Bulgaria

     The warm breeze plays with your hair, and the cool sea water soothes you. That's what Bulgaria is like, sea and sun and sand. The busiest street of Sozopol, a coastal town, is filled with tourists and souvenir shops, magazine kiosks and banks. There's a clothing store and a few hotels. The restaurants have mostly seafood, such as grilled fish, lobster, and other specialties. There are grapevines everywhere, and roses also. The two main beaches are both five-minute walks away from our hotel, HEDI.

     The hotel's two or three floors are carpeted in dark brown and red. The basement is where the owners of the hotel, Hristin, his sister Elena (although now she has moved to Germany), his father Dimo, and his mother Ivanka live (yes, that is where the name HEDI came from-Hristin, Elena, Dimo, Ivanka). Each of the hotel rooms is supplied with a TV and a mini-fridge.

     Sozopol, in my opinion, is the perfect vacation spot for everyone, from babies to retired old folks. The sunshine and sea air are healthy, although the beaches are filled with people, and the sea is filled with disgusting seaweed and millipede-like creatures. The sand is soft, and the sea is pretty shallow and really warm up to a point, which is good both for little children and for senior citizens who don't want to swim anymore. Some people might prefer to sit on the sandy bottom and let the waves shake them gently, or splash around all the time.

     When the sea is stormy and the sky is rainy, grandma and I go shopping. We visit the busy street and buy clothes and souvenirs and jewelry. Last time I got a parchment-colored gypsy skirt and grandma got a green tunic for my other grandma and a brown one for herself. That time we went home after shopping and sat on the balcony and painted. Granny is an "artiste". Not like a real artist, but art is her hobby, and she always tells me that one day she'll sell her paintings for millions of dollars. One of her colleagues at work even offered to buy her painting.

     This is heaven. I wish I could spend every single day of my life here in Sozopol, Bulgaria. (Except, obviously, that wish is so not going to come true.) Okay, first, I wake up at ten o'clock in the morning. I already know that grandma is outside on the hotel balcony, probably looking out onto the tiny strip of Black Sea not hidden by the huge hotel buildings. It would be hard to believe that only two years ago, you could sit on the wooden bench shaded by a nearby palm tree right there, where the coment parking lot now is. But enough blabbing. So, then, I get up quietly and walk onto the balcony myself. It's very warm outside with only a slight summer breeze.

     By ten-twenty, I'm out there in the downstairs cafe where the hotel parking lot used to be, having my daily morning tea and pancakes. The pancakes are paper-thin, rolled up, with chocolate inside and whipped cream on top. I always bring my notebook down, too, to record the names of songs on the constantly playing music channel that I like. At noon, we're packing for a day at the beach upstairs. I always bring a book and a notebook. By one, we've flip-flopped onto the beach with its gently rolling waves. The water is incredibly clear today because of yesterday's storm. All the seaweed usually in the water is piled up on the shore, and the water is really warm. And, of course, we're never able to miss the corn sellers. They sell boiled, salted corn, all the while singing Russian folk songs for some strange reason, probably to attract customers.

     At three-thirty, we're back at the hotel, eating fruit and watching cartoons. So, at four-thirty, we stop at Boruna (pronounced bo-ROO-nah), our favorite restaurant around. I have seafood, like spiny lobster, or dumplings, and grandma has grilled fish (as usual). At five, we're back at our hotel restaurant, HEDI, and I'm using the owner's computer to call mom in America. At six, we head back out for a walk to the old part of town, also known as Old Sozopol. We stop at every one of the cheap silver jewelry stands, looking at everything. We look at the souvenir shops and buy a ton of stuff, since we're both knick-knack people, and walk home. We sit on the swings, look at the pool that was once a vegetable garden, granny has her daily glass of wine, and we're off to sleep. Such has been our schedule for the last seven years.

Vermont

Vermont is one of my favorite places to go in the wintertime. I spent four New Years there, and to me it's a wonderland where everything is covered in powdery snow and it's always cold outside. A nice type of cold, actually. It makes you want to roll in the snow and never go inside again. But what I like most about Vermont is the skiing, sledding, and snow tubing.

     So far, we've had three different houses, all rentals and all near the same mountain, Mt. Okemo. My parents and grandparents alwas joke that I know the mountain so well that my middle name should be Okemo. The first house was probably by far the oldest. Like all the other houses, it had a large kitchen and a fireplace. It had two floors, I don't really remember much, except that there were a lot of these weird old little books in German all over the place. The first time I was there, I slept in this room with flowery, old-looking (and odd-looking) blue wallpaper and a small window. What I also remember is that the kitchen was connected to the living room by a doorway and a window. There was a long, creaky staircase. Behind the staircase was a strange piano-like instrument (which I later found out was a harpsichord) with little buttons on it, although it didn't look like it ran on electricity. There were black-and-white photographs of children across from the instrument and dried-up flowers. It was all so old, like I've just discovered a time capsule. That's all about the first house.

