What we did in Bulgaria for two weeks: City Center

 We went to the City Center just once during our Gotcha trip. Many families stay here in the City Center. It is the area most pleasing in appearance and there are many restaurants and shops.

While in Bulgaria, we met with this adoptive mother, also on her Gotcha Trip, for Bozhidar!
Here is the blog link of this family's journey. http://cafeaumommy.blogspot.com/2014/05/home.html

It was a delight to meet Heather, her mother, and little Bozhidar.

We ate at the Italian restaurant in the photo above. The restaurant owner had a strong Italian accent, and we heard him speak both English and Bulgarian. I thought it was neat that he very well is trilingual!
The restaurant was authentic Italian and very good!
We only ate at a restaurant twice,
this one and the one our first night.

Below are some photos of buildings in the City Center.

 These photos are of the excavation of Roman ruins. The pictures don't show a lot, but we could see the walls of small homes and stores. The ruins are being excavated and left preserved for people to view.
You can see a MacDonalds in the background. It was two story and looked pretty neat. There are other American faster food restaurants, such as Subway and Starbucks. I don't think we saw any others.

 This photo above is when John and Andrew went down closer to the ruins. People can walk down steps to get a good view and there are many views under the floor through glass. I had seen them on trip one, so I stayed above with these two littles. Ellie is here enjoying life and Zephan is here pouting that he does not get his own way. Such was the demeanor of these children most of our trip.

 To the right:
Here we are taking a break.
We walked from our apartment to the City Center. The walk was a very brisk one and a half hours. We had both little children in strollers, so that we could keep our pace up and accomplish a good walk. We were glad to walk, getting our energy out.
But we took a cab back to our apartment. After this walk, plus walking the City Center, Andrew and I were pooped. This is the only time we used a cab.

 There are several lion statues in Bulgaria's City Center. The lion is the national animal.

This is the Cathedral Saint Alexandar Nevski. The interior architecture is really something!
See the two men to the right of John and Andrew?
They came right up to us, very friendly and asking what we are doing in Bulgaria. Turns out they are with the band, Aerosmith. They were there to do a concert, traveling all over Europe on a tour.