It’s our final night in Sofia and the last couple of days have passed gently with packing, cleaning, eating the last of our cucumbers (obviously) and spending our last Bulgarian leva (2 bottles of wine and 200ml bottle of vodka... 11 leva/€5.50/A$9 say). Nothing worse that leaving a country with currency unspent - so that was a final jaunt to the supermarket this afternoon. It’s been a day of contrasts. It was cold and a bit hazy last night when we walked the little guy around the block... I said it looked like snow, even if the forecast didn’t think so. Woke up to 4-5 inches of snow outside (wow - getting good at this!) The sun came out, it rained, then we had a massive but short thunderstorm in the late afternoon - the snow’s gone but weather wise, who would have thunk it was 25 degrees just 3 days ago. Belgrade is looking much simpler. Freezing cold and lots of the white stuff - 6 degrees here in Sofia tonight - will be minus 6 in Belgrade tomorrow night and it’s only a 5 hour drive up the road.

Aside from ‘extreme weather’ and household management, it’s been a mixed bag. Last Friday we metro’ed into town for a final visit to the Ladies Market and some supplies (not cucumbers, obviously). Honey is a big thing here and there are multitudes of varieties - we chose a small jar of a creamed version then went back on Friday to invest in the 1 kg jar to cart to Serbia with us - an absolute bargain at around €4/A$7 - would be at least A$20-30 in Australia and thus we’d never buy it. A kilo of peanuts for a couple of euro, postcards and posh Italian bath gel also made the cut as did a new silver chain. That actually sounds awfully luxurious - but the chain I’ve been using with many pendants for about 20 years is finally kaput - it lost a pendant in Stockholm and another in Rome (though we retraced our steps and miraculously found that pendant). So push came to shove and visited a silver shop - the language and alphabet barrier was in place, but the language of commerce prevailed and the perfect item was found and paid for relatively painlessly. We visited the Church of the Rotunda (inside this time) and also the interior of St Nedelya’s - both photo free zones unfortunately - but stunning to visit.

It’s not that we were actually in the mood for a jaunt into the city again on Saturday - but good weather was forecast and we were eventually sweltering in 25 degrees. We took a walk through a couple of different neighbourhoods and found that Sofia is truly a city of contrasts. First off, ‘Graf Ignatiev’ Street - full of bakeries and bag shops and just gorgeous buildings this was a semi-pedestrianised street. Semi in that you couldn’t get squished by cars, but it was definitely open season so far as trams went. There was an interesting book market half way down then a quick nip into St Sedmochislenitsi (pictured) before we turned left onto Tsar Shishman Street and into the hipster part of Sofia - so many gourmet coffee shops and homeware stores - felt very Sydney-like actually. We eventually finished our long walk around the block and took our final metro ride to get home.

Sunday was nothing but rain, rain, rain and Monday and Tuesday were simply devoted to keeping the show on the road - packing, cleaning etc. Household or ‘Circus’ Management as an art form!

PS - current favourite Netflix shows since we’ve had amazing wifi - Grimm (sounds ridiculous but 5 seasons means its actually quite enjoyable), iZombie - (even dafter - but 4 seasons in and we’re still hooked), and of course James Spader’s ‘The Black List’) Fingers crossed the wifi in Serbia is even half as good - who knows, might pay for another couple of months of Netflix to keep us amused on these snowy nights.