"In Venice you're lost in 5 mins, with a map you're lost in 10"

Our most recent and most wonderful of all adventures was Venice Italy. I think I've decided that the way to travel is to take breaks in between. Maybe it was just because Venice was so wonderful but it seems that I enjoyed it a whole lot more than when we were on the cruise and had so much to see and do in so little time. It was just so fast that I didn't even have time to reflect on the things I saw and experienced and we were onto the next one. I guess I just had a chance to appreciate this trip. The anticipation, research, down time while you're there to take it in, and time to reflect afterwards...all of that makes a trip memorable.

Italians are loud. Italians are a very pretty people. Italians know how to dress themselves...and especially their children. So many times I thought..."I need to find that for when we have kids!!". I didn't find anything. I loved the people, I loved the language, I loved the architecture, I loved the coffee...and it was all on water! People buon giorno-ing back and forth out of their windows; out of their beyond beautiful windows that were on a one of a kind vicolo(if I'm not mistaken that is what they call their narrow streets) only they aren't really streets at all...they are canals! And sometimes a sidewalk. Women suspended outside their windows hanging their laundry on the clothesline. Talking loudly all the while, of course. Gondola men exchanging a few words as they row down a very narrow canal.They had to duck their heads on some of the smaller bridges. Every shop window held something of interest on the other side. Every alley (or vicolo) was worthy of a second glance. Every door and window even were valuable enough for a picture....ok maybe not a picture but at least a moment of admiration. Just beautiful...exactly like the movies portray it to be. I was so happy to simply be walking the streets. The views, the sounds; there was so much going on. There were quite a bit of squares in the city. Just a large open area with fountains and benches and outdoor restaurant seating usually. This is where the locals hung out it seemed. In the squares is where the mommies came and let their kids run free. Away from the water...makes sense. They sip on their cappuccinos as their boys kick soccer balls around and the girls...they would carry bags of confetti and toss it up in the air for fun. It was so interesting to me. I was wondering why all the squares were covered in confetti. I thought "it can't be from new years, it's almost Feb.". Coffee shops? There were a plenty; which were lively during the day. The same goes for wine bars at night.

When looking up things to see/do in Venice "getting lost" was on every list. Well we crossed that one off our list within 10 mins of getting off our bus. It was a bit frustrating at the moment, trying to find our hotel with our bags and to add to the fun...we hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was 10ish pm. Looking back...it was nice.:) when I asked our hotel man for a better map than what we had he said "in Venice you're lost in 5 mins, with a map you're lost in 10". Very truly spoken hotel man. We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out where we were. The streets...so small. The canals...look the same. And bridges....just one of 450!

We really enjoyed our 4 days of enchantment. Did a lot of walking and saw pretty much every site possible. We went to a few museums and we went to a theatre production! We learned all sorts of things about Venice at the show like the famous venetian masks all began when people would wear masks to protect themselves from the black plague! Interesting right? Learned all about the city's promiscuity and Casanova. He wasn't alone he had a buddy lord Byron, who claimed to have 200 different women in 200 nights. I guess it was a common thing to do.

Our weekend passed too quickly, we enjoyed it greatly! I especially liked having a couple coffees a day. Interesting little fact: Drinking coffee at the counter was half the price compared to if you were to sit at a table! And the premade food in the windows...about 1 euro cheaper.That's what they do for the locals I take it...but we knew their tricks. I will miss those Italians and their exchanges of the ciaos and arrivedercis from a few shops away. I would definitely visit again. We were just a few days shy of when they have their annual carnival. When they have a huge citywide party and people all wear masks! Lasts about 2 weeks I think. How fun would that be? Next time we're in Venice it'll be during carnival.

We took a ton of pictures that are up on our photobucket...take a looksie. The link is in a few of our previous posts.

A couple more things of interest:
Floating farmers market was a hoot.
Garbage day was very amusing.
Fed ex guys had it way tough.
Construction was waayyy more complex than on land.
And I'm pretty sure we found Gepetto's shop. And he was inside! What a treat!:)

Commencement of 2012

This post should have been written a month ago! Due to the fact that we havent posted in a while…this post will, once again, be super long! And once again I apologize.

