Saturday, 13-June-2026 and Sunday, 14-June-2026
Well dang, Ben. You’re some cool jet-setting fancy-pants, aren’t you? You were just in the United States, and now you’re flying to Bulgaria?
That’s correct, dear reader, yours truly is finally starting to live the dream that I had when first moving to Europe… I’m flying around the continent going to parties!
In this specific case – flying to Sofia for a birthday party, and for our second Pride celebration of the year. Just a quick jaunt, you understand. A few hours in the air, a quick hop skip and jump to the house, and then a lovely few days in Sofia.
Now, Sofia pride was impressive and lovely in my opinion… but from what I heard from others, it was a bit underwhelming when compared to previous years. From my side, though? Huge music events, a fair number of booths, a solid (yet respectful) police presence, and just so many people. Like… SO many people. And since Bulgaria had just recently won Eurovision, we got to hear the winning song by DARA! Who, for those like me who haven’t heard of her, was the one who won Eurovision.
We relaxed, we met Andrea’s friends, we listened to music, and we enjoyed the sun and shade as the day went on. The concert ended, the parade / march began, and we walked until we stopped walking. It was fun, it was lovely, and I appreciated the time to simply enjoy a bit of an adventure while listening and reading Bulgarian (which I’m still learning, slowly but surely).
The end of Pride was… a bit weird, I have to admit. We were marching, and had stopped for a moment as we’d stopped multiple times before – For a traffic light, or some other official situation we assumed. But 15min onward, we were still stopped and waiting. Someone finally came down the line, “The march is over! Congrats! Go home.”
… wait, what? Yeah, turns out, there wasn’t actually an ending point… just a random stop near the palace of culture? No real announcements, no major event, just an organizer coming down the line telling folks to disperse and go home. It was… strange. Anti-climactic, of course, but also it kind of felt undermined? Andrea had opinions, to the surprise of no one, but I couldn’t really comment one way or the other. We did chat with one of the organizers briefly, but… no real new information.
Aside from that one weird note, though, it really was an excellent weekend away.
Pride was lovely, and a great chance to get into the excitement and chaos of the city.
The birthday party was excellent – getting to meet lots of new people, practice a bit of Bulgarian, and eat delicious food? Yes please!
Slowly but surely, adventure continues!
