Holiday of the Week

If you've been following my blog for a while you have realize by now that Bulgaria has a lot of celebrations. We celebrated bread day today. As well as the graduation of 22 students at the highschool, and the 60th anniversary of the high school in town.

Since it was bread day I decided to go around asking everybody when we were gonna eat bread. LOL! It turns out they did that yesterday. They mayor told me she would show me the pictures. From what I understand this is a gypsy holiday that Bulgaria is promoting for the first time this year. Today in Bratsigovo they held a contest between the elementary students where they drew pictures representing this holiday on the asphalt. See the pictures in the right hand column.

After that I wanderd down to the the graduation ceremony. They don't wear gowns like we do for high school graduations, but they dress up really nice and get a new hair dew. Now I know why I couldn't get a hair cut yesterday or today. They'll be heading off to Turkey for a little vacations. Coincidentally, so will I.

For the 60th anniversary of the high school they presented a concert at the cultural dome. The students put on little skits, danced, and sang. After that a select few, including myself, went up to have drinks and eat hourdevours in the dining hall. One item was particularly interesting. A small piece of bread topped with a lemon slice (rind and all) topped with three little fish. I wasn't sure how to eat with the rind an' all, but I just stuck the whole thing in my mouth. It wasn't too bad. After that my counterpart invited me over to his house for a visit where we ate dinner sometime around 9:30pm. It worked out great because I wasn't in the mood for cooking today.

Next week they have yet another holiday. They celebrate the 24th of May. It's a day of appreciation for two saints, Cyril and Mothodius, the two Bulgarians who created the Cyrillic alphabet which is used by many baltic nations, Russia, Poland and others. I won't get to see how this holiday is celebrated because I will be in Istanbul, Turkey to celebrate my birthday. I'll let you know how it went when I get back.