Bulgaria Part 2: The Rest of the Trip

September 11-14, 2016

After our time at Belogradchik, we made our way to Haskovo for church on Sunday. We got to visit some friends I made while I lived there for the last nine weeks of my mission. I also showed Benjamin around the cute little city. Here is the Virgin Mary monument. 

Here is the view from the top of the clock tower next to the Virgin Mary monument. 

Sunday evening a few of the members were able to come back to the church building so that we could say hi. It was so good to see my friends again. (A visitor, Didi, Alex, Ivan, Dimcho) 

Oh how I love Ina! She invite us over so that we could visit with her. She is such a strong member in Bulgaria, especially for only being in the church now two years. She is such a wonderful example to me. She is so generous and even made us a simple Bulgarian dish for dinner that night. I'm so blessed to know her! 

From Haskovo we went to Plovdid, aka one of the oldest cities in Europe. Here, Benjamin is sitting on ancient ruins that have recently been excavated after having been covered up for hundreds of years. These ruins are actually part of a large stadium that the main street of Plovdiv runs on top of. Some may ask why the main street, consisting of stores, restaurants, and old apartments, isn't torn down. Apparently, the buildings that are there now are also a part of the history of Plovdiv, so they don't want to tear that down. 

Up on top of one of the 7 famous hills in Plovdiv. 

This hill contains remains of an old fortress. 

It's kind of fun to play in. 

We like to take the road less traveled: aka the more difficult, sketchy, and not well groomed path. It sure was beautiful though! 

We found a Russian monument on our way up to a Bulgarian monument on top of another one of the Seven Hills in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. 

The monument. While serving my mission in Bulgaria, I lived in Plovdiv for about six months. I saw this monument at the top of a hill almost everyday. I wanted to make my way up to it sometime on Preparation Day, but I never got the chance. When I came back with my family last year, I still didn't get the chance to see it. Finally, two years later, with my husband, we made it to the top of the hill to see the Alyosha Soviet Army Monument/Memorial. 

The view from the top was breathtaking! You can see out into the city like this around the whole monument. 

Bulgaria is full of beautiful places!

ROTARY! Benjamin and I went to this community water fountain to fill up our water bottles. As I was filling mine up, I was slowly reading the words engraved in it. (Дар от Ротари Клуб - Филипопол - Жорж Трак 2000 -- Gift from Rotary Club) I got really excited to see that. Rotary is the club Benjamin did his exchange year with in high school. It's fun to see that Rotary does so much good around the world! 

Our next stop was Veliko Tarnovo. This used to be the capital of Bulgaria a long time ago. Now it is just a special and beautiful little town with a gorgeous castle and magnificent views. 

Our final stop on our Bulgaria tour was a visit to the Bat Caves. Bulgaria is home to 33 various species of bats out of the 35 in Europe as a whole. Our journey from Veliko Tarnovo to the bat caves was quite an interesting one. Remember that upgrade Heavenly Father blessed us with? This is where it really came in handy. Without the GPS we would have never found the roads were all torn up and overgrown. There were trees growing right on the side of the road, and they were so big that the branches hung over the road. The only grooming they receive comes when a semi drives through breaking off branches. This leaves a rectangular semi sized tunnel through the trees. You'd think no one had been on the roads out to those caves in the past 5 years so we finally got to the caves, we were shocked. 

On our last night in Bulgaria, we were able to have dinner with the Mission President and his wife. President and Sister Barclay are some of the kindest and most down to earth people I know. I'm so grateful that I was given the opportunity to help tutor them in Bulgarian before they left for the mission field in 2015.  

Our time in Bulgaria unfortunately had to come to an end. I miss Bulgaria and the wonderful people there everyday! At the same time, Benjamin and I were awfully excited to begin our extraordinary adventure on our study abroad in Vienna, Austria.