Bulgarian Daze

Sadly, of all the years Mark is able to fulfill his lifelong dream, it is the ONE year with very little snow. So we were a bit worried that there wouldn’t be really any snow to ski on. The day we arrived, Mark found a ski shop (he needed to rent some boots), and they advised him to ski the glaciers. The best snow was there.

Well, glacier sounded a little intimidating to me. After all, I’ve only been skiing less than 10 times (the last time was more than 5 years ago!) and I barely reach intermediate status. So the first day we skiied Axamer-Lizum, a large and popular resort that seemed to have a lot of beginner and intermediate runs. Here’s what it looked like:

And here’s what we looked like:

I spent a good portion of the first morning trying to remember how to turn without going into the “wedge” position. As time went on, I became more successful, but those first couple of runs were rough! By the end of the day, I felt pretty good.

On the second day, we went close to the glacier, to a place called Schlick 2000. This is where we learned a truth about European skiing. The first lift line is LONG and miserable, primarily because a gondola takes you from the bottom of the mountain, where there is no snow, all the way to the top, where the snow pillows into fluffy mounds. But after that first wait, the runs are long and you hardly wait the rest of the day.

On days 3 and 4, we went to the first glacier called Stubaier Glacier. It was FANTASTIC there. Of course you are imagining a glassy, icy surface. No. That’s not what it was. But when the snow falls on to a glassy surface, it stays cold and surprisingly dry. This was by far our favorite place. Besides the long runs (one was 10 kilometers–6.6 miles long, and you know we had to do that…at the end of the day…perhaps not our finest idea), there was a fun park with a timed slalom run and ski jumps. In case you were wondering, Mark’s time was 37 seconds. I opted out of that place. It was beneath me you know.

(That’s me!)

And the last day we skiied, we headed for the other glacier, Khutai. This one was not so great. It was on the other side of the mountain and the snow was not so nice. In the morning it was all icy and by the afternoon it was so sticky that I would actually stop without trying to. You would think with my comet-like speed that would be impossible. Plus, by now, our legs were barely functioning. It was like two rubberbands walking. So we stopped an hour early, ate lunch and cruised the town. Oh! And there was this beautiful lake there:

We skiied between 5 and 7 hours each day, turning our flabby bodies into the very images of Adonis. Well. Kind of. We would have looked like that if we would have just stayed away from those pastries and sausages….

**Remember to check for the daily updates in the gallery section!  I am adding albums/photos daily until you have seen all 10,000 pictures Mark took!**

Really, Austria was so great and there is so much to say, that you would fall asleep if I put it all in one post. So, I will stretch it out a bit. We will begin with the town in which we stayed: Innsbruck.

It all started when Mark was a young boy skiing the world-famous Southern California slopes. He dreamt of moving to Europe and spending his days swooshing through the Alps. And so, since we are living in Europe, what better time to fulfill his boyhood dreams?

We knew this trip would be the granddaddy of all vacations. I mean, think about it. Europe is expensive, Austria is expensive, and skiing is expensive. So, if you do the math, expensive+expensive+expensive=GRANDDADDY VACATION. We’ve sacrificed all year to save up, including no frivolous gifts and no buying anything that is not an absolute necessity.

At first, Mark was indecisive as to whether we should ski the Swiss Alps or the Austrian Alps. But, based on snow reports extensive research he chose Austrian Alps. And you know we couldn’t just go to some podunk village. Oh no, my friends. We had to go to Innsbruck, the host of the 1964 Winter Olympics, because apparently in his boyhood dreams, Mark was also an Olympian.

And so we flew into Innsbruck in the middle of the day. Yep. Dropped out of the Alpine sky and into town. The first thing we noticed, especially after having lived in a large, rather dirty city for so long was that Innsbruck was clean! So, so, so clean. Like ZERO garbage or litter anywhere. The buildings all looked freshly painted and they had little adornments on them, like embellishments around the windows or paintings of religious figures. Here’s what the streets looked like:

And people everywhere were riding bikes. In fact, I think there were almost more bikes than cars.

