In Sofia, city visits you

I'm back after spending a week in Sofia, Bulgaria for a lame planning conference. When I learned I was going to Bulgaria for a week, I didn't know what I was getting into. I had thought that it would be full of thick-necked guys named Boris and lots of borscht. As it turns out, Sofia is a fascinating city with lots of history and thick-necked guys named Boris.

Truth be told, there were three types of people in Sofia: Russian mafia thug-types, skinny hairy guys, and beautiful girls. The proportion of beautiful girls was actually alarming, even compared to Italy or Europe. I'm not sure the reason for this, but maybe it's because Sofia is named after the luscious St. Sofia.



Compare her to the dowdy Statue of Liberty. Snooze!



She's certainly not the gilded, bare-shouldered hottie that St. Sofia is. But I digress.

Here's a slideshow of some pictures that I took around Sofia. Nothing too nuts, just your standard vacation snapshots. I had only a half-day to really explore the city during the day, so most of these were taken on a whirlwind tour in the afternoon. Worth mentioning is the Ruined Soviet Monument. The picture is just a detail of a much larger monument that used to stand in one of the parks there. It's got a lot of classic cold-war motifs going on: the strong square-jawed worker standing tall with hammer in hand, the poor and infirm cradled in by the caring hands of the workers, you know the drill. But this huge (7-10 story) monument has since fallen into disarray since the fall of the Soviet Union. You can clearly see the exposed steel frame showing in the picture. It's as if the people were happy about the fall of their Soviet masters, but not enough to actually tear down the monument. Lazy capitalist mores creeping in already!

Ava "Shiloh has nothing on me" Kate

Little Ava hasn't made too many appearances here lately, mostly because she is the sleepiest baby EVER, and doesn't do much but sleep, sleep, sleep- not exactly Kodak moments. But, there has been a big demand for her pics (almost at a Suri Cruise level!) so here are a few for you:

Italian Rock-a-billy Scooter Shin-dig!

Love Vespas? Have a Fred Perry polo shirt and/or low profile Adidas tennies? Live in Italy? We have we got the most exciting weekend event for you! It's the Vespa Club Lonigo Gimkana Vespistica 2007!!!

We went to this a couple of weeks ago in a town about 30 minutes away from us. It was pretty cool- there were classic Vespas, local bands, inflatable slides for the kids, face tattoos, souvenirs for sale, food and beer, all to the sounds of a DJ playing what Joel called "60's soul B-sides" on 45's. As usual, we were solely responsible for representing the American community, but whatever. We seem to be a fun novelty for the locals we run into.

On a side note, this was another example of how much more family-friendly the Italians are than Americans. There were rides for the kids, and many people were giving the little ones rides on the scooters and asking us about Ava and Aidan. Although I have never been to a Vespa scooter rally in the states, I can't imagine that the tattooed rockabilly participants would pay any attention to any kids there. Of course, I could be wrong... if you have been to a US scooter rally- and really, who hasn't- I welcome your comments!!

An Overdue Delivery

Fact: Carnivale was in Februrary this year.

Fact: I took some great footage from Carnivale in Venice that I was going to edit and put up here for you.

Fact: I haven't produced this as quickly as I would have liked.

That being said, here's a long overdue video of the Italian Carnivale experience. Let me know what you think.

Running stinks

I think that about covers it.

Sopressa FEVER

I got a fever... and the only thing that can cure it is more sopressa.

For those in the know, sopressa is a local Italian sausage made here in the Vicentina area. It's nothing short of spectacular. Last Sunday, we visit the northern town of Schio and checked out their Sopressa Festivale. It was something else. When we arrived, there was a huge table set up along the main road downtown. By huge, I mean it was close to half a mile long. Ridiculous. On this table were set up all these small sopressa sandwiches. Nothing but sopressa and crusty Italian bread. It was delicious.

Around 7:30, they started serving dinner plates and we picked up a couple. Here's what the sopressa-fest plate looked like:



That yellow brick thing is grilled polenta. So... cornmeal-y?

While we were there, I was obliged to buy a little block of sopressa to take home. Here's me posing with the sausage and the "official" print from the event. Notice the "popped up" collar on my pink shirt. I'm trying, and apparently marginally succeeding, to look more Italian.



One thing that I did not know about Italians is their love for fun hats. Here in northern Italy, I've noticed a love for funny little hats by the older set. Here's a close up of said hats:



They're a little Peter Pan meets Heidi. I dig 'em. Anyway, after a couple of cheap Italian vinos, we worked up the courage to ask a group of these old Italians for a picture with their funny hats. Rather than being put off, they were more than accommodating and even let me try one of their hats on. Too bad it was from the smelly, sweaty one. Hygene!



All in all, it was pretty cool to experience the "local flavor". Stay tuned, because we have a couple of upcoming posts that are sure to please. They include: Aidan's dance recital, cherry festival, antique Vespa rally, and much much more!

Living in the dark

Although it is only June 4th, I guess it's officially summer here in Italy, since the energy crisis has started. We've always had an issue here with the power (besides the transformers issue), because there is a governor on the electricity- if we use too much at once, all of the power is cut off until we turn something off and reset the fuse box. Although that may sound draconian to the average American, it's not too bad, and we have gotten used to it- you just can't run three heat-generating things at once, like the dryer, the washer, the dishwasher, the hairdryer, and the iron. There might be more offenders, but those are the main culprits we've identified so far.

However, the new energy issue is that they have lowered the limit, or something to that effect, because I was not able to use the hairdryer at all today. I even went around and unplugged everything else in the house, but to no avail. I'll probably get over this, too; the perks of living in Italy far outweigh awesome hair.