Here be Elly taking up where Stu left off on what we are most looking forward to at home.

8. Ninja! (That’s our cat, by the way.)

Ninja, Ninja, Ninja. Where to start?

We miss cuddling him, conversing with him, chasing him and his skinks out of the house, laughing at him as he sits forlornly outside in the rain he insisted going out in, watching friends’ expressions of bewilderment when he uses his door knocker to announce that he’d like to be let in, blowing his fur off our faces during moulting season, snuggling with him in bed in winter, teasing him, feeding him scraps as we prepare dinner, watching him stalk insects and puddles of water, laughing at him choking down a worming tablet…and more!

Mum took this photo of him at their front gate, calling it the ‘When will they be home?’ photo. Aww.

We hope he’ll greet us with his little ‘hello’ meow when he sees us again… (sounds something like ‘re! re!’ …or does writing that confirm my status as a crazy cat lady?)

9. EFTPOS.

Who wouldn’t miss this glorious piece of technology that allows you to drain your bank account without giving you a statement so you can keep an eye on your spending? Uhh… good point. But it’s convenient, yes? And we love convenience, don’t we? We’ll feel much safer as we walk the streets without pocketfuls of cash.

Relatives of EFTPOS: Direct Debit and Online Banking. Who wouldn’t like to pay phone and internet bills from the comfort of your home and have the leisure to think of more important things instead of wondering when the rent is due? Welcome to the 21st century, may Bulgaria catch up soon!

10. Our Bed.

We’ve heard reports that our huge Queen sized ensemble bed with a sprung base and pillow-top is already waiting for us in our new room at Sam and Dani’s house. We hope so, because we are looking forward to finally sleeping in comfort.

We gave up on our Communist-issue bed here months ago. I say bed; it’s better described as two hammocks side by side with a futon mattress flopped on top. Communist generosity at its finest! Not very good for the back or a full night’s sleep. We’re now on the floor on a foam mattress loaned to us by the Richards, which is slightly better!

This guy knows what we’re talking about. Great blog of his; you should check it out!

11. Quality control.

All the things I hated about working at Target I’ve grown to appreciate here. Smile at the customers! Always offer them assistance! If something has slightly damaged packaging, mark it down! If a customer returns something that’s proven to be faulty, give them their money back! No questions asked!

This doesn’t even include the rigmarole products go through before being allowed to leave the factories. Anyone who has caught themselves staring mesmerised at one of those boring in-store Rivers videos will know what I’m talking about.

I’m not saying that everything in Bulgaria is dodgy, but the following examples certainly were! Humf bought a ski jacket when he was here and it started to fall apart the first time he wore it in snow. We’ve bought more than 20 biros since being here and threw most of them out in disgust after a very short while. Even my big brown sleeping-bag style jacket from Romania has seen early retirement after the zip broke.

12. Cooking for a party.

We developed quite a reputation back home for cooking for large numbers of people. Birthday parties, quiz nights, Synod, Christmas Eve party, ‘just because a bunch of people have rocked up from Hobart’ nights… just say the words and we’ll create a feast and a lot of fun.

We are so looking forward to doing this again, that I’ve already volunteered our services to a friend for her 21st birthday party. When I broke this news to Stu, instead of giving me the withering look he usually awards me when I volunteer him without asking first, he instead expressed great disappointment that the birthday isn’t until late October and he’d have to wait.

If anyone has need of caterers for an earlier time slot (say anyone born on or around April 29th for example) then send us a message and we’ll see what we can do!

13. The Australian Accent.

This kind of sums up Sal’s comment from the last post.

It’s not quite enough that we miss being surrounded by English speakers, because when we talk with the Koreans or the Americans, it’s nice but not the same. It’s the way Aussies talk (ie: lazily). I read a very Australian book to Aydin today – Gala Koala of La Scala by someone named Cheryl. Gala the Koala is accused of telling, among other things, a ‘whopper’, ‘bluey’, ‘tall tale’ and something ‘hard to swallow.’ Australianisms at their finest! Reading this story out in any accent other than Australian would be a crime!

No more laughing at the pitiful Australian accents delivered by American actors on the tv. We want the real thing!

