Happy December, everyone! I’m experiencing college classes in the twelfth month for the first time in my undergraduate career (thank you, quarter system), and it is…so strange. I will never take my seven-week winter break for granted ever again! Because I’m still in class for another week, though, I’ve been able to travel outside of Athens a bit more without feeling stressed about finals just yet. Last weekend, my travels took me to two vastly different cities: Sofia, Bulgaria, and Vienna, Austria. While I had a great time in Vienna, I am eager to tell you all about Sofia, a city I had never felt the need to visit before this semester but can’t wait to return to very soon. 🇧🇬⭐️
For anyone who hasn’t visited Bulgaria before, and I imagine that there are many people, I would highly recommend it. Sofia is the largest city in the country, with about 1 million people living there, but it felt incredibly homey and welcoming when we arrived. Other than the fact that not a single restaurant was open past 9 pm on Wednesday night, the city was busy enough to feel alive but not too busy to feel unsafe. As a group of four young women with no knowledge of the language walking around, there were no points in which we felt uneasy about exploring. While this should be a given no matter what, it’s always nice to experience.
My favorite part of visiting Sofia was going on the Balkan Bites Food Tour. I found this free tour on Instagram a few days before we left Athens and decided to reserve four spots so we could get a taste of Bulgarian cuisine. The tour was about two hours long, and everything we got to try was totally free to us. We tried ayran (a salty yogurt drink), Bulgarian wine, lutenitsa (vegetable spread), pastries, and more. Our tour guide, a Bulgarian native, explained the history, cultural context, and ingredients of the food we were eating as well as sharing anecdotes of his life in Bulgaria. As someone who had VERY little knowledge of the country before visiting, this perspective was helpful, fun, and much more interesting than a typical walking tour.
We did take some of the travel recommendations off TikTok and visited The Red Flat while visiting the city. The Red Flat is an “interactive museum and time machine” that walks its visitors back into an authentic apartment from 1980s Communist Bulgaria while offering an audio tour of what day-to-day life would’ve been like at the time. Everything in the apartment, down to the wallpaper and canned food, was authentic. It was such a cool experience to learn about life while Bulgaria was under Soviet rule.
Another essential Sofia experience I would recommend would be the Elephant Bookstore. This vintage bookshop was the perfect place to find fun gifts, second-hand novels, and books authored by Bulgarian authors. I was especially stoked about this as last year’s (2023) International Booker Prize was won for the first time ever by Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov, so I was able to get an autographed copy of the novel at the bookstore!! I plan on using this for major clout in the book community, along with the fact that I am so excited to read the novel.
I am so lucky to have spent the holiday weekend traveling with the friends I have made here & getting to explore new cities. As much as I loved the Christmas markets and business of Vienna, Sofia had a certain small-town charm that I won’t soon forget. The longer I am here, the more I find myself creating space for countries with difficult histories and bright futures. Bulgaria is absolutely one of those places, and I can’t wait to go back. ♥️
The Milford Sound is one of the most visited tourist towns in New Zealand. It is an extremely small village that is in the North-East region of Fiordland National Park and connects to the Tasman Sea. Fiordland National Park is known for having many fiords, which are super steep mountainous areas with deep valleys that were carved out by glaciers. Seeing these formations in person can best be described as standing between incredibly steep valleys which require you to move your entire head and neck to see the top of. It was stunning and was easily the most incomprehensible place I have visited in this country. The main attraction is taking a 90 minute boat tour through these valleys and turning around halfway through once you leave the country’s “border” and start traveling into the sea. Another aspect that is important to note before describing the boat tour itself is the drive to get to Milford Sound.
THE STRUGGLES
I was able to do the Milford Sound cruise with two other friends that I have met since being here, however these two other friends and myself happened to be the only remaining exchange students that I knew of that had not done this tour. This is because our tour on October 25th was my third attempt. It is quite the effort to get to the Milford Sound. It requires roughly 2-3 days to comfortably complete the tour. It is a 5-6 hour drive from campus. The distance, far in-advance scheduling, and financial commitment it requires is just the beginning. Weather has been the determining factor in my struggles. The incredibly scenic drive on SH94 is the only way to get to Milford Sound. The road navigates through dangerous avalanche territory and can be closed by the NZ Transport Agency. The road is closed on average eight days out of the year. It just so happens that the two weekends we picked to travel were each closed the day before, the day of, and the day after, which accounts for 3/4th of the total average road closures. Planning to go with a different group each time, we were each lucky enough (or unlucky) to pick random weekends for the road to get closed. Considering that this boat cruise is one of the only things I was determined to have completed before leaving the country, it was indeed demoralizing.
