A Room With, Ugh, View

You have to hand it to the communists - they really had an eye for great architecture and design. Check out our lovely neighborhood:














Although, now that I think about it, these are not that much different from track housing and strip malls found in the US. I think they all must use the same paint color. Shoot, maybe the good ol' USofA is under the evil influence of communism after all.

We were set up with brand new apartments; well, at least inside they are new. It seems that since the government took care of everything while wearing the communist veil, the Bulgarian citizens have never really embraced any notion of community or neighborhood. Very little care is given
to what is outside of these complexes.
















The facades are more often than not crumbling, the paint has faded (you can see the contrast of our newly painted buildings with some of the older buildings), trash is thrown everywhere, and areas of some green are left unkempt instead of being small areas of grass and open field for the community to gather. These things, once upon a time, were left to the government. Nobody believes that he/she should take some action to change this.













We are about a ten minute cab ride to the city center, which is lovely, and about a thirty-five minute walk/twenty-five minute bus ride to the ACS campus. There are a couple of mini-malls near our house, a nice little gym with great clay tennis courts, and numerous little hole-in-the wall bars that we will one day stop in for a cold Zagorka - the national beer.

Although our apartment is a typical European capital city apartment - smallish, living room and kitchen combo - we have made it feel like home. We have put up many of our mementos from both Paraguayan and Roman travels, set up a yoga room, and established our work spaces. However, we have not been able to get Gringo, the cat, to enjoy being an indoor cat. He yells and screams constantly. We try to take him outside, but the multitude of wild dogs (yes, it's true - they are just about everywhere) and steady stream of traffic makes it difficult. We will see how this small battle - cat vs. man/woman - turns out. I have a feeling he might win.

4AO (ciao written, more or less, in Bulgarian)