I don't even remember when the idea of running around barefoot in the playground became uncommon.
When I was 9-10 years old, it was totally normal, at least for some of us kids.
It was expected that the playground in the school would not be a trap for shards of beer bottles. So what is the shoes for.
I am not quite as close to one of Sofia's most wild parks (South park, aka Yuzhen Park) as I want to be, but close enough. Finally went there today to sit and drink some beer beside the pond and feed pigeons with popcorn and a few other cool waterbirds that wandered past.
I have never ever ever felt, in any other city ever (nz, uk, au, nl, de) for even a moment that I was outside of the 'city'. Until I met Sofia. In Sofia, there is Forest in the City.
If you love trees and you love epic scale buildings (i mean, 5-10 storey buildings) at the same time, you are gonna choke when you visit Sofia.
I think Sofia deserves a medal for the least chopped down old trees in the world. Almost every apartment block under 6 stories part of the view from at least one window in your apartment is obscured by a green, wibbly wobbly, sometimes fruit bearing tree.
Some places, especially this region around Gotse Delchev and Yuzhen Park and the area to the west across to the Paradise Center (big shopping center), are especially wild. There is old roman canals still standing passing by near here, with a waterfall in one spot, and a whole suburb in the middle of 5-10 storey residential blocks resembles a typical balkans village.
Things are kinda crazy in all of the old East but Bulgaria definitely wins on the 'watch the forest eat the city' stakes.
It's very special here.
If political nonsense makes it hard for me to leave anyway, I know that there couldn't be a better place for me to be. It's a very nice feeling.
I discovered what it feels like to be in a desert in a particularly flat section of Serbia between Novi Sad and the neighbours (bg and ro) - water bottle dry for an hour as I walked down a road and gladly asked people if it was ok for me to take some water from their very nice well water.
In this part of eastern europe, especially, there is public springs everywhere. Almost every village near the hills or mountains has at least one spot where anyone can come and capture a little of the flow that just goes down to the sea anyway.
I am so glad I came to be in this part of the world. Your perspective of life is not complete until you have seen survival. Maybe you don't have to be beggar on the street, but really, if you haven't stepped outside of the haze of the media you really need to.
Those who fear doom as we see some amazingly epic frauds going on in these times, and likely a lot of industrialised murder coming soon, it's important to remind them:
Some humans are wild, and can never be tamed.
As I write these last words
Good luck to you and follow that wild spirit.
That is the most holy thing, to me. To follow the nature. I did mention I am Taoist. The nature of things is holy. I am also Tengrist: We all share one sky, there is only one order in our universe.