Did You Know? Bulgarian Trivia Edition

Because school is starting in a few weeks (at least in TX). . .Because I'm a teacher (a.k.a a nerd). . . Because I love learning about Bulgaria, and have a little girl there somewhere . . . Because I love learning in general . . . Because this is my blog and I can write what I want (within reason) . . . I present to you Bulgarian Trivia. There will be a test at the end . . . just kidding, but I love to do that to my students. Last day of school . . . pull out your pencils for your end of 4th grade test . . . 22 students look on me with fear and confusion . . . I let them sit in fear for around two minutes before I crack a smile and tell them I'm joking. I kid you not, I did that at least five times last year and they fell for it every time. Teachers have to get their fun in somewhere. Anway, without further ado . . .

Did you know that Bulgaria is a multiparty democracy? Here's a question. Is the United States a democracy or a republic? Do you know the difference?

Did you know Bulgaria is only a little larger than Tennessee? It has mountainous terrain, with cold, snowy winters and hot, dry summers. Us Texans can relate to hot and dry . . . blah.

Did you that the population of Bulgaria is actually shrinking?
84% are Ethnic Bulgarian
9.4% are Turkish
4.7% are Roma or Gypsy (this is most likely the group from which we will adopt our little girl)

Did you know that Bulgarian is the native language of Bulgaria? Makes sense huh? It's a Slavic language, and I've heard that Slavic languages are hard to learn.

Did you know young Bulgarians like fashion just as much as young people everywhere? But clothes are expensive in Bulgaria so casual clothes are worn at home to keep "nice" clothes in good shape.

Did you know that "yes" is indicated by shaking the head from side-to-side? Might want to work on that one before we travel otherwise a lot of people will be really confused.

Did you know Bulgarians remove their shoes when entering the homes of others? Always a good idea.

Did you know women often work outside the home, and also, take care of household duties? I feel your pain women of Bulgaria.

Did you know that in Bulgaria telephone service is not fully developed, but most villages have some access?

Did you know that most urban families live in apartments? I guess that's similiar to many urban areas in the United States.

Did you know that family is very important in Bulgaria? As are visiting with your friends and relatives on a regular basis.

Did you know that while Bulgaria may not be a wealthy country, their lives are rich ones filled with cultural tradition, family, and food?

Now you know.

Bulgaria Update & USCIS Appointment

Every Friday we get a "Bulgaria Update" from our adoption agency. Sometimes it's full of exciting news such as a family receiving a referral. Other times it's more a compilation of tidbits of information that we may (or may not) need to know (depending on our current status). Every single week it lists the number of families that are in the various stages of the adoption process. Right now we are in the category of "paperwork" families, but we are so very close to being out of that paperwork category. I've said it before, but so much of the adoption process is out of our hands, and even if you're a get it done yesterday kind of person, like myself, you can't force everyone else to get things done on your timeline. Still, I look forward to the day when we are listed as "MOJ registered". Hopefully, we'll be there by the end of the year.

I've also been meaning to give you a rundown of our fingerprinting trip to USCIS. Our appointment was on the 11th at 3:00 pm in San Antonio. Even with me giving the directions (I had both the Garmin and Google Maps going . . . I'm severely directionally challenged), we arrived an hour early. I like to get places early. Being late irritates the heck out of me. We decided to go in and see if they could get us taken care of. But first, we took all electronic devices out of our purses (that should really say purse, but it doesn't sound right)and pockets so that we wouldn't be tempted to reveal the top secret goings ons of the San Antonio USCIS office (which happens to be located in a shopping center).

As soon as we walked through the doors, we were greeted by a friendly lady, and she informed us that we had actually "come at a perfect time". Yay! for the little things. We didn't walk through medical detectors. No one checked our stuff. I so could've taken every electronic device I own in that place. We were asked to fill out an insanely basic information form, and after I finished with my form, the lady clipped my driver's license and info sheet together with a number and asked me to have a seat. Patrick was still filling out his form. I have no idea why it was taking him so long. No sooner had I plopped my not so little bottom in the chair, then they called me back. Patrick? He was just finishing up his form. I was just glad I was ahead of him. I like to finish first. I'm competitive that way.

Sidenote: When I was in school and college, I finished my tests as quickly as I could without looking them over so that I could be the first one to turn them in. This may have affected my GPA but not much. Also, if you are one of my students and think you're going to try this in my classroom, you've got another thing coming buster.  Sidenote over.

