Sofia, Bulgaria
I consider myself blessed by the many beautiful religious places I’ve seen in my life - the Vatican, Jerusalem, and the Wailing Wall, the temples in Kathmandu, the Hassan II Mosque in Morocco, the Blue Mosque in Turkey, Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon and Bagan's more than 2000 temples, the Ling Yin Soul Retreat Temple in China - now there’s a new addition to the list: Rila Monastery and my new way of seeing things. When Turkish Airlines changed my connecting flights to Sofia, Bulgaria to a much earlier time that no one could not possibly make, I rebooked my flight to an earlier date. It gave me a chance to explore the city on my own before joining a group tour to the Balkans. I had another stroke of luck when out of the blue, I received an email from a travel buddy from my North African past two weeks before my trip. She happened to live and teach at Sofia University, so she gave me a list of things to see and do in Bulgaria. Another thing about travel is meetin