Bulgaria

What am I gonna say?  For those of you who want to know how Bulgaria was, it was good for beer.  It was also Bulgarian.  Even more Bulgarian than any other country I've ever been to.  But it was fun, pretty much.  It was quick and Calvin liked it.  It was fun getting lost, we got to walk around and see things, and it was really nicey.  One thing that was interesting was, we got the wrong bus and went to another city which we weren't expecting to go to, that was a mess up, so that was adventurous, though oddly enough that city was just as Bulgarian as the last.

Everything went wrong, but it was fun.  We weren't able to stay in the hotel we had planned, our bus was late, (which resulted in us eventually getting on the wrong bus) I wasn't able to buy the things I wanted in the duty free due to a silly new law which states that you can't buy anything in the duty free if you've only been in Bulgaria for one day.  That was a bummer, because I really wanted to bring something for Nathanael, but I brought him enough beer for him to be happy... twice.  Beer is literally cheaper than water there, and it's actually really good (Nathanael gives his beer tasting STAMP of approval).  So that's it.  Here are some pics.  Enjoy.  And those to whom I've promised post cards, they will get to you. 

(This post has been dictated by Rafaela and typed and infringed upon by Nathanael.)

Calvin in front of a thing.

Calvin sitting on a thing.

Rafa and Calvin having fun eating pizza.

The biggest statue of Mary in the world, which the Bulgarians are quite proud of.  This is a picture Nathanael took when he was in Bulgaria himself.

MOM!!

Quote from Calvin today:

Calvin: "Mom!.... MOOOoooom!"

Rafa: "Yes Calvin?"

Calvin: "What?"

This got me thinking... Why is it that you never hear kids walking through some random area of the house, expecting the sheer volume of their voice to guide the wayward parent into their presence, shouting:

"DAD!.... DAAAAaaaad!!!"

Well, for one, Dad just may give them a something less than approving response for yelling around the house. But then, a much deeper reason may be that:

Mom is omniscient.

Where are my shoes? Mom knows. What's for dinner? Mom knows. Why is my stomach hurting? Mom knows.

Dad is omniscient in other ways. He's filled with wisdom and the knowledge of the cosmos, as well as baser things like how to get the computer working again. These are things that are to be asked with humility, wonderment, or hushed tones...

Poor mom.

Rumeli Feneri

Last weekend for our day that Rafa, Calvin and I spend together, we went to Rumeli Feneri Castle, overlooking where the Bosporous Strait meets the Black Sea. It was the second time we'd gone, so I'll include pictures from both times. The first time we went, it was earlier in the year, cold and rainy. The second time was a sunny day, which made for a very unique photo opportunity in a certain part of the castle. 

<-I rediscovered a mild fear of heights here. Or maybe I was just concerned that Calvin didn't choose to chase a butterfly off the wall or something. Either way, I held on to him pretty tightly. In the name of fairness, though, I have to say he's a bright little guy, so my fears weren't entirely well founded. I'm just paranoid.

Rafa taking a turn with the little guy on the wall. You can see the little town of Rumeli Feneri in the background. Yes, it's officially a part of Istanbul, but Istambul is such a large city that it has many little towns inside, and as more people settle and build towns on the outskirts of the city, Istanbul grows. Aside from being an ancient city as well as being built on mostly a hilly area (Istanbul has been called the "City of Seven Hills") this is one of the reasons the infrastructure, and especially the road structure, can seem somewhat disorganized. Lots of the expansion of the city is hardly planned, but the city just grows.

Rafa and Calvin on the rocks outside the castle.->

<- Here's the warmer day when we went last weekend with some friends. Yes, Calvin's and my matching headgear is on purpose. This day made for some pretty interesting photo opportunities in one certain room of the castle with some nifty lighting and sound arrangements.

This is one of the ground floor rooms, inside one of the towers. It's a raised dome with one hole on top. I have no idea what this room was used for. This whole castle actually has no explanations whatsoever, it's hardly even an actual tourist spot, therefore there aren't any explanations anywhere. It's just a fun place to explore. Now this room was much more special on the sunny day I was there because of the light. Of course, even though I have a collapsible tripod that could fit in my pocket, I didn't have it with me, so I got to have fun experimenting with setting the camera up on stacks of rocks to get these pics.

And here's my favorite one:

This is the picture without any editing. Okay, well, I rotated it to right side up. And yes, that's Rafa and me. The little Canon SD 600 camera that Dad got me always seems to utterly crush cameras up to 4 times as expensive when it comes to colors and lighting. Maybe it's just because I've played with it so much and have learned it in and out, but it's a great camera. Thanks Dad!

(Credit to Dusty for pressing the button...)

The other interesting thing about this room was it's sound. Rafa and I are actually standing in a hole that's right in the center of the room. From there, if I were to whisper anything as softly as I can, people standing in certain other parts of the room would hear it as if I was right behind them. The effect overall was very creepy. Maybe the Ottomans felt the need for a "creepy sound room".

Introduction to We're Still Alive

Welcome to We're Still Alive, a blog created for the purpose of periodically letting Nathanael and Rafaela's families and friends know that yes, we are indeed still alive. I suppose the reason for that wording comes from my (Nathanael's) utter failure to communicate regularly with my family and let them all know how things are going. Therefore, in a desperate attempt to redeem myself, I have created this here blog. Now the reason it's called "We're Still Alive" instead of "I'm Still Alive" is because Rafaela, my girlfriend, will also be using it for similar purposes. Some months ago she came from Brazil with her son Calvin and there are a lot of people over there who would likewise love to know if she is also still alive.

So since we're in a relatively new relationship and things are going great, and both our families and friends are probably curious as to how all that is going, especially considering the rather different way in which our relationship came about and me learning about daddyhood and Rafaela and Calvin learning about everything else, we thought we'd do this together.

Another thing I thought I'd say is: forgive me if my posts are odd or sound like they're trying to be funny (and failing), or whatever. I guess the idea of only having words to represent my entire existence to so many people I love so much (my family) makes me quite nervous about writing them. Then there's the aspect of a whole big group of family and friends and people who love and adore Rafa and Calvin over there in Brazil getting to know and form ideas about me through this, so yeah... I'm just going to try to be as natural as possible, typing and posting, and hopefully I'll get better at it over time.