Cookin' BG Style, First an Intro...

Here we are on the only ride we could stomach at the beach (Sozopol)

Here I am at ancient ruins in Varna, I think. I did not know I was climbing on such cool things.

Because we were cute.

Me looking ridiculous in front of a sign that says something that I don't know how to read.

Beach! We matched on purpose because we are lame.

I think this is that Roman theater in Plovdiv.

This is us climbing down 225 steps to an ancient sacred landmark place. Visitors tie pieces of their clothing on their trees for good luck.

This was the place of good luck. A butterfly landed on me, which was magical and I was going to kiss a frog I found for good measure but it hopped away because I was too slow.

It's so pretty.

We took model pictures.

 

This is us now. We grew up a little bit but we are still awesome. 

I wish I could post more pictures of Bulgaria (that are of the country and not our faces), but the ones I have, all have our faces in them. Lusi gave me some but I broke the CD that they were on. Oops. Sorry about all of the pictures of us, it is just representative of how impressively vain we are. And also how much fun we had.

I don’t know if you have read my About Me, but if you haven’t I would recommend that you do because I’m hilarious. I am kidding, I am only funny. You should actually read it because in it I tell you that I like to eat more than I like to cook. And then, I say I have a story about eating brains, but the time for that story will come. WELL, MY FRIENDS, THAT TIME HAS COME.

Long, long ago in a land far away, (2011 in Bulgaria), I adventured. I have a Bulgarian friend. Her name is Lusi. We like to adventure because we are adventurous. I was going off to Germany, she was taking her biannual trip to her home country, and we had a lightbulb moment. It was that I go with her. And it happened, which is the most unbelievable thing of this whole story.

It was a wonderful trip. I spent a month and a half in Bulgaria. We flew into Sofia, and everyone there loved my name. (Because I am named Sophia, in case you didn’t know.) We then stayed for about a week in Veliko Tarnovo (which used to be the Bulgarian capital), driving back and forth between a city apartment and a country villa. There I had my first ever stuffed pepper, and accidentally caught Lusi’s aunt stove on fire after Lusi and I tried to make ourselves frozen french fries. We have tallent. We visited her grandparent’s farm and her other grandparents apartament in Plovdiv, and we also went to the beach. At the beach, Lusi accidentally ordered calamari thinking it fried squid, but it wasn’t. It was an entire uncooked squid that I tried. I also tried tongue on that trip. The squid was slimy but the tongue was delicious. However, nothing was as horrifying as what happened at her grandparent’s farm.

We arrived, and to celebrate they had killed a lamb and cooked the entire thing. That sounds worse than it was. It was great. (I remember it sort of like in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but that’s because I have a bad memory.) We ate the lamb that night and it was delicious. They made homemade french fries, too. It was wonderful. The next day, Lusi handed me a bowl of rice with something in it. So I started to eat it. And it was gross. I mean really gross. I don’t want to be insensitive, but my taste buds did not appreciate what I had just put them in contact with. THERE WERE INTESTINES IN THE RICE. Not brains, I’m sorry about that. I always remember things much more dramatically than they actually were. But yes. That is my story.

So for my first official, real, and totally awesome blog post (the way I planned them to be) I picked Bulgarian food. That is right. The food of my people. JK. They will never claim me, as much as I have tried. But I have on good authority that I am very close to being a surrogate Bulgarian, but just not there yet. It’s an exciting process.

Let me tell you a little bit about why Bulgaria is so cool.

1. I just made it cool by posting about it on here.
2. Ok for real though. Some of the best people I know are from there, so that is a plus one for BG.
3. They have seriously delicious food. You are about to see that. You are welcome. (Except do not try the intestines. I am pretty sure intestines would taste bad in any country, though)
4. Bulgaria has some pretty impressive history; European’s earliest civilizations were in Bulgaria. The world’s oldest golden ornaments were found in Varna. That officially makes them awesome.
5. It was part of the Roman Empire. I think I am at the Ancient Theater and the Roman Stadium in Plovdiv in one of the above pictures. I will have to check about that though before I seem too fabulous.
6. Bulgaria was the birthplace of the Cyrillic alphabet.
7. It was a part of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and was victorious in the first Balkan War in 1912. It was a member of the Allied Forces in WWI and allied with the USSR in WWII.
8. The country was declared a republic in 1946 and the Bulgarian Communist Party came to power. Democratic changes occurred in 1989. In 2007 it became a member of the European Union.
9. It is historically Eastern Orthodox Christian (think Byzantine Empire).
10. Dancing on live coals is an ancient Bulgarian ritual still practiced in a few villages in the Balkan Mountains. This is cool but also kinda scary because I think that would hurt. I must do more research.
11. The symbol of Bulgaria is the rose and rose smelling stuff is everywhere.
12. On New Years Eve children decorate sticks and after midnight hit the adults on the back with the stick while chanting good luck. Then the adults give the kids money as a thank you for the good luck and a happy new year. I was lucky enough to participate once and I made $37. It was the best-weirdest way I have ever made money. My friend is writing a hilarious college supp on it.
13. Bulgarians have a fascinating and incredibly rich culture and past. I highly encourage you to do some virtual traveling and sail away to the black sea for awhile and research it.

I found a lot of this history on the fascinating Official Tourism Portal of Bulgaria.

Also here is the link to Lusi’s blog, Exclusively Lusi, where you will get a sneak peek of what we ate. She is also blogging for her mentoring project, but she had the incredible idea to blog about seventeen things she will experience before she is seventeen. I realize that last sentence sounds sarcastic, but it was not supposed to sound that way, I just have trouble not sounding sarcastic. She is great and you should follow her.