full stomachs and dancing tastebuds, the bill for four people came out to only 29 euro! The cook had given us discounts so that our first experience of Greek food was a postive one. Amazing. These are the things about traveling that I just love.