Pictures!!!!!!

Today we had no classes....so while I was busy sleeping in to an unnatural hour (I blame the BGs) Nathan took the dear laptop and convinced them to (finally!) give us internet in our room!

So now I can show you pictures and we can Skype if you miss the sounds of our voices! Just remember, we are 7 hours ahead of you East Coastians. As in, it is 9 pm here, but only 2 pm where you are.

So here are a few pictures from our first week! Get ready!

Welcome to Blagoevgrad! And for those of you who were wondering, it has about 2.5 syllables. I'll say it for you sometime. It is one of the few Bulgarian words I pronounce quite well.
This is the view from outside our window! There is a Gypsy camp across the street and every day they walk their goats and horses and let them graze in our yard. Here is a man and his goat:
And here is a horse. The state of the Gypsies is really sad. They are really, really discriminated against and what is so astonishing is that visiting students (non-Bulgarian) seem to pick up these prejudices really quickly. Gypsy children occasionally beg outside of our school and elderly Gypsies wander around the city square.
This is our typical dinner (with a salad--pictured farther down). Yummy vegetable pizza. It is really flatbread with vegetables because unless you get Pizza Margherita there is hardly any cheese to speak of. Anyway, it is delicious, but funny-looking (in my opinion).
Here is how you let the town know someone has died in Bulgaria. Instead of an obituary page in the newspaper, family members post flyers around town and for the first month after someone has died they hang a black bow (huge--like a hairbow) on their front door. They hang up a fresh flyer every 3-6 months for a decade or more. No joke--some of the fliers in town are for people who died when the Communists were still in power. And, just so know, I understand the cultural sensitivity issues of taking pictures like this. Nathan blocked me and no one was on the street so no one saw. I'm really not trying to capitalize on someone else's ritual, but I thought it was really interesting.
Ah! The view of our lovely city! See the river? We live on that. You can see it from all of the common areas. One day I will post pictures of our 1 km walk to school.
This, my friends, is Technopolis! It is a lovely store that sold me a hairdryer. It was great fun acting that out for the sales clerk. My hair dryer is red and works quite well for only 19 Leva. Anyway, this is a great example of the Cyrillic alphabet in use. Now that you know the word is Technopolis, you can sound out the Cyrillic letters!
So this is a 2 foot long chicken kabob that arrived at the table ON FIRE!!!!! The fire didn't show up in the picture, but just believe me. This is from the alley restaurant that is super authentic (as in, no one speaks English). We went with friends, one of whom is Costodin who is a Bulgarian who grew up in the US. He is an exchange student too from Penn and he speaks perfect English and Bulgarian. Oh, and he ordered this giant kabob.
These are the shopska salads that I have fallen in love with. They are cubed cucumber, tomato and onion topped with feta. Unbelievably delicious. So good.
And this is a gaggle of American students at a Bulgarian restaurant. From Nathan curving around to me you have: Nathan, Costadin, Kristy, Tanya, Morgan, Kim, Rachel Ann.