by Diana Coman

Created on: July 29, 2009

On a hot summer evening, my plane landed in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. My last connection flight in Rome was a tricky one: I had to run to catch the plane and I've made it only because the flight to Sofia was delayed as well. Glad to be finally almost at my destination, I was looking a bit absently minded at the conveyor belt waiting for my little blue suitcase which knew already so many parts of the world. As the bags were turning round and round, my tired mind was playing a pleasant movie of the holidays to come. Until a girl addressed me saying something that sounded a little bit like Russian, but not enough for me to make up much of it. To my smile and "Sorry, I don't speak Bulgarian", she asked in clear English whether that was the belt where they would bring the bags from the Amsterdam flight. Surprised, I looked again at the display: indeed, meanwhile the display had advanced to the next on the list: Amsterdam. So I was luckier than my suitcase in Rome: it hadn't made it to the last flight.

The people at the lost and found were rather nice, but they spoke a quite limited English. And even with my papers in front of them, they managed to enter almost everything wrong in the form that they had on the computer. I tried to politely observe that my home address was wrong, and that my name had gotten an m instead of n, but the lady was absolutely convinced that it does not matter and she reassured me that they will find my luggage while I'm still in Sofia and they will send it to my hotel. I did not really have much choice, so I believed her.

Knowing that I will arrive quite late, and having no idea as to how far the airport is from the town or how one can get there, I had previously booked the shuttle service that the hotel was offering. Indeed, regardless of the delay, a young driver was still holding my name up in front of the arrivals. The trip was short and pleasant, the driver polite, but almost mute because he did not feel too confident of his English. As such, I just sat back and tried to make something out of the landscape. New modern roads leading to the town, a lot of traffic, many modern cars. Once in the town, we got fast into a kind of labyrinth of small streets in what looked at first like a residential area. But among all the buildings, there stood indeed my hotel with its new and ultra modern architecture. As it turned out, there is also a bus service to the airport, but it does not run in the early mornings and late evenings. But the

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