#seenfromtheair

I love sitting in the window seat when flying, and for a while now, I've been snapping photos from the air. I've actually gathered quite the collection of interesting aerial views, and I thought it was time to gather them in one place and share them - hence, my new Instagram profile seenfromtheair.

If you make me go up to the tenth floor of a building and have me go out to the balcony to look down, I'd be mildly terrified, but put me at the window seat of an airplane and I can spend half the journey looking down at the world in fascination. It is an interesting contradiction, but one I am grateful for because it allows me to enjoy my time in the air fully.

I love how you can see things in a different way when you are up above: the way a city is organized, the progression of low residential construction slowly growing into taller structures and skyscrapers as you get closer to the center, or sometimes the sudden jutting up of the buildings as if out of nowhere, the parks and fields, the rivers winding through or the sandy and rocky seashores. I hope you will enjoy my collection as well and follow it as it grows.

Art Is Everywhere

My college friends Leo (from Brazil) and Ana (from Equador), who both now live in London, were here in Bulgaria for a quick vacation. We traveled around for a couple of days, visiting cities, nature reserves, monasteries and old towns, but throughout the trip, the one trend that emerged - apart from the nice weather, good food and great company, of course - was the beautiful art we encountered everywhere. Whether it was frescoes in a church or graffiti on a wall in the neighborhood of Kapana in Plovdiv, I soaked it up and enjoyed it all. I am loving the way street art can transform a place; the kind of art that embraces the city and is embraced back by it. I get quite annoyed at the aimless scribbles that vandalize buildings, but these works of art are something else.

It's interesting to go from street art to religious art, but they are both gorgeous in their own way. I'd been to the Rila Monastery and Bachkovski Monastery back in the day, but I'd actually forgotten how beautiful these places are. The frescoes are exquisite, and as an artist, I couldn't stop looking. It was a feast for my eyes!

Saturday Trip to the Flower Market

If you are an early riser even on weekends, one of the best places to be on a Saturday morning in Sofia is the flower market Dimitar Petkov. This Saturday was relatively cool, but the sun was shining, so it was a delight to be out and about shopping for veggies and flowers at the market. This past Sunday was Palm Sunday here in Bulgaria, so there were a lot of people buying flowers for their homes or for friends and family that have been named after plants and celebrate their name days on Palm Sunday.

I was actually too busy to take photos, but I snapped a few here and there, and I also have some of the flowers that I arranged in the vases at home. I also got some herbs to plant, but I will go back sometime in the next few weeks to buy more, once the weather warms. Last year was very rainy and my basil died relatively quickly, probably thinking that fall was coming, but this year I'm hoping that there will be enough sun for it to survive longer.

Since today we woke up to a bit of a snowstorm, I thought I'd post my flower snapshots with the hope of chasing away the last cold days and ushering in warmer weather for Easter this weekend. It was a bit depressing to have to dig out my warm fluffy jacket again when it's already April.

A Photo Walk Around Koprivshtica

We've had quite a lot of holidays this month, but since I was quite busy at work, I hadn't actually realized how long of a break we would be having until it was almost upon us. This meant no travel plans, which sucked a little bit, especially when it seems that everyone you know is suddenly going somewhere new and exciting. Oh, well. There's nobody to blame but myself and the Prague trip that some friends and I were thinking of doing but never actually booked. I actually had to work a bit during these holidays, so I guess it was great for my clients that I was here in Sofia, although I would have been happier strolling around Prague's Old Town or, say, enjoying the sights in Sorrento.

Still, some friends of ours called us with the idea of heading to the picturesque town of Koprivshtica for its annual reenactment of the famous April Uprising from 1876 that happened there against the Ottomans, who ruled the area at the time. The town is quite lovely with its Revival architecture, and it has a special place in every Bulgarian's heart because of both its historical significance and the fact that it was the home and birthplace of several important Bulgarian writers and poets. My personal favorite is Dimcho Debelyanov, and I found some translations of his poems here (my favorites are "To Return to your father’s house" and "Remember, remember the quiet yard…", although of course they sound the best when they are read in Bulgarian).

 

The weather here has been iffy all month, and while I like that everything is lush and green, I do not enjoy the constant London-like cloud cover and having to carry an umbrella everywhere. We knew that there was a risk of getting to Koprivshtica and having to run from museum-house to museum-house in the rain, but we decided to hope for the best. We got in early and had a couple of hours of nice weather, walking around the old cobblestone streets and visiting some of the historical places. However, we weren't so lucky as to enjoy a whole day without any rain, and of course it started pouring right at the beginning of the April Uprising reenactment, meaning everyone, especially the volunteers, got completely drenched and all restaurants in the area got fully packed in something like a second.

