Bulgaria - continued

Is it Sunday already?  This week seriously flew by!  The good news is that I started my internship at Curves and I am loving it.  This is good news because I can now officially graduate, I know you are all relieved as much as I am about that :)  Curves is a gym for women that has a great 30-min training circuit that helps build strength while still giving an aerobic workout as well.  I will be the first to admit I was skeptical because I always viewed Curves as an "old lady gym" but it really has been a fun experience so far.  I first tried to get an internship at 24 hr Fitness because I really love that gym, but they don't take interns... bummer.  So Curves it is!  The only downside is that on the days that I have to open at 5:30 a.m. I am waking up at 4:20 a.m..  Yikes!  I didn't even know a 4:00 a.m. existed.  Anyways back to blogging about Bulgaria :)

The second day in Bulgaria, we woke up in Sofia showered and got all ready for our long day then headed to the bus station where we were catching a bus to Plovdiv.  Of course before we checked out of our hostel, Ki ran across the street to a little bakery and got some bonitsa, a cheese pastry, for breakfast.

Me eating my Bonitsa - a cheese pastry

As soon as we arrived in Plovdiv by bus, we walked all the way to Plovdiv's main city center with our backpacks on!  I thought my back was going to break, and was infinitely grateful for the first of many times throughout our trip that I had packed really light.

This is me in Plovdiv's city center after we checked into our hostel and gladly ditched our bags for the rest of the day :)

 We walked up and down the main street and I enjoyed looking at all the cute little shops.  I desperately wanted to buy some cute new clothes, but as soon as Ki reminded me I would have to carry it the rest of the trip, I decided it wasn't in my best interest to upgrade my wardrobe at that particular time.  I'm sure this made Ki take a big sigh of relief ;)

Ki and I in the restaurant where we ate lunch in Plovdiv's city center.  The food was delicious!  My only complaint is that smoking was allowed indoors!  yuck.

After replenishing our energy stores during lunch, we walked from the main city center to what is known as Old Town.  It was such a cute place with so many colorful old buildings.  It is known for its Bulgarian Renaissance Architectural style and still has cobble stone roads.  

Ki posing in Old Town.

A garden in Old Town

 It is amazing to me how old some of the structures Ki and I saw on our trip were.  I know they have obviously been restored but the fact that they are still there is so cool.  The picture below is of the Roman Theater in Old town that was built in the beginning of the 2nd century during the reign of Roman Emperor Trajan.

Ki and I in front of the Roman Theater. 

 After we walked through Old Town we headed back to the main city center where we changed and put on some church clothes to get ready for the fireside!  We walked to Plovdiv's church where all the Bulgarian missionaries were having a fireside to kick off the big 20 year reunion of the church conference which was going to be the next day.  It was fun to hear the missionaries bear their testimonies and really feel the spirit of missionary work!  It was a really neat experience.

That just about concludes day two in Bulgaria!  And for the record -- my legs were KILLING me by the end of the second day.  I had never done so much walking in all my life :)  Ki was better prepared then I was thanks to summer sales and wasn't sore at all.  It was at the end of this day that I was glad I had decided to pack functional shoes instead of cute shoes!

Kudos to you if you are still reading!  I was hoping to finish writing about days 3-5 in BG as well, but I sorta have an 11:45 deadline folks haha.  Yep remember how I have to blog once a week for my MCOM 320 class?  Don't you love that I leave it to the very last day and submit my blog ten minutes before it is due?  I guess I just never learn.

Europe Trip - 1st Stop Bulgaria

It is finally happening peeps the beginning of the Europe trip posts!  Hopefully I am able to recount the whole trip without throwing in the towel... I shall hope for the best :)

Our whole purpose in taking a trip to Bulgaria was to celebrate Ki's graduation.  He has always wanted to go back & take me to see his mission so we decided to go!  We first went to Sofia, followed by Plovdiv, then Burgas.

The Long Trip:

Getting to Bulgaria from SLC proved to be a very very long day.  We flew from SLC to NYC, NYC to Rome, Rome to Milan, then finally Milan to Bulgaria.  Four flights with layovers is terrible.  Why did we choose to do it that way?  Well, it was a combination of it being the cheapest way and our unorganized trip planning that took us that route.  Needless to say, by the time we finally got to Bulgaria I was completely exhausted!  I was so relieved Ki spoke the language and could handle figuring out where we were going to spend the night and how we were going to get there.  I am incapable of making productive decisions while sleep deprived, and I probably would have collapsed and cried if I had to do it by myself :P

From the airport after Ki finally located a cab driver that was willing to take us to our hostel for a reasonable price we were on our way!  The cab driver was impressed that an American could speak Bulgarian so well and they ended up in a discussion about how Ki learned Bulgarian for his mission.  (Or so Ki informed me... I obviously couldn't understand anything being said, which proved to be annoying by the end of the trip in BG... if only learning a language wasn't so time consuming.)  When we got to the hostel we crashed in bed and it felt SO good.

