Week of 6-23

Sunday

After Club Yalta on Saturday night, getting up was more difficult than during the monotonous days of the week.Dale slept in while I was tempted by an offer of coffee across the street from the Russian Church, which we had visited earlier.Illiyana, our local tour guide, has coffee there every Sunday after church.Onda, the coffee shop, had expensive coffee and snacks, due to its proximity to the "touristy" part of Sofia.The coffee was the closest thing to American Coffee I have had so far.

Afterwards we started walking around and decided to do a couple things on "the list".We went to a local indoor market with higher quality food products. They make an outstanding olive paste that tastes pretty good on bread.We headed through town and went to another part of town to a small falafel stand.Illiyana knew the guys and they gave us a little extra than we normally would have gotten.After the 3:00 lunch I went home to make sure Dale had eaten.

During the week

Same thing as last week.Not much happened.Work is pretty boring.There is a lack of direction, and we aren't learning a whole lot.On Wednesday Angela took Dale to a traditional Bulgarian performance.We also met up with one of the girls from Romania, who was in town on business. After the concert we went out for a few drinks but decided to call it a night since we all had to get up early for work the next morning.

Friday

After work Didi picked us up from work.We then picked up her mother and Illiyana.We drove for about an hour and a half and stopped at a nice little roadside café for dinner.We didn't get to Pleven until 10:30, but still decided to see it by night.As with the other small town of Eastern Europe, Pleven was similar.The downtowns consisted of pedestrian streets surrounded by little shops.The area was also well maintained.There were a few clubs and bars but not too many considering the size of the city.

Saturday

Pleven seemed particularly hotter than Sofia.I am not sure what the actual temperature was. Everyone kept saying it would get to 42C the next day and feel like 45C.40C is 104 and I am positive it did not make it to 40C.It was hot but not that hot.Nonetheless it was a sweaty night w/o A/C.Didi prepared a big breakfast for us, the biggest one so far.We cruised around town a little and walked down the city center during the day.There was also a nice series of artificial waterfalls that were nice.After seeing the center again we headed over to the Panorama.The panorama is a 360 painting on a wall with replica and real artifacts from the battle littering the"battlefield".The panorama depicts the turning point of the Russian-Turkish war over Bulgaria.We paid a little extra and got tour guide.This helped out a lot, as she explained much more than we could have gotten from the display.After the panorama we headed back to the city to visit the museum where the peace treaty was signed.We the grabbed lunch and headed the Veliko Turnovo.

Upon arrival we were warmly greeted by Ivan's parents.We received a tour of the house and garden/farm.The house was large compared to city houses.It was also very clean and tidy.Ivan's dad had to go to work later that evening, so he didn't have a chance to teach us the proper Rakia drinking techniques.We did have a delicious dinner consisting of salad, homegrown rabbit, stuffed peppers, and rice.I had no idea how much meat was on rabbit and how good it is.I asked Mrs. Dimitrova if she named the rabbits as a joke, but she does!The one we were having was named one ear because he had one ear that stood up and one ear that lay down. He was good mmm.After a 2 hour dinner we went out and walked around the town a little bit.The town is built in a valley and is very scenic.There are many restaurants that are built on the side of the mountain overlooking the city.We ran across a "Tequila Bar" and I convinced the girls to go.After trying to teach Illiyana how to take a tequila shot, we decided to call it a night.