First Day in Plovdiv

We awoke to a snow-blanketed city.  People slowly began to come out around 11am; many were digging up snow around their front stoops and sidewalks. I haven’t walked on slick, icy sidewalks since Pecs, Hungary, in 2009. In fact, I am wearing the same boots. It’s so much fun to walk out of our apartment that will be a new home for six months and see what awaits. Everything is a discovery.  The corner grocery nook, coffee shop, the closest ATM, the local police drinking coffee, the snow plows digging up the walkway in front of the post office, and the pedestrian mall or brick-lined street that leads to the Roman Amphitheater.  I also love that the city is littered with cats that don’t seem to mind the snow. People feed and pet them. What a wonderful tonic since I already miss our animals.  I took pictures of everything covered in snow because I know it won’t be long before this white landscape is just a memory.

Grocery shopping was the main item on our list. We needed beer (Tom had already gone one night without any), water, and other essentials. I have never had such a disorienting shopping experience, and this is primarily because of the language.  Bulgarian is written in Cyrillic alphabet, which is not Latin in origin, so to English speakers, nothing is familiar. In fact, all language is indecipherable. Food labels were seldom translated so just picking out tea was challenging. Black, green, herbal? Same with jam or jelly. I found myself looking for brand names I know like a capitalistic co-dependent. Although we bought some necessary items, we came out without anything to eat for dinner.