Friday Post

Jack and I were talking today about all the things we learned about our new daughter in under 20 hours of time. A few facts about Miss Gabi -- she is 9 years old, turning 10 on June 30th. She will be finishing the 3rd grade at the end of May, loves Reading, dislikes Math. Her favorite color is pink, she understands more English than she can speak. Gabi loves vegetables, does not like chocolate at all. Her favorite juice is orange, does not like soda, coffee or tea. She's worried about learning to ride a bike and taking the airplane home.

She loves bubbles, frisbee and super balls - loves the swingset and is very proud when she's able to learn something new. She's very excited about having a new family and went through pictures on the camera repeating every name Jack said. She wanted to know who everyone was in the pictures --- and we had the card with pictures beginning in November ... she saw everyone and has heard their name at least once! Gabi also loved sidewalk chalk -- here she is writing her name along with Mama and Papa in Bulgarian.

I've had a few e-mails with concerns about how fast she attached to Jack & I -- there is always a concern with RAD, which is an attachment disorder. Please know that Gabi didn't immediately run into our arms -- she was encouraged by the translator to hold our hands in the beginning. It was tentative at first ... after a time (and remember we spent 6 hours a day with her) she would grab our hand on her
own. She didn't jump into our laps right away -- we encouraged it when we were sitting and so did the translator -- after a while she chose to come there. She did not go up to strangers and hug, touch or look for attention .... Ganka is a very affectionate woman, she was constantly hugging, touching, tickling and reassuring the children. Gabi has been with her 3 years and shows a great deal of attachment to her .....

Today we did a lot of walking around our area figuring out where there's a grocery store, fruit market, household supply store and others. It is much like Kazakhstan except the stores are not all in one place. I want to have a good idea of where things are so when I come back here with the girls we're comfortable.

On to the streets of Sofia .... this is the street our apartment is on - the cars are always parked on the side, doesn't matter which way they are facing, they just park. There are no lanes -- it's not a one-way -- if you're coming down the street and another car wants to go up the street, one waits or backs up or they beep at one another until one gives in and moves.


Tonights dinner was at a new restaurant (we definitely were out of the box Jonathan). My dinner was called "Bites." The description was this -- chicken, pepper, bacon, tomato all on a hoagie. I'm thinking it's like a club sandwich ...... what do you think? Is this what you pictured????? Check out the BOWL of french fries that came with it ........ This is what I got -- 3 of them are sliced chicken breast wrapped in the semi-cooked bacon & 3 of them are pepperoni wrapped in the bacon -- in the center is a tomato with a sauce poured on top -- all of this is sitting on a pizza crust ..... It was okay -- I pulled the chicken out of the middle of the fatty bacon though, just couldn't eat that.

And Jack had "3 Beers" the description was 3 flat sausages with Vienna potatoes and parmesan cheese accompanied by 3 sauces - a horseradish, a hot mustard and a red sauce. This is his bread board of food .....
The sausage was pretty spicy but was good when you dipped it in the sauces. The horseradish made it taste sort of seafood ish -- the mustard made it taste sweeter and the red sauce wasn't good at all.

Not sure what's on the agenda tomorrow -- will depend on the weather. We had planned an excursion but thunderstorms are expected and nothing will go then, if it does rain we're planning on heading to the 5 story mall to do some souvenier shopping.... oh no, the storms are starting; it's thundering like crazy outside!

Love to all!