SOFIA, Bulgaria — Sticking to a rakia-fueled promise to return to the region by year’s end, I’m back in the Balkans.  Although not as a permanent thing yet, I am slowly working toward this pipe dream.

The business end of this two-week trip is visiting the Kosovo Institute of Journalism and Communication, to which I applied this past summer.  I punted admission  til next year for a variety of reasons (working for the Mercury News and too many loose ends with this house of higher learning, among others).

My goals are fairly modest: Scout out this school and avoid parasitic infections. Anything else is just accoutrement.

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Bulgaria Air gets my airline of the year award. This newish Airbus A319 from London to Sofia was white, without any logos or identifiable features other than the standard ID numbers.  However, the cabin was filled with comfy leather chairs. Beautiful flight attendants provided a paper cup filled nearly to the top with Bulgarian merlot,  a ham sandwich and a copy of the Sofia Standart newspaper. Passengers greeted the metal bird’s landing with muted applause.

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I’m staying at the Communist-era Sofia flat of Yasen, a 23-year-old graffiti artist whom I met through CouchSurfing.  He lives with this mother, Laura, younger brother, and 95-year-old grandfather.

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