Oh, and ‘skitties’ – we still derive great entertainment from that story! Thanks Sal!

14. Being with good friends.

Road trips, camping trips, post-work coffee, swimming at the Gorge, tennis, coffee after church, tv nights, movie nights, coffee before any organised activity, playing the Wii, competing on Singstar, morning or afternoon tea coffee, barbies, fish and chips, ‘most coffees made in a day’ tally, Monday Night Group, boardgames, ‘introducing someone to coffee’ coffee:  things we did with our friends.

Of course, when with a group of people there’s always that time when the conversation stops and everyone stares around the room awkwardly.

Some could argue that with our group of friends, we should never worry about awkward silences, but when they do happen we don’t care because we’re comfortable with our friends no matter the awkwardness.

And there’s a good lot of awkwardness to be had. We’re looking forward to being back with you guys!

Sorry loyal readers for being absent on the blogging front recently. My blog ideas drought is now over and I am back! I even have lots of ideas stored up in the drafts so I’ll be stealing the limelight from Stu for a little while, mwah haha.

Cheers

Elly xx

ps Read Imogen’s blog. We were racing and she won. I say ‘racing’, what I mean was ‘I was encouraging her using friendly competition.’ You all have something to read now so everyone’s a winner!

By popular request*, and by way of giving a nice visual representation of how excited we are that we’ve now seen our way through three whole seasons here in Bulgaria, here is a series panoramas taken from our flat. They’re slightly different to the panoramas you might already have seen. Click on them for a bigger version.

[* on this blog, the term "popular request" should be taken to mean "as requested by someone cool" rather than "as requested by several people".]

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Early Summer:

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Late Summer:

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Early Autumn:

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Late Autumn/Early Winter:

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Proper Winter:

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Tomorrow we’re heading to Romania for a very white Christmas with the Nairn family (minus Andy ). Apparently they have 30cm of snow already!

Wishing everyone who reads our blog a very merry Christmas!

Cheers,

Stu and Elly.

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ps. Winter can be a real challenge for people here. Not us! We’re fine, but we’ve seen a lot more people doing it tough since summer work dropped off and (especially) since it got cold. If anyone wants to donate towards those who have to last the winter without proper heating, clothing or food, contact us and we can find a worthy cause!

Hi all, Stu here.

Top seven reasons that living in an apartment block is funny/interesting:

[For those who missed it, or want to see it again, here is the video we made of our flat.]

1. Mocking people for using the lift to go up one or two flights of stairs. Ha! Lazy bums. And we can do it openly because they don’t know what we’re saying! *giggle*laugh*gaffaw*
2. Strange noises at precisely 10:15pm every night. No, not what you’re thinking – I meant mysterious tapping noises. They started happening recently, and it’s always at the same time of night. Maybe someone’s nightly ritual of… I don’t know – using the treadmill with a walking stick?
3. You can’t hear the rain on the roof. I love hearing rain on the roof! But we’re on the fifth floor (out of twelve) so we have no chance. On the other hand, there is the novelty consolation prize of looking out the window and realising it’s been raining for the last hour and you hadn’t noticed.
4. A good view. Not just for spectacular panoramas of sunset, sunrises, thunderstorms, and fireworks, but also for the shenanigans you can spot from up here. Recently it was two guys with a flamethrower, tarring the roof downstairs. Classic Bulgarian dodginess ensued – I just love the fact that they were both smoking cigarettes the whole time.
5. Cleaning your rugs. Bulgarians often prefer rugs instead of carpet but the 30,000 leva question is: how do you shake out your rugs without throwing all your dust straight into the windows/balcony below. We certainly haven’t figured it out yet – we just rush out there, give them a shake, and run inside again before anyone can yell at us in Bulgarian. Benefits of living on the top floor?
6. The undies dash! Inevitably, you’re half-dressed when you realise that you need something from the washing line – which is on the balcony. Locals (of all shapes and sizes!) seem to have no qualms about dashing (or even sauntering) out onto their balcony in their underwear to grab something – it’s as if your balcony is your own private space, regardless of how many other blockers might spot you!
7. You can just stay home and play synthesiser. If that’s what you’re into.

Чао for now!

Cheers,

Stu.