     I remember even less about the second house, it seems. There was a huge living room with a high ceiling and a fireplace and a big painting (or was it an embroidery?) of a moose somewhere in the middle of it all. There were two bedrooms upstairs, across the hall from each other.

     There's way more I remember about the third house. I mean, I was just there last weekend, plus I have been going there for two years now. The first floor has a furnace, a large closet, a flowery red couch, and a bedroom with two bunk beds, and also a ski room where everyone keeps their skis; also in that same room are the boiler and the washing machine and the drier. The second floor seems a lot bigger, but I know that's just because of the huge deck. There's a really, really big blue velvet couch with a hidden lever. The couch also has a little shelf that has a radio, phone, clock, and massage buttons, but that doesn't really work. The entire second floor is carpeted, except for the bathroom and the kitchen. Across from the couch are a television set, a fireplace, and an entire collection of all sorts of nutcrackers (there's even a lion nutcracker and a gardener one!). There's a little shelf with all kinds of puzzles, board games, and about twenty decks of playing cards. There's a big kitchen table with six chairs (one of which my dad accidentally broke last year-fortunately, it's been fixed). There is a bedroom with two bunk beds and a small bedroom. There is also a door and a sliding door that lead onto the deck. The kitchen is, well, a typical kitchen, just a lot bigger and with a bar. Okay, enough second floor. The third floor has one bedroom with four twin beds, a closet, and a dressing table, one master bedroom with a closet, and two wooden chests, and a master bathroom with a huge bathtub. Each of the bedrooms has at least one small lamp and each of the bathrooms has at least five decorating magazines like Martha Stewart Living and Domino (which I, by the way, love).

     I hate mornings in the third house (also known as the Funaros' or Top of the Mountain) because everybody goes to sleep late and and then in the morning they're all grumpy and boss you around (Yes, even my friend Alexandra, who's nine). I like evenings, though, because after dinner the babies (and there are two of those: my sister Leah and Alexandra's brother Benjamin) go to sleep. Then it's free time, unless I have homework to do. We usually play board games like Scattergories and Scrabble after dinner with our relatives and friends.

     Here, it's not Bulgaria. Nobody lets you sleep late. You are expected to wake on the alarm, eight o'clock sharp. Then you've got to brush your teeth, dress for skiing, and run downstairs like the wind before parents start yelling at you to come downstairs already, they've been waiting an hour and can't wait anymore, so would you come down here now for goodness's sake.

     After that, it's breakfast time. A bunch of complaining kids (Alexandra, her cousin Josh, his friend Josh, and I) sit at the dinner table and have the typical Russian morning oatmeal. By nine-thirty, we have to be ready,

and if we're not, we're not going anywhere! That's because ski school starts at ten.

     I used to go to ski school just because they had delicious lunches (yes, I do think Okemo had the best clam chowder.) But now that my parents think that I've "surpassed the highest level of ski school at Okemo", I 'have' to go somewhere else. okay, I suppose it's true that I know the mountain really well, but I like Mt. Okemo too much to just let go of it like that. I can name at least ten of my favorite trails there.

     One of my instructors, Joe Brennan, crashed into a snowboarder-no, the snowboarder crashed into him. Strangest of all, the snowboarder thought Joe crashed into him, that it was Joe's fault, although he wasn't hurt at all, and Joe was. Bang! Half of Joe's pole literally flew off. "If I didn't have a helmet on, I would've probably been dead by now," Joe said after the encounter. An interesting story I've had at Okemo was when I had to go to the First Aid because, well, actually, I burned my hand with a really hot clam chowder. Alexandra, who was in my group that time, laughed and laughed. I did, too. It was so weird, with all these people lying around with broken legs and arms, and me just sitting there and running my hand under cold water for half an hour.

     So, lunch at ski school is at twelve, almost like CSS lunch. I always get clam chowder, apple juice, french fries, and a krispie. After lunch, we ski until three-thirty, when parents pick us up. We have to get to the Waffle Haus before it closes at four. The tiny shop with picnic tables all around it sells the best waffles. The have bits of sugar on them and can be ordered plain or with chocolate, which I love. (So now you see why Alexandra and I have to get to the Waffle Haus...) Sometimes the Joshes join us, and other parents who come down the mountain as we eat also.

     When we've finished our waffles, the parent, whichever one picks us up, drives us home. At home, we pull on jeans and t-shirts and check e-mails in the half-hour we have left before dinner. Then, it's dinner, board game time, and bedtime.

And that's all one day.