Bulgarian Birthday

Well I know how they say, "Happy Birthday" in Katroo...

Here in Bulgaria it's a bit different. Listen up Portland kiddos, you have to give presents to everyone! And you don't really get presents. Well, we decided on a compromise. We handed out some sweet wafers to anyone who was around the shop and also got Isaiah a couple cool things.

We spent the morning working, which is coming along nicely. The roof framing has been a good exercise of my carpentry: hips and valleys, dormer and trying to match different pitch roofs. Using a really nice hand saw.

Later in the afternoon, we took a trip to the Thracian Sanctuary, a short drive from Kruschevo. This is a very old area worshiped for thousands of years. The rock that looks like an old man scowling out into space is here. We also found hundreds of shards of pottery. Most likely from old jars and containers holding offerings to the various gods and goddesses worshiped in this part of the world over the centuries. The view from high up on the rocks was great: big valleys and mountains, forests, wait... sound familiar. Still the redundant beauty never gets boring.

There were many giant boulderlike formations... great for scrambling, (yo dad!) With a surrounding forest of lodgepole pines, or the Bulgarian equivalent.

We left here and changed clothes for an evening in Gotse Delchev. That's him with the boys there in the square. Really communist looking statue huh? He's tryin' to hail a taxi. We bopped around for a few hours in the old part of the city before taking Iz out for a nice birthday dinner at Uva Nestum, new grape, I think. They brought out a cake with a candle and we all sang happy birthday with the aid of guitarist guy Nicolai Udremoff. He is a friend of our hosts and a recording artist here in Gotse. He played a few tunes, Elvis, and some American rock: The Beatles.

Anyway Iz-man had a great birthday, phew 9!

The weather out here took a cooler attitude about the last day of September and has been threatening coolness at night quite regularly now. The days are still beautiful, seemingly an endless stream of mountainy summer. However it does not take a meteorologist to tell fall is here as it is cooler daily. Sorry Matt Zafino.

The cooler weather has brought incredibly clear skies at night, and the stars are really bright. Not a lot of light pollution out here.

Cadence has proved to be a hell of an assistant here, always ready with a pencil, tape measure, level, sunglasses, whatever, as I suffer from that age old carpenter's syndrome of spending the whole day looking for my pencil. "Hey anybody seen my level?", "Where's mah coffee?" So sad but so true. A good assistant is invaluable to a forgetful woodsmith. And she really is a great helper, even if she is now addicted to Betty Neels romance novels. No joke. She's read like 20 at least and going strong. Seriously. [Editor's note: read one before you pass judgment. They are excellent!]

The boys have made Roman shields and swords, with a little help, and stage imaginary battles set in Thermopylae or Marathon or here. They are busy learning history, geometry, language, art, and the fine art of defending yourself against dreaded Bulgarian vampires, which is really not that hard.

We finally went for a trip to the natural hot springs here. They were naturally hot. A big pool and two smaller ones. It was relaxing to be able to swim around in the mineral water and we stayed for a few hours.

The quad bike photos are from a little fair that came to Gotse Delchev in late September. I am sure the boys had fun racing around but I know for a fact that I loved it! Man I could totally go for one of those. Even though it was like 2 miles an hour it was still fun.

As we crank out our final month in Bulgaria, our thoughts are begining to turn to Plovdiv, the Orient Express and Istanbul. By the way, a big thank you to my friend Cheri for putting me in contact with so many great people in Istanbul and Turkey. What a help!

We plan ahead a bit but not so much as to miss our time here.

We have still four weeks or so here and look forward to it. Such a beautiful place.

Much love to our families and friends, we have not forgotten you...yet!