1st Day in Sofia:

We actually woke up a lot easier then I expected.  It probably had something to do with the excitement of being in a foreign country ;)   I had my first experience with the Bulgarian (maybe it is european) shower.  It was just a shower head attached to a hose, which was attached to a faucet in the middle of the bathroom!  It took some getting used to, but it was definitely part of the adventure.

By the time we showered and got ready we were famished.  Ki just could not wait to eat a dooner, so we had them for breakfast.

The 1st day in Sofia consisted mostly of walking all over Sofia taking a million pictures of monastery's and other buildings.

Sofia Capitol Building

Street in Sofia

Monastery

Another monastery :)

We also made a stop at Ki's old mission home, visited with some members, talked with the new Austrian mission president, visited the pazar, and ate dinner with President & Sister Bennett (Ki's old mission pres.)

Ki with some members.  L to R Plomen, ?, Ki, & Diana.
Plomen was so sweet!  He told me I was as majestic as a deer and took like a gazillion pictures of me.. haha it was kinda awkward, but it was sweet of him to keep telling me I was be -a -utiful in his broken english :)

The Pazar (Street Market) was my favorite!  I got a HUGE delicious bag of raspberries for  the equivalent of 30 cents USD.  I wish that was possible in the States.

Dinner with President & Sister Bennett, as well as one of Ki's old mission companions Mike Hansen.  I had shobska salata for the first time and it was delish!

The Bulgarian Tow Truck - Ki calls it " The Spider"  it just picks up the cars by their tires and takes them away!

We finished out the day by just collapsing at the movie theater in Sofia's mall to watch a movie since jet lag was starting to wear on us.  That my friends concludes day one... just 16 more to go ;)  haha  well I am tired and need to go to bed.  I will finish day 2-5 in Bulgaria next week.  Stay tuned!  Or don't :) the decision is yours.  This is my journal of sorts, so I have to document our once in a lifetime trip since we most likely will never get the chance to go back.

From Care-Free Kid to Adult?

I know I promised (mostly to myself) that I would start blogging about our adventures in Europe before I forget everything... but that will have to be postponed for yet another time.  Ki has all the pictures on his computer, so that leaves me with nothing to blog about except for the small epiphany I had at Lake Powell over this Labor Day.

I don't know when  it happened, or how long ago the transformation occured, but at some point I went from feeling like this...   (The following pictures are of my little brother, little sister, and a family friend.)

Blissful and giddy

 

totally exhilerated

& completely carefree

to the following... (The next sequence of pictures are of me with my best friend and her little sister)

Unable to breath 

doubtful about whether my body will survive

& of course just plain ol' scared for my life!

 I swore to myself when I was growing up that I would never become one of those boring adults who said that tubing wasn't fun.  I am also pretty sure that at some point my sister Kristin and I even promised each other we would tube together when we were "grown up".  But now I am forseeing the end of my tubing days approaching as tubing becomes more uncomfortable and a little less fun each year that I get older.  I am sad to admit that at some point in the last couple years I started the cross-over into being a "boring adult" like my parents.  How weird.  Only it doesn't seem as boring as I thought being an adult would feel, it is just fun in all different ways.

Now just so you all remember that I am capable of smiling, I will include one last picture in this post of me and Ki at glowstick swim night at Powell.  I would hate for any of you to walk away from this post thinking that I permanently look like I am about to poop my pants like in the tubing pictures above :)

p.s.  for the full enjoyment of this post it is recommended that you click on the tubing pictures and get the full blown version of mine and Tiff's faces while tubing!  haha... so so funny :)

I'm back!

Back from Europe, back in school, and last but not least I am back to more regular blogging.  How can I say that I am back to regular blogging with such certainty after my blogging lapses of the past?  Well this semester I have finally forced myself to take the class I have most dreaded to finish my advanced writing GE, MCOM 320.  As a requirement we are to write in a blog at least once a week.  So I should be updating this blog weekly from now on! 

So welcome classmates, and hello again to old friends & family.  For those of you that are new to reading this blog I would like to make you aware of a disclaimer I included in a blog post awhile back.  I have terrible grammar, and I don't write very well.  For the full blog post including a step by step walk through pledge to not mock my terrible grammar go here.  Hopefully as the semester progresses, my grammar and writing skills will improve drastically.  Mostly because I assume that if they don't improve I won't get a very good grade in the class :)

Now I know that I need to update the blog with the details of our Europe trip, but the thought of writing all about it gets me discouraged because there is so much information to tell.  That coupled with the fact that it is getting late I think I will save that endeavor for next week.  I am off to Lake Powell for the long weekend in the morning so I really need to go pack soon.  But first I just have to say that I am really enjoying my last semester of classes at BYU so far.  Like really, I am.  I have decided that I think I want to get my Personal Training certification at the end of the semester and work in a fitness or wellness center helping girls/women with fitness & nutrition plans.  Also, this semester I am finally taking a ballroom class like I have always wanted to.  So far it has been pretty slow moving, and mostly my feet just get stepped on by all the boys, but I am hoping that it will get more fun and more quick paced as the semester progresses.  Anyways that is it for now folks.  Hopefully I will get the motivation to write all about our trip next week :)