It is nice when you birthday always falls on a holiday so we typically take a long weekend somewhere to keep trying to remind myself I am young. This year was no exception for another new adventure, this time in Borovets Bulgaria which is a 5 hour drive from home. But before departing I had a wonderful wakeup with cards, coupons and a happy to me song. Pranvera hit me with the perfect present of something I had talked about but didn't quite know how to get nor would I have gone to the effort: a portable tennis net so I can now play on the courts 30 seconds from our house but always have the nets destroyed due to the kids. And for myself I got an software package update to finally get current maps uploaded to our cars navigation system which could have been helpful for this trip as we made a couple errors and had to resort to using our phones and a printout to make the journey.
Since it is Kosovo Independence Day right after my bday Adi gets a couple days off school so we needed to take advantage of the window. The lesson learned here was that when you have a holiday, many others might too. Which was the case for both the UK and Serbia which slams this resort with direct flights and package deals. It is known for having good infastructure and unbeatable prices (especially for UK standards). So the lines on several of the days were ridiculous and all the ski schools full. Luckily we had a local contact of a great instructor so Adi got good equipment ($5/day with helmet) and 2 hours private lessons. By the end of 3 days he was skiing as fast as I could board on the beginner and couple intermediate slops. Was so much fun to be on the mountain with him.
But as any skier knows the amount of logistics can be overwhelming. Lift passes, lines, equipment, crazy beginner skiers all over the mountain etc. But we managed and enjoyed with 2 perfect weather days as well. The huge hotel had a big pool and a little town around it to get some good food (pork finally) and we ran into one of Adi's schoolmates so they had fun playing. Pranvera had the kids sledding on the base of one of the slopes and Adi could take the tow rope lifts by himself to ski till his hearts content. Think next year at 3, will be time to get Rea on the sticks as she seems to be the real dare devil of the family.
