We are currently in Plovdiv. We have walked around town and been to the Congregational church. On the first day we went to Sahat Tepe. There was a view of Plovdiv.

September 22nd was Bulgaria's Independence day. We were at a concert of traditional Bulgarian music, dancing, and songs. It was amazing, but I could feel the vibrations of the drums. It was a bad day, because it rained for awhile.

The dancers had traditional Bulgarian costumes. 

Two weeks ago we went to Rila monastery in Bulgaria, which was founded in the 10th century. It was really big and inside they had real gold and silver covering the chandeliers and some of the walls. It had lots of icons too.

Icons are pictures of people in the Bible and holy people of the church.

picture from: http://sevdelin.snimka.bg/mountain/sveti-ivan-rilski-pokrovitel-na-b-lgarskiya-narod.159908.3621427

We also went to a cave that John of Rila lived in, because he was a hermit. This was on a mountain and the cave was really dark and tight, but I managed to get through the hole. There was a pretty good view toward the lower mountains.

At the end of that week we went to a cave called the Devil's throat. On the way there the road was very narrow and were humongous cliffs. In the Devil's throat was a big waterfall, the biggest underground waterfall in the Balkans. Two divers exploring the waterfall somehow died. There were bats in the cave. Also climbing up took awhile, because there was two-hundred and eighty steps. At the top there was a good view down toward the cave.

This week me, my family, and the students went to Greece. The water there was very warm. We explored the island of Thassos. We went to Archangel Michael monastery. We met the sisters there. They gave us their blessings. Also while we were in Thassos I rode the scooter with my dad. He took me to a Greek village on the scooter. 

We rode a ferry twice on the way to Thassos and from Thassos to Kavala. On the last day at Kavala we went to a good spot to swim where you could jump off a rock that took a few seconds to hit the water. The water was pretty strong and it was super deep. The first time I jumped off the rock I felt weird, because it took awhile to get to the water. But I loved it!

After that we went to Jumbo, which is a big toy store in Greece. There I got a plastic sword and bow and arrows. Also in Thassos I got an awesome slingshot and learned how to shoot mostly rocks, but I nearly broke a window.