Author Archives: Petya Raykovska

About Petya Raykovska

WordPress Polyglots Team Contributor and mentor. Director of Agency Operations @ Human Made I move a lot, travel for music, love carrot cake and make things happen.

Experience Sofia – places to visit, food to try

Hey everyone!

WordCamp Europe weekend is almost here! A bunch of you are already in Sofia and we can’t wait to meet the rest of you during the weekend. Here is some useful information for all who have never been to Sofia.

Getting from the airport to the city

The best way to do that is to get a cab. It will cost you about 5 EUR and will take you less than 15 minutes.

There is a taxi company on contract with Sofia International Airport that’s called OK Super Trance. There’s usually a big line of taxi cabs waiting outside the airport. Get one there.

You will need cash for that, there are ATMs at the airport you can use.

Do not catch a random cab in front of the airport and do not accept offers to be driven to the city from people inside the waiting room.

Alternatively, you can hop on the bus from the airport. Every line can drop you off to Orlov Most (the city center) for a price of 1 lev (0.5 EUR). You will need cash for that one too and can buy a ticket in the bus. Bus ride to the center will take about 30-45 minutes depending on traffic.

Finding good places to eat

 

Here are a couple of foursquare lists to get you sorted on Restaurants and Veggie places in Sofia that have all been tested and are highly recommended:

Local food to try

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Bulgarian food is just awesome! Even though we share a lot of dishes with the Middle-Eastern, Russian and Greek cuisines, our local variations are so delicious, that we really hope you come to Sofia hungry.

Yana Petrova, who is a speaker at WCEU and has been a food blogger for a long time now, has prepared a great list of must try local food just for you.

You’ll get the opportunity to try a lot of the recommended dishes during the WordCamp Europe breaks and lunch on Saturday and Sunday.

Coffee, bars and co-working

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 That’s about it! Enjoy!

If you have any questions, shoot them in the comments below or ping us on Twitter. We’ll try our best to help.

Thank you to WooThemes!

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Big ups to Woo Themes for supporting WordCamp Europe 2014 as a Gold sponsor!

WooThemes is an international, market leading, bootstrapped business providing a platform to extend standard WordPress-powered websites via a range of innovative themes and plugins. Their flagship product being WooCommerce – a hugely popular, freely available eCommerce plugin with a wide range of commercially available extensions and themes. With WooThemes businesses and individuals can get professional WordPress sites launched quickly and affordably.

Looking for a co-working place in Sofia?

Coming early to WordCamp Europe to explore Sofia? Here are some co-working options for those of you who want to have some work done in your breaks from hopping between Alexander Nevski Cathedral and the National Palace of Culture.

betahaus Sofia

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betahaus | Sofia is the first coworking space in Bulgaria, one of the largest in the region and part of one of the most successful coworking networks in Europe with branches in Berlin, Barcelona, Hamburg, and Sofia.

Based in the heart of Sofia, betahaus educates, entertains and boosts a new generation of leaders.

betahaus Sofia will have a dedicated space for WordCamp Europe goers in their main co-working space where you can have a discount and work for 5 days for 25 Euro instead of 40. The price includes free stable internet connection, office supplies, printer & scanner from 9am to 8pm.

In the last week before the event that’s where you’ll find the organising team, we’re taking betahaus up on their offer. Come join us.

For the coffice culture lovers, you can just drop by the betahaus cafe and co-work for free there. Show your confirmation email for your WCEU ticket and get a free coffee or a drink.

Address:
ulitsa “Krum Popov” 58
1421 Sofia

Map | Fsq Venue

The SiteGround Office

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SiteGround office will be open for co-working to all attendees from September 23 (Tuesday) to September 30, 9am to 7pm – the whole week before the WordCamp and one day after contributors’ day is over.

The office location for those of you who would like to drop by the SiteGround Office:

Adora Business Center, fl 3
8 Racho P. Kazandzhiyata Str.
Sofia 1766

As entry in the building is controlled, please contact Hristo Pandjarov (@pandjarov, hristo.p@siteground.com) if you plan on coming. Or just show up at the security desk downstairs and let them call the office. SiteGround office manager Ramelina will come to pick you up.

Map | Fsq Venue

 

Coffices in Sofia

And if you’re a fan of the Coffice Culture, Mario has set up a cool list of recommended Coffice spots.

Enjoy your stay!

Welcome WordPress.com VIP as a Platinum sponsor

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We’re very happy and honoured to welcome WordPress.com VIP as a Platinum sponsor of WordCamp Europe 2014.

Thank you for your support!

