April 30, 2006
THE storm had just broken, taking with it the August mugginess. I looked up from the balcony of my hotel across the dampened city of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Directly in front of me, the golden domes of the huge Aleksandr Nevsky Cathedral were set against the dark sky. Twin rainbows arced above them as though the sky itself were part of the building’s design. Sofia is that kind of place.