Thinking Allowed: Let's go Bansko

Poor blog, we've been neglecting you. Guess it's been too much fun in Bulgaria! For the past month, we've gone Balkan, starting with a flight from Oslo to Sofia. We spent a busy day there, overlooking a pedestrian boulevard from an apartment with giant portraits of Communist leaders (we think) lining the walls. Tamar's sibling Mica joined us for a few days which was extremely fun. We saw the synagogue (very nice!), climbing gym (high walls!) and central park (quite run-down!). People sold us roasted walnuts which tended to taste quite dusty and a bit rancid.

Then it was on to Bansko, a bustling ski resort in the winter and a sleepy mountain town in September. As we drove steadily up and up, it was exciting to see the big peaks loom above us. After a bit of wandering around with our luggage, we found our apartment in the Down Town Resort, which in many ways resembled the Ghost House from Super Mario World. It wasn't downtown, but beside a dried-up concrete riverbed. The "supermarket" at the entrance looked as though it last opened in 2008. The main lobby and central building were a crumbling, unfinished ruin. Our place, though, turned out to be a quite nice three-bedroom apartment in a big building where we never once saw another living being. Many of Bansko's hotels turned out to be deserted hulks: after a construction bubble burst just as Aurora was born, dozens of sprawling buildings were left to Nature's embrace.

We spent three weeks in Bansko and really enjoyed it. The hiking was so great: lots of woodsy walks in the hills above town along babbling brooks, an outing to a ruined 3rd-century fortress just lying in the forest. A playground in town had chin-up bars and rings, so the girls burned some energy there most days.

Tamar's friend Joelle came and spent a couple of weeks living right nearby - visits are so nice! She hiked up Mt. Vihren with all of us except Tamar and Levi, who most wisely stayed behind: it was a grueling 6-hour hike with extremely gusty winds, bone-chilling fog and paper-thin air at the top. As we clambered up the steep scree on the final ascent, poor Zadie had to stop for breath every dozen steps. Finally we threw in the towel, less than 70 *metres* from the top, with three kids in tears, and retreated to friendlier altitudes for a picnic and lollies.

In the evenings we'd often play Bananagrams with Joelle and cook up big dinners. Jakob joined in expat games nights, a chess tournament (already narrated) and we made a pretty good mystery walk about Bansko's heroes: a poet, a saint and a monk. Levi has been growing by leaps and bounds, gurgling and making a staticky 'ggggg' sound, giggling more, and kicking for all she's worth. On Rosh Hashanah we had apples dipped in honey, and ate honey cake twice (once up on-trail at night near a delicious fountain of icy spring water).

We spent lots of time with an Australian family of 7, the girls made fast friends and conspired online to arrange playdates, sleepovers, trips to the pool, and so on. It made everyone's lives better for them to have some good friends for a couple of weeks, and they were sad to part. Conspiracies are already in train, I'm sure, for a reunion.

Now we're in Novi Sad, Serbia, with another family of Australian friends. It's only been a couple of days, but we already love the lively vibe here. Jakob's back to work on Monday which is a bit sad, but all good things must come to a Zoom conference eventually.