November 21; A Moveable Feast 🎂
Looking back (and forward!) at my annual November 17 celebrations... this was my week 🥂
Happy Sunday,
Deep in my heart I’ve never really gotten beyond the age of 12, to which my annual excitement about my birthday is one of the telltale signs.
November 17 is the day I started my trips around the sun, and through the years, surprisingly, I’ve been developing an ever bigger liking of celebrating it.
This past week, thanks to Ellie’s ingenuity, love, and dedication, we celebrated the occasion literally every day.
Last weekend it started with Ellie taking me to a fantastic concert at the Sinatra Piano Bar in Sofia, where the Bulgarian actor and singer Filip Avramov, together with the well-known Akaga band, held a tribute concert dedicated to my favorite Bulgarian artist of all time, the late Todor Kolev. Like Ellie, Todor Kolev was born in Shumen, and I was lucky to attend his last-ever concert in November 2012 in Sofia. Also, the only Bulgarian book I ever read was his brilliant autobiography Варненското Софиянче от Шумен. The highlight for us was to discover what an incredible singer Filip Avramov is. He is well-known in Bulgaria as a theater actor, and recently he’s been starring in almost every big Bulgarian movie production. We attended the premiere of Като За Последно last summer (translated to English as Last Call), where Avramov sang the catchy title song:
After spending a night at the new Millennium hotel, where Ellie booked us a panorama suite with amazing views of our Lozenets neighborhood in Sofia, it was time to celebrate with friends on Monday.
Ellie organized the party at the theater academy bar K.E.B.A, which has a covered patio with magic lighting, that took us all directly into the Christmas season spirit:
As I mentioned in my speech at the party, it’s very special to me to be able to celebrate my birthday in Bulgaria, surrounded by a couple of dozen very close people that I really love. Growing up between cultures and countries has its obvious upsides and privileges, but the downside is that you don’t actually get to form the lifelong close bonds that go with spending the first, say, 20 years of your life in one place. My family, childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood friendships are scattered all around the world, and even though I’m still close to many of these people, we only see each other once in a few years at most. Those relationships are more about recalling the old times and much less about sharing today’s ups and downs and adventures. Thanks to Ellie and the decade I’ve now spent in this country, I got to regain that sense of “home” here in Bulgaria, and it’s one of the most special things that has happened to me in my life.
The actual day itself we spent enjoying the biggest treasure we have here in Sofia, our Vitosha mountain. Towering at 2290m above Sofia, with ancient forests and its unique stone rivers, it’s not only the defining skyline of the city, but also a phenomenal place of contrast, with its unworldly wilderness located just a couple of kilometers away (actually, above) from a buzzing metropolis of two million people.
We hiked up the 5.4km trail from the Aleko basecamp to the Cherni Vrah (Black Peak) highest point of Vitosha, with an altitude gain of 500m, and enjoyed the usual wintertime phenomenon of sunny and cloudless weather, with Sofia covered in a dense cloud-and-smog blanket below us.
At the top of the peak there is a mountain hut where we had some delicious soups, pickles, and other mountain fare, so much so that we totally skipped dinner at the nice Moreni restaurant at the basecamp later that evening.
On Thursday, we came back down to the city and celebrated once again, with champagne and cake, this time with our teams at the office:
Of course, all of this week’s amazingness is all courtesy of Ellie, who came up with this whole wonderful plan for this week. Frankly, the entire 14+ years we’ve spent together has felt like one big birthday party, and it’s the best party I’ve ever been to. ❤️ Here’s a shot of beautiful Ellie that I snapped when we were having dinner on one of the nights this week:
And it’s not over yet… !
When you get to celebrate your birthday for an entire straight week, it only makes sense to continue doing it beyond that. This year, instead of receiving presents, I asked everyone who wished to gift me anything, to donate towards sponsoring a Talent Tree by the Kambarev Foundation in Sofia. Two years ago, our wonderful friend Dessy Tenekedjieva started the Talent Trees project, in which different people and organizations can each sponsor a Christmas tree, with the trees getting installed on December 1st in front of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, forming a beautiful Christmas tree alley. The proceeds will go to Dessy’s Kamabarev Foundation, which I wrote about before, that funds projects and education for Bulgaria’s top young artistic talents.
And so on December 1st 2021, we’ll be in front of the National Palace of Culture with our friends, decorating one of the trees, our “Friendship Tree” as I decided my tree will be called. If you’re in Sofia and you haven’t received the invite already, you are very welcome to join us! After we decorate our Friendship Tree, I’m inviting everyone for mulled wine and sausages/sauerkraut/raclette etc. at the Christmas Market. Reply or comment here to get the exact time and place, I would love to have you with us! 🎄🧑🏼🎄✨
Thanks for checking in today and talk to you next Sunday! 😇
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