Well, I'm back in Sofia alright but I am not actually <em>dreaming</em> of Walla Walla. You see I've been awake since 3am.

I made myself stay in bed until 3:30am. I mean a girl's gotta sleep in when she can. But when this turns into obsessing over the first day of school back from Christmas break, over the fact that you're awake at 3am rather than sleeping as you'd like to be and then you start planning your outfit for the day in your head-- you realize there's no point staying in bed.

All of this said, it turns out at that at 3:30am there's nothing on tv and no friends awake to skype with/gchat or otherwise annoy. What's a girl to do?

Well if you're like this girl you decide to unpack your suitcase, open and close your fridge door until you realize that you're not hungry so you make a pot of coffee instead. This also makes you realize that the "I double heart Walla Walla" bumper sticker you bought in Walla Walla for just $2.50 (but still had to pay for your with your debit card because of the shops rule: no cash) and just unpacked would look great on your refrigerator.

[caption id="attachment_4183" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="Walla Walla: I double heart you. "]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4183" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2011/01/10/back-in-sofia-and-dreaming-of-walla-walla/img_6986/"><img class="size-large wp-image-4183 " title="Walla Walla: I double heart you. " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_6986-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="409" /></a>[/caption]

But hanging a bumper sticker on your fridge with magnets only takes so much time. So it's back to the computer coffee in hand. You delete one piece of spam and read your three emails. Then you read everyone's facebook updates/status and flip through a couple of online albums before you realize that you could be doing something more meaningful with your time. Enter twitter.

The problem is that at 140 characters these read pretty quickly. So now it's on to google reader. Nine unread stories. <em>Great!</em> But it turns out half of them are artsy photos that one of your friends loves to share. <em>Oh well</em>.

That's when I thought: Carolyn, maybe you should upload artsy photos to flickr. Or maybe, you should suck it up and write a legit blog post for the first time in a couple of weeks.

Hum. Now that's an idea.<!--more-->

My head has been kind of foggy for the last two or so weeks and it's been hard to put together substantive posts. I guess it's to be expected. The first part of my vacation it was hard to write through tears (thanks for the foggy weather Sofia and for canceling my flight home for Christmas). Then after 20+ hours of traveling home for Christmas (after Christmas) all a girl wants to do is take a shower, eat some food and sleep. For the record, it's hard to write when you're sleeping.

But it's even harder to write when you're fighting the flu/pneumonia. Or in my case when the flu fakes you out and turns into pneumonia and then pneumonia starts karate chopping you over the head. Thank god for antibiotics! I just wish the antibiotics had