Well, it's the first day on continental Europe and Mom got pick-pocketed. We really have let our guard down, thinking we were safe in Europe. But every place has it's ups and downs, even home-sweet-home. In India and Africa, we were always on the look out, and I guess Mom's small, loose purse was just too tempting. Mom's perscription sunglasses were stolen along with her wallet - the thing is, both were useless to the person who took them. First of all, Mom's sunglasses have special lenses for people who need glasses. Odds are, whoever stole them doesn't. And the wallet didn't have any money, only personal stuff like post addresses and e-mailing IDs, plus a bunch of brochours and buisness cards. Besides that, Sofia is . . .
amazing. We met up with a friend's sister, Valentina, and she gave us a walking tour. We saw numorous churches and chapels, a pedestrian zone, a bath, and the communist building... Stuff like that. On the pedestrian zone, she showed us a store called 'Roses of Bulgaria' and bought me some soap. It smells so good! not to mention the ice cream shop... She bought us ice cream until we refused to have any more! I got three scoops and Birch five... It just made our day!
The next day we walked around a little and went into the art gallery, where there was only an exhibit on Bulgarian wine. Nevertheless, we went through. The displays showed the costumes, pictures of wines festivals, plastic immitations of how the grape vine grows and stuff like that. There were sheets of paper explaining the displays in the room. We took turns reading them, and my favorite one I will never forget was a little hall in which displayed many barrels. (Let me remind you, Bulgarians have their own language, so most of them don't speak very good english, and naturally you can find mistakes in some grammer or spelling.) On the laminated explinations they mistook the word 'vat' for 'butt' somehow... For example, it explained how they had to put a wooden board across the gap so they could walk over it... How they poured juices into it for preservation... And then how the juices flowed out at the other end into a bottle later on... I think you can imagine some things up, can't you?
When Mom and Dad went for wine tastings, a women came and showed us down to the kids craft room, where you could paint eggs or make felt flowers. Birch and I sat down and started rolling out some felt, and within five minutes, Mom was down and working beside us. It started raining so we stayed another two hours until we were all done. The women running the felt works showed us to her own tiny part of the art gallery, where everything was made of felt. Mom was so impressed and astonished, and ended up walking out with a gift of felt mittens! They are green with pink and orange swirls on them, and a belt-type thing to tighten them... It was so nice of the women, and she made Mom's day... It's crazy, though, that it's possible to be made from felt!
The rest of the day was spent in our hotel room, hanging out, but the next day Dad and I went to shop for Mom's birthday present, at the store called Roses of Bulgaria... The name explains exactly what we got her. Lip balm, perfume, shampoo and conditioner, hand cream, five different soaps... Everything she could want! She'll be SO surprised...
Bye,
Allie
The rest of the day was spent in our hotel room, hanging out, but the next day Dad and I went to shop for Mom's birthday present, at the store called Roses of Bulgaria... The name explains exactly what we got her. Lip balm, perfume, shampoo and conditioner, hand cream, five different soaps... Everything she could want! She'll be SO surprised...
Bye,
Allie
RSS Feed