Trip to Koprivshtitsa

Koprivshtitsa is about an hour and a half drive from Sofia. I went there with a group of Fulbrighters and staff about two weeks ago. It's a really cute little town and is important for Bulgarians because it was one of the locations of the 1876 April Uprising against Ottoman rule which resulted in the massacre of many civilians. So it has a special place in history for remembering that tumultuous time period, the National Revival Period. 

 A lot of the houses there were built in the 19th century and are still decorated in the same style as they were over 100 years ago. Different colors were used to paint the exteriors of homes to signify the profession of the owner. There are bright orange, blue, red, yellow and brown houses all over the older part of town. Many of them are now museums dedicated to the people who once lived in them. Poets, revolutionaries and influential businessmen were some of the figures our tour guide talked about. It was a lot of information. The exhibits in a few of the museum houses were really interesting and had traditional costumes, crafts and tools on display.

It's getting a lot colder here now. We had a real Indian summer, longer than usual I've heard. Now the weather's changing a lot. Yesterday in Pleven there was a thunderstorm in the middle of the afternoon. But mostly it just gets foggy at night and stays pretty chilly all day. The winters here are notoriously harsh, even for Bulgaria (and especially considering  the fact that we're not in the mountains). A lot of people have told me that this year is supposed to be particularly cold so I'll get to experience winter for the first time! It doesn't really get cold enough to snow most of the time in Seattle. Which is ironic because they're having record low temperatures for November and lots of snow right now. I can't remember a white Thanksgiving ever in my life. In celebration of the holiday this weekend I'm going to an ex-pat party in Sofia with some other Americans there. We're going to have a turkey, cranberry sauce and everything so it should be almost like home.