Bio coffee - no, bio sweets - yes, yes, yes!

Finally, I had the chance to taste a real bio coffee, produced according all the requirements for coffee to be licensed as bio (or at least, I guess it is according to them as it was prepared in a specialized bio shop). It was a pleasant experience to taste the coffee as there was a corner for drinks outdoors at the event I was attending, the weather in Sofia was beautiful that day and all the people were in good mood although they were trapped to spend the wonderful Saturday indoors staring at the stage or at the screen of their smartphones twitting questions to the speakers....

The coffee wasn't quite good, I should say, although with loads of milk added... It tasted as if prepared from sugar beet or something :-( Traditional (non-bio???) coffee won the match!

And don't ask me what the little thing beside the cup is - it was made of paper, very nicely designed, a small stone and a garlic inside - to keep us safe from the wind and the flu, probably ;-)
But the amazing thing were the sweets we were given to serve ourselves with....Wow! A woman owning a guest-house in a village somewhere in the Rila mountain has prepared them for us - the unknown guests of the event she was a speaker at. Thank you, Deshka!

Those were tasty amazing things - four types, but I liked most two of them: one made of pumpkin (the yellow ones at your left), and the other which looked as small meatballs steeped in sugar syrup which dripped all around (the brown ones at the right) and everybody's fingers were sticky with it, hankies were the most wanted good around... But it was funny, and nice, and - most importantly! - tasty in the old-fashioned home-made way :-)

Back to Viennese: city and coffee

It's been a while as I have last written about drinks and cafeteria. But here is the inspiration I needed - I visited a city I love and moreover, I visited it accompanied by the right people, in the right time. 'No, it's not Vienna', a friend called the album of pictures showing in a creative way some of the best building in Ruse. Yes, it's not - it's even better because of the warm, friendly and relaxed feeling you get when walking around. No posing, no stiff-upper lip, but still very aristocratic. See here for yourself.

But let me tell you about coffee drinking there. For many year now, the speciality in the Ruse cafeteria was the so called 'Viennese coffee' - espresso with cream on it and cocoa powder on the top. Now I notice this otherwise obligatory part of the menu in each cafeteria and restaurant has been at some places replaced by the so 'modern' moccaccino, late, etc... The thing closest to Viennese was the so called coffee con pana. Ok, I respect the different languages but I'd really prefer to have back my good old Viennese coffee, which I remember from my school years - looks more or less that that (couldn't find a more exact picture):

After some arguments on choosing the best place to sit our choice for the first day was a cafe (and a curious fast food place) on the main pedestrian street - Planet Food. After an exhausting sightseeing tour the fresh coffee, great indoor design and many people around was what we needed. But we god a bonus - how I love nice surprises! - home-made lemonade, correct proportion of sugar, lemon and orange juice and water, price - twice as cheaper as it would have been in Sofia. We couldn't believe it, some of us had two glasses:-)

On the second day we visited a cafe/restaurant which offered us a green garden on the roof, relatively good quality coffee, great pizza and poor sandwiches :(


The place offered as a bonus an interesting view towards the backs and roofs of some major old buildings in the city centre and a couple of small waterfalls in the garden. So it was worth seeing it. All of it, all of Ruse :-)

The choice to be loved

It just happens - one suddenly wakes up and realizes that games are of no interest any longer when it comes to relations with the opposite sex. Or meets somebody and realizes the same. Loving and yearning for somebody's attention and touch is important emotion for our being human, for our motivation to go on... but being loved and cared about is as important for our overall balance. And I dare say this applies both for men and women.
Is it about selfishness? Hell, no! It's about realizing that we are valuable, it's about somebody showing us we're valuable by gentle unexpected care shown in surprising ways and situations. It's about being happy and calm, it's about being loved and choosing to be loved, and realizing that we deserve it. Also, it's about the surprise that arouses inside when we find out all these things in life and in our self...

I saw a quote today which I loved: the three C's in life - making the Choice to take the Chances in life, so that Change happens. If we don't allow it to happen, it may just wait at out doorstep for a while and then leave... Let the change happens and let the ones who really deserve it, love you.
Just like in this very much loved song by Alanis Morisette - 'You've already won me over, in spite of me"... :-)