Goodbye country, hello big city

We had a great last day in Bulgaria...to start off, Lisa came by the house to pick Evan up for a little riding lesson.

Elliot got a quick turn as well...

Then we headed over to the S’s house…another English couple that live in a nearby village and have a little boy about Elliot’s age named Sebastien. The kids had a great time and we had a good time chatting as well. 

After hanging out at their house for the afternoon and seeing the work they’ve done on their house, we stopped by a neat little café with a playground…how perfect is that?

Then we headed back to Lisa and Ewen's where Evan showed off her favorite pastime...

Lisa felt sorry for us not getting much meat while we were there (we weren’t going hungry and had plenty of good food), so she had gotten some meat mince and made a wonderful meat pie with potatoes on top – yum! We had a great time and really hated for the evening to come to an end. It doesn’t really seem to be getting any easier to say goodbye. We all really enjoyed ourselves there, and I think the only thing that kept Evan from getting too upset about going was that we were on our way to see Papaw.  I think she hugged and said goodbye to everyone several times that night.

We left Osikovo and took the 7 hour train back to Plovdiv where we caught our flight to Frankfurt…I mean Frankfurt-Hahn. This one little typo can make a big difference. When I was booking our flights and when I had to book a hotel at the last minute because we had no other place to stay for our layover, I didn’t realize that Frankfurt-Hahn airport wasn’t actually in, or even near really, Frankfurt City. So there we were in Hahn which is actually about 100km from Frankfurt with a useless hotel reservation that we had already paid for and couldn’t use.  Of course we didn’t even figure this out until after we spent the night at the airport (hotels aren’t cheap and we got in really late anyway, so we decided to save a bit and spend one of the 2 nights at the airport).  Once we figured out the Frankfurt issue, we had to find another place to stay. So we walked right across the street and got a room (cheaper than the one we paid for in Frankfurt). Oh well…live and learn, right?

 Anyway, we finally made it to Edinburgh! And luckily didn’t have any trouble meeting up with Carter’s Dad there. It was nice to have electricity, running water, a shower, etc…but you also have to deal with all the people! I think it was the first time in my life I’ve ever experienced anything close to culture shock. Going from the tiny village in Bulgaria to a big city like Edinburgh was a massive change, and I must say, I found myself often missing the country life. We saw lots of interesting buildings, castles, museums, etc…but the streets were just so congested. It made me miss being somewhere where everyone has time to stop for a chat.