It's Tuesday afternoon here and very quiet. I thought I might take a break from preparing a lecture to post a couple more pictures. We have not had any new "big" adventures. Rather, our life is becoming quite settled. As I mentioned before, we spent our first week here trying to get the apartment filled with the important items: coffee maker, hair dryer, bath towels, etc. As it turns out, you can buy everything you need in the "universal magazine." (That's what the sign says on this building in case anyone is trying out their knowledge of the cyrillic alphabet. Enlarge the picuture for a better view.). Magazine means "store" and, of course, universal means everything is there. Inside this building are independently run kiosks. We have since learned of other places to buy things of better qualilty and lower price, but it was a good place to start.



The university sits on the edge of a town square. There are many streets going at angles with lots of cafes. This cafe with the green awning is called Pizza Napoli and is quite popular among faculty and students. The menu is in both Bulgarian and English. It gives us the chance to order things and then remember the Bulgarian so we can order in other cafes. As with the 'magazine' we have since wandered on to other places.

Strolling along the steets in the city square there are shops for everything. Most popular (or so it seems) are shoe stores. Fashion is really important here. Brent and I have chuckled at one thing about t-shirts here: anything with English seems "cool." However, I think if people knew what the words said, they might not be quite so popular. Many women have shirts referring to themselves as "sexual attractions" while men have more behavioral themes "do it on the first date" (recognize I'm not using the right slang here--the shirts do).

Another fun kind of shopping is grocery shopping. No Winco here! Instead, there are many "super markets" on every block. They have a little of everything. This shop is called "super market cosmos" and we stop here sometimes on the way home for bread, cheese, and yogurt. There are really only two kinds of cheese here that I can figure out. One is the regular chees (serene) that is white and varies in taste from a mild to tangy mozzarella. Then there is yellow cheese (kashkoval) which is also white but tastes from mild to tangy provalone. Some comes from goats, some from cows, some from sheep. We don't have a clue how to tell the difference. But they are all pretty good.

Yesterday was our first day of classes. Both Brent and I teach in the Multipurpose Room of Skaptopara (the dorms). I've posted a picture of the outside of Sakpto 1 (there are three). They are very nice dorms. I have 36 students enrolled in my introduction to sociology class. Just for fun, let me give you some last names of my students: Bajramspahic, Bekkoyonov, Cvetanovski, Karagyozova, Pabaruyeva, Zhisova. First names are similarly challenging: Chingiz, Stojche, Lyubomira, Rumyana, Velichko. I suspect you guessed that I did not call roll the first day. My students were very active and I am really looking forward to getting to know them better. Once I do, I'll ask if I can take a picture or two.

Ok, here's a perplexing thing. While walking to campus with a woman named Pavlova I asked if this really warm and humid weather was atypical for this time of year. Shaking her head back and forth (which means yes, by the way, and is another perplexing thing) she said "well, it is not always the case. But, sometimes it is and we call it gypsy summer." Interesting. In the US we call it "Indian summer." So, Brent asked a professor here about this and he indicated that in Russia it is called "women summer." What do these groups have in common? I've been doing some investigating on the web, but I'm not sure I have an answer.

Dovijdane. Preatin den. (see you later--have a nice day)