After a week spent together on the other side of the Earth (for me), we said goodbye in our usual fashion when airport security lines pulled us apart. Keeping a sense of humor is an essential survival mechanism for coping with the senseless long distance this year. I haven't been at all embittered to discover my own government casually forces married couples apart for a year or so while deciding whether its own citizens can be trusted in their choice of life partner, should said partner not carry the "right" passport. (Hint: there is only one "right" passport.)
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| Too many airport goodbyes for one year |
A week has already flown past since our much anticipated reunion week in Bulgaria came to a close, though I've hardly felt it. Working in a fast-paced start-up and growing accustomed to the emptiness at home has left me with a certain numbness around this whole experience of immigration-enforced long-distance.
Before the goodbyes came our first uninterrupted seven-day stretch together in 2018. On Day 1, between the desperately-needed jetlag napping (I'd survived the 2 previous nights sans bed), after the requisite baguettes (when in Paris...), we sipped coffees in my old favorite haunt, we found Nicolas a new pair of glasses, we went shopping in the Marais, and Nicolas cooked me a baked camembert. It all felt fantastically normal, as if the past seven and a half months had all been one bad dream.
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| Enjoying life as a normal couple for a day back in Paris |
We awoke on Day 2 to even better plans: one height-of-French-vacation-season fight through Charles de Gaulle Airport later, we were Bulgaria-bound, a destination we'd discussed since our very first date a little over four years ago. Before the day was out, we were dining on traditional Bulgarian cold cucumber yogurt soup and sipping cocktails in an outdoor lounge.
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| Thank goodness for macarons, even if they're just La Durée, when battling the August-vacationer crowds at the Charles de Gaulle Airport. By the day's end, we were happily dining on traditional Bulgarian cold cucumber yogurt soup and sipping cocktails in the heart of this Eastern European capital city. |
Our alarm went off the next morning at around the time I'd start thinking about wrapping up my work day on California time. I'm still not sure how I survived the time change acrobatics of the week, but there wasn't much time for lounging: we had plans. Specifically, British Airways plans. We'd recently made an interesting discovery: miles won't just buy you (overpriced) flights but also day-trips in many destinations across the globe. Today, we plowed through old UK air miles to make our way Plovdiv and Koprivshtitsa.
Despite its population numbering only just shy of 350,000, Plovdiv is the second most populous city in Bulgaria, after Sofia. It's also slated to be one of the two
European Capitals of Culture of 2019, alongside a small Italian city. Plovdiv has been inhabited for the past 8 millennia, which according to our tour guide makes it the oldest continually inhabited city in Europe. It's been under the rule of the Persians, Romans, and Ottomans, among other historical big hitters. The most charming part of the city is the
Ancient Theater, purportedly the best preserved Roman amphitheater. A landslide in 1970 led to the rediscovery of the theater, which was subsequently restored and is now in such good condition that it's still used for
outdoor performances in summer months.
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| Plovdiv. The Roman Ancient Theater is shown all the way to the right. |
The next destination was Koprivshtitsa, a much smaller town with a population of just a few thousand. The city peaked during the Bulgarian National Revival period in the late 1800s, and it was the site of the failed April Uprising in 1876, just two years before Russia finally won the Bulgarians their independence from the Ottomans, under whose rule they had suffered for about five centuries. Koprivshtitsa is known for its charming, classical Bulgarian architecture, and is described as a museum-town. Many of the historical houses have been preserved and are open for tourists. The exteriors were all painted in vibrant colors (I was especially fond of the blue buildings), and the interiors were covered in ornate wooden carvings. I was surprised to see in the preserved historical décor and attire that, despite their resistance to the Ottomans, the locals had adopted certain traditions, like the low cushion seating, hookah, and certain touches in their fashion. Koprivshtitsa was a quick stop for a peek into Bulgaria's recent past.
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| Koprivshtitsa, the museum-town. Interiors pictured are from the Oslekov House. |
Our first chance to sleep in came on Day 4. (This week was passing too fast.) But once we did finally roll out of bed, we devoted the day to an exploration of Bulgarian cuisine and their much more ancient past. Though Bulgaria might be easy to overlook in history class, it hardly falls short on history (and pre-history!). All the humans, and even pre-human hominids, who entered the European continent had to pass through this country, leaving pre-historical traces back through the Neolithic Age. And here in Bulgaria, history is a very much alive: there are active archeological digs scattered throughout the capital, Sofia. We took a couple of hours to check out the National Archeological Museum, and struggled to wrap our heads around just how old the things lying before us really were. Here's a smattering of my favorite artefacts:
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| Spotted at the Bulgarian National Archeological Museum. Top row: tombstone of a deaconess (538 AD), statue of Apollo (2nd-3rd century AD), entry to the Archeology Museum (above)/anthropomorphic vessel (below, late Neolithic: 2nd half of 6th millennium BC), a gold head wreath (4th century BC). Bottom row: Spearheads from the Middle Paleolithic (250,000 - 40,000 years ago), bronze spearheaded helmet (late Bronze Age, 16th-12th century BC), a zoomorphic figurine (Chalcolithic Age, 5th millennium BC), and a golden funeral mask (end of 5th century BC) |
One of the pros of choosing such an affordable destination is that you can really live it up without breaking the bank. We spent the week ticking off all of TripAdvisor's top-rated restaurants, but we saved the best,
Kosmos, for this evening. A couple of hours spent relaxing over a six-course gourmet traditionally-inspired tasting menu paired with a bottle of Bulgarian wine only set us back about $100.
