Heading to Bulgaria today, a long 8 hour drive apparently (including stops) so plenty of time to sleep. Turns out that although I felt good yesterday, today I feel terrible, my ear is blocked completely and apart from the lack of hearing, it's quiet painful, Sharie suspects it's an ear infection, hope not, but she is a nurse so chances are she's spot on. I spent most of my time in the back of the bus today trying to sleep off whatever is causing my ear to hurt so much, it didn't help that we had to cross the border and spend an hour or so there. Border security spent a little more time looking at both Tims' and my passports, strange seeing we are from NZ and we haven't had problems anywhere seeing we don't need visas, it's only the other guys that have. Anyhow, we got through fine, apart from the guy not giving us a stamp so we had to wait around again so we could get a stamp. We got to the hotel in Sophia and I attempted to get in touch with a work mate who happened to be in Sophia the same day, unfortunately he had other plans so we won't be able to catch up, no problem though, I'm in a bit of pain anyway from my ear being sore. We made our way to our walking tour win our local guide. Starting at Saint Sophia Church we checked out the outside and then went inside to have a look as well, unfortunately we couldn't take photos as it was pretty cool inside as all the walls and roof was painted and there was some nice paintings covered with a silver plate face like one we have back home in NZ. We then left and began the walking tour, while I'm sure the tour would have been rather interesting I was in too much pain in my ear to care, I hadn't eaten all day and was hungry too. That and our guide was actually quiet boring to listen too as he paused a lot and spoke rather quietly, apparently in 1 minute someone counted him saying Umm 29 times, I guess that's mainly because English wasn't his first language and he had to think about what he was wanting to say. After the tour we headed off to a restaurant that Ronnie recommended called Happy Grill, we walked in and sat down, I then noticed why he liked the place, most of the menu was things without vegetables, what a perfect place.m, oh and the outfits the ladies wore as well, not trashy or slutty like some places, but enough to keep you happy. Seriously though, the meals were heap, and there was at least one or two things on the menu that every body would order. I ordered one meal first just too see how I would feel after something to eat, by this stage I had been given a few Panadol to take which had taken away a lot of the pain so my appetite had come back. The meal made me very happy, and I ordered a second meal of somethings Ronnie had, chicken strips covered in cheese and deep fried, so tasty. I then ordered a dessert, Oreo Cheesecake, while it wasn't the greatest, it was still pretty good. After dinner we headed back to our hotel and while others went off to one of the rooms to drink I decided to head off to bed to try and sleep off the pain in my ear.