So, the lady started fingerprinting me. Now for those of you who had to be ink fingerprinted, like us, it's nice to have someone that knows what they're doing fingerprinting you. I'm not saying the police officers that did our prints here in Mayberry weren't nice, but man, the lady that did my prints at the USCIS office was on the ball. Plus, she had a huge computer monitor that showed every detail of my prints. Which begs the question, "Why did we have to do ink prints?". Right after we got started, Patrick was called back and they started his fingerprinting on the other side of the room. Then my dang computer started beeping, and we had to start redoing my prints again and again and again. . .

I was starting to tense up. Sweat was poring down my back. The lady doing my prints was getting really irritated. And to make it even worse, I could tell that Patrick wasn't having any problems. Then I started having flashbacks to the ink prints we had to do and the supposed illegibility of mine, and I fell on the floor screaming, "Make it stop, make it stop!!!". Okay, almost all of this paragraph up to this point is a lie (except for the part about Patrick having no problems), but without it this story would be insanely boring. So way too long story short, Patrick's prints were done at the same time as mine even though I started before him. My left hand didn't want to cooperate, and so, we did have to redo them, but the lady, who was very patient, finally got them. And of course the other lady oohed and aahed over what great prints my husband had. Back off lady . . . you can't have him. Now all we have to do is wait for our approval letters.

And just in case . . . if you happen to know or be related to anyone who works at the USCIS office in San Antonio, can you please tell them what a great job they did? The service was awesome. That's all.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Bulgaria

Warning: If you hate history you may be bored with this post, but I love history so I'm posting it. Don't worry I spiced it up a bit with useless comments here and there.

Did you know I had a roommate in college from Bulgaria? Yep, I sure did. Her name was Gergana. I have no idea if I'm spelling that right, but we'll go with it. We called her Gery (said like Gary). She was really sweet and a good roommate. If you've lived in a college dorm, you know what a nightmare a bad roommate can be. After college we lost touch. Now, I wish we hadn't.

Unfortunately, I didn't learn much about Bulgaria from her. She did drink massive amounts of coffee . . . not sure if all Bulgarians drink that much coffee (there's a gross generalization), but if I consumed as much as she used to, I wouldn't sleep for two years. Anyway, since I didn't learn much about Bulgaria from Gery I've had to draw from my own knowledge (limited at best) and do a little bit of research. Then I found out that my own knowledge was incorrect, and I crumpled up in a pile of despair. A bit dramatic? Maybe, but I hate being wrong. It happens like once a year. I'm going to blame my high school world history teacher for my misconceptions about Bulgaria. Needless to say, I had always been under the impression that Bulgaria was part of the former Soviet Union or U.S.S.R., but low and behold it wasn't. It was however an ally of the Soviet Union. It was also a communist country and was formerly known as the "People's Republic of Bulgaria". Kind of like being the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Please don't ask me why I typed that. It just popped into my head. Okay, so back to Bulgaria (sorry about that). After years under communist and socialist rule, Bulgaria became a democracy. By the way, we (the United States) are not a democracy but a republic. If you don't know the difference look it up. It's too much to explain here, and I'm all about Bulgaria today.

Bulgaria is bordered on the north side by Romania, to the west by Serbia and Macedonia, and to the South by Greece and Turkey. The Black Sea lies to the east. Which, by the way is beautiful. I would post some pics, but I don't want to get thrown in jail for copyright infringement. I'd never make it. I'm a wimp. Here is a link to a map where I got this valuable information:
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/balkans.htm

Because Bulgaria is a Christian nation, with most people claiming to be Bulgarian Orthodox, their holidays and traditions are similar to ours. I've looked up a million (or 20 or 30) different Bulgarian recipes. A lot of the ingredients they use are similar to ingredients we use, but the food is prepared a bit differently than ours. I'm going to work on learning a few Bulgarian dishes, and once we receive a referral, I'll learn more about what our little girl (or boy) likes to eat.

So there you have it. A little bit of info on Bulgaria. Most of this information is (very) loosely paraphrased from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgaria) and other sources (most of it is considered general knowledge). So if you have nothing better to do and want to read more about Bulgaria, there is a wealth of information out there. But if you find any mistakes in my information, you can't tell me. I've reached my limit for the year.