Bulgaria, Part II: The Relatives & Friends

One advantage of visiting once in a decade is that everyone makes an effort to see you, even in a small extended family like ours. Rado met cousins he'd never met before. The kids met several sets of cousins also. 

with Zornitsa and Kaloyan

with Plamen, Ivan, and Svetla

We visited my uncle,

and I met, for the first time in a decade, my one and only first cousin, Teddy, who is seven years my junior and a young/charming/hot/smart lawyer in Sofia:

 

Then, there was the Black Sea, and what for all intents and purposes is my second family, the people with whom I spent summers throughout my childhood:

Sneji and Vasko's relationship to my parents offers a living embodiment of what friendship can mean and do in a person's life, and their unconditional love for each other inspires me daily to be a better friend.

I loved seeing Petia engage with my kids, especially when she tried her hardest to speak English and they reciprocated by stammering out the occasional Bulgarian;

just as delightfully, Vassi and Sava hit it off; by his own unprompted admission, she was his "favorite friend" from the whole trip:

loving the attention of TWO ladies, as usual: Vassi & Nicole

Although the seven-year olds sometimes resented the three-year old's intrusions, there were occasional moments of three-way harmony:

After the Black Sea, there were the mountains, and during the first week here we all had the pleasure of Uncle Kevin's company; the kids loved having a native English speaker for all their immediate, otherwise inarticulable (in Bulgarian) needs, and he fulfilled his duty to Rado and me as our favorite conversationalist by taking a long walk with us every single evening:

During the day, he read Huck Finn out loud to Raya (favorite photo of the whole trip, taken by me),

and also observed our family dynamics with his beloved, quiet, non-judgmental presence (second favorite photo of the trip, taken by my dad):

In the mountains, we also did what my parents do there every weekend, which is gather with more friends, eat, and drink:

Sava met his new hero, Ivko, who picked him up by the head and took him on a helmet-less vespa ride:

Raya fawned over Rocky with Villi's gentle, encouraging presence,

and both left enamored of these two lovely teenage siblings and their parents:

While in the mountains, we also met two of my three best elementary school friends, who actually live in Bulgaria (the third is in Britain); in typical Bulgarian fashion, they all gave the kids presents:

Also in the mountains, we made steadfast friends with another three-year old girl, living up the street where by the end of our stay pretty much everyone knew us,

and we took the two-mile walk to my parents' friends, Ivan and Ivanka, who treated us to homemade honey, freshly out of the hives that day:

We also had the pleasure of spending a morning with another one of my childhood friends who, since the last time I saw her, has married and birthed two lovely kids: 

with Martina 

That's the people. We felt loved every single day. We were thankful to be surrounded with relatives and friends who adored, and doted on, our kids.