The word of the day is ‘Starbucks’

Picasaweb Photos

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

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.

Protected Area – PODA (website)We were thinking about what to do today, we got to talking about bird migrations (I know, but we did). “Burgas is surrounded by the Black Sea on the east, and by three lakes north, south, and west.  These are the Mandra, Vaja, and Atanassowsko. Together with the Poda protected area they form a huge wetland area, vitally important as a resting station for many birds using the East European migration route known as Via Ponticum …” Another interesting website in this story is Birdwatching Bulgaria.

So, it’s a cold and gray rainy day in Burgas, and we pick ourselves up to go do some birdwatching.  What’s more, it’s after the birdwatching season.
Not being birdwatchers by habit, I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that we might have messed up some of the details

But it is beautiful country out there, and we did see some interesting birds.  Lots and lots of cormorants nesting on the power line supports; a few herons, egrets … some interesting black-headed white ducks, and a small flock of mute swans – they’re pretty large birds don’t you know.

Some flowers, a few, some color from the plant life.

Here’s the way the morning begins, looking westward on Georgi Kirkov (my street) towards the cafes and restaurants on Aleksandrovska.
Rainy and cold, the kind of cold that seeps in through the wet, moist air into your bones. At least it feels that way on this day, considering it is only Autumn and not winter you have to wonder how well you are going to adapt to winter once it does get here.

Ahh, but remember, I spent the previous 3 winters in Madison Wisconsin.  I’ve seen well below freezing for months at a time.  I can handle it.

I walk with Zlatina to her school every morning, have done so since the end of August. Once it was quite warm on these morning walks, but we’re getting into the dressing for Autumn kind of thing. Here’s a picture of Zlatina outside her school with some of her students.

AND, just for fun, here’s a picture of me myself and I standing on the street outside of my apartment. Thanks for the photo Zlatina

Tuesday never recovered, and by Wednesday morning it was 37F … that’s about 3C don’t you know.  It was below freezing in Sofia.

This morning, Friday, it’s cold and raining and we turned the heaters on in our apartment for the first time.  It’s going to rain for the next several days according to the forecast:
Weather Underground Forecast.

Updated: 9:00 PM EEST on October 15, 2009
	Friday Chance of Rain. Overcast. High: 15 °C . Wind NNW 39 km/h . Chance of precipitation 40% (water equivalent of 5.59 mm). Windchill: 5 °C .
	Friday Night Rain. Overcast. Low: 3 °C . Wind North 25 km/h . Chance of precipitation 50% (water equivalent of 10.70 mm). Windchill: 3 °C .
	Saturday Chance of Rain. Overcast. High: 12 °C . Wind North 43 km/h . Chance of precipitation 20% (water equivalent of 0.90 mm). Windchill: 3 °C .
	Saturday Night Chance of Rain. Overcast. Low: 6 °C . Wind North 39 km/h . Chance of precipitation 20% (water equivalent of 1.86 mm).
	Sunday Chance of Rain. Overcast. High: 16 °C . Wind NNE 32 km/h . Chance of precipitation 20% (water equivalent of 0.77 mm).
	Sunday Night Scattered Clouds. Low: 12 °C . Wind SSE 36 km/h .
	Monday Chance of Rain. Scattered Clouds. High: 23 °C . Wind NNW 39 km/h . Chance of precipitation 20% (water equivalent of 1.36 mm).

We are planning a trip to Koprivshtitza … a hard word for me to say, what with all these Bulgarian consonant conglomerations   Hey, it’s almost easier to say it when seeing it spelled in Cyrillic.

Here is their photos page thought I’d send you right along.

So over the weekend of October 24th and October 25th we are hoping to take a drive from Burgas to Koprivshtitsa. This is a general Burgas-to-Koprivshtitsa map, with terrain, from maps.google.com

It’s autumn, yes it is.  I’m hoping for a drive through the mountains to a mountain destination will give us lots of opportunity to appreciate fall colors in Bulgaria.

I went to a play with Zlatina Thursday night, I think it was Thursday.    There are a few photos in the gallery from that night.

Did I understand what they were saying?  No, but I went anyway.  The theater was completely full, people were standing in the aisles to watch.  Music, lights, actors, audience.  I got everything except the language.

Yesterday we went for a walk in the sea garden. A mid-October day, pretty nice. The wind was coming in off the black sea, and it was really too chilly for anybody to be out there on the beach as they were all summer. The trees aren’t quite ready for fall, but they’re getting close.

The birds are beginning winter migrations too I think.  Here along the western shore of the southern Black Sea we’re going to be seeing all sorts of interesting birds I could never see in the states.  There are even locations in Burgas for people to do bird watching, maybe I should try some of that this month before it’s too late.

All the tourists are gone now, the season is over in Europe and Russia.  I wanted to take some photos of the people of Burgas enjoying their own sea garden.  It is located right along the edge of the sea, as you might expect.  In fact it is in such a location that nobody just “cuts through” the sea garden to get from one part of the city to another — everybody who comes here came to be here, to walk here, to enjoy the garden itself.