The first and last days we were there we spent our time cruising the town. It isn’t very big and all the action is right in the center, which was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. Perhaps because it is in the mountains, or maybe because there are fewer cars, I don’t know exactly why, but the air felt clean and fresh.

Of course, there are signs of Olympics past everywhere. There is an Olympic ice track where all the speed skating goes on. There is also a HUGE, GINORMOUS ski jump that you can see from town and lights up at night. One funny story we heard is that when you take off from the ski jump, you have an amazing view of….the cemetery. Funny, huh? Perhaps a little ironic? Since…you know…you could DIE doing that sport…

Anyways, it was pretty clear that Innsbruckians are proud of their town and take care of it. Since they love it, we decided we would, too. And we did! So much that I could barely leave it.

**Innsbruck and some scenic shots now available for viewing in the Gallery. More pictures to come in daily installments. **

We’re back…and all our limbs are still attached and in one piece, so bonus! During most of the trip, I gave Mark control of the camera. Big mistake. HUGE, actually. The boy took one million photos. Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but he did literally take 256 of them. Well, maybe a few were mine, like 27 of them–but the rest were his. So, I’m in the process of downloading, naming, and importing them into the gallery here, and I am guessing it will take most of the day. But I am determined to get it all done before I forget everything. So check back later today and there should be a decent post and some photos. I hope.  In the meantime, here we are, doing our own version of the Sound of Music.  I know, I know.  We are awesome.

Mark paid for one day of internet here in Innsbruck, so I figured I would steal a few minutes to give you a quick update.  In a word, this place is AWESOME!!!  We are loving it here.  So far we have skiied three days in three different places.  Today we skiied on a glacier and even though we had to wait an hour to get up to the top of the mountain (the lifts up to the mountain are not always so efficient and there were a lot of people), we loved it on the glacier, and chances are, we will spend the better part of the rest of the week there.  The weather was perfect, the snow was perfect, and there are a ton of slopes to ski.  One of the runs was 10 kilometers long, and you just know I HAD to do that one.  Plus, they have a little Olympic park there and Mark likes to do the jumps.  I also saw him eyeing the timed slalom course set up….

Our hotel is quaint and cute and serves excellent breakfasts and dinners, which are included in our deal.  So….all in all….as long as I don’t break a leg or we don’t get sick, this vacation will probably go down as one of the finest ever.  We have lots of pictures and little stories to tell, but I will save them for later….

Until then….signing off from Austria (birthplace of Ahhhhnood Scwarzenegger, our governator).

Remember this??When I pretended to be Sound of Music on Vitosha Mountain??

Well, I’m off to re-live the moment, except in the actual country…kind of.  We are heading to Austria–I’ll wait while you locate it on the map–in the morning (tonight your time in the States).  Only, we won’t actually be re-living the Sound of Music.  We will be skiing for the next 8 glorious days at this place.

Mark is fulfilling his lifelong dream to ski the Alps, or ski anywhere in Europe, and since we apparently brought all the San Diego sunshine to Bulgaria, we have to leave the country to find any snow.  Oh yeah, and because our tourist visa expires tomorrow, we HAVE to leave the country.  Ah, the joy of the visa…forcing a ski vacation down our throats.
So, the blog will be empty for about a week and a half.  How will you fill the time?  Well…check out the pictures in the Gallery if you haven’t done so recently, try a Sudoku puzzle, visit the Logan Elementary web site and see what’s new there, post some comments here so I can read them when I return, go read other people’s comments…..just some ideas.  But come back in a couple of weeks.  I’ll be up and blogging again, with fresh pictures from my Olympic ski career, or the leg cast–whichever happens first.

Bon voyage!

Surely you are wondering how they celebrate Valentine’s Day over here.  And the answer is……… the same way as back home.  With goofy little stuffed animals, candy, chocolate, flowers, dinner, blah blah blah.  Everything is exactly same, minus the candy hearts that say “Fax Me”.  They don’t have those.  But not to worry, my friend “Kanye” (you’ll remember her from the Pazardzhik story???) was just in the States and brought me back a pack of hearts.  I didn’t go without.

