Monthly Archive

We have been blessed to have both sets of parents come visit us this summer–my parents in June and James’ parents right now.  We spent this past week touring Bulgaria with the Covingtons.  We were so excited for the chance to finally see Bulgaria outside of Sofia.  This country has so many great places to visit, and I feel like we only scratched the surface.

It’s impossible to describe everything we did, so I’ve made some highlights, one for each letter of the word ‘Bulgaria’.

Black Sea: Located on the other side of Bulgaria, the Black Sea is the favorite vacation spot of Bulgarians.  In August Sofia is supposedly desolate, because anyone who can afford it is at the sea.  We have already noticed that the streets and buses are much less crowded.

So, in order to be true Bulgarians, and in order for the Covingtons to get a proper introduction to the country, the Black Sea was a mandatory part of our tour, even if we only stayed on the beach for several hours.

Unending fields of sunflowers:  In Bulgaria it can take a long time to get a short distance because of road conditions.  The beautiful sunflowers (not to mention the mountains) break up some of the monotony.  Sunflower oil and sunflower seeds are very plentiful here, and now I understand why.

Landscapes

Great Food

This is ‘kapama’, one of our favorite Bulgarian dishes.  Since we rarely see it on restaurant menus, we were thrilled when one of the places we were staying told us that they had just slow-cooked a huge pot of this stuff.  Basically it’s cabbage, rice, spices and a variety of meats cooked together in a clay pot.  It may not sound like anything special, but it’s pretty great.

I realize coffee doesn’t exactly qualify as “food”, but I had to include this.  Bulgarians are so crazy about instant coffee (particularly Nescafe) that they even have roadside coffee vending machines in the middle of nowhere.  No one in Bulgaria has a good excuse for falling asleep at the wheel.

Doner kebabs are more Turkish than Bulgarian, but they are everywhere here in Bulgaria.  This is basically a huge spit of meat that is cooked as it rotates.  It is then shaved off and placed in a tortilla with onions, tomatoes, lettuce and a special sauce.

On our last day we drove through a little town that would be comparable to a town in the middle of nowhere in Arkansas.  We were looking for a place to eat and weren’t having much luck finding a place that looked very promising, so we decided to follow the signs to “Almond Hotel and Restaurant”.  We finally found it up on the hillside above the town and since we were all starving we decided to give it a try.  Little did we know what an extravagant restaurant we were going to.  It was the most upscale-looking restaurant I have seen in Bulgaria.  Many of the menu items were things I have never tried (or heard of), like quail eggs and “vinaigrette with estrogen”.  You may have to click on the picture below to be able to read this and some of the other interesting English translations.  I would appreciate it if anybody could explain to me what “vinaigrette with estrogen” is supposed to be.  I told James to stay away from it.

Animals:  In nearly every little town across Bulgaria, you can spot numerous stork nests, perched up on telephone poles and even church bell towers.

Rock Formations:  We took two half days to drive through the Rhodope Mountains in south central Bulgaria.  The Eastern portion of this mountain range is less mountainous and more rocky.

This particular formation is known as the “Stone Wedding”.  We re-enacted our wedding ceremony here.

Here are the “Stone Mushrooms”.  James thought they were pretty tasty.

Near Rila Monastery, you can take a short hike up the mountainside to a small cave where St. Ivan Rilski lived for his last 20 years.  Years ago, pilgrims were required to pass through a small hole in the cave before they could enter the monastery.  It was believed that if they could not pass through the hole, then they had guilty consciences.  These people were told to go back home and repent for a year before coming back to try again.  Luckily, James and I both passed the test.

Interesting Churches

The Shipka Memorial Church was built in 1902 to honor the Russians and Bulgarians who died fighting for Bulgaria’s Independence.  The vibrant colors and different shapes really reminded me of Candy Land, but this picture doesn’t show enough detail to do that justice.

The Rila Monastery is a must for all visitors to Bulgaria, so we went back with James’ parents.  It was great the second time around to be able to take in more details from the murals.  They are really impressive.

Many of the murals are depictions from the book of Revelation.  Here are angels blotting out names from the Book of Life.

Ancient Tombs:  The Thracians lived in Bulgaria during ancient times and left behind a number of burial mounds with tombs inside.  Some of the tombs are open for the public, but we decided to go the more economical route and just go inside the replica (if you ask me, it’s not worth $15/person to go inside a hill of dirt).

Tomorrow James and I celebrate three years of marriage and a new addition to our family.  Most of you reading this have probably already heard the news, but we’re having a baby in January!  We couldn’t be happier, and feel so blessed to have this privilege.

It has been a fun adventure experiencing all of this in a different country.  There’s not enough room to recount everything here, but here are some of the highlights.

After two positive pregnancy tests, I made an appointment at a private clinic within walking distance of our previous apartment.  We saw a doctor several days later, and he immediately took an ultrasound.  Here was the result:

Do you see anything?  We didn’t, and neither did the doctor.  If you look closely, right between the two white markers, you can see a tiny black speck.  He speculated that this was probably a baby, but he couldn’t be sure since it was so early, so he said to come back in two weeks.  Hmmmm…..I thought they could prove these kinds of things with blood tests, but apparently that is not the norm here.

Needless to say, it was a long two weeks.  We really just wanted a doctor to tell us it was true.  To make matters worse, when I called the office to schedule an appointment for two weeks later, I had no idea that they would be closed for alphabet day.  Yes, that’s right.  Alphabet day.  The Bulgarians got a three day weekend for it this year, and my doctor took off four days to celebrate the Bulgarian alphabet, so our appointment was postponed a little longer.

