The meaning of bag

so what is it about?

this is the title of an exhibition that's gonna be on the 21st March in Milan.

It's about women's bags and their content. I was taken pictures with my bag and its content and these pics will be part of this exibition :)

if you remeber my black purse... you can see I had many many things in it :D
I have still tram tickets from Bremen (Nachtlinie ihih), some from Sofia, boarding passes.... and whatsoever!!!

so if someone lives or is gonna be in Milan, on the 21st, the exhibition will take place in Oplà, for everybody, here are some of my pics (I don't know yet which one is gonna be picked).

New Year's Eve (2008)

hi everybody!

I'm back after so much time!!!! as you probably know, I'm really busy with my thesis.
you know, I met my neighbours today and they asked me: we haven't seen you in months, are you ok? ihih they were sincerely worried and they thought I moved out ahaha
and in the gym, the people is still asking me: are you back from germany? ok it has been almost one year, but it's just that they haven't seen me!

ok, I know, I should go out more often :D

but ok, we had something pending hehe. My trip to Sofia!!!!

don't worry, I'll be shorter than last time :D

so, my new year's eve was great! one of my best ever.

at first we had dinner with Maria's grandmother. Everything was delicious and she is very nice!!! we had cabbage sarmì and after loving the grapeleaves' sarmì, as well, i think i'm a sarmì person!!!!

then we took the underground: my benchmark about the undergrounds abroad is still going on; everywhere I've been it's nicer than in Milan! (even though in the last month they painted it with bright colours finally!!! no more dark brown walls, ok but this is another post ihih).

we went to a club called "Exit", in the centre of Sofia of course! by we, I mean: me, Maria, her brother Kostadin and her friends Katia, Dimitar, Ivan and Todor (in appearance order ihih).

so the club was really nice and decorated with Absolut vodka bottles with tiles like strobos: I couldn t expect less! they know how to drink vodka and of course how to decorate with it :D

then as Maria and I were there, there was fire as well! and a little arson ihih ok some napkins took fire, nothing dangerous... but I think Maria and I were somehow responsable just being there ahaha.

ok so when we were getting there, I decided to learn the numbers in Bulgarian. I wasn't even thinking that it would turn out to be really useful for the countdown!!!

after the toast they put a couple of bulgarian folksongs. Maria was singing to me one that was saying something like "Welcome, my friend, in Bulgaria". niiiiiiiice :D

so we danced, we drank, we joked... untiiil: Maria's mobile got stolen.
we called it a night and we went home while it was beginning to snow. at least that was what I was saying and nobody believed me :D you'll see the pics below ;)

the following day, we rested at home. Maria's parents came back from their trip and I spent time with them, while Maria was ill in bed :(

on the 2nd Maria's mom took me to the archeological museum, and we went shopping :)
it was a bit difficult to walk, because there was a lot of snow!!!

here are the pictures. you can see the lions... they're the same of the previous post, just with a bit of snow on them hehe.

then i got ill as well but it was time to go back home and say goodbye to all the family Golevi and Sofia.

here is the picture from the taxi: it's Vitoša, the mountain next to Sofia; Maria told me that everyone who lived in Sofia can recognise its silhouette.

sooooooo I can say it was a really nice trip and I met lovely people!!!
bye bye Sofia!

ps. of course I was flying with Alitalia aaaand... I was 2 hrs late.

София

hehe isn't ti clear from the title?

okok let me explain.

On my Christmas holidays I went to Sofia (София), Bulgaria to visit Maria, one of my roomies in Bremen, and I celebrated there New Year's Eve.

• If we exclude my going back and forth from Germany, this is the first travel since the 2004
  
• It's the first time since 2002 (in London) that I had to change currency (but it was easy to calculate prices and Maria helped me)
  
• It's the first time since 1998 (in Amsterdam) that I find myself in a country where I understand almost nothing of the language;
  
• It's the real first time in a country where..... I don't understand even the alphabet!

so this time I took my flight on the 27th from Malpensa Airport, as I was flying with Alitalia, that was upsetting me a lot as I was afraid of strikes.

the flight was quite ok. the flight assistant were all men and good looking and... well I just say that one of them was wearing a pearl bracelet.

as I landed and I had to go through the passport check an airport employee approaches me saying sth in Bulgarian :O fortunately he was pointing and i understood the word "desk" ihih.