Our Bulgarian New Years. We met the new year up in the mountains, Vitosha Mountain, with a group of very wonderful people. We really enjoyed our time. It was very cold and there was so much snow!!! It was sort of a retreat for all the youth in the church's association. So half of the people were new to us. They were so friendly and accepting of new people though. We're really happy to have met new people and made new friends. Even though we will most likely only see each other on facebook. The weekend was filled with speakers and games and playing in the snow. AND very many fireworks, some of which we couldn’t see because they went off higher than the fog so it just lit up the sky in different colors. Still cool. Mike was very excited about the fireworks, particularly ones that are illegal in the states.

The last few weeks we did quite a bit of resting. Its been really cold and the church's missions have kind of slowed down a little. The orphanage trips were on hold due to the holidays, and there havent been any random projects assigned to us like in December. So we have been sleeping in.:) We hang out on the internet…I look up recipes and experiment in the kitchen, read up on health and nutrition, find new exercises for us to do on those days when we're indoors all day. (mike refuses to do pilates with me) Mike does a lot of reading; History, theology, news, sports. He's been playing with some video editing software he downloaded.  Just trying to keep busy. We should have used all that time to study Bulgarian. We did some of that but not enough. Its been really great to have so much time to just read and talk to each other. We spend every single minute of the day together…J that of course comes with its difficulties. Its really good for us though. Last week we had our first Bulgarian lesson. A lady from the church will give us weekly lessons. Sweet sweet lady! I plan to study really hard and make Mike do the same!

We have a personal tour guide, Yavor! He's taken us on a tour of the city and to a few museums. We did a historical tour of Sofia and also a modern one. I liked both but the modern one was a little more fun. There are very many interesting places here. Like this place called "the apartment". Its an apartment converted into a really neat hang out. Every room is decorated differently and in a very unique style. Kind of equivalent to what a hipster coffee shop would be but its not so focused on coffee. They have food and smoothies and sweets. They show movies every week or so. And the best part…all the workers I've met speak very good english! Anyway, that is my favorite but there were a lot that Yavor showed us. Vegan restaurants and cool looking music venues were among them. There is a lot to do you just have to know where to go. These unique places arent  very well advertized and I think its on purpose. But luckily for us Yavor knows!!

We've also been trying to deal with Mike's Hungarian citizenship stuff. Now that he's been officially accepted he needs to go do the swearing in. He got an appointment date to do the swear in…it was for a few days ago…in LA! He couldn’t really be there so he's been talking to all these different consulate offices and trying to figure out the best/cheapest/easiest/fastest option. He had to send a written request to LA to change the location. LA office will send his file to the Hungarian embassy in Sofia and he will swear in here if all goes well.  We don’t know what the deal is with me yet though. I need some sort of documentation that will let me stay here as well. What we were told when Mike started the process is that I get membership the EU. Well we discovered that is not the case. It looks like I'll need to apply for a spousal visa. I may have to apply for different visas for different countries which would require me to have documents that are back home. Its all very complicated and confusing. I hope we can figure it out soon so that I can stop worrying. Our allotted 90 days in Bulgaria is coming up really soon and we were hoping to have all the paperwork that allowed us to stay in order. I'm sure it'll be ok though. J

We were in Venice this past weekend!!! But I will post about that another day. 

More pictures added

Follow this link and look in the Sofia folder and the sub folder in it to see all the new pictures.

http://s1196.photobucket.com/profile/mikeandalla/index

The two weeks

The last two weeks were extremely busy for us and as a result we did not get a chance to write another post until now. In our last post we gave a quick description of what we would be doing and for the most part it came about just as we expected.

There was a lot of traveling, puppets, and gifts which proved to be a lot of fun for the children and the puppeteers. If there were leftover gifts the van got to share some the goodies inside. Alla was one of the main characters in the puppet show and I was camera man and sound guy. We all helped set up the puppet theater and tear it all down but since all i can say to the kids is "ne Bulgarski" which means no Bulgarian, I figured its better for me to take pictures than interact with all the children. All the groups varied in size and character depending on what part of the country we were in. Closer to Turkey there were a lot of Muslims. Our largest group of kids was at an elementary school which we estimated had 250 kids. Once they all knew they would get presents after the show it was madness! We also had a few groups that were much smaller in size especially in the orphanages. The typical size there was probably 20-30 children which seemed a lot more manageable than 250 little animals. We spent more time with the orphans, typically opening the presents with them and getting the opportunity to see a child stuff his face with a large chocolate bar. The second week was similar but we spent most of the time in Sofia and retirement homes. I also got a chance to play one of the puppet roles which was fun.

