Trip to Koprivshtitsa on Sunday Sept. 28

Based on the recommendations of the Habitat Bulgaria staff, five of us signed up for a day visit to the historic mountain town of Koprivshtitsa.  This is the town where the uprising against the Ottoman Empire started in April of 1876 and culminated on Sept. 22 1878.  After a two hour drive out of the Sofia and through the mountains, we arrived at the restaurant where we would have lunch.

We then spent the next three hours walking through the picturesque town.  In the museums, all the signs were in both Bulgarian and English, so our tour went well.  Our tour guide added much info as well.  Multiple mountain streams run through the town.

Besides numerous souvenir shops, many independent vendors had their wares on display.  Here, blankets and other items made locally from goats were arrayed on their car.

The lion (lev) is the national symbol and is on many memorials, including this one to the April 1876 uprising.

Some of the souvenir shops also had a variety of antiques - these guns ranged in 500 - 2000 leva range.

Being in a narrow mountain valley meant we had hillsides to climb.

All of the chimneys had unique caps.

Besides the uprising of 1876, there are also numerous poets and writers from here.

 Todor Kablelhkov was the leader of the uprising.  His grave is marked with a cross, handgun and sword.

The Church of the Assumption of the Holy Mother was built in 1817.

Koprivshtitsa is know for Bulgarian revival architecture.  The ideal is houses with a roof line in the shape of a yoke and with symmetrical (or near symmetrical) construction left and right.  In the center, there is a domed oval room upstairs in the center, with much intricate carved decorations and painting.

Most of the homes have beautiful flower gardens.

Many of the homes also had tall stone walls and intricate gates.

For lunch, we returned to the Chuchura restaurant for traditional Bulgarian fare.  The first course was these five salads which were eaten with the warm bread - half garlic, half herbal.

The entree was served in these replicas of water jugs used by farmers.  Water was poured in at the top and then drunk from the small nipple on the handle.  Since they are made from clay, the water kept cool.  A nice stew was inside.

Dessert was a peeled honeydew melon slice drizzled with honey and lightly sprinkled with fine sugar.

The gardens by the restaurant and hotel still had roses in bloom.

There were also numerous horse drawn wagons in town.

We continued to walk and explore the town and the many merchants before leaving at 3:00 for the two hour plus drive back.  While it is only 111 km, it is a slow drive, especially coming back into the city.  The last 15 km took 45 minutes because of the traffic.

Tonight we will have our last team dinner at the Happy Restaurant in the nearby Mall of Sofia and Monday, the rest of the crew departs while I stay in Sofia for three more days of exploration.

It has been a great week and I truly enjoyed the build, meeting the families and especially meeting the Habitat staff.

Final build day Saturday Sept. 27

After our rainy day Friday, we started at our usual time of 7:45 to go to the build site.  Once we got there, we saw just how much rain had fallen and how there is so much clay in the soil that the water does not drain away.

The rain created a moat around the building in the trench we had dug on Thursday

Large puddles and mud everywhere

Because there is no roof, there is water everywhere inside

There was so much water that our first task was to use brooms to push water out of the building

We continued removing the concrete forms.  Different rooms had been put together by different workers for the company that was the general contractor. In rooms where it was done correctly, the forms could be removed without a lot of problems.  But in the hall ways and smaller rooms, they had been done with so many nails and so tightly that it would take hours of great effort just to remove a couple of pieces.  The last piece we worked on was a single piece about 8 feet by 3 feet and it was concreted in from all four sides.  We worked on that single piece for well over an hour and still were unable to remove.  Other tasks included removing nails from the forms, putting together rebar for the steps, restacking the lumber with spacers so that it would dry from all four sides, and building a second dog house for the dogs that stay and guard the construction site.

We finally called it a day a little before 3:00, then went back to the hotel for rest, showers and clean clothes so we could go to the closing dinner of traditional Bulgarian food back in Kostinbrod.  The meal was a veritable feast.

A version of egg salad with roasted red peppers (one of the commonly grown vegetables in the area)

Shopska salad

Meatballs, two kinds of fresh bread, pork with onions and mushrooms, potatoes, chicken and more

During and after dinner, there was traditional Bulgarian dancing by a young couple dressed in traditional garb.

Apparently, part of the Bulgarian tradition is for the guests to join in the dancing.

Yogurt is a traditional Bulgarian specialty, so for dessert they served frozen yogurt with blueberries and graham cracker crust on top.

Friday Sept. 26

As forecast, Friday has turned out to be a very rainy day.  Even if it had been a sunny day, our schedule included a visit to a local school.  It appears to be like our charter schools where the middle school kids from the city can come for education focused on art.  We visited a couple of classrooms, including their computer lab, the teachers lounge/work room, and several offices with exhibitions of student artwork.  We had a nice powerpoint presentation in English giving the history of the school and showing what they did.  This year, the school is celebrating its 160th anniversary - it was established when Bulgaria was still part of the Ottoman Empire, and survived all of the governmental changes since then.

On our prior work days, they have ordered lunch from a restaurant near the build site and the restaurant would deliver it.  They would have single serving size plastic containers of shropska salad, an entree and a dessert, plus nice fresh home made bread.  Since the food had already been ordered, after visiting the school, we drove by the restaurant and picked up the lunches.  Once back at the hotel, the lunches were distributed and everyone went their individual ways.

While there is a great need for infrastructure repair and upgrade, Sofia has many modern things.  Many of the bus and street car stops have the digital signs telling how many minutes until the next bus or street car.  There are the digital signs for the municipal parking lots telling how many spaces are left at each lot.  One of the more interesting is the pedestrian crossing signs.  There is a red light at the top and it is in the shape of a stationary person.  But on the bottom, there is not just a person in the green light - it is a moving person.  What a great idea for some one who is color blind and cannot distinguish between green and red.  (Unfortunately, the video is on its side - I cannot figure out how to rotate it 90 degrees.)

So for a second time, because of the weather delay, we have another free day with time on our hands until we meet for dinner.  We hope the weather allows us to work on Saturday.

We had a group dinner at Pizza Italia - this time we also had dessert.

Thursday Sept. 25

Thursday was another sunny day so we were able to make more progress.  In the morning, I continued to work on removing the forms for the concrete, including removing beams and plywood over our heads.

The team finished applying the 3 to 1 mix over the styrofoam.  But the big job of the day was digging out around the foundation by hand.  For unknown reasons, they never did a great job of removing tree roots nor even all the pieces of the forms - instead it had all be buried and we had to dig it out by hand.  Then the forecast for Friday was showing a 100% chance of rain so we worked until 6:00 instead of 4:30.  After struggling to finish the digging, the team then applied two coats of black tar like material to provide a water tight seal for the foundation.

At the end of the lengthened day, Assya, our intrepid HFH supervisor, made sure we all got safely on the bus.

When we got back to the hotel, I quickly showered, and then had a beer and some chips (at the hotel's bar on the patio) before we headed out for dinner at My Pizza.  The restaurant is not just pizza, but an Italian restaurant with a very new and modern appearance.