Bringing Ivan Home - Day 7 - Sightseeing and Shopping

On Friday we spent the morning at the apartment catching up on laundry and relaxing.  We heated up some leftover pizza from Raffy for lunch and then decided to do some sight-seeing and shopping. We met up with Ben and Heather and walked to the St. Nedelya Church and Presidential Palace.  We also visited the White Stork gift shop since so many adoptive families speak so highly of it.  We had searched for this specific gift shop on several previous visits to Sofia and had never been able to find it.  We finally found it, and honestly, I wasn't very impressed.  It was small, hot, and the employee wasn't very friendly. We picked up a few souvenirs there and headed back towards Vitosha.  Here are a few pictures from our sightseeing adventure:

We stopped for a few groceries before making our way back to the apartment. We visited several grocery stores, but this grocery store seemed to have the best selection.  (For any families who are staying near Vitosha, it's located at 2 Solunska Street.)   Our normal shopping trips included a variety of juice, yogurt, soda, cereal, milk, fresh fruit and snacks.  They had everything we needed.  Ivan fell asleep in the stroller on the way back and was not interested in napping when we returned to the apartment, but Nikolas rested for a bit until it was time to leave again.

We had an early dinner before meeting up with Ben and Heather for gelato.  After our snack we walked to the end of Vitosha Blvd. near the National Palace of Culture.  Being Friday evening there were a lot of people out.  Nikolas really enjoyed the many street performers.  We loved having dinner outside and then walking along Vitosha Blvd. in the evenings.  After a while it began to feel very normal to us.  It was so relaxing!    

Bringing Ivan Home - Day 6

After breakfast we met Mariana from our NGO near our apartment and then walked a few blocks to meet the Greene family so we could take care of the kids' medical appointments.  We caught taxis at the city center and rode to the medical center.  The kids are required to have TB tests as part of the checkup, so we had that done first.  We then went back upstairs and waited at least 30 minutes for the doctor to return.  The kids played with toys in a room that was very hot while we waited.  The appointments were quick and easy.

We took a taxi back to the main intersection near our apartment.  It was early afternoon by this point, so we ran over to Burger King to pick up a quick lunch.  We took it back to our apartment and enjoyed it there.  It was so nice having an apartment with a kitchen table!

After lunch the boys both napped for a while and we had a chance to relax for a bit.  Later we took a short walk around Vitosha Blvd. before meeting up with Ben and Heather for dinner.  We decided to try Raffy for dinner and were so glad we did.  It ended up becoming our favorite restaurant in the area.  The menu is huge and the prices are great.  They also have amazing desserts!!  If you are an adoptive family staying in Sofia, you need to try this restaurant.

After dinner we stopped by the grocery store for a few items and then headed back to our apartment for the evening.

Bringing Ivan Home - Day 5

On Wednesday morning we woke up and stuck around the apartment for most of the morning.  The past couple of days had been very busy so the boys needed some calm time to recover.  We used our microwave and heated up some leftovers from Wok to Walk and Raffy.  Having an apartment with a kitchen definitely came in handy.

After a quick nap we met up with Ben and Heather for the first of many gelato dates.  Today we chose to try the gelato at Raffy and it didn't disappoint.

We went back to the apartment for a bit before meeting up with Ben and Heather for dinner at Boom Burger.  Burgers aren't very popular in Bulgaria, but this place sure made good ones.  They also had tasty chicken, french fries and onion rings!  Kayla stopped by and said a quick goodbye since they were flying out early the next morning.  After dinner we made a quick trip to the grocery store for a few supplies before returning to our apartment for the evening.  It was a quiet day, but we sure needed some down time!

 

Bringing Ivan Home - Day 4 - My Birthday!

This is the second time I've spent my birthday in Bulgaria.  We had made plans to meet several other families at the Sofia Zoo on Tuesday morning.  Due to the rainy weather, a couple of families decided to postpone their zoo visit to the following day.  The weather seemed to be clearing out, so we went ahead and stuck to our original plans.  The temperature was cool enough and we knew that it was going to be hot for the rest of our trip, so we took advantage of the perfect weather.

We found someone working downstairs in the apartment building and had him call a taxi for us.  We didn't realize that we could have easily found a taxi by walking a few blocks to the city center.  The zoo was about a 20 minute taxi ride.  Taxis in Sofia are very inexpensive, so the trip only cost about $5-$6.  Zoo tickets for our family of four were a total of 10 lev, which is less than $6.

The Sofia Zoo is a lot different than a typical American zoo, but it was a great way to spend a few hours.  We met up with Ben, Heather and Delaney for a bit and enjoyed our visit.  We thought it was a little funny that the zoo had both a skunk and a raccoon exhibit.  Here are a few photos from our zoo visit:

We returned back to the apartment early that afternoon and both boys napped for a bit.  After the nap we had dinner at Pizza Palace with four other adoptive families who were also picking up their kids. We had met on the Bulgarian Adoptions Facebook group and decided it would be fun to get together. It was such a fun and relaxing evening.  Being with others who were going through the same process was very comforting.

After dinner we walked to the grocery store with Ben and Heather to pick up a few groceries before heading back to the apartment for the night.  It was a great day!

Bringing Ivan Home - Day 3 - Gotcha Day!

We woke up Monday morning and had a quick breakfast at our apartment before meeting our driver downstairs.  The drive to Kocherinovo was about 90 minutes.  The scenery was beautiful.  We saw plenty of fields of sunflowers along the way.  We arrived at the social worker's office just before 10:30am.

When we were in Kocherinovo in February we noticed a lot of stork nests.  The town is well known for the large number of storks that live there, and we were told that we should be able to see some stork families in the summertime.  It didn't take long at all to spot some storks in the nests at the town square. I wish we would have had more time in that area, but we were on a tight schedule.

After picking up Ivan's social worker we drove over to his foster family's home.  It had been almost six months, but I still remembered exactly where to turn.   We pulled up and went inside where Ivan was waiting for us. We visited with the family for a bit.  Nikolas and Ivan played and got to know each other.  And then it was time for Ivan to say goodbye to the family who has cared for him since he was only three weeks old.

I cannot say enough good things about his foster family.  They are a very sweet family who love Ivan so much.  I am thankful that we are able to keep in touch with them, because I feel like they are part of our family.  It's amazing how one little boy can pull two families together on opposite sides of the world.  

Ivan had a tough time leaving and cried for the first 30-45 minutes of the trip.  He then fell asleep and didn't wake up until we were close to arriving at the police station.  We met with Mariana, our NGO representative, to apply for Ivan's passport.  Mariana is the one who picked Nikolas up from his orphanage and drove him from Dobrich to Sofia four years ago, so it was nice to see her again.  We also met the Greene family who had just picked up their daughter.  They were with the same NGO, and we ended up spending a lot of time with them.

After wrapping things up at the police station the driver took us back to the apartment.  We dropped off our things and walked over to Vitosha Blvd. for a quick lunch.  We knew Ivan liked French fries, so we chose a quick fast food lunch.  We finished lunch and went back to our apartment to relax for a while.

Later that evening we had dinner at Wok to Walk and then stopped by the grocery store to pick up some juice, soda, bananas, yogurt and snacks to get through the next couple of days.  We also picked up some banitsa from a little shop that we were told about.  It was amazing!

We headed back to the apartment and got the boys to bed before enjoying some of that tasty banitsa!