Hi all, Stu here.

Again, thanks to everyone who wished Elly a happy birthday (in whatever form!). I anticipated that Elly might feel especially homesick at a time that’s supposed to be shared with all her friends, but everyone made a massive effort to make Elly feel loved.

Dave and Kathryn included! They helped plan and put-on a fantastic birthday evening for Elly. We went to Madjarovo, which is a bleak-looking mining town set in a stunning part of the Eastern Rodopi mountains, South and East of Haskovo.

When it got dark we were privileged to witness some of the finest Bulgarian fireworks. D+K had purchased them from a normally reliable outlet… Let’s just say we can understand now why fireworks are all but illegal in Australia! Check out this YouTube video we put up… this was the best of them!

Lastly, the presents! A bunch of people from Tassie (and beyond!) banded together to fund a new mp3 player for Elly – hers broke last month! However, we decided instead to kill two birds with one stone and instead purchase a super-dooper mobile phone capable of being used as an mp3 player AND as a cool accessory… oh, I mean, communication device. I forget sometimes. We’ll be getting it in a few weeks when our lichna karta (identity cards/visas) come through. We’ve also been receiving lots of books that myself and others bought for Elly. And best of all (in my opinion), amazing Humf and amazing Sam sent a kilo of the finest freshly roasted coffee! Amazing.

Till next time,

Farewell, Earthlings.

Stu.

I had to tell you all straight away what just happened!

A sudden gust of wind just went through the flat knocking out this problem window we have! We’d known that it wasn’t terribly stable and I’d had had paranoid delusions involving it falling out and killing a poor unsuspecting pedestrian on the footpath below.

Praise the Lord it happened at 3 in the afternoon at not while we were sleeping. I’d hate to think what would’ve happened had it landed on Stu…

We told our landlady about it the other day and she offered to look into it. I think we might take her up on the offer now!