ok then Maria came to pick me up so I didn't have problems. at home I met her parents: so lovely!!! I felt immediately at ease.

on the 29th we went sightseeing and it was a sunny day. Sofia is a really nice city and you can see that is a capital.
ok it was really cold, but fortunately there is coffeeeeee!!!!

here on the right i'm in front of the court building. Maria helped me to remember the names and she reminds that this is a meeting place in Sofia.

on the left there is the statue of Sofia, that's in the centre.

then I felt a bit at home.... well I saw many Italian flags on a huge building in the centre, just over the underground stop and when I asked Maria why.... well on the top there was written: Unicredit Bulbank.... that's why it was familiar :D

as we weren't cold, yet we went on walking and sightseeing, and we saw the Council of ministres building, with the flags of the NATO members.

right after it there is the old Parliament. yes it doesn't look old because it was burnt; on the top of it there is the Bulgarian flag. Maria told me that during Communism there was the communist star in the top. as soon as the system collapsed, they took the star away with a helicopter: it reminds me of the movie "Goodbye, Lenin".

going on we found the Presidency building. there are guards, that like in Buckingham Palace, cannot move, talk and so on (my god it's freezing cold to stand still!) and there is also the changing of the guards cerimony.

a picture of the pavement? yes!!!!!! this is the Yellow Pavement, жълтите павета (I'm so proud that I know the Bulgarian name) one of Sofia's symbols. it was a gift from the Austrian empire to tsar Ferdinand I for his wedding. it would be made in Hungary and now it's not produced any longer. the problem is that the people started stealing it and now it's difficult to replace the missing tiles.

as you can see, we already saw many many things, but it didn't stop us!
here is the Bulgarian National Bank. I found peculiar the Christmas writing on it, as they didn't look as official as the building.

on the right the National Art Gallery. we didn't have the chance to visit it, but ok, we had to leave sth for the next time!

then we were in this Garden with statues, fountains, and the National Theatre. I tried to take the first picture with both the art nuveau kiosk of foreign press and of the statue.

after this Maria proposed me to see sth familiar:the Romans ruins. here is Rotonda, that was built by the Romans, then became a Christian church, then a Mosque, then a Ortodox church: we can say it reflects all the Bulgarian steps ;)

then we were cold! we decided to drink a coffee and.... what could be better than Costa cafè?

then we decided to go home. this time with Maria we didn't commit any crime, but as our usual we were involved in an arson: ok Maria just lit the fireplace, but isn't it fire? hehe

we got ready to go to the disco, alc2oh2ol. we had a lot of fun. I met 2 of Maria's cousins, who were there with friends: really nice people! of course a guy came to speak to me in Bulgarian, then he understood that English would be better and.... he wanted just to state that my name is Alex. just to let you know.

it was a busy day!!!! so on the 30th we took it a bit easy. we went out quite late and we took imemdiately a coffee as it was really cold. I met Kostadin, Maria's elder brother, i met briefly already Ivan, the younger. Kostadin joined us for the shopping session as well :) we went to the Maaaaaall!!! then we chose a movie with Maria, because of course there was also the cinema inside!!!! don't worry, I didn't go crazy: all the movies are in the original version with Bulgarian subtitles. so we chose Enchanted: we had a lot of fun!!!!!

so on the 31st we completed our shopping for New Year's Eve in Vitoshka Boulevard, the main shopping street, named after the mountain next to Sofia.
here is a building I liked :)

completed the most important task, we went on sightseeing.
here is the Russian church. We sa also the Italian embassy, where also the fence was written in Italian hehe

then here is the Parliament. If I didn't know it, I wouldn't recognise it, because it's newly built. Maria told me that before there was a circus there. thinking about the Italian politicians.... I asked: is there any difference? she said: no!

in front of it there is the Monument to the Tsar Liberator, Alexander II, from the Ottoman empire. Behind there is the Flanagan's bar where you can find the Parliament members instead than in the Parliament: hehe it reminds me of Italy, incredible how can two different countries be alike :D

then we walked until the University. It's really beautiful!

then we arrive to the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. isn't it wonderful? it's the cathedral church of the Patriarch of Bulgaria and is one of the largest Eastern Orthodox cathedrals in the world.
we also got inside: it has a circular structure and it's not so lighted, like the gothic churches.

ok it was a long post but... as you see there are so many interesting places in Sofia!!!!