Now you ask, how did Mark and I celebrate it?  Well, considering the fact that it is currently 8:00pm here and I am in his office typing this blog post as a means of avoidance from doing the dull, mind-numbing task he has asked me to do to help him with the business ought to give you a clue….We are not big Valentine’s people.  Plus we are leaving on an Austrian Alps ski vacation in a day, so we would prefer to save our money.  But, Mr. Mark Cassanova did bring me a cute bouquet of fresh flowers, including daffodils, and my favorite chocolate chip cookies to munch on while I type meaningless drivel on my computer.  And he was not forgotten!  I made him an egg-cellent egg breakfast (get it??? EGG-cellent.  heh.  heh.) this morning and I have been steadily delivering him mochas and sharing my cookies with him.

So….love on people, love on!  Happy Valentine’s Day!

No…it’s not some derivative of posh.  It’s how they say “mail” here.  (The “o” is long.)  And we love the poshta.  Well, actually, we love receiving poshta.  Sending it back to you people is a whole other story…

But about receiving.  I have this little quirk.  To be clear, I call it a quirk, Mark calls it an obsession.  I constantly check our mail box.  CONSTANTLY.  As in, every time I walk by it.  On the way out to go to the pool.  On the way in from the pool.  On the way out to go to the market.  On the way in from the market—even though my arms are loaded down with bags of tangerines.  You get the idea.  I will even check it at midnight on a Sunday night. And every time, Mark says:

“Babe, you don’t need to check it so often.  The mail only comes once a day.”

“But I might miss it”, I explain, as I squint my eyes to peep through the two little mailbox peep holes.

He sighs loudly, taps his foot, does whatever to show his intense impatience with my….habit.

And sure enough, every once in a while, I find GOLD.  A card from home.  I wave it before his eyes and dance a little jig.  Heh!  I got something.

“Come on, let me open it up!” he begs.  “You always get to open them.  Let me do it this time.”

“Nope!  Finders keepers, losers weepers”, I tell him.

I mean, really….if he wants to get the mail, he ought to check the mailbox more often, dontchya think?????

**p.s.  We got all your Christmas cards—in the middle of January, but we got them all.  Muchas gracias, or as they say here:  Blogodaria.  You guys are muy cool!

Mark has a business partner in Canada, who came here to Bulgaria for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He flew in on a Friday, and promptly received the Bulgarian welcome….drinks, dinner, more drinks, more drinks, more drinks. You get the idea. The next day Mark and I headed over to the apartment we had rented for Canuck-y (it was cheaper to rent an apartment for a couple of weeks than to stay in a hotel) to make sure he had food and basic necessities. We dropped off a sandwich, some bread, some liquid replenishment, and made plans to pick him up later in the evening for dinner and poker with the other partners in the company.

After a nice dinner and a friendly game of poker–which we lost….don’t ask!–we dropped Canuck-y back at his flat with the admonishment that he needed some rest to recover from the jet lag and we would get a hold of him the next morning. Mark and I went home and slept away.

Until 8:30 in the morning. When Canuck-y called us and informed us he hadn’t slept all night, he had met up with some of the employees AFTER we had tucked him in for the night, and they had gotten home at like 7:00ish in the morning. He said he would sleep another time, but for now, he wanted to go up Vitosha Mountain and see what there is to see. We agreed to meet him in an hour.

Exactly one hour later, we were at his building pressing the buzzer for him to let us in. No response. More pressing. No response. Calling the phone in his flat. No response. Finally, we got into the building as someone else came out, and we knocked and rang his doorbell. No response.

“Maybe he went out and about”, we thought, then quickly realized that could be dangerous. He does not know the city, nor a word of Bulgarian, nor does he have a cell phone. Should he get lost, he wouldn’t even know where he was staying, since he was staying in a flat and not a hotel. Things were not looking good.

Like any good detective, we decided to contact the people with whom he was last seen. They told us he had been fine, was just planning on taking a shower, and then they, too, were supposed to meet him to go up Vitosha. We explained that we couldn’t find Canuck-y and he wasn’t answering the door despite all the racket we were making.