Overall the puppet shows were a success and we pray that some of these children will take something from them that will lead them down a different path than many of the present day Bulgarians. It would probably be helpful if we explained what the puppet shows are about. For that I will hand it over.... popcorn, Alla.

Hello all!!!:) Well....the main character, a little boy, is on the hunt for true happiness after his grandpa tells him that the Bible he always reads is just that. The boy then comes across people and asks their opinion. One guy tells him its in money and then a pretty girl says its in beauty. Another character says its in strength and yet another tells him its in wisdom. Then, the character i played comes along and tells him about Jesus...in which he can find strength and wisdom and beauty. Its really quite cute. I enjoyed being a part of this wonderful program they put on. It was interesting that they let us come to their schools and day cares and orphanages and openly speak of Jesus. I guess if you bring presents they don't really care. I would always watch the faces of the teachers to see if I could tell by that if they were unhappy or something. I didn't really see anything crazy. There were a few ladies with attitudes but, surprisingly to me, it went really well.

We got to see a lot of the countryside and some mountainy areas of Bulgaria as we were driving around to do the shows. It really is a very beautiful country. Its nature is amazing!! We drove down almost to Greece and almost up to Romania. We didn't go as far east as i would have liked to see but im sure we'll get a chance in these next 4 mos or so. It'll be better to go to the black sea when its warmer anyway.

I got to see my favorite little girl again...i helped her open her present! She's still just as amazing as i remembered her to be. The orphanages were definitely more enjoyable, for me anyway. I just didnt like handing the gifts out to the kids as they were walking out the door. Doesnt really leave time for me to take it all in and connect in any way. Or even to see how the kids differ from kids in other cities. The gypsy kids were interesting to see too. I'll have Mike put up pics on photobucket, you'll be able to tell which ones are the gypsies.



Christmas has come and gone. It was kinda a weird one. Even though it was good, its just not the same without family. We have a tree but didnt do gifts for one another. There was just no time, and mike has all the money and we're together all the time. It wouldnt have worked well even if we tried. We spent christmas eve at Sasha and Oksana's with 2 other couples. It was time well spent. Christmas day we went to church and to a church-wide lunch afterwards. Hung out with our new best friends: Ira, Sveta, and Marina...our fellow Kostinbrodians. (the little city 10km outside of Sofia in which we live) And then we went to church again. For New Years the plan is to head up to Vitosha Mountain (if im not mistaken) for their youth retreat. That should be lots of fun. We have a lot of fun with the youth, even though Mike doesnt know whats going on. I can follow conversation but its hard to follow jokes and after a while my mind gets tired from all the paying close attention and translating in my head and i just zone out. With most of them we have no problem communicating! I feel like we'll never learn Bulgarian because everyone speaks English or Russian when speaking to us. We leave for the cabins on friday of this week.

Thursday is the last day that the puppet show will be played. Emmanuel (pastor) is taking us with him to one last school for the show and gifts. It'll only be us 3. That will definitely be a challenge...it takes 7 people to do the puppet show. Ive played 2 roles but this will be a little much. I'm sure it will be fine, but kind of chaotic. I cant wait!:)

So one more day of rest for us and then we're back on the move. I always try to be brief and it doesnt work, sorry for the ramblings. Love you all! Miss you all! Thanks for reading!

Settling in Sofia

We've been in Bulgaria 3 weeks now. We've been busy with all sorts of things. Mike more so than me. They have him running around a lot. He's had this lingering cold for the past 2 weeks but now he is feeling better. He hasn't had a chance to get over it because it's just been go, go, go. He's so great! Doing all these things with a smile on his face and without a single complaint. My cousin Sasha, or "Sasho" as the Bulgarians say, does not stop moving from sun up to like midnight, no joke! He's constantly on the move. Between work and his ministry and his kids and getting their business going and doing things around the house he literally only sits down to eat and even then its only for a few minutes. And I thought Mike ate fast. So Mike has been his wingman. I've mostly been helping with babysitting (what else is new? right?); But also with their store. Sasha and His wife Oksana run a thrift store and the opening of their second store was this last week. There was a lot of work with fixing up the space and getting everything in there and up and in an organized fashion. And getting it ready for opening day. Not to mention decorating for the holiday season. It's been really nice getting to know his family. I knew them from their annual trip to California (during which they come to my parents one of the evenings they are in town) but only enough to keep up with how old the kids are pretty much. The kids teach me Bulgarian. Mark's children's books and Diana's Disney channel are also a great help! I'm still scared to speak it but I am getting a lot more comfortable with the understanding part, when people speak slowly.

