I realized today that I haven't updated my blog in a week and a half. Whoops! Time flies when you're having fun. And when you're trying to get adjusted to life in a new place. So far, I love where I'm living. The whole city is beautiful. There are trees and parks EVERYWHERE. It'ls amazing. My apartment is simple but nice. After living in a dorm room, it seems huge, and I love having my own space. I'm thinking about painting my living room. It's currently pink. That might need to change...
In addition to thinking about painting my apartment, I've been having fun exploring the city. And by exploring the city, I mean exploring the park near my apartment. In my first two days here, Mimi and Sylvia (two of my colleagues at Romain Rolland) showed me how to get to the small grocery store and vegetable stand near my house as well as to the big grocery store and huge market closer to the center. I have been loving the over abundance of farm fresh vegetables around here. And homemade honey. I made homemade chicken stock the other night after a delicious meal of chicken marinated in honey and spices. I am learning how to cook. Though for me, cooking generally means stir frying a ton of vegetables and then deciding what to do with said vegetables. What can I say? I love vegetables. I have to be the strangest human being alive to want to base every single meal I eat off of a ton of fresh vegetables. I don't know what I'm going to do when winter comes and vegetables suddenly become scarcer and far more expensive...
Sylvia and her family also took me out of the city to the nearby mineral baths, a remnant from when Stara Zagora was a Roman city (Augusta Trayana). I got to see an ancient altar that has recently been turned into the site of a Christian chapel and a place of pilgrimage due to a Virgin Mary sighting. They say she left her footprint in the rocks nearby. It's a very beautiful and serene spot, and there are lots of prayers to the Virgin Mary left in the form of little, white cloths tied to trees. We also went and saw the Roman Baths. They're a bit overgrown now, but it was still exciting to see. Not my first Roman Bath, but it was the first time I had to hop a fence to see them. I probably shouldn't admit to doing that...
Near my apartment is the gorgeous Ayazmo Park. Somewhere, buried in its depths, is a zoo. My goal is to find that zoo. So far, I am unsuccessful, but I am determined. And I like going for really long walks. So, not finding it isn't bad either. It just means that I get to explore a new area of the park. I think I am close to finding it. It's just a matter of going in the right direction long enough instead of getting distracted by side roads. :P
Excuse the mess in my bedroom. Still trying to find places for everything!
By an ancient sacrificial altar. Or, as Mark says, the slab on which the white witch killed Aslan. :P
On my favorite bench in the park. I can't wait for the leaves to start changing!
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