Day Four

Today Mark and I both slept until the alarm rang, which means we were both really tired. Mark spent much of the morning trying to decide whether he was going to need the antibiotic the doctor sent "just in case" but he has felt better as the day progressed. This morning Gracie wanted to play with her friends for much of the morning, but she would come back to check on us periodically and would look over to see if we were watching her. It was hilarious watching her playing with her friends, who picked her up and treated her like a little rag doll part of the time. She kept saying mama and tatko to her friends and the "aunties" and looking over at us. We decided to give her some space and sat to the side of the playground a little more today. Anytime any of the other kids would come over to use, she would come over and let them know that we were her mama and tatko. Four of her friends joined her on a large flat swing next to us and were giggling and acting silly. Rose said they were trying to "talk" with English words and were making up funny sounds.

For lunch, we decided to see if Bulgarian fast food is the same as US fast food. It's not. We ordered from KFC by pointing and nodding. Mark's chicken sandwich had a fried onion slab on it and the french fries were without salt. My pieces of chicken were actually three tiny hot wings. Oh, well. Mark's Pepsi Light (Diet Pepsi) came in a bottle, but my Pepsi was in a glass with ice. I felt daring and drank it anyway. So far, so good.

Petko took us this afternoon and left us to play with Gracie alone. She came right to me from her snack and took my hand. For the first time this week, the children in Gracie's play group spent the afternoon playing outside so we had a lot of competition for her attention this afternoon, too. Gracie did play for about 30 minutes alone with both of us in the sandbox and we both helped her get around on a little tricycle. She can pedal if it is really smooth, but much of the playground is bumpy, so she likes to push herself with her feet on the ground. We also made a second foam photo frame to bring home with us, and we couldn't get the backs off of the stickers fast enough to suit her. Then she took the picture to show to the "aunties" and all of her friends. She found our small Bulgarian phrasebook and took it to show to her best friend, Emanwewa, too. They loved flipping the pages and looking at the fold-out map of Sofia. I think she liked that the book was so tiny. Gracie smiled all afternoon.

For supper tonight we had banitsa, which is a typical Bulgarian dish we baked in the apartment that is a kind of rolled filo pastry stuffed with cheese and spinach filling. It was great, and Mark's stomach is back to normal. I am doing a load of laundry in the combination washer and dryer. Hmmm...Why do they have this technology in Bulgaria, but I haven't seen one in the US?

I'm happy today! See my photo project.