I am back from Bulgaria. I had a great time. Stefka’s family and friends took very good care of us. We did so much that I kind of feel like I need a vacation from my vacation.

Day 1: As in Poland, my arrival was hampered by fog. I had flown from Paris to Frankfurt, and was dutifully waiting there for seven hours until my flight to Sofia. I kept checking the board to see if the gate had been assigned yet, and eventually I saw a notice that said “Annulierien” or something that I inferred to be the German word for “cancelled.” So I marched up to the Lufthansa counter and said, “My flight to Sofia is cancelled.” And the woman said, “No, it just hasn’t been assigned yet.” And I said, “Are you sure?” And she said, “Oh…yes, it’s been cancelled.” So I said, “There’s another flight at 6:30. Can you get me on that one?” And she told me I had to go to a different counter. So I went there, and told the woman there was an earlier flight to Sofia, to which she responded, “Not on Lufthansa.” And I was like, “Duh.” But she got me on the Bulgaria Air flight. It was diverted to Plovdiv, which meant we had a two-hour bus ride to Sofia. Mind you, I had no idea this was going to happen until it happened, because they announced it in Bulgarian and German. On the bus they showed the film Little Man. I had avoided seeing this movie because it looked terrible. And in fact it was quite awful.

I eventually made it to Stefka’s parents’ apartment and drank lots of whisky with her father, who appreciated having a willing drinking partner.

Day 2: Jesse and Stefka and I went to the Archaeological Museum to see ancient gold artifacts and medieval icons and some Greek statues. We had a late lunch at a restaurant called “The Three-Legged Chicken.” In the evening we had tickets to a concert by an Italian ensemble specializing in medieval music. And after that, we went out for drinks with Martin. He talked me into having rakia, a Bulgarian liqueur made from grapes. Martin and Jesse had a big argument about some intellectual problem.

Day 3: We did some shopping in the morning, then met Stefka’s friend Elitza and had lunch at a restaurant called Mamma Mia. We all had soup, because we figured it would be fast. We were meeting Sophie, a religious art expert, to take tours of churches. Apparently Stefka had already shown some churches to Jesse, but was unable to answer all of Jesse’s questions about Eastern Orthodox iconography and so called in Sophie. It was interesting. When we went home, Stefka’s mother had made stuffed peppers for dinner. Bulgarians eat a lot of peppers. My father would either starve or have indigestion all the time. Emily would also have trouble eating, because there are nuts hidden in almost everything.

Day 4: We got up early on Sunday morning and went to Rila Monastery with Stefka’s parents. It was a very nice trip. The icon gallery had separate prices for Bulgarians and non-Bulgarians (or maybe Bulgarophones and non-Bulgarophones). Stefka told me and Jesse not to talk, so we could just pay the Bulgarian/Bulgarophone price. After seeing the monastery, we drove a little further up the mountain, from whence we could hike up to the cave of the hermit John of Rila (aka Ivan Rilsky). Once you go into the cave, you have to climb out through a tiny opening. Local legend has it that if you make it through the opening, you aren’t sinful. We all made it through. Apparently Bulgarians are particularly concerned with the sin of gluttony.
To celebrate our purity, we stopped for lunch at a cute restaurant. Stefka’s dad ordered buffalo yogurt with honey for dessert, and I tried a taste of it. It was a little too rich for me. In the evening we went to a restaurant called “Romance,” known for its cakes. I tried the “Éclair cake,” which was tasty.

Day 5: In the morning, Stefka had a dentist appointment, so Jesse and I stayed home and watched Star Wars with Bulgarian subtitles. In the afternoon we went ice skating. I am pretty sure I was doing that for the first time in my life. It was pretty fun, but I was worried about crashing into someone and not having any language to tell them to watch out. Fortunately, I only fell when there was no one nearby.

Kornelia had invited us to dinner, and that was lots of fun. We took a minibus to get there. The Bulgarian term apparently translates as “People’s Taxi,” because even though there are specific routes, you can ask the driver to stop anywhere along the route. So it’s a shared taxi. Very crowded. Kornelia also offered rakia for me to drink, which I was happy to accept. The highlight of the first course was quail eggs, but there were also several delicious salads and some nice mackerel canapés. For the main course, Kornelia had made delicious chicken with a kind of blue cheese sauce. And there was an ice cream cake for dessert.

Day 6: We got tickets to a performance at the Bulgarian National Theatre. It was in Bulgarian, but it wasn’t too difficult to follow. The play was an adaptation of the novel Couchove (“The Exiles”) by Ivan Vazov. It was the story of a group of 19th-century revolutionaries living in Romania and plotting to assassinate the Sultan. (Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1878.) It was very impressive visually, and many moments were very moving even without being able to understand the language. The adaptor/director is named Alexander Morfov. Keep an eye out for him. Mostly he directs classics in Bulgaria and Russia.

Day 7: We took a trip to Plovdiv, which I had seen briefly on the night of my arrival. It was a rainy day, but we were not deterred from our quest to see Plovdiv’s Ancient Theatre, a second-century Roman affair with stone benches and a few surviving statues in the scaenae frons. It’s interesting to see how the city has grown up around it. You can watch the traffic go by on the highway below. Apparently the Ancient Theatre is still used for operas in the summer, which would be cool to see.

