Our first Bulgarian Christmas

In our first year abroad, we have tried to be smart travelers. And as they say in Bulgaria, "sometime win, sometime loon." (Yes, this is quite a popular phrase; it was originated by the Bulgarian national superstar soccer player Hristo Stoichkov, the player-turned-coach who led them to fourth place in the World Cup in 1994, and whose English is only slightly better than my Bulgarian [check out the video here]; Bulgarians take their soccer seriously). And while we have had our share of "loons", one of our wins was definitely the choice to take a few days to ourselves before traveling for Christmas. And we seemed to be some of the few that made this decision. Our co-worker Jess White, and her brother who braved the elements and came from America, were the only others with this ingenious plan.

I find Christmas travel is always a gamble. When I was younger, we would open presents at our home in the morning, then head to my grandmother's house about an hour away for dinner and family-time. For a number of years I failed to notice the traffic on the freeway from everybody who, I assume, was doing the same thing. As I got older, not only did I notice the traffic, but I began traveling longer distances to see people; and the most important thing that I learned was the following: airport traveling at Christmas is comparable to having a root canal done by a epileptic dentist. And this last year, I hear it was worse. Many of our co-workers decided to go home to the states to visit family, and all of their stories were remarkably similar. Remember the storm that dumped on the East Coast last Christmas? You know, the one that shut down airports, train travel, roads, and public transit? Yeah well, our great win of the season was NOT putting ourselves on a 24-hour intercontinental flight, infested with cranky air-travelers, to fly through the century's worst blizzard. To those of our friends who did, our hats are off to you! You are seemingly more brave than we are. But would you choose to do it again? Yeah, I didn't think so. And what is it about the holiday season that puts everybody in a bad mood? You would think that at the time of "tidings of comfort and joy" that people would be more relaxed, friendly, and supportive. Not travelers.

So to continue with the "win" portion of the story, we decided to stay home, nearly alone on the campus, spend some quality time together, light fires in our fireplace, and dog-sit Jack, our friend Sarah's newly-adopted puppy.


Cute, isn't he? And while might have been a little rambunctious, he was so cute that we had a great time with him. That's right, no fighting with lines, being stranded by a delayed/canceled flight, risking life and limb aboard an airplane headed into the worst weather on the planet; just a lovely time enjoying a Christmas morning together, eating out, and watching movies.

And then once things calmed down, we flew to Prague for New Years. But that story is for another post.

Nazdrave!