Everyone, you should definitely stop by their table at #WCEU and say “Hi”.

All the freedom of open source software. All the features, scalability, and security of our WordPress.com VIP platform.

We know WordPress. As the operators of WordPress.com, the biggest single installation of WordPress in the world, we know all the secrets, tips, and tricks to help WordPress shine at scale. We’re a global company dedicated to making WordPress work better for our clients and users, and serve billions of page views per month to their readers. We provide expert guidance and support to big media and enterprise client teams, from their developers to their editors and contributors.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/an3ssen/

Sign up for WordCamp Europe 2014 Contributor Day

Hey everyone,

Time to sign up for Contributor day. Due to the high interest in attending the Contributor day, we were able to change the Contributor day venue so we can make room for 200 people (That’s 25% growth in the number from last year).

The Contributor Day is an opportunity for people to get together to contribute to WordPress. It’s for both seasoned contributors and people making their first foray into getting involved.

Here are some of the things you’ll be able to do:

– contribute your first patch to core
– fix bugs
– test
– translate WordPress or WordPress plugins
– write documentation
– help out on the support forums or IRC
– contribute to BuddyPress
– contribute to GlotPress
– get involved with accessibility

 

Please sign up using this form

 

The WordCamp Europe 2014 Contributor Day will take place on Monday, 29th September at the SiteGround Offices in Sofia, 10am – 7pm.

Here’s a map to the venue and the Foursquare venue.

If you sign up and then are unable to go, please drop us an email to let us know.

Check out the video from last year’s WordCamp Europe to learn a little more about what happens at Contributor day:

See you soon!

Photo by Florian Ziegler

Welcome SiteGround as a Platinum Sponsor

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We’d like to say a huge “Thank you” to our friends at SiteGround for supporting WordCamp Europe for a second year. We appreciate the help and wouldn’t be able to make it without your continued support.

Make sure you go say “Hello” to the awesome SiteGround people at WordCamp Europe.

SiteGround are providing the venue for our Contributor Day, so for those of you who intend to drop by, you’ll experience their hospitality in person.

SiteGround with over 10 years in the business provides premier managed WordPress hosting! They have servers optimized for ultimate WordPress speed and security, and provide many extras for the WordPress fans – automatic updates for the core WordPress and its plugins, WordPress SuperCacher for speed acceleration, staging tool for the coders and unique WordPress autoinstaller for the starting users – all crafted in-house by the SiteGround team.

They are also involved with the WordPress community speaking, supporting and attending various WordCamps around the world, and by sponsoring WordCamp Europe they want to keep contributing to the amazing WordPress community.

Limited number of #WCEU tickets available

Great news everyone! wceu2014-attendingbadge-1

We managed to secure a new batch of #WCEU tickets and if you’re one of those weird people who still doesn’t have a ticket, now is the time to remedy that:

Head over to https://2014.europe.wordcamp.org/tickets/ and secure your place among the #WCEU crowd.

Probably no need for us to mention that you should do that in the next few hours or you risk being left behind again.

See you in Sofia!

Love,

The org team

WCEU 2014 Speaker: Graham Armfield

Hey guys, we’re really glad to welcome Web Accessibility expert Graham Armfield from the UK.

Graham is a Web Accessibility Consultant for his own company Coolfields Consulting. He helps organisations improve the accessibility of their websites, and works with them to embed accessibility into their business processes. He also develops accessible WordPress websites for small to medium sized businesses and charities. He’s an active member of the Make WordPress Accessible team, and has spoken about web accessibility at quite a few WordCamps. He’s also led accessibility groups at WordPress contributor days.

When not making the web a more accessible place you might find him playing his guitar and writing songs. He turned his back on the rock lifestyle a few years ago, but now performs his songs solo at open mic nights near where he lives.

He was born many moons ago in South London, and he hasn’t strayed very far from there since – he now lives in Surrey with his wife and young daughter.

WordCamp Europe is almost here, so stay tuned to the most recent developments from the organising team on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +

Welcome to Go Daddy as a WordCamp Europe 2014 Diamond sponsor

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We would like welcome Go Daddy to WordCamp Europe 2014 and thank them for supporting the event as a Diamond sponsor. WordCamp Europe wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. Make sure to stop by their table, say “hi”, and thank them for enabling a huge part of the awesomeness.

GoDaddy’s mission is to radically shift the global economy toward small businesses by empowering people to easily start, confidently grow and successfully run their own ventures. With more than 12 million customers worldwide and 57 million domain names under management, GoDaddy gives small business owners the tools to name their idea, build a beautiful online presence, attract customers and manage their business.