Other highlights of Plovdiv included a lovely sculpture park and the Ethnographic Museum, which was fairly similar to the Ethnographic Museum in Krakow. I highly recommend these Ethnographic Museums in Europe. The first floor mostly displayed tools for weaving, locksmiths, and agriculture. The second floor had furniture and clothing, arranged to give a sense of how people lived in the mountains and in the cities. The one in Krakow had slightly larger collections on its first two floors, and it also had a third floor with contemporary folk art. The museum in Plovdiv was clearer about its narrative; you had to go through the more informational rooms to get to the more eye-catching stuff. The Krakow setup is more like, “Wow! Peasant costumes! Ooooh, look at that. What’s that? It’s so colorful! Oh, look at all these Easter eggs! Hmmmm, Polish Easter rituals. Oooh, what’s that over there? A Nativity scene? Oh, interesting…”

Day 8: On Thursday, Stefka hung out with Elitza in the morning while Jesse and I stayed home and watched The Lord of the Rings with Bulgarian subtitles. (This was not so helpful for the scenes in Elvish, though it was otherwise fun to read the name “Frodo” in Cyrillic letters.) We had lunch with Elitza, then we did more wandering around Sofia and had dinner with Viktor and Diana.

Day 9: It was my 30th birthday. We had the same tasty breakfast we had every day, bread with cheese and sausage. Then after breakfast Stefka and her Dad brought out this enormous cake and they all sang “Happy Birthday.” It was very nice. Then it was time to go out and meet the translators at Stefka’s old translation agency. They gave us wine and cake and lots of other food.

Stefka had spent much of the week planning an outing for her name-day, which is December 27 (the Feast of St. Stephen). Since she was heading back to Chicago on the 25th, she decided to have it on the 22nd. So my birthday coincided with Stefka’s big reunion with all her Bulgarian friends. And some of them brought me presents. Kornelia’s gift was particularly thoughtful. She gave me a book on French Theatre. I remarked that I was surprised, and Elitza explained that birthdays are very important in Bulgaria. She posited that this was because religious holidays were not allowed to be celebrated under communism. Martin bought all my drinks. It was a very nice birthday.

Day 10: Stefka had suggested we go hiking one day, and Saturday was to be the day. She had invited other people to join us, and Viktor had accepted. We took the ski lift part of the way up the mountain, but as we headed to the trail there was a guy who warned us that it was too icy. Apparently we looked a little too citified for the rugged mountain trails. He suggested we take the second half of the ski lift up to the easier trail. So we did, and it was very nice. We decided to hike to the chalet at the top of the mountain. It was going well for a while, but then the snow got really deep and the going got a little tougher. Jesse was blazing a trail with the serious hikers, and the rest of us were very far behind her. But we all finally made it to the top. We ordered some tripe soup, which was pretty good, especially with lots of red pepper. I don’t think I would order it anywhere else. We had to run back to catch the lift, which was supposed to close at 4:00. We made it.

After hiking, we were invited to Viki’s house, which had a nice warm fireplace. His mother had made a very good Romanian dish with cornmeal and cheese and some kind of hot sauce. And we drank red wine.

Day 10: Because we had not gotten through all the churches in Sofia on our first trip with Sophie, she met us on Sunday for the follow-up tour. We saw the Russian Church, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and Saint Sophia. We had coffee afterward, then went back to Stefka’s parents’ house for Christmas Eve dinner.

Christmas Eve in Bulgaria calls for a feast of seven vegan dishes. We had bread, beans, dolmas, fruit compote, sweet rice, and two other things I can’t remember right now. All were delicious. A coin is baked into the bread, but no one found it in the first go-round. Then Stefka and her mother suggested that I check my bread again, and I found it. So I’m supposed to have a good year fiscally. Sounds good to me.
After dinner, we were invited to Stefka’s cousins’ house. They were very amused to have to Americans over. They were even more amused that we had picked up Bulgarian phrases for “Thank you” and “Good-bye” during our stay.

We were supposed to go to bed early, because Jesse and Stefka had to leave very early in the morning. But Jesse and I stayed up pretty late talking.

Day 11: I got up at 5:00, when everyone else was leaving for the airport. My flight was not until 3:20, and Stefka’s dad was going to drop me off in the afternoon. So I went back to bed. I had a dream that Jesse woke me up and told me that their flight had been cancelled. Then I had another dream that Jesse and Stefka were both talking to me. Stefka was saying, “This is just a dream. Our flight wasn’t cancelled. Go back to sleep.” And Jesse was saying, “Our flight was really cancelled. Get up and socialize!” Anyway, I got up around 10:00, and Stefka was sitting at the dining room table. So the first dream was actually not a dream, but the second dream was. Lufthansa had just cancelled the flight because there weren’t enough passengers for it to be profitable. I guess Jesse and Stefka had to spend the night in Munich, because they missed their connection to Chicago. Apparently Lufthansa was going to pay for their hotel and offer some sort of compensation once they got back to Chicago.

My trip back to Paris went pretty smoothly. The Frankfurt airport was even more boring, because I was in Terminal A, which has fewer shops than Terminal B. And most of them closed early. That was the worst thing about traveling on Christmas Day. I mean it was a little sad to drink beer in the airport bar by myself, but it was really sad when the airport bar closed at 6:00 and I had to kill two more hours until my flight. But the flight from Frankfurt to Paris was fine, and I managed to catch the RER back to my apartment. I was glad I had bought a round-trip RER ticket when I left, so I could just get right on the train without dealing with buying a ticket.

And now I’m back in Paris. This is the first time I haven’t spent Christmas with my family, and I miss them very much. So today I did some laundry and cleaned the microwave and watched my favorite French game shows. There was a commercial on for the “Grand Concours de l’Histoire” (The Great History Competition), which is on tomorrow night.

I hope that everyone is enjoying the holidays.