Chestita razhden den, Zlatina, Happy birthday!
Jan 22
I had the day wrong – it's not the 22nd of January, it was the 14th of January. I looked in my journal and realized that the 14th of January, 2008 was the first day I stepped foot in Bulgaria.
That's right. I remember getting on the plane in Madison, Wisconsin, sometime in the afternoon of January 13th. 22 hours later my flight from Frankfurt Germany landed in Sofia, in a blizzard!
Nedda and Ivan were there to meet me. We followed a couple of snow plows clear across Bulgaria, until we turned south to Burgas.
So anyway, here we are, here I am. Tonight Zlatina and I are going to entertain a little, we invited people over from her school, and I invited everybody who had anything to do with my being here. We'll have a nice social time, with some rosé and white wine chilled on the balcony, some red wine, and stuff like that.
It may be that some of the people won't be able to make it. Folks here in southeastern Bulgaria are not used to the kind of cold we're having here this past week – many engines won't start. Deep snow is still all over the place, the roads have been turned into glaciers, and it's hard freezing every night.
But we'll try. Happy Anniversary Kevin.
Oh, by the way, the forecast for tomorrow calls for more heavy snow.
Jan 20
It started snowing Monday night about 6pm, and continued until tonight (Tuesday) about 8pm. Heavy snow, in fact all the people I talked to here today in Burgas say it's the heaviest snow they've ever seen here.
I took a nice walk from our new place on Rilska street, down to Bogoridi, to the Sea Garden …. out to the end of the pier, on to the beach … back through the sea garden. You can see the pictures below in the embedded picasweb link.
What a great day it's been. It reminds me so much of living in Madison, Wisconsin in the US. Sure, it's not quite as cold here – just a few degrees below freezing, and it only snows like this once a decade here where it snows like this repeatedly throughout the winter in Wisconsin – but hey, it does remind me of the past three winters I spent in Madison, and I did like the winters there for some weird reason 
Dec 30
We're staying at the five-star Grand Hotel Dimyat for a few days, here to enjoy some time with Zlatina's family and some old friends, and to generally enjoy the city of Varna for the new year celebrations.
I guess I have to say that Varna is a prettier city than Burgas, a larger city. Certainly more attractive than Sofia … in fact it kind of reminds me of Seattle, only without all the rain all the time. The city puts up lots of christmas lights, keeps them on through the new year. I hope to go out tomorrow night and take some slow-shutter speed photos to show you.
Well, I ate too much at dinner again, seems it's the time of year for that. Good night, and have a happy new year of if you can.
Dec 29
I’m at the Starbucks in the Carrefour mall in Burgas. If you’re an American coming to Burgas for a visit and you’re worried there aren’t any Starbucks, well, don’t worry.
The word of the day is ‘Starbucks’
Dec 21
We're preparing for a trip to Medven, Bulgaria. We'll be spending our christmas vacation there, in a bungalow in the mountains. Hoping for a white christmas 
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Dec 19
On Dec 11 we had our first snow in Burgas
Dec 07
The above is a link to Zlatina’s school, the British Cultural Centre, Burgas. It’s her english-language school, she teaches children from the age of 4 until they graduate from high school.
I designed the website based on the Education theme from studiopress. Zlatina wrote all the Bulgarian stuff you see, her son Petko typed it all in. Stop by for a visit
Nov 15
Photo Gallery
It was a Saturday in Burgas, Zlatina and our friend Boian and I decided we would take the bus south to Sozopol to enjoy the scenery, take some photos, eat at a nice restaurant … just enjoy each other’s company in a seaside town that has become a favorite for us.
Of course I brought the camera I’ve been wanting to play a little with the various light, aperature, exposure time and other settings which I don’t yet know much about. I wanted a long-term exposure of the bay, with some of the hotel lights reflecting. I wanted to play with some of the preset lighting arrangements.
For example, this photo is using the “tungsten” light setting. It has more to do with overhead or ambient lighting, but it always adds a very bluish shading to everything – especially when taking photos during the late afternoon or early evening. Click on the photo to see it alone on the page.
Nov 04
Yesterday morning I checked the local weather forecast on the weather underground website, it said 30 percent chance of rain during the evening. Ok, I can deal with that.
So yesterday evening it started raining, and raining, and raining, in fact it’s still raining this morning – it “30 percented” all over us, all night long.
Shortly after midnight the power went out. I suppose I should be used to that kind of thing, in a way – I spent June and July in east Texas where those big thunderstorms booming through often caused the power to go out, sometimes for hours.
But I still don’t like it 
And it shut down my web server too (whine), and even worse – I could not make espresso!
I don’t know what time the power came back on, I finally fell asleep waiting for it.
