Ice ice baby

What a long and exhausting week it has been! The amount of work I had to cope with often made me wonder how long I will manage to do this kind of work. Not having fully recovered from the cold and trying to fit in all daily/weekly challenges and missions was pretty tiring, but I have accomplished everything. Moreover, my supervisor(s) have told me I am doing my job great and that they are all very very satisfied with me, which has given me quite a motivation boost. I have also managed to squeeze in two shopping evenings. I have finally bought an audio course to learn Bulgarian with a very promising title Learn Bulgarian the easy way and a camera. Having a fully-functioning camera again is a lovely feeling. I've been very touristy the whole day today and it definitely is one of the best ways to relax and recharge my batteries. 

Vitosha Boulevard, Palace of Justice, Aleksander Levski Cathedral, Chupa Chups :), Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard, pavements of Sofia, streets signs, "Attention, avalanche!", Tsar Osvoboditel Boulevard 

(from left to right, top to bottom)

I have been admiring all these majestic buildings ever since I have arrived to Sofia. The Aleksander Nevski Cathedral is enormous and the Palace of Justice also. Having entered the Saint Nikolas Russian Church and the Hagia Sofia Church made me feel like an intruder and I've just quickly looked around and escaped. I guess having such a feeling made me refrain from entering the Aleksander Nevski Cathedral. Therefore, I have just continued roaming the streets admiring all the beauty around me. After walking for a few hours I went home and decided to take another walk in the evening which has (not) been a smart idea. I might have mentioned already how slippery Sofia streets get when the temperature drops below zero. I have tested that a few times already, but not as hard as tonight. Firstly, I slipped on a side-walk I had no idea it was icy and somehow landed on my left hip which was perfect considering I was holding my (brand new) camera in my right hand. Luckily, I have enough flesh on my hips, so the pain wasn't (isn't) so bad. However, my second fall, in which I have landed on my back on a side-walk I know how dangerously slippery it is as it's covered with the thinnest layer of ice possible, was much more painful as I have first landed on my left arm with a full swing and only then on my back. Fortunately, I haven't hurt myself more, but somehow one of the key chains on my keys (which were in my bag) broke as I had landed on stone-hard pavements. I have no idea how I have managed to do that, but what's done is done. My little cute colourful fish I bought in Paris a few years ago has had its head crushed.  

However, despite all the drama it was a lovely walk and I managed to get a few good shots of Sofia by night. The buildings that seem big during the day are even bigger during the night, being all illuminated and almost intimidating. 

In the evening I also saw some kind of a changing of the presidential guard. In front of the Sofia's Presidential Palace two guards are standing throughout the whole day and as I was passing by at 19.30 they have started walking forward (with their legs up high, of course), then turning towards and away from each other, and walking back. The whole ceremony was over in two or three minutes and ended very funny as the guards just stopped in front of the Presidency closed door and didn't move anymore. Having seen the show is over, I moved on. I have heard the changing of the guard takes place a few times during the day and I really want to see it again, possibly in a fuller version, if it exists. 

I know this post is a bit short, but I'll just let the photos do the talking. Check them out here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150551347700877.371135.630150876&type=1&l=0964b7cfe3. 

Now, I'll slowly go to bed hoping to get some good sleep before another crazy Monday. 

Speed of Light

For the last two, three weeks, I have this constant feeling like I go to bed on Monday night, but I wake up on Friday morning. Time has been passing unbelievably quickly, mostly due to my (lovely) work schedule. Working from 10 a.m. till 7 p.m. isn't exactly human-friendly. I'm also blaming the weather as it has not only been arctic cold, but it's also snowing every other day so unless I wake up into a cloudy snowflake-dazzling morning, I know there's nothing but biting Siberian iciness waiting for me outside, so it's quite a challenge  convincing myself I do enjoy this weather (trust me, the challenge is never met no matter how hard I try). These low temperatures have also caused my immune system to fail me a bit, so at the moment I'm fighting a bad cold and occasional voice loss with loads of fresh lemonade, tea and my best friend these days, paracetamol. 


However, I do have a few secrets to reveal. I'm sure you've at least once in your life found yourself in a situation when you get hungry after a night out, it's 3 or 4 a.m. and a tasteless McDonalds hamburger or a Burger-King's plastic-like cheeseburger isn't exactly your cup of tea. Well, in Sofia things are different. Divaka (Дивака), a 24-hour restaurant, kindly saves you from a growling stomach when you fancy a hot soup, a juicy steak or a healthy fresh salad in the middle of the night. What is more, the ambient is very welcoming, the staff is polite, prices are low and the food is tasty. Seriously, what more could you wish for? Divaka has quickly made it onto my Favourite places in Sofia list and unless some major incident takes place, it will stay there.


My other secret is actually an on-going story about all non-English speaking Bulgarians. I have to admit, I have expected employees in pharmacies, banks, post offices, public-transport offices would generally speak English, but ... Ah well, I was so wrong. The other day when my internet wasn't working, I called the technical support and they sent me one of their technicians who didn't speak English. Considering I don't speak Bulgarian, it was a pretty funny situation when he arrived. I just pointed at the computer and let him do his job. When he finished, I asked Internet? and with thumbs up and a smile on his face he said Internet!. Yes, funny indeed. Then, today I went to the pharmacy to get something for the cold and as the pharmacist didn't speak English, I just showed what's wrong with me and I got what I needed. It's not that it bothers me whether people speak English or not, it's just that I never know if I'll be able to get things sorted out. Sometimes it really takes a lot of effort, but generally people do their best to understand me. 


Still, I can't depend just on English all the time and hope people will always try to understand me. What's more, I have met quite a few people who were so firmly convinced Slovenian and Bulgarian are so very similar they refused to speak English and just spoke to me in Bulgarian and I had no idea what they were saying even though I was able to understand a third or a half of what they were saying. Therefore, one of my challenges for this week is starting to learn Bulgarian. I've been searching for free online programmes and looking at audio courses in bookshops and there's not so much to choose from, actually. So far I've found just two audio courses in one bookshop and the online courses could be defined as "search in progress". I'll most likely settle down for one of the audio courses and they exploit all my kind Bulgarian colleagues for extra explanations, so by summer I should be able to speak, read and write ... on, let's say, an intermediate level. That's my goal for now, but it may change depending on how the learning goes.


The other challenge of the upcoming week is more a mission than a challenge - a new camera. I hope I manage to buy it sometime after work this week. I really miss taking photos and I have already found so much beauty to be captured and shared. Sofia is just magnificent in snow and especially during the night. Hopefully my next post will be a photo-post, so keep your fingers crossed my camera-related mission doesn't turn into a mission impossible!