THE STRUGGLES PAY OFF
With my third and final group we had decided to go October 25th, and this was the last chance I had to make it happen. Given my past traumas with this event I was constantly checking weather forecast and radars the weeks leading up to our planned date. My friends were quick to judge my attentiveness to the predicted weather as it understandably would not change anything no matter how many times I checked. New Zealand received one of the biggest rain storms of the winter on October 23rd and 24th, and with rain means snow at the elevated regions. This new snow significantly increased avalanche risk, especially on SH94. The road was yet again closed both on the 23rd and 24th. The group thought it would be canceled yet again for the THIRD TIME. We made phone calls to the transportation agency to see if we could to perhaps receive some sort of insight on the road’s opening on the 25th. We drove from the nearest town, which is 90 min away from Milford Sound, to the point at which the road closes. We have been here before, both times let down because the road stayed closed all day. We rounded the corner, and the road had just opened up, it felt like a miracle had just unfolded before our eyes. Myself and my friend Devon, (the only two that had gotten the tour canceled twice before) screamed and produced noises that I didn’t know were possible. We made it.
THE TOUR
Now that all of the anticipation had finally come to fruition, it was time for the actual event. To begin, the drive into Milford Sound was one of the most beautiful drives I have ever experienced. Given the rainstorm the day prior, the fiords that surrounded us were impeccable. Hundreds of waterfalls, daunting slabs of rock walls, snow capped peaks, and a low-ish fog to solidify the unique environment.
We arrived to the parking lot and ran for the tour boat. We got to the top deck and could not believe we were not only about to embark on one of the most scenic experiences in the world, but also simply that we had finally made it. The tour was filled with an ambient narration from the tour guide of the myriad of fascinating structures and formations, but I was honestly too engulfed in the scenery around me to care. This was one of those experiences that no photo or video can properly serve the environment it’s proper portrayal. Again, I have never experienced such dramatic walls of mountains before, all whilst being surrounded by waterfalls. The boat turned around once we got to the sea and we got to experience the same tour but in reverse. I am not sure that I will ever be able to accurately articulate the emotions that such an experience can invoke, and for that reason I will be forever grateful for being able to experience it in person. Core memory!
(We were unable to see penguins or dolphins of which the tour is also known for being one of the better ways to experience them)
AUSTRALIA!
I was fortunate enough to squeeze in a quick trip to Australia in the middle of my final examination period. I flew into Sydney and was immediately greeted with a public transportation system that was undoubtedly way better than anything New Zealand has to offer. I couldn’t fathom being able to so easily get on a train and go a significant distance, that process is something that is laughably absent in NZ.
I have a few friends who were studying in Newcastle which is just an hour drive north of Sydney which allowed me to have free tour guides for Sydney and Newcastle, (the only cities I was able to go to). The weather was noticeably warmer, and better, than NZ. This is something I appreciated especially when packing for the trip given that every NZ trip I’d been on required packing my heaviest clothes.
Seeing the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House in person was quite incredible. Just like any sight, photos never do it justice unless you are able to see them in person. I was so impressed by these sights, and one of the more special parts of viewing them was from the ferry. Using the ferries to navigate the town was something that became one of my favorite parts. Seeing the entire city from the water was super unique for me.
We were able to go to the Tangaroo Zoo and see some new animals, which were namely Koala Bears, Kangaroos, Wallaby, Red Pandas, and more. I specifically enjoyed all of the food we ate, whether it was breakfast for dinner, a ginger ale accompanying every meal, or discovering Malatang, a Chinese cuisine that is basically hot pot but is much quicker in preparation. I was in the biggest Lego and Apple store that I’ve ever been in, both companies that I am a nerd for.
I had the privilege of being able to attend my friend’s end-of-year ball which came with meeting new people, free drinks and food, and a fun night out afterwards. I truly enjoyed getting to experience my friend’s lifestyles in their new home and learning everything that I could about Australian culture in the short time that I was there. Woohoo!
DU Abroad 