Mission accomplished

Today I went to collect our numbers for Sunday's race. This meant finding a running shop on the far side of Sofia which, even with Google maps was non-trivial. There it was good to find kindred spirits, particularly ones who speak English since it gave me the chance to have a chat about the course and the race. It's forecast to be hot and sunny on Sunday, so I bought myself a white peaked running cap. It may be useful in Scotland one day, and it was good to support the specialist shop which is supporting the race. Then, before heading back to the flat, I did most of the grocery shopping.

The one thing I didn't find was a Post Office. I know how to ask in Bulgarian "Is there a post office nearby", but I wouldn't understand anything but the simplest of directions unless, as is likely, they would be in English! There are also people here who know French rather than English, which gives me a second option. Indeed, when Bulgarian was being reformed at the start of the 20th Century, a lot of words were taken from French, hence there are friends like "етаж" (etage - floor) and "грип" (grippe - flu). However, harking back to last night, there is a false friend since "жандармерия"  (zhandarmeriya) is Bulgarian for the riot police whereas, in France now the gendarmerie are the ordinary police - (here they are полиция - politsiya) and the CRS are the riot police!