bulgaria – Bill's Blog

Thoughts on Bulgaria

December 29, 2013December 29, 2013billkralovec

We had a very nice few days in the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia visiting with friends. We were hosted by Bill and Kalina Mays and they showed us the best of Sofia. The picture above is from lunch at Kalina’s parents apartment. They prepared a traditional Bulgarian meal, as with all Balkan countries, it was heavy with meat. We also sampled Hristo’s homemade rakija and I learned the origin of the Šopska Salad, which is from Bulgaria. We were quite satiated and were touched by the warm hospitality.

Owen is pictured in the hip downtown of Sofia

We were very impressed with Sofia and the city had a positive vibe, similar to Belgrade. In many ways, Bulgaria is very similar to Serbia and it could have easily been part of Yugoslavia. The Bulgars call the Macedonians brothers and they share pretty much the same language. Serbia should have closer relations to Bulgaria, as they share the same religion, a Cyrillic script, and I understood much of what was said and the Bulgars understood my Serbian.

A good feature of the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe is plenty of public space and Sofia has many parks. The communists put people in small apartments and the city planners put in a lot of common, public space like parks and plazas. Today if makes cities like Belgrade and Sofia have many green areas spread throughout the city and enhances the community feel.

The Russian Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia

Bill and Kalina not only treated us to fine dining and drinks, but they were tour guides for the important museums and churches of the city. Above is the main cathedral of Sofia, and it was built in honor of the Russians and others who helped the Bulgars repel the Turks. The Turks were here for a long time as well!

I would like to thank Bill, Kalina, and their beautiful daughter Maggie for a wonderful visit! We hope to meet up again in the spring here in Belgrade.

The Dragons Win Bulgarian Basketball Tourney

February 28, 2011February 28, 2011billkralovec

“March Madness” is a nickname referring to the end of the basketball seasons. The American universities and high schools complete their seasons in the month of March. I am a coach of the high school boys’ basketball team at the International School of Belgrade. March Madness started a bit earlier for us as we won the basketball tourney this weekend. It was hosted by the Anglo American School of Sofia, Bulgaria. We played against four private schools in Sofia over two days of competition. Yesterday afternoon we defeated the Sofia Christian Academy in the finals, by a score of 53-49. It was a great weekend of basketball and besides having fun, we improved as a team. We are preparing for our Central and Eastern European Schools Association (CEESA) basketball championship in two weeks in Riga, Latvia. The Dragons are now 9 wins and 5 losses for the season. We have 2 more games and then we are off to Latvia on March 9th.

I also made is a father-son weekend by taking Oliver on the trip. The little guy was a trooper and was patient during all of the games. We went to Burger King three times and swam in the hotel pool. He would sit on the bench next to me and draw pictures. I would then have to run him out to the school’s playground between games. He was a fan favorite there and everyone knew his name. He is a charismatic little fellow with a ton of energy! It was nice to be with him alone and not with his brother and sister. Oliver kept wanted to get food or toys to take back to Belgrade for his big brother Owen.

Third Place in Sofia, Bulgaria Tourney

March 1, 2010billkralovec

This weekend the ISB basketball team finished third out of six teams in Sofia, Bulgaria. We were short-handed as you can see with only 7 players making the trip. We also had 4 freshman on the tourney squad. The kids really played well and we lost to the eventual tourney champion in overtime. They played five games in two days. They used the same format as in CEESA events with a running clock, only stopping for free throws and dead balls in the last minute.

We all had a great time. It also gave me a chance to see an old friend from my village in Michigan who lives in Sofia. Overall a fantastic weekend.

Weekend Family Journal: October 24-26, 2008

October 26, 2008October 28, 2008billkralovec

Owen is shown above with his passport ready to re-enter Serbia. Owen was the ball boy of the girls’ MS soccer team. He faithfully attended practtices and really helped me out by retrieving balls, cones, among other duties. It was really nice to spend time with him alone. He loved the swimming pool at the hotel so that is about all I saw of Sofia besides the school. We were not in Bulgaria for much time, but I have a few impressions. It was surprising that Bulgaria seemed a bit less developed than Serbia, despite the fact that Bulgaria is part of the EU and Serbia is not. There was a lot of construction on the “ring road” going around the city and the school is located on the outskirts. It was a beautiful, new school situated on the base of the mountains surrounding Sofia. The Bulgarians were defintiely different from the Serbs, as they looked more Turkish, Armenian, than Slavic. Owen was a good boy during the trip! We drove over on Friday and came back the next day. It was also great to win the game on Saturday and have the girls play so well during the weekend.

On Sunday, Oliver and I attended the Belgrade Book Fair. The Serbs are readers and the convention center was packed with people buying books. This was the last day of the seven day fair and I was impressed with the number of book stores and readers buying books. There must have been close to 5000 people in the convention hall. My only complaint was the cost of books. The two books I wanted to get, very few in English, cost 7,000 dinars and 5,000 dinars. That is over $100 each. I did by a biography of Tito for $18. From the Blic web site, the director of the book fair gave these statistics:

About 135,000 tickets were sold, while 4,800 people worked on stands on daily basis. There were 1,180 accredited journalists, which is, according to Trpkovic, the greatest number so far. About 4,000 invitations and 2,000 tickets were handed over, so altogether 147,000 people visited this year’s Book Fair. The greatest number of tickets (31,500) was sold on Saturday.

We hosted Janna’s and Abby’s birthday party at our house. Paul, Abby’s father and our IT person at the school, worked the BBQ. We have a beautiful stone oven in our yard. We had a really nice time. Once again, the tempation to use Alkohol, created a fire again. Alkohol is a flammable spirit that is used here to begin fires. Think of a super-charged lighter fluid. Paul threw some on the coals to get the new ones going, and the result was a massive flame shooting up through the chimney and catching the vines covering the opening on fire. Paul acted quickly however, and put out the fire with our garden hose.