I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving two weeks ago. As you all know, Thanksgiving isn't celebrated here in Bulgaria but a few volunteers and myself were able to celebrate together over a long weekend in Northern Bulgaria and in Bucharest, Romania. This year, instead of opting for the traditional turkey dinner, we decided to make a Mexican feast of enchiladas, pork tacos, refried beans, jalapeño salsa, and guacamole. Although it wasn't quite the same as I would have experienced in America, it was a great time nonetheless.
Bulgaria celebrates many of the same holidays as we do in America such as Christmas and Easter, but also has many others which are native to the country and region. One of the most popular holidays is "Name Day." Name days are certain days of the year which are meant to celebrate the life of a Bulgarian Orthodox saint. Traditionally, most Bulgarians are named after one of the many saints and therefore celebrate their Name Day on that day. A Name Day is treated very similar to a birthday in that the person generally invites his friends and family to either his house or a restaurant and treats them all to dinner. The guests bring small gifts such as religion icons, trinkets, food, or alcohol which they give to the host at the beginning of the night. Oddly 
enough, to many Bulgarians their name day is more important than their birthday. You can find a list of all the Name Days here. Look and see if you have a name day. (Although many names in Bulgarian are quite different than in English, there are some similarities such as George (May 6th,) David (June 26th,) Alex (November 24th,) and Stephen (December 27th.) Also, I added a few more pictures of Bratsigovo to the photo album if you guys are interested.-Bulgarian Phrase of the Week: "Chestit Imen Den!" (Честит Имен Ден!) = Happy Name Day!
