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Plovdiv, Bulgaria…Happy B-day to me! A memorable one in Plovdiv, Bulgaria for sure!      -Craig

Happy Birthday to Craig!!! Because it was Craig’s day, we did everything he wanted to do, which was, of course, explore Plovdiv…First and foremost, we wandered around “our” area, had a wonderful cheese-filled pastry and coffee for breakfast, then walked across town to the Hill of the Liberators. This hill, of course, required climbing and I think I counted 600 steps up.      -Jennifer

We got up on the 13th, grabbed a pastry from a local shop, then started wandering. We shoppd in a 3-story shopping mall inside a renovated 19th century building, looked at art set-up along the center of a small square, found a Bulgarian flag patch, and wadered around the old town on cobblestone streets.      -Craig

The views from the top were nice though and the monuments were interesting.     -Jennifer

For lunch, we had pizza at a little trendy restaurant. The people here seem nice, intelligent, fashionable, and always looking ahead. This could very well be a nice country.      -Craig

After our naps, we headed out to have my birthday dinner at McDonald’s and then to the internet cafe. Got in touch with my mom and dad on SKYPE and told them that we are coming home to visit on February 20th. They seemed excited/confused. Mom cried a bit, dad seemed like he thought there was something more to the story.      -Craig

Craig’s dad thinks something is wrong, we think, and his mom is just pre-occupied with Grammar. I had no luck again with my mom.       -Jennifer

Money Spent 2/13/09: 73.13 Bulgarian lev = $47.42 USD

Extra for SKYPE credits, exchange fees, money kept = $20.00 USD

Total Spent at this point on trip: $21,801.15

Number of Countries Visited: 19

Hello readers! I know you have read our notes and pleas concerning Rainbow Children’s Home in Pokhara, Nepal. The following is an email that I just received from them concerning some new improvements made possible by donations. Have you ever had a time when you didn’t have your own bed or a table and chairs to eat dinner on?

How are you? I hope this mail will find you all well. We all are fine here in Rainbow Children Home and hope the same to you. We have made all bunk beds for the children. Bunk beds are more comfortable and taking little space in the room so change all old beds and put new bunk beds for all the children beds. Also we have made dining tables for the children. Now onwards children can sit in a chair and put the disc in the dining table and eat comfortably. All the children are so happy to get bunk bed and dining table.

I have attached some photos of the dining table and bunk beds in this same mail, Please have a look and comment, your suggestions and support is always highly appreciated to Rainbow Children Home. Because of your help, support and care inspires to do more for the children welfare. So, I would like to thank you all for your continuous helping, supporting and caring for Rainbow Children Home. We do hope the same in the coming days.

 Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

For more information about Rainbow Children’s Home, their current needs, and how you can help, please email us at craig (at) alsupsworldtravels (dot) com.

Pamukkale, Turkey…This morning we slept late. When we woke up, Craig tried to take a shower though it turned out to be cold water only- not sure why we expected any different.     -Jennifer

Got to Pamukkale, paid the outrageous entrance fee ($25) and headed in. We walked through the Necropolis of Hierapolis first and looked at all of the tombs. Sadly, these cities are beginning to look a lot alike. But, I don’t wanna get home and wish I had seen ‘em…Anyway, we really came for the “travertines”. It was a huge area covered in pearly white travertine with a thermal stream running through it! We took off our shoes and soaked our feet in the hot water awhile and enjoyed the views of the travertine and the mountains covered in snow in the distance.      -Craig

What an amazing place the Romans chose to build Hierapolis! Right on top of such a beautiful thing!       -Craig

The ruins were much like all the others we’ve seen, except the theater was huge and quite impressive. After wandering around for awhile, we visited the white travertines. Now this was amazing! It looked just like a snow-covered mountain and spread across a huge site.       -Jennifer

Turns out Adnan (our Couchsurfing host) isn’t so useless. He arranged a futbol (soccer) game and said I could play! Even loaned me a jersey…That happened to be #5! Oh yeah! Excited is an understatement. Elated. Gassed. Fired up. Torqued. “Legs, break out of your useless state. You are needed!”, I said. Jen can never understand how excited I get when I get to play. No one can. Except maybe Daniel Hodge. I believe he loved it as much as me. Maybe…         -Craig

The game was an hour long with no breaks, half-time or anything. Safe to say I was dead tired in no time. Very quick play. High scoring game. I played defense most of the time, but got a couple shots, both on target and good shots, but sadly both blocked. Got one assist. Saved a goal or two. Gave up a goal or two. Got hit in the groin with a ball. Busted my knee. Not a bad time at all. Actually, an amazing time though I played fairly poorly compared with my former play as a youngster.      -Craig

Money Spent 2/5/09: 125 Turkish Lira = $78.13 USD

Total Spent at this point on trip: $21,306.12

Number of Countries Visited: 18

Izmir, Turkey…We slept in a bit this morning and decided to spend the day with our Couchsurfing host and his friends to have a traditional Turkish experience. They said we were going to have breakfast, but we didn’t leave home until 11:00 am. We then drove two hours into the country to reach the restaurant in a beaultiful outdoor location.     -Jennifer

We had a long table outside with mountains and pastures all around. The place was really in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful country though. We ordered collectively and were brought tons of stuff! Honey, olives, 3-4 cheeses, eggs with pepperoni’s (weird), bread, butter, cheese fajita things, water, tea, etc…       -Craig

We ate, talked, and had a good time until about 2 pm, then drove out onto the peninsula and walked around the shoreline as a group. The water was blue green, the shore rocky and hilly. Very pretty.      -Craig

Back at the bottom, it was decided that we needed to go for coffee. Back in the car, we drove for another two to three hours to get to a bar…I guess the coffee urge passed in all that time. Craig and I split a cheeseburger and had a cappucino. Everyone else had beer and fries.      -Jennifer

Longest breakfast in history for me!    -Craig

Craig and I stayed home while Onur took his girlfriend home. He brought back another dinner…Some kind of meat with rice and veggies to put in wraps. It was pretty good. We also had baklava, a sweet pastry.      -Jennifer

Money Spent 2/1/09: 46 Turkish Lira = $28.75 USD

Total Spent at this point on trip: $21,126.56

Number of Countries Visited: 18