Word: sofias
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...would be understandable if Bulgaria--ancient Roman annex, Ottoman Empire conquest, Soviet Union satellite--wasn't all that welcoming to foreigners. But there I was in Sofia, on my way to the public drinking fountains where locals fill up old Coke bottles with hot mineral water, when a lady pointed out that the bottle of wine I was carrying had broken through its plastic bag. I tucked the bottle back in as best I could and said thank you--good deed done, as far as I was concerned--but the woman kept cheerily talking in Bulgarian as she emptied...
Then there is Sofia, which has the air of being on the cusp of discovery. (Impress your hipper friends by talking about how you visited after tiring of Prague.) The taxi driver from the airport was surprised to learn that I was American, as were vendors in the fruit market, although everyone under 30, it seemed, spoke English. Road signs in the capital are in Cyrillic, and Old World and communist-era charms abound--men in chapeaux, women with bright red dye jobs--but there are also plenty of skinny young things running around in tight jeans and tall boots...
...tourism industry here isn't exactly supersophisticated--the Sheraton's approach to wake-up calls, for example, is laissez-faire--but more amenities are popping up, including high-end hotels like Arena di Serdica, built around the ruins of a Roman amphitheater, and Grand Hotel Sofia, which overlooks the Sofia City Garden, the former Royal Palace (now an ethnographical museum) and the National Theater. The nicest rooms top $300 a night, after converting from the euros that most hotel rates are listed in, alongside the price in Bulgarian leva...
...nominated a directorial pair only twice before (for West Side Story and the 1978 Heaven Can Wait), and because you could count the number of women nominated for Best Directors on the fingers of a maimed hand. (Three: Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for The Piano and Sofia Coppola, the only American woman, for Lost in Translation...
...personally greet Bulgaria's entrance to the E.U.? In a square in Romania. I had an agreement with my Romanian colleague Mihai- Razvan Ungureanu that we would [celebrate in each others' cities]. So I went to Bucharest and he came to Sofia. [E.U. Enlargement Commissioner] Olli Rehn said that in the European Commission they used to talk about our two countries as R&B. There was an argument over which was the rhythm and which was the blues, but at the end everything finished successfully...