Much of my day-to-day life in Sofia is routine. For better or worse that's what happens when you live abroad. In the beginning the place is foreign, very foreign, and then it becomes more and more normal and your life becomes more and more routine.

Life abroad is not all rainbows and puppies nor is it all maps, airplane tickets, guidebooks and sunglasses. In fact, life abroad often requires from me a number of tedious tasks like making my bed in the morning, fixing dinner, doing laundry, going to the grocery store and cleaning things. Things I might add that seem to get dirty and/or collect dust even when I am not spending much time at home.

The thing is that sometimes the day-to-day abroad can get you down because many of these tasks take more time and effort abroad than they do at home--or at least it seems this way.

So things like going to the grocery store which start out exciting (just think about all of the interesting unknown foods, flavors, spices and brands) slowly become tedious as you peer at labels, guess at brands and hope that you ultimately like what you're buying. So as if other things in your life aren't a constant reminder that you're a foreigner, the grocery store becomes just one of the many places where you come face to face with your own foreignness.

You stand in front of the cheese and yogurt case trying to make sense of the two-dozen brands and varieties while others breeze by deftly picking out a block of cheese or a few containers of yogurt.  The choice is easy for them. <em>Me? </em>I pick things out based on things how cute the cow on the packaging is or how much I like the font.

But then sometimes there are little things that surprise you.

<em>Like today! <!--more--></em>

Today, after a long, long day at school I stopped by Hit to pick up some things to make nachos because this weekend we're having a nacho competition among the American teachers in honor Cinco de Mayo.  (Okay I know, I know, it's a little early for Cinco de Mayo but we've got a long weekend starting on May 6th for St. George's which makes celebrating on the actual day that much harder.)

Anyhow, I was in the aisle with beans staring at bag after bag of beans wishing for one of two things: black beans or red-kidney beans. Needless to say, neither of those were options so I was busy trying to decide which bag of semi-red-semi-spotted beans to buy in order to make refried beans. Finally, I settled on a bag that seemed to have the most red-colored beans in it. Beans in basket, I headed down the aisle to find tortilla chips and cheese.

That's when I saw it!

[caption id="attachment_4839" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="Wall of Ritter Sport "]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4839" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2011/04/28/sometimes-its-the-little-things/dsc02457/"><img class="size-large wp-image-4839 " title="Wall of Ritter Sport " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/DSC02457-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="461" /></a>[/caption]

<em>Ritter Sport</em>.

A wall of Ritter Sport in fact. Okay a wall might be a little bit of an exaggeration but really the display is impressive.

And it was on sale.

That's when I remembered: sometimes it's the little things. Or in this case squares of chocolate filled with delicious things. It was all I could do to limit myself to one.

I went with a new flavor. Even though I wanted one of each.

[caption id="attachment_4844" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="New Ritter Sport"]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4844" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2011/04/28/sometimes-its-the-little-things/dsc02458/"><img class="size-large wp-image-4844 " title="New Ritter Sport" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/DSC02458-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="461" /></a>[/caption]