Removing makeup.
Many Halloweens.
She actually likes wearing costumes.
October 2014 archive
Creepy Halloween!!!
Happy Halloween everyone!
Crossing the Danube, entering Bulgaria
We stayed here our first night back in Bulgaria. The town was nothing special but we had a great time at the local restaurant. 
90s dance party.
We’re just a bunch of radical dudes hanging out before our epic 90’s concert. Only downfall of the whole night; thousands of people chain smoking cigarettes at the same time in the stadium.
Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in Belgrade. Kelly and I whipped up a roasted bird, perfect potatoes, dressing, gravy, Swiss chard, roasted carrots, etc.
We drank several bottles of red wine. It was a fantastic weekend.
Party in the park, Belgrade.
Old men love playing cards and chess in the park.
Serbia has many tall people. I believe the young guy with his girlfriend is close to 7 feet tall.
Dance party!
Being cool in Belgrade.
This ice cream shop was magical. I got lemon basil sorbet.
And the adventure begins.
These two have been best friends since grade 4.
This is Arek’s third visit since we left Canada. We’ve traveled through Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania together.
We finally got to meet his awesome girlfriend, Irina!
Kelly (handsome man in the blue shirt) rented a fancy apartment for us in Belgrade for two nights. Here we are waiting for the keys while enjoying a fresh Serbian beer.
It so happens that the weekend we came to Serbia fell on the same weekend as their annual war parade. We saw several jets (extremely exciting for the guys), took pictures of tanks and soldiers, and witnessed hundreds of army guys parachuting out of a plane in perfect formation. I hear that we missed special guest Vladimir Putin by a day.
Click on the truck picture for more military photos.
Though all restaurants in Serbia offer Bulgaria’s famous Shopska salad, the country is very different from Bulgaria. People here are tall, I mean 7 feet tall +, skinny, very well dressed and lighter skinned.
I found the only bar in Belgrade with 1 euro beers on tap. Side note: Serbia serves 400ml draft beers, not 500ml…weird.
Google translate:
Dad I love you but I still do not know to say it
October 12th and it’s 30 degrees outside.
Serbian food = grilled meats. Bacon, sausages, chicken, pork, breaded meats, livers wrapped in bacon, mushrooms, potatoes, rice, breads and butter on everything. I happily gained 10 lbs. that day.
This man makes me very very happy!
Waiting for our friends at the Sofia airport.
Nothing more exciting than meeting up with 3 friends for a little international adventuring.
I made a large “Welcome to Bulgaria” banner.
KELLY!!!!
Together at last!
Our awesome friends Arek, Irina and Kelly!
Our first night together was spent at this quirky motel outside of Sofia. We caught up over Bulgarian champagne and sausages.
Pazardzhik, Bulgaria.
37 kilometers West of Plovdiv is the small town called Pazardzhik. We spent an evening there exploring the multiple pedestrian shopping streets, eating a variety of organ meat dishes and scanning the large outdoor market.
This dog is partied out.
We meet Mormons in the strangest places, last time was in the miniscule town of Monfalcone, Italy and now Pazardzhik!?! These handsome young men flew in from Utah to serve a proselytizing mission, watch out Bulgarian Orthodox people, you too can wear snappy suits and fancy nametags .
Though everyone is extremely nice and cheerful there is a huge poverty problem in Bulgaria, it is especially apparent in the smaller cities.
My new boyfriend.
I love this cute school bus.
Friendly okra vendors.
Cool lady in a cool car.
Spicy curry pot stickers with mango chutney.
I got creative with last night’s leftover chicken curry and created pot sticker.
Make the gyoza wrappers, stuff them with curry* and pinch them closed (lightly wet the edge with water for a good seal). In a hot oiled pan, space the pot sticker far enough apart that they don’t touch. Brown on both sides. Add a little water and cover with a lid for about 3 minutes. Once the water has evaporated you can add a touch of oil and continue crisping or serve as is, pairs well with mango chutney**.
*Curry: chicken, potatoes, red peppers, hot peppers, onions, garlic, pickled green tomatoes and a Tikki Masala type sauce.
**Mango chutney: onions, red peppers, small pieces of pineapple, mango (I used a jar of mango baby puree), juice of an orange, vinegar, sugar, yellow curry powder.
Plovdiv at night.
Plovdiv is a great city with so much history and culture.
Most European cities have a cool pedestrian street like this one.
I love seeing ancient ruins along side modern streets and parks.
Communist era building, historical building and contemporary art installation.
Bad Bulgarian cat.
Matt bought me a pretty flower. The basket was fantastic because I had to walk around with it for 5 hours, the flower held up great!
Plovdiv installed several large boards with great historical photos and text all along the main path, unfortunately it’s all written in Cyrillic.
The first photo of WWII in Western Poland (this was one of the displays).
I love the building on the left, too bad it’s falling apart.
We found the local computer club and hung out with a few dudes who enjoy fixing up old machinery.
Plovdiv has many secrets.
Party time in Plovdiv. 3rd wedding anniversary.
It’s not a big secret, Matt and I like to have fun.
Walking down a dark street in Plovdiv on a Wednesday night we came across this heavy metal club, obviously we had to check it out.
Matt playing Pictionary at the bar.
He drew our cat with a ham…I think.
We got invited to sit at this table with a bunch of cool Bulgarian heavy metal people.
After Fabric bar we had a late night sushi snack.
Beer, Rose wine, tempura prawn fitness roll and salmon sashimi. I couldn’t finish all my wine so our waitress poured it into a coffee mug for me. I love Bulgaria!
On our walk home I heard 80’s rock playing from an apartment off the main pedestrian street, turns out it was a small pub.
Matt makes friends with everyone.
The barkeep.
Everyone was signing along.
Drunken photos on the walk home.
Great night!
A couple Plovdiv photos off of my phone.
Our cat likes to sit like this.
![IMG_20141027_233228_thumb[1]](https://mattandamalia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/IMG_20141027_233228_thumb1.jpg "IMG_20141027_233228_thumb[1]")
Cat photos off of my phone
Stormy weather in Sunny Beach.
Sorting through all our latest travel photos is taking a very long time.
Simple French pork stew.
Sometimes you just need to put potatoes, carrots, leeks, parsley, sage, peppercorns, bay leaves, a pork shank and lots of stock into a pressure cooker and let it do it’s thing for 45 minutes to an hour to achieve comfort-food perfection.