Thursday and Friday of last week and this week were spent plugging into some of the ministries they have going. This girl Mariana goes around to the really poor gypsy villages and teaches the kids to read and write. There are no laws that require kids to go to school. Although most kids do go to school there are a lot of children that do not, and have not...ever. It was really sad to see girls, bigger than me, that could not copy the simplest of letters from a piece of paper onto the board. Reminded me of toddlers that haven't developed their fine motor skills. That's exactly what it was though, they just hadn't ever used a writing utensil. One of the girls had her nails painted she has to have fine motor skills to do that and they probably use silverware. But I'm sure it's different. Mariana says it was really difficult to get them civilized enough to create a classroom setting. Things like waiting their turn to speak and staying in their seats were foreign to them. It was good when we joined them though, it looked and felt like a typical classroom. She constantly needs to remind them to wear clean clothes and clean themselves before they come to school. I imagine it being very difficult for Mariana, she does this on her own. There were approximately 15 kids; all different ages and different levels of understanding. She has 3 groups of kids and meets with each one 2x a week for about 3 hrs each time. Thank God for people like her. She was so loving and patient with them. I was in awe! Another ministry we were able to help out with was visiting orphanages. One was for kids ages 0-7 and the other kids 7-18. I have met orphan kids before but I have never been to an orphanage. That was quite the experience. It was very difficult for me to see all those kids without a home or a loving family environment. Especially the one with the younger children. It felt and looked like a giant preschool. They had to like herd the kids along. Even if you gave the slightest amount of attention to one of them they would just be beaming. Or some of them didn't even know how to react; one of the many things that made me cry. Being in an orphanage and seeing how the kids live and how many forgotten kids there are is difficult for anyone to see I'm sure but with my exceptional love and compassion towards children it was especially hard. We went to the older orphanage 2 times and to the younger one once. I definitely need to prepare myself emotionally for when I see the little kids again. I have a favorite little girl there. But I forgot her name:( from the moment I walked into the room where they were all waiting for us I noticed her. It wasn't even the fact that she was really cute, it was more so how she acted. She would like blush every time I smiled at her. A lot of the kids are pushy and clingy but not this one. I don't know if they are taught this but when we were leaving they started to say "az iskam s tebe" which translates " I want to go with you". I did not know how to react. It was very difficult to fall asleep that night. I could not get them out of my head. Seeing a real orphanage definitely had a huge impact on me. I hope we get a chance to help them to a higher degree. We go back there on the 20th with our Christmas program but I want to see if I can discuss with someone about spending a little bit more time there and maybe on a regular basis. I would like to volunteer to help them with their daily routine, not just come and hang out for an hour every Friday. They only brought out the kids that were 3+ but they have little babies! That is going to break my heart!

The next two weeks will be spent visiting 25 different orphanages/old people homes in the city of Sofia and a lot of surrounding cities. We will leave as early as 630 am and not return as late as 10pm. We will make as many as 3 visits a day and we hear we will be doing quite a bit of driving. We will go with a Christmas program and with gifts. We spent all of yesterday preparing gifts and practicing a puppet show for the kids. We are really excited to take part in this.

We have been in our own apartment 1 week now. It is now beginning to feel like we're actually living here as opposed to visiting. We also have our own car. We will post more information about our new lives very soon. Now we're off to sleep as we have an early morning tomorrow and for the next two weeks.

More Pictures

As a result of several requests we decided to put more pictures online for you all to see. Click on the link below and it will take you to our online photo album. Then click on "All Albums" to see all the pictures. Enjoy!

http://s1196.photobucket.com/profile/mikeandalla/index

We will be posting more about Bulgaria soon so stay tuned.

