Today was both an awesome day and an awful day. It started with breakfast being delivered to the room at 8:30 - lovely. I got a warm croissant with butter and jam, a boiled egg, and some juice. I was still hungry though, so luckily I had a spare orange and some almonds in my bag!
I still didn't have any of the local currency as the exchange place was closed the night before and I just used my card for dinner, so off I went to the exchange place again. Turns out it was still closed. Apparently weekends are the time when a lot of shops close, which is very inconvenient. I carried on with my search though because I really didn't want to withdraw more money, just wanted to exchange my Dinars from Serbia that I had left over. Eventually, with the help of others, we found a bank that exchanged some Euro so we had to settle for that for the time being. I wanted to make an 11am bike tour so there was no more time to waste.
The spot to meet for the tour was at the national theatre and it appeared that there was an Olympic Day event being held there. We saw a running of the torch and it being passed on to an Olympian. I'm not sure why this was taking place today, however.
Our bike guide, Petur, took us to get our bikes (they all had cute little baskets, even though they were mountain bikes) and off we went. There was 6 of us doing the tour, so it was a good sized group. I was glad to find out that the bike ride was mostly through the huge parks they have all over the place. There were tons of little bike paths winding in and out of the park paths. They were a bit muddy due to the heavy rains Bulgaria has been getting, but that made it more fun. The day started off rainy. Yet the sun came out and it turned out to be a beautiful day!
The awful part of the day happened near the beginning of the tour when I dropped my camera and broke the lens. It won't go back in anymore. I was really upset. Luckily I have a back up camera, but still really unfortunate.
About half way through the bike ride Petur got a flat so we we stopped at a park that Petur said he goes to every day and we fed the birds and squirrels while we waited for a replacement bike to come. It was so fun. He gave us a handful of walnuts and did some bird calls and out came the nuthatches. They were so cute and would sit on your hand and eat away. I couldn't believe how big and green and lush the parks were. We never would've known they existed had we not done this bike tour.
Throughout many of the parks there were promotion booths set up for different beverages so we made some stops to fuel up on freebies. The first was some thirst quenching fanta, followed by some cherry cider - the better of the two, for sure.
We passed by a monument in which a piece of the Berlin Wall was situated and our guide asked us if we could guess what it was. I guessed it correctly first so I won a prize that consisted of some god awful rose perfume ha.
After the awesome bike tour I went on a bit of a walk and got some stuff from the market for the bus ride tomorrow. Once back at the hotel I found out my rooms shower was out of commission so Steve and Karren kindly let me use the one in their room. Then some of us met for our traditional wine and chocolate before dinner in their room as well.
Dinner was tasty. I had pork shank and it came with tasty grilled veggies and potatoes. From dinner a few of us went to a spot down the road to watch the Germany vs. Ghana football game for a bit. It was a bit chilly out so I had hot chocolate!
Feeding the birds:
Chunk of Berlin Wall:
Fun ropes park we came across during bike tour:
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