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| Kosmos vegetarian tasting menu, where the overarching theme of this locally-inspired meal was "Wow, Bulgarians sure do love their cheeses." Top row: amuse-bouche creamy cheese puffs, then 1st course: Salad Shiila, composed of mixed salad, homemade buttermilk, caramelized yogurt, "Shiila" cucumber, and marinated goat cheese. Middle row: 2nd course: Green asparagus with Krokmach (liquid cheese made from sheep's milk), rye bread crisp, white asparagus ice cream, truffle, hazelnut, and lemon thyme. This was probably my favorite course. Upper right: 3rd course: Eggs in Panagyuristhe style with sheep yogurt, krokmach, beurre noisette, smoked paprika, garlic chips, yogurt meringue, and cheese snow. Lower right: 4th course: Polenta with brynza, porcini, cream, tomato confit, and milk skin. Bottom row: 5th course: Dessert cloud of watermelon, fennel and mastika granite, cotton candy, watermelon rind, and bergamot. 6th course: "Banitza with boza." (Banitza is a light cheese pastry typicall served as a breakfast or a snack. Boza is a fermented, slightly alcoholic malt drink traditionally consumed with breakfast.) This dessert was served with cheese mousse, rose jam, "boza" sorbet, and crispy banitza. Rose is also a major produce item grown in Bulgaria. This dessert almost reminded me of a millefeuille. Mmm! |
It was up and at 'em again the next morning as we continued to cash in our British Airways miles. This excursion, the Rila Lakes and Monastery, turned out to be the highlight of our time in Bulgaria. We began with the Seven Rila Lakes, a series of glacial lakes located in the Rila Mountains where, despite the hot summer sun, densely packed snow still filled the crevices between the mountain peaks. Here, I rode a ski lift for the very first time! The thrill of that clearly showed just how far my life is removed from roller coasters and amusement park rides. Our half day in the mountains gave us the chance to see the Babreka, Okoto, and Salzata lakes. And though we still powered through at a pretty respectable pace, my body was all too happy to remind me that I have most certainly not been training for this sort of a workout. The views were worth the effort, but that effort is still fresh in my memory a week and a half later.
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| Hiking around the Rila Lakes |
The tour van then took us to a picturesque monastery nestled in between mist-covered mountains, a setting just ripe for an eery murder movie. The Rila Monastery is the largest Eastern Orthodox Monastery in Bulgaria, and has been recognized as a
UNESCO World Heritage site since 1983. The monastery was built up around the dwelling of the hermit St. John of Rila. While the monastery was founded back in the 10th century, the current buildings only date back to the mid-1800s, when it was rebuilt following a fire. Like the architecture in Koprivshtitsa, this complex is also built in the Bulgarian Renaissance style, during the time when the Bulgarians were finally gaining independence and building up a national identity after centuries of rule by the Ottomans.
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| Rila Monastery |
Day 6 marked our final day in Bulgaria, and was left open to hit up any major sites around Sofia that we had yet to explore. We finally wandered inside the Aleksander Nevski Cathedral before hitting up the Sofia History Museum, which inspired our subsequent visits to the Sofia Synagogue, the third largest synagogue in Europe, as well as to the St. Sofia Church, a decidedly underwhelming church built in the 4th century, after which this city got its current name during the 14th century.
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| Sofia! Top left: Banya Bashi Mosque. Below: the Sofia History Museum. Next: Aleksander Nevski Cathedral (exterior and interior). Next: Décor inside Kanaal, a cool craft brew bar in Sofia recommended to us by our Airbnb host Hristo. Below: a very Soviet-looking sculpture from the gardens behind the Ethnographic Museum. Next: glasses of rakia, the national drink, basically brandy. My favorite was the Burgas 63 barrel aged produced by Black Sea Gold, Pomorie. Top right: a bit of Bulgarian humor. Middle row, from left to right: the Eagles' Bridge, St. Sofia Church, and the Statue of Saint Sofia (which replaced the former statue of Lenin that stood on the same spot). Bottom row: our final cucumber yogurt soup, artefacts from a 16th century church in the Sofia History Museum, ice creams at Gelateria Naturale (including a quite memorable scoop of honey poppyseed), and the interior of the Sofia Synagogue. |
With one last cucumber yogurt soup to see us off, we headed back to the airport on our seventh and final day together. We tucked in to bed in Paris that night with the surprising news that 1. the National Visa Center had answered our application just 10 days (instead of the advertized 6 weeks) after our document submission, and 2. we'd been rejected due to two failed documents. The wild scramble to get a replacement police certificate from the UK government filled our last evening together. (Apparently criminal background checks are not the same as police certificates!) Nicolas sent me off the following morning for a weekend on the East Coast, where I made an appearance at a dear friend's wedding and finally fetched our kitties, beginning our family reunification in San Francisco.
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| The adventures of the world traveling kitties continue. Onward and upward to our luxury apartment in San Francisco! |
Although they (and by they, I mostly mean Chat) were
not fans of airport security, which Chat gladly let me know, they survived the flight as a single carry-on unit, and have so far approved of their new home with a view. We are now just one green card short of being a whole family again. 💜