From Rome to our new home

We didnt mention one of our stops. The one after Israel, and before Malta. Maybe because we were unintentionally trying to put it out of our minds. It was to Limmasol, Cyprus. We had a pretty interesting mishap occur. I'll start with saying that Cyprus was nice but we werent that impressed. We determine how much we like a city by the amount of pictures we take....we only took like 20. The weather was pretty nasty and it seemed like the beach was the main attraction but we didnt get to enjoy that. Every city we've been to has a ton of Cathedrals. It seems that every where you look there is another pretty catholic church. So when we saw a church that looked a little different (christian), we showed a little bit of interest. The people inside(setting up for the service) got super excited and convinced us to come in. I kinda wanted to sit in on the church service from the beginning but once we got to talking and they told me that a big chunk of the congregation are Bulgarians and that the service is translated into Bulgarian and that worship was in Bulgarian I really wanted to check it out. So we came back when it was time for church. I was really impressed with how much of the Bulgarian I understood. That made me happy. Well here is the issue....we were cruising back and forth between time zones so there was a little confusion on my part as to when to change it. The previous night we got a notice that said to set our clocks back an hour. So I told Mike to change it. Not realizing that the bulletin was saying to change them the next night, not the night they gave us the notice. Well we get to the church...late. Mike catches that the clocks at the church are off and wants to head back early just in case. Well I agree that we need to be cautious but I really wanted to say bye so i kept dragging it out so that i got a chance to tell them we were leaving. The bulgarians and the other ladies were so so great to us. We were like stars at church, they were so happy to have guests. Just didnt wanna leave with out saying thank you for being so welcoming and things. But I'm stupid, and need to listen to my husband. By the time we got to the shuttle bus station it was 130...last shuttle left at 1!! Everyone was supposed to be on board at 130...so we get a taxi to take us to the port. Freaking out the whole way of course! They were putting the ramp up when they saw us running towards the ship....oh my goodness...I've never felt such relief. Last ones on board...and like 10 mins before the ship left. I told Mike to remind me of this whenever Im being stupid. I cant believe i almost got us left behind in Cyprus! Well that is the craziest thing thats happened to us so far...thought i should share...sorry so lengthy.

and popcorn: Mike :)

After our wonderful time in Malta our next stop was in Messina, Italy which is a city on the island of Sicily. Like all the coastal cities in Italy we have been to, there are large hills right before the water so you can get a very nice view if you go up the hill and that's what we did. We were able to see the mainland Italy from the hill, and the passage of water between Sicily and Italy was also very beautiful to cruise through. In the city we did a lot of walking and sightseeing for the five hours of time we had there.

Messina was our last stop before we arrived in Rome this past Thursday. We spent 3 days of what seemed like nonstop touring of the city. We had a blast but Alla got worn out from all the walking so now she needs new shoes again! After roaming Rome (waited a long time to say that:)) we were ready to leave as we saw all the sights and got guided tours of the Colosseum and the Vatican/St. Peters Basilica. It was pretty crazy to see and understand how great of a city Rome once was.

We had some crazy neighbors in our hotel. They arrived at about 1 am the first night we were there. Yes we knew when they came...and when they went. I don't think I've ever come across such inconsiderate people. It was as if they were in our room, that's how loud it was. They had a kid...the kid could not be normal. I've seen and heard my share of kids and never have I heard crying like this. It was more of a scream. And it lasted for an hour at a time!!! While we're trying to sleep. There were two families, on either side of us! So they kept slamming doors, going back and forth between the 2 rooms; shouting things as if it's day. They were from India is what we gathered. They were on Indian time is what we assume, they stayed up SUPER late. Really thin walls or really loud people, not really sure. Mike banged on the wall but that only helped for about as long as the banging lasted. Then that child started right back up again. Besides the fact that we had to be on their schedule (couldn't go to sleep until they were) we liked our hotel. Actually, there were Mosquitos too. Tiny ones that buzz in your ear. We didn't see any we just heard them when lights were out....smart little suckers! I woke up last day of touring with a puffy eye! I got bit on the eyelid, which caused major puffing! This happens to me way more than to the average person! I would say around 10 or so times, since I was mid teen years. Big juicy eyelids of mine. So "I wore my sunglasses at night"....haha. No, just all day.
We also realized while we were in Rome that the background on our blog is a picture of Rome! I'm really happy we figured it out because lidiya was giving us a hard time about not knowing. There ya go Lida! :)

We are now writing from Sofia where its cold and its not even the coldest months. I need to go shopping for warm clothes. We got dropped off at my cousin Sasha's house where the heat was off since last week wednesday. Sasha and Oksana are in Germany until tomorrow. It took us 24 hours to get the house to a comfortable temperature. The plan is to stay here for about 3 months, maybe longer. We hope to get an apartment but we dont know when that will be. We have a dinner date...our new friends that picked us up from the airport are having us over for dinner. Gonna go get ready.

Mike and Alla