Eating out

Well, after about 4 weeks here and eating uncountable meals out I have noticed and been instructed in various Bulgarian food idiosyncrasies. I now know many of the restaurants that have English on the menu (sometimes the translation is a little scary). If you order anything "Mexican" that just means it has corn in it and possibly some hot sauce. People usually get a salad, often to share, but then each entree is separate. For example, you can get some hamburger patty type food but you also have to order your side separately, like potatoes or vegetables. Everyone eats bread with their meals but you have to order that too. The waiters bring out each dish as it's prepared so when you get your food you eat it because the person next to you could be waiting for another 10 minutes.
People eat ketchup here on the oddest things, like pizza. Pizza toppings vary from scrambled egg to corn to pickles and have very thin crusts. There's no such thing as free water so people mainly get a few large bottles to share at the table. And unless you ask for the bill, (which I just learned how to do :) you could be sitting there for a long long time. Tips are very small, often not even 5% of the bill. Desserts are pretty good and they have incredibly cheap baclava here which is very exciting to me.

More Pictures!

Another view of the main walking street. There are a ton of little kiosks like that white one that sell candy and magazines etc.

This is a very large angel sculpture dedicated to some revolutionaries.

This is Varosha - the old city. It is very quaint and quite and all the buildings are painted white.

This is the Orthodox Church in Varosha. The inside is decorated with detailed woodwork. It's very beautiful.

That mountain is part of the Rila Range to the East.

Superbowl Sunday (or very early Monday morning)

So, my friend Morgan and I really wanted to watch the super bowl. The Bulgarian sports channels were broadcasting soccer instead (which isn't a surprise, even though the superbowl didn't start here until around 1 am monday morning). But Morgan and I found out that the American Football Club (which, by the way, is the largest intramural sport here...not soccer) was broadcasting the game from the internet and invited us to come watch. So Morgan and I made some salsa (we were out of luck for tortilla chips...just had to use some Lays) and at 12:45 we headed down to watch the game. We were the only girls there. I guess no Bulgarian girls even like to watch soccer so the guys were really really surprised American girls would watch football. But we hunkered down and waited for the game to start.
Well, the only site that they could find the game on was in Danish. So we watched the game in Danish accompanied by a lot of commentary in Bulgarian. It was the strangest way I have ever watched a football game. The Danish site only had about 3 commercials but there was this one that all the Bulgarians liked. It was for a sport drink and this kid puts a little of the drink in the lid in his yard and waits for a squirrel to come and take a drink and once it does it starts juggling its acorn like it's a soccer ball. Everyone cheered everytime they played the commercial (which was during every commercial break).
I could only stay awake until halftime but I'm pleased to see the Giants win.