Sozopol

I arrived in Sozopol (on the southern Black Sea Coast) on Sunday morning with two fellow ETAs. We have been having a great time here. The town has a very typically Mediterranean feel, with windy cobblestone streets, red-tile roofs and a stone wall fortress surrounding the Old Town. It also has a small harbor with colorfully painted fishing boats and small restaurants serving up fresh-caught fish, plenty of bars and cafes, several craft markets and more than a few kebab stands.

Our hotel is on the north side of Old Town, above steep cliffs overlooking the central beach and another peninsula where the "new town" is. We walked over there yesterday to go to South Beach, which is the other public beach within city limits. South Beach is where most of the night clubs in town are, most of them right on the beach and pumping techno music all day long. We spent about four hours lounging there and wading in the warm water. Today we checked out the central beach but it was much hotter so we didn't stay nearly as long. I've been good about sunscreen (yay!) so haven't been burned much and I'm slowly acquiring a freckly tan.

Sozopol was originally a Greek settlement called Appolonia, after which its summer arts festival is named. The festival starts next week so we're going to miss it, but there are already some booths set up and the amphitheater's been roped off. This town definitely has an "artsy" feel, with lots of craft vendors lining the streets (selling more than just the typical touristy souvenirs, though they have all of that too) and a couple of little pop-up shops filled with homemade jewelry, clothes and paintings that are oddly reminiscent of Anthropologie in the States. Tonight we're planning on getting dinner at a Greek place on the water. I'm so excited to eat something other than "traditional Bulgarian food." Not that I don't love Bulgarian food, because I do. It's just that after two weeks of the same repeating menu at the hotel it's nice to change it up a bit. After that we're hopefully going to check out some of the beach clubs or something like that. Tomorrow Ellen and I are going back to Sofia and Hillary is going to Haskovo, the town where she will be teaching. It's sad to say goodbye to everyone I've been living with for the past two weeks but we're all going to meet up on trips and visit each others' towns. At the end of September we have a four day weekend when a bunch of us are planning to go to Istanbul, which isn't very far away. It's exciting being here in Bulgaria because it's not really far from a lot of places I want to go. That being said I am very much looking forward to go to Pleven this weekend and finally getting settled at home. That's all for now and I'll definitely post something from Sofia later on this week!