Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Today we were kinda feeling the effects of being busy and decided just to take it a little easy today. We turned off the alarms and slept in a little later than we had been. One of us slept until about 11am (I won’t say who).

The plan for the morning was to bake some cookies and also a traditional Bulgarian dish called “banitsa”. Megi didn’t feel like making the banitsa, so she and Sonya concentrated on the chocolate chip cookies. It was a bit of challenge for Sonya on a few levels. One, there weren’t any measuring cups, mixing bowls or large spoons in the apartment, so she had to improvise a bit. Before we left Indiana, we were told that we wouldn’t be able to find any brown sugar in Bulgaria (although we did end up finding some), so she measured out 3/4 of a cup and brought it with us. She used the brown sugar we brought to estimate how much one of the little small drinking glasses in the apartment would hold in order to measure out the other ingredients. They mixed the ingredients with soup spoons and their hands. They mixed it in a pot. And they baked them in a small pie pan. Two, the stove didn’t operate in degrees Fahrenheit, so she had to do some conversion there. Three, the stove in the apartment was some kind of “fan stove” (?) so she had to figure that out as well. All in all, the cookies turned out really good, and more importantly, Megi had a good time bonding with her mother.

In the afternoon, we took a taxi back to The Mall to see a movie. This is the first time that we were able to use the TaxiMe app and it worked great! The concept was very much like the Uber or Lyft app that I’m used to. You choose your pickup location, enter the address of your destination or drop a pin on a map where you would like to go, and a search starts for a driver. The taxi shows up and you watch him arrive on the app, takes you to your destination, and your credit card is billed. Easy-peasy.

We grabbed some lunch for Megi and headed to the movie. “Luca” is what she chose to see. It was a (Italian, I think?) cartoon voiced-over in Bulgarian with Bulgarian subtitles (?). Clearly I didn’t fully understand what was going on in the movie, and dozing off during part of it didn’t help either. What I could gather, it was about this fish boy named Luca who had a friend named Albert who discover that they can become human boys by going to this special beach. They follow their dream of riding a Vespa scooter. That’s what I got anyway. Sonya said that it’s streaming on Disney+, so we’ll have to watch it again in English to see how close I am.

After getting back to the apartment and enjoying the air conditioning for a bit, it was time for dinner. We’d heard of a place called Raffy’s on Vitosha Blvd. so we thought we’d give it a try. It was really good! Sonya got a pizza that ended up being bigger than she had pictured in her mind. Megi ordered a “chicken burger” and had initially ordered a Greek salad on top of that, but she decided against it. I tried to teach her about our saying when “your eyes are bigger than your stomach”, but I’m not sure she grasped the concept.

After dinner, we decided to continue walking south on Vitosha Blvd. The European football games are this week and the street was very busy for a Tuesday night. Megi wanted a balloon from a street vendor, so here we are…

At the south end of Vitosha Blvd. Is a  theater called the National Palace of Culture. I’m not too sure the history of the place, but it was built with the USSR’s influence. It’s an impressive structure. The first time I saw it, it looked Soviet-era to me and just out of place with the rest of the surroundings. We wanted to walk around it to take some pictures.

It was getting late, about 10:30, and we had an early morning appointment, so we started heading back. The street performers had all packed up and disappeared. I was going to film some on the way back, but it was too late. Maybe tomorrow.

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Wednesday, June 30, 2021

This morning we have one of our few adoption-related appointments. Meagan must have a physical done, have some blood work drawn, and update her vaccinations in order to receive her VISA and enter the US. It wasn’t a very fun or interesting morning so there really isn’t much to write about. Our next adotion-related appointment is on Tuesday July 6th.

The shots caused Meagan to be a little sleepy so we headed back to the apartment to rest a bit. The day already had some potential for being a hot one. It didn’t feel like we would do too much today.

At lunch time we headed out. There were a couple of attractions we wanted to see today so we walked in the direction of the first one to find some place to eat. We ended up at a place called Miral Foods, a little halal fast food place. I got a roasted chicken with rice, which was good. We sat and enjoyed the shade a while before moving on.

Next it was off to Sofia’s Museum of Illusions! We’d seen many people recommend this place as something to do while in Sofia so we thought we’d give it a shot. It was fun! A little smaller than I thought it would be, but the exhibits were really cool! It was set up as a series of small stations explaining how different illusions are created. Many of the illusions I’d seen before, but all of them were fun to interact with. I don’t think that Meagan had seen any or most of them before so it was really fun watching her. My favorite part was making her jump out of her skin right before she touched the electric plasma ball. Just Dad being Dad!

Our plan was to next walk to the famous Aleksander Nevski Cathedral to walk inside. It’s free and just a 12 minute walk from where we were. However, it was i the mid afternoon and at the peak temperature of the day and none of us were too thrilled about walking around. At the same time, at this point we are kinda going stir-crazy from being in the apartment so much. So it’s quite the quandary. Complain about being bored? Or complain about being hot? We opted for bored. Megi still was not feeling that well or too thrilled about the walk so we headed back for some rest. Another day Aleksander, my friend.

Dinner time took us back to Vitosha Blvd. Nothing was really in the plan so we decided to wing it. We ended up at Señior Burrito for some authentic Bulgarian Mexican food. Not bad at all from this Indiana boy’s perspective!

After dinner Megi wanted to take some more pictures at the culture center while it was still light out so we headed south.

When it started to turn dark we started back for the apartment. This time I did get a chance to video some of the street performers since it wasn’t as late as the night before. Very entertaining. In my opinion, they are doing something to earn tips, but Megi is still insistent that I not give any of them money. 🤣

Since it was early afternoon back home, I got a chance to video chat very briefly with Vivian before she insisted on talking with her Mama. She’s having a great time with Meemo and they’re doing lots of fun things together to keep her little mind occupied.

I also got a chance to chat with Eli who is at home, giving up his time at camp this week, to do the adult thing for a chance at an internship at Endress+Hauser. I really am very proud of him for the sacrifices that he is making for his long-term plans. He’s working in a department where one of his colleagues just quit so he’s having to pick up the extra work load and he is very frustrated at the thought of working so hard this summer only to be passed up for the internship. I don’t see how that could happen, but it’s a possibility. Hang in there Eli, just a couple of more weeks.

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