Carissa's (Continuing) Adventures

Yesterday, after lunch, I began my trip to Germany for a retreat/conference. I started by taking a taxi to my teammates' house and had quite the fun time trying to talk with my driver. After we were all ready, I got into a car with my teammates and we began driving to a nearby city so that we could use their airport. About twenty minutes in, my friend asked "Carissa, are we going the right way?" This makes some sense, since I've been living here a year and a half and they've been here under two weeks. However, I have never driven in or around my city. I rely completely on public transit, so I  didn't know if we were lost or not. We were. No problem, though. We turned around on the highway, and then had to turn around again, and then we were heading the right way. About an hour later, we stopped at McDonald's (universal road trip food) for a late lunch. When we walked in, the place was packed with children. So packed that we walked back out and dec...

Living overseas requires a lot of improvisation. Especially when cooking, since I often don't have the ingredients or tools I would in the states. I wanted to make pumpkin scones for a team dinner the other night, so I assembled everything I needed and then remembered I didn't have a can opener. But the pumpkin goodness can not be stopped!   So, I gathered the tools I had on-hand and proceeded to open the can.  Yes, I hammered a knife all the way around the edge of the can. It takes a long time and it slightly dangerous, but pumpkin is worth it. While the scones were in the oven, I needed to make a glaze for them which included sifted powdered sugar. Sifting the sugar here is especially important because it's much more coarse than sugar in the States. Unfortunetly, I don't own a sifter, either. So I used my tea infuser.   This also took a long time, but again, worth it. You'll understand why when you see the fininshed product.   They are p...

I've been fascinated with monks for a long time, probably due to the fact that in my mind, monks live in a library and sing all day. So, I was pretty excited when I got the opportunity to visit a monastery here. Rila Monastery is one of the most famous sites in BG and I've been wanting to go see it for a long time. Thanks to some sweet friends with a car, I got to do just that last weekend! After about two hours in the car, we made it to the monastery around noon. Once we were ready to head in, I made everyone stop for a group picture. The monastery is absolutely wonderful. It's full of color, frescoes, candles, and surrounded by mountains and blue sky.   The front of the main chapel    Artwork right above the front doors   Windows on the outside of the church The day was perfect as far as weather went, so we decided to go see the cave where St. John of Rila lived when he moved to the area and became BG's first hermit. Our guide book d...