Everything changes now

Sorry for the silence. On top of becoming instant parents my laptop died 5 minutes after arriving, the boys somehow gound the one button on the apt computer that made it unusable (they push EVERY button and not just emotional ones) and i had forgotten a plug adapter. Last night the agency drove us to astore where we could buy a n adaptet. Im writing this on a smalll 7 in tablet. One character at a time. The boys veer from being thrilled to have a mama and tatko, complementing mama on her meals and wanting to tell tatko everything,, to screaming at the top of their lungs for not allowing them to unplug every device or, in dimcho's case, making him wear pajamas which he rejects on principle. Many of you probably how one underestimates how much effort parenthood is. We knew we were underestimating it, but even so and unsurprisinhly we underestimated how much we were underestimating. Because this tablet it not eady for long entries my posts will be sporadic and brief until we get home. We will post picturees then too.

technical difficulties

Sorry computer died and elisey broke the apt computer in 20 sec. Otherwise all is well but may not be able to post or read email until we return home.

Arrived

We have arrived in Sofia. The trip went smoothly, though not terribly comfortably. The middle, transatlantic leg, from Denver to Frankfurt, we were squished into two middle seats on a Lufthansa flight. I recall Lufthansa being more civilized, but apparently no more. Not only were we in the middle, for the 4 seats in our section there were only 3 sections for under the seat luggage. I couldn't stretch out my legs because there was equipment directly in front of my seat. Needless to say, we didn't sleep much. Nonetheless, we are here, and aside from the lack of comfort the trip went smoothly. We are now in a 2-bedroom apartment rented for us by Vesta, the Bulgarian NGO in charge on this side. Tomorrow we go to Kyustendil to pick up Elisey and Dimcho.

Hey, what do you know

...today, coincidentally, is National Adoption Day. Now off to the airport.

Countdown to the next big adventure

In less than twelve hours we are on a plane to Sofia... Well, first to Denver. Then to Frankfurt. Then finally to Sofia. Meanwhile we have been busy preparing, preparing, preparing. Now it's packing, cleaning, more packing, more cleaning. We'll sleep on the plane. We'll post news and pictures when we have time.

From Sea to Sky

The weather turned cool and overcast on Friday, much more typically Northwest (who needs all that sun anyway?). On Saturday I got up early and headed out of Vancouver, on Hwy 99 north, the "Sea-to-Sky-Highway" from Vancouver to the ski resort town of Whistler.

Along the way I passed the beautiful Horseshoe Bay, where ferries wade across to Vancouver Island and to the ironically named, I assumed, Sunshine Coast, and Lion's Bay, and up through the town of Squamish. Just north of there I pulled into Alice Lake Provincial Park

Despite the overcast weather, the campgrounds here and elsewhere were full. I took the Four Lakes Loop, with a few detours, passing Alice Lake, Edith Lake (shown), Fawn Lake, and Stump Lake. I don't have the patience for steep climbs anymore, and so this was ideal: about 9 or 10 km of mildly wobbling trails.

Many of the trails were shared with mountain bikers, although I only two two, maybe three groups of them. One side path was the "Tracks from Hells," which I suppose was technically difficult for a bicycle, but easy on foot: a sequence of wooden paths over muddy terrain, in the midst of a landscape devastated by logging.

At first I thought some tremendous flood must have come through, and I think some flood waters had made it look worse, but in the end I decided it was mostly logging. While there are huge swaths of forest, there are also large bald spots in the landscape where the forest has been mostly swept clean by logging.



Now I head down to Seattle for three weeks at the University, although next weekend I'll fly home to San Diego for a few days.

Beautiful British Columbia

I'm traveling in the Northwest, on research leave this fall, visiting the TRIUMF cyclotron lab on the University of British Columbia campus for two weeks (almost over now) and then to the University of Washington for three weeks.  I'm working pretty long hours during the week, but on the weekend I get to go out and enjoy the exceptionally good weather the area has been having lately. While "Beautiful British Columbia" is literally a licence-plate slogan, in this case it is stunningly accurate.

Last weekend--I didn't have the time or energy to post these picture before--I took two gentle hikes. On Saturday I went to Minnekhada Provincial Park outside of Coquitlam, a small town just a few miles east ov Vancouver.

Minnekhada has two small, marshy lakes, with birds resting on them. But it also had beautiful old growth forest surrounding it.

Saturday night I got a ticket to "Bard on the Beach," Vancouver having a lively arts scene, and saw 'The Taming of the Shrew," which was done to the hilt as a "broad" comedy (pun originally unintended but there it lies).

On Sunday I did two short walks--not really hikes, but as on Saturday walking around. First I went to Lynn Canyon. Nearby is the famous Capilano suspension bridge, crowded with tourists and, in good weather like this, even locals. (Like Seattle, in exceptional weather you can find half the city population in a park or on a beach enjoying the day, and the other half stuck in traffic trying to get to a park or a beach to enjoy the day.) But just one canyon to the east is Lynn Canyon, with its own suspension bridge, smaller and less grand, which to my slightly acrophobic mind is all the better.

The river below the bridge flows over some lovely falls and there are, again, cool forest paths to trod.

It only took me an hour to circumnavigate most of it, so I headed off to another park. I'd been to Lynn Canyon years ago, but I had never been to Lighthouse Park, northwest of Vancouver, just on the lip of Horseshoe Bay.

In addition to the beautiful views of the ocean there were, yes, forest paths. I was in heaven.
I took fairly short hikes because I wanted to get some work done on the weekend, as that was my main purpose for coing here. Tomorrow I'll take another, more extensive hike before heading down to Seattle on Sunday.