“I’m 80% sure he is in there asleep”, explained the guy. Well….as any mathematician could tell you , that leaves 20% of uncertainty. And then my imagination began. I imagined him wandering the streets haphazardly, trying to find the Canadian (or even British) Embassy, which of course, would be closed on a Sunday. I imagined him dead in the flat and no one able to access his limp, lifeless body. And I did what any good wife would do….I alerted Mark to all my imaginings, instilling fear and worry where once there had been none.

And Mark did what any god friend would do. He flew into action. He called the property manager and asked for a key. The manager said he could get us one by…say….oh….4:00 in the afternoon (this was at, like 11:00 in the morning). And Mark said, “sounds great, I’ll see you then”. Yep. There he goes, whisking off to save people in an instant, Superman style.

I reminded Mark that Canuck-y could be DEAD in there, or off wandering the streets, and he could NOT be content just waiting FIVE FULL HOURS to find out. So, he sighed deeply, and reluctantly called the property manager right back and demanded politely asked for a key sooner. So a cleaning lady met him at 1:00 and let him in.

And what did he find? Yep. You guessed it. The Canuck, face down in his bed. Snoring. Heavily. Dead to the world.

Because, as it turns out….jet lag WILL win every time!

You know we are spoiled over there in the land of milk and honey. We can get milk and honey, and all manner of fruits and vegetables all year long. So…if I feel like having a nectarine in the dead of winter, I can get one. It will cost more, but I can get one.

That is not so true over here. Actually, not true at all. There are times I want a certain ingredient for dinner, and try as I might, I will not be able to find it. Take, for example, the bell pepper.

This item was a staple here all summer long, even into the fall. Hardly a dish was made without it. But when we came back after Thanksgiving, they had all vanished. Not a pepper in sight. There was a skinny looking cousin of the bell pepper—perhaps a chile of some sort???—but NO peppers.

And so I am learning to eat by what is in season. For example, now is the time here for mandarins/tangerines (though we are starting to come to the end of it). Every few days, I march over to my favorite market lady and buy a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of tangerines and eat them all.day.long. (As a matter of fact, I am munching on one as I write this.) Until they are gone. And then I march back. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

But here is my newest dilemma. Once the tangerines go away, what then? Because what I am seeing frightens me—a lot! I see radishes. Kids–you know what radishes are. You grow them for the Del Mar Fair in the summer. Tons and tons of radishes.

And who can eat a kilo of radishes? Not I! Can you imagine the heartburn? I get heartburn off one radish. A few, or even a kilo would make my chest burn with the fire of a thousand white hot suns. Oh, the anguish.

So…all you Julia Childs out there…help a sister out. 1. How can I make a radish not cause such heartburn? 2. What else can be done with the radish besides slice them into a salad or eat them with salt?

There are many, many things here that could make me C.R.A.Z.Y. What with the pickpocketing, the unknown mystery meats, the lady at the tomato stand yelling at me because I touched her goods….the list goes on and on.

But the thing that has really gotten to me, believe it or not, is living in a place with naked white walls. Besides the fact that I can see every single speck of dirt and dog slobber, it’s just so…..white. Hospital-y. Psycho ward-y. As if they are afraid that colorful walls would make the wacky Americans in the building (who work nights, walk a hound, and pick up his poop) even more wacky.

We made a pact when we moved here that we would minimize the amount of money we spent on household goods. It is not-so-smart to buy a bunch of stuff that I will only use/see for a year. So we have lived in naked white walls for nearly SIX solid months now.

And I just couldn’t take it any. more.! So I splurged. On fancy wall decorations:

I have also saved most of the cards people have sent us (you people ROCK, by the way, on sending us mail. Other American ex-pats here are jealous of our fan club. And we looooooooooooooooove getting mail!!) and made a little display of them–which also includes a photo sent by my niece/nephew of our other hound at home, Lola. We just need to bring back a picture of Dakota and we will be all set–to love our dogs from afar, while they have forgotten our very names.

And finally, so I can mark the days off with big red Xs keep track of the time here, I found a half-priced calendar.

Who knew this San Diegan would find a SURFING calendar in a land-locked, post-Communist, Eastern bloc country? Heh. Heh.

The entire cost of my interior design was $12 U.S. Dollars. I had to be cheap, you know…….because I spent all that time yesterday handing out cash to all the gypsies.