Travel day! Up at 3:30am (actually ended up being more like 5:45 after resetting the alarm and snoozing 4 times) Houston time so that we can get time adjusted during the plane flights and land in Sofia on Bulgarian time...

Houston to Montreal (1 time zone)
11:05 - 3:30pm
2 hr layover
Flew in a little bitty plane, just 4 seats across, but it was the upgraded fancy version, extra leg room and touch screen tv's with on demand programming in every seat. I seriously had an extra 8"+ of leg room. So come to find out, its surprisingly hard to get into Canada, their border patrol/immigration folks are strict. Ate chicken tenders and fries in the airport. Thought about a Canadian beer, but said "eh, I can have one of those in Houston" so I passed.

Montreal to Frankfurt (6 time zones)
5:30pm - 6:30am
3 hr layover
Big plane, 3/3/3 seat configuration, unfortunately there were 5 kids in the 3 rows beside us all under the age of 4. Thought for sure the little Indian kid would be trouble, the 3 Canadian kids would be fine, and the infant behind them would cry the whole way. Turns out the infant was the best of the group and didn't make a noise the whole time. The other 4 kids were terrible and screamed and hollared the entire flight, including the 4 hours when the lights were out and it was dark outside and all the adults were trying to sleep. THEN to top it all off, all 4 kids crashed out in the last 30 mins of the flight and didn't wake up until the tires hit the ground...go figure. The only good thing about the flight was it was fairly empty and Heather and I got to split 3 seats. Germany is amazingly easy to enter, immigration didn't say anything to us, ask us what we were doing, or where we were going...we just strolled on through and walked out of the airport for some photo ops. But the TSA could take some lessons from the German airport security...no groping, body scans, or any of that other s***...but trust me, its not easy getting on an airplane in that country.

Frankfurt to Sofia (1 time zone)
9:35am - 12:45pm
Missed our opportunity to score some cash courtesy of the airlines...they overbooked the flight and were looking for people to take the later flight and giving the $250 euro each. We put our name down for it but were 1 couple too late. So we got on the bus, drove halfway around the airport to get on our dumpy Lufthansa airplane and then had to wait like 30 minutes for the village idiots to figure out how to store their carry-ons and actually sit in their assigned seat. This was by far the worst flight, the flight attendents were annoying, the captian talked in 4 languages to make announcements, and there was this loud ass German guy sitting behind us that wanted to talk to his buddy the whole time. On top of that, this plane was definetly the economy model, my knees were right in the seat in front of me...where's that Air Canada plane?!?!?!

Total trip time: 17 hrs 40 mins and 8 time zones

Had a nice driver named Demetra pick us up from the airport and deliver us to the hotel. There must not be very many American tourists that come here, he couldn't understand why we're here.
Check in at the Lion Hotel was easy. Hotel is just ok, check our tripadvisor.com comments for our review of the hotel. Dropped our gear, changed into walking shoes and headed out to see the sights. For Bulgaria not actually being a former Soviet block country, it sure looks and feels like one...capitalism is clinging to every corner; shops in basements, driveways, and even open tables in parks...not to mention all the 40 year old buses and seriously delapidated high rise housing buildings...all of which are very drab and carry that socialist feel.
Seems like many people walk or ride the bus where they need to go. Half their buses are converted to electric and run on a trolley type system like a light rail train, the other half burn diesel like no tomorrow.
Went to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which was absolutely amazing. Got yelled at for taking photos inside, but hey, I turned my flash off so that should count for something. Bulgarians apparently like ice cream, or fozen yogurt to be more exact...there are yogurt stands on every street, and boy, was it good! We'll be having some more tomorrow before we leave here. Browsed through a couple shops, didn't see anything that caught our eye except a post card, will try tomorrow at the women's market before we fly out to Istanbul. 
Went to dinner at this absolutely amazing Bulgarian restaurant...I won't even try to spell the name here, but its about 3 blocks from the hotel and is an old Bulgarian house that's been renovated and turned into a restaurant. Check out the photos to see all the wood panelling and details. Bulgarian food is good but lacks conviction...they apparently use little to no spice to season anything, but the presentation was great and the quality of the meat and veggies was excellent. Authentic Bulgarian 3 piece band playing old school Bulgarian music was a nice treat at dinner as well. Tried the 'famous' no-hang-over Bulgarian wine...and although I didn't have enough to test the hang over, I'm calling bull$hit, it was too fruity to not cause a hangover. 

Oh, and its like 57 degrees, sunny, with no humidity, and a light breeze. So long and good ridiance to the 105 we left in Houston.