Weekend fun

This weekend was not too eventful, but we did end up doing quite a bit. We kicked off Saturday by hitting the National museum of natural history. It contained a wealth of specimens. As you can see in the photo however, many of them were beyond old. This one was from 1923. There was an astounding array of different fish, birds, insects, mammals, reptiles etc. However, they were not in any discernible exhibits. They were labeled and arranged in row after row of glass cases. Check out my picture album if you are interested in seeing some of the displays. It was at once spectacular and shameful. There were all these instructive aides, but half of them were literally falling to pieces. We spoke to a woman there about the operation and funding of the museum. She said that the museum doesn't receive much funding from the government. It's mostly private donors, and doesn't add up to enough to truly take care of things. The woman only made 180 Lev (about 1.5 to $1) a month. It goes to explain why the archaeological museum cases (where they had them) were "locked" with zip ties.

Afterwards we took a trip to the south of the city near the "Palace of Culture." We were looking for an organic market, but it apparently closed early without warning. The "palace" turned out to be a really big conference center. It was a big concrete and glass building in a very 70's style. There was a huge grounds around the building though, and lots and lots of students relaxing after the first day of school. What's that you say? The first day of school was on a Saturday? Yes. There was a holiday on two Thursdays before. Pretty much everybody got the Friday off of work as well making it a 4 day weekend. So, everyone had to make up the lost day of work, by going in on the following Saturday, thus the kids also had to do something productive on Saturday, and they made it the first day of school. Weird..

One of Raia's coworkers started a tea house here in Sofia and they have really neat shows and art and such. We met up with some other folks before hand for a drink then made our way to the tea house for dinner and Jazz. It was a trio, keys, sax and drum, and they were quite good. I think my favorite was watching them pull off a version of Us3's cantaloop.