Elizabeth Kostova Quote

The airport in Sofia was a tiny place; I'd expected a palace of modern communism, but we descended to a modest area of tarmac and strolled across it with the other travelers. Nearly all of them were Bulgarian,I decided, trying to catch something of their conversations. They werehandsome people, some of them strikingly so, and their faces variedfrom the dark-eyed pale Slav to a Middle-Eastern bronze, a kaleidoscopeof rich hues and shaggy black eyebrows, noses long and flaring, oraquiline, or deeply hooked, young women with curly black hair and nobleforeheads, and energetic old men with few teeth. They smiled or laughed and talked eagerly with one another; one tall man gesticulated to his companion with a folded newspaper. Their clothes were distinctly not Western, although I would have been hard put to say what it was about the cuts of suits and skirts, the heavy shoes and dark hats, that was unfamiliar to me.