One of the guys in our party, though, was able to book us a table at a local mehana, so after enjoying some good food and waiting out the rain, we had another couple of hours of nice weather that we used to the fullest to check out all the sights and even buy local sweets and crafty items like my new favorite crooked rustic walnut chopping board. The trip was actually very nice, and apart from the rain, I enjoyed all of it and the opportunity to get out of the city. Strolling along the streets and admiring the beautiful colorful houses was a great change of scenery and, of course, a photographer's dream :).

 

 

 

The locals were also making a huge pot of something between a jam and the English mincemeat, boiling dried apricots, nuts and raisins and selling them fresh from the fire in jars. The dried apricots looked so colorful in their plate that I couldn't resist snapping a picture.

 

And how about this hand-painted sign saying "Cafe-Sweet Shop Delight"? Isn't that just lovely!

Palm Sunday in Sofia: In Pictures

Last weekend was Palm Sunday, which is known here in Bulgaria as "Flower Day" or Цветница. Everyone that bears the name of a flower, tree, shrub and so on has a name day, which probably amounts to half of the population, so it is usually a day of many celebrations. More than a few of my friends celebrate their name days on Palm Sunday, as well as my close friend Lilly.

 
This year it was a day of celebration for me as well, as I had gotten some good news during that week, and I had finally received my MBA diploma. After so much work, long days and weekends spent in front of the computer, I was more than eager to graduate, and I had been expecting the official document for some time now. Getting it felt like the closure of a chapter in my life, and it felt great, like a tangible accomplishment. Therefore, I decided to celebrate my degree with my parents and Pavel with a nice brunch at Cactus, one of our favorite restaurants downtown. After that, we went to light a candle in a nearby church and took a long walk, ducking into various quirky stores along the way. The streets were full of people, and flower sellers were camped outside the churches with tulips, lilac and the traditional willow branches.

We browsed around a very interesting bookstore / novelty shop on Shishman Str. called Elephant, which has painted murals on the outside and an inside full of banners, flags, books, mugs, pins, and various other curious objects, and we bought fresh-from-the-oven loaves of full-grain hand-made bread from a recently opened bakery nearby. During the past few years, Shishman Street has gradually turned from just one more shopping street to an artsy, boutique-y, organic bakery and trendy bar sort of street, where you are sure to meet a friend no matter what time of day or night. I few years ago there was a Sofia Breathes day on that street, which I wrote about here.

It has been quite a while since I had had such a leisurely day outside, and I enjoyed myself a lot by soaking up the springtime city atmosphere. All in all, it was a wonderful day, and one I hope to repeat soon.

Fall Couples Photoshoot with Lilly & Sasho

Back in the fall I had the pleasure of doing a photo shoot with one of my favorite couples - my close friend Lilly and her man Sasho. It's always wonderful to see two people in love, and it was even better this time because it involved people that I care about. I have always been a sucker for romance, so I jumped on the chance to photograph them with the beautiful fall foliage of South Park in Sofia as a backdrop. 

I like South Park as a photo shoot location because it has beautiful ponds and a variety of trees that make for an interesting setting. A few years ago I did another couple's photo shoot there (read more about it here), but while that one was in the spring and featured a lot of blooming trees, this one was all about the red and gold colors of October. I never got around to posting them last year, but I came across them last night, so I thought I'd share.

I am available for couples sessions, so feel free to contact me if you'd like to request one. Enjoy some of the photos from this beautiful fall shoot!

Yes, now there is snow

Call it luck or coincidence, but only a couple of days after my whiny lack of snow post, we are having an all-out fluffy day-long quiet snowfall. It's great. I've had tea and feta cheese sandwiches in bed, reading a book and watching the snow fall outside my bedroom window, the mountain covered in clouds. I'm enjoying myself. I might even head out for a walk in the snow, who knows :)
Oh, and if you look closely at the photo of the tree above, you can see a couple of birds perched on it. I actually didn't see them when I was taking the photo and only noticed them when I uploaded it on my computer. I love little surprises like that!

Bruges Travel Photos

 

Bruges is a fairy-tale little town an hour away from Brussels that, if not for the tourists, would make you feel like you are in a different century. The canals and the houses with little terraces and backyard patios facing the water create quite the serene and romantic atmosphere; in fact, I am all for having one of those terraces and drinking my morning tea and reading a book surrounded by greenery and a beautiful view of the water. I got a little obsessed with that image when my cousin Tsveti and I strolled around Bruges that I wouldn't stop talking about them, and she kept teasing me.

Bruges is quiet and quaint, and I could easily picture myself spending a couple of quality weeks there in the summer painting some watercolors. With its picturesque buildings, the place is a painter's heaven. I am only bummed that I don't really speak French or Dutch. I really like getting immersed in a place, and it's just not the same when you don't speak the language.

I spent quite the pleasant day in Bruges, and while it lacks the hustle and bustle of bigger cities, it will help you relax and unwind from a stressful work week.