Well, our doctor must have really enjoyed celebrating the alphabet, because I got a call the day before my appointment and was told I would either have to reschedule, because he was still on vacation, or I would have to meet with a different doctor.  I decided a different doctor would be fine.

This time the doctor immediately confirmed that yes, there was a baby in there.  However, she was unable to see up close and see things like the heartbeat because my bladder was not full enough.  She told me to go drink a bunch of water and come back in thirty minutes.  We went across the street, bought some water, and came back early, to secure our place in line (you have to wait in line here outside your doctor’s door, and I didn’t want to be miserable waiting for several people to go in front of me).  When thirty minutes passed, she came out and told me that we should wait just a little bit longer, so she would see me after her next patient.  At this point I was dying, but I couldn’t exactly argue with her.  Lucky for me (and everyone else in the clinic), I only had to wait another 15 minutes.  This time we got to see a lot more, but it was still very tiny.  I think this is around seven weeks.

There wasn’t anything really negative about my first two appointments, but I also wasn’t super impressed, and since I knew I wanted our baby to be born at a particular hospital here in Sofia, I had to make our most recent appointment at the hospital itself.  It’s a very nice place, and one American even told me that she had a better experience here than in the States.  Today we had our first visit there, and I was very impressed.  My doctor (go here and scroll down until you see Dr. Lazarova if you want to see her picture and bio) is very warm and friendly, and even though she doesn’t speak a bit of English, she is very good about slowing down her Bulgarian and making sure we understand.

Today we got to see so much more detail, and the doctor confirmed that we are right around 14 weeks along.  Our baby actually looks like a real baby now!  She pointed out the heart, lungs, spinal cord, bladder, etc.  It was also very active.  We got to see lots of kicking and squirming, even though I still can’t feel a thing.  Our baby also happened to be in a very good, though not terribly flattering, position when it first showed up on the screen. If you look closely, you might notice what I’m talking about.

Can you tell what we’re having??  If you can’t tell from the picture, you can probably tell from the drawing our doctor made at the bottom of the paper.  It’s a boy!!!!  We were absolutely shocked to find out this news today; we didn’t expect to find out for at least another month.  It’s a good thing we were planning on finding out, because she didn’t hesitate to tell us right off the bat!  James said I had a really delayed reaction when she told us, but that was mainly because I was making sure I heard correctly.  The words for boy and girl in Bulgarian are nearly identical, so I didn’t want to get confused.

Anyway, we are very excited, and look forward to meeting our baby boy sometime around January 13th.  We’ll keep you updated on the progress!

Yesterday was a very exciting day for us Americans (especially us southerners) here in Bulgaria.  We had our first sighting of Dr. Pepper, and no, it was not sent to us from the States, it was bought right here in our neighborhood.  Now, there have been rumors about this for months, but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up.  A couple days ago, though, our friends called and told us that they had spotted it in a little convenience store on their street.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t go buy any ourselves, because they had taken all that was left, but fortunately, they were willing to share with us.  It was a very happy day.

Our first Dr. Pepper in 8 months

Venice

This past Saturday we took a short trip with my parents to Venice.  We stayed until Tuesday, which allowed us the perfect amount of time to see everything we wanted to.  We arrived late Saturday evening, and had a big adventure trying to find our hotel.  Since Venice is completely surrounded by water, the airport is a 45 minute bus ride away.  After the bus dropped us off at the main bus terminal in Venice, we then had to figure out how to board the right water bus (called vaporetto) so that we could get to our hotel.  There are no cars in Venice itself, so boats are the only mode of transportation.  A supposedly 30-minute water bus ride turned into an hour or more, because little did we know that the routes change after 10 p.m.  We started to become concerned after we had been on the boat for nearly 45 minutes and there were getting to be fewer and fewer passengers.  Then, we began to notice that the names of the boat stops were repeating themselves, so we were nearly convinced that we were going back to where we started.  Luckily that was not the case, but it’s a good thing my Dad went and talked to one of the boat personnel, because we found out that the boat would not be stopping at the stop where we were planning on getting off, due to their reduced schedule.  It actually stopped at the one right before it, which meant we had to get out there and haul our luggage a little farther.  Thankfully we arrived at our hotel sometime between 11 and midnight without any major problems.

The first day we took it pretty easy, just getting our bearings and exploring the city.  We walked through St. Mark’s Square and through other areas of Venice, just admiring the beautiful buildings, canals, and churches.  On Monday we set out early to go inside St. Mark’s cathedral.  Since that is the main tourist attraction in Venice, the lines are absolutely ridiculous.  Then that afternoon we took a boat to the island of Murano, which is famous for glass-blowing.  We got to watch some glass blowers at work, but it was pretty miserable because the building felt like a furnace.  Tuesday we spent the morning at Doge’s Palace, which was once the political center of Venice.

Our trip began with an adventure trying to make it to the hotel, and of course, it had to end with a big adventure, too.  We had no problems catching the water bus and the bus to the airport, but once we got to the airport, we got the not-so-nice news that our plane was delayed a whole 4.5 hours, which meant we would be leaving Venice at 1 a.m.  By the time we actually did leave, it was 1:40 a.m., which put us back in Sofia at 4 a.m. Bulgaria-time.  By the time we got back home and to bed, it was 5 a.m. 

If you’re interested in seeing our pictures, you can click on the album above and see all of them.  It was too hard to choose which ones to include here, so I thought I’d just give a link to them all.