Fall in Bulgaria

Fall is here. It is official.  There are fall colors on the leaves, it has been cold and crisp for most of the past 2 weeks; the government has turned on the central heating (I think) or at least the heat in our houses and our school is on... Snow is on the top of Vitosha, and winter is well on its way :) It makes me happy!! 

We had some time for some adventures in and around Sofia, including a trip to the Black Sea, which was great, and a lot of fun.  I love road trips, and it was nice to share the time with the new roommates and Jess.  We stayed in Sozopol, which was a wonderful cultural mix of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece... travelled during the day to Burgas, Nessebur, and Sinemorets.  We had a great time with a few fun adventures including trying to find a beach in Sinemorets (which there is not much of)... we also tried to find this park preserve/lake where there are supposed to be all these water birds which is outside of Burgas.  No matter how hard we tried, we could not find it! And then I realized we had been driving past one of the lakes each day and that it was there all along, but by that time, no one was really interested in visiting the park preserve.  In the middle of this particular quest of the weekend, we happened upon this Thracian tomb which dated back to some ridiculous time around the 5th century, AD or BC... I am not sure.  I think maybe BC.  It was really old...  Basically it consisted of a round, earthen room that had this tall "chimney" like thing in the middle, that you could see up to the sky above, but the whole tomb was underground... very odd, but pretty interesting.  We got there right before closing time, and so we did not have to pay the 2 leva entrance fee that usually was required.... hahha.  It was random and weird, but kind of fun :) 

I wil have to post up pictures from this weekend in Sozopol.  It was beautiful!  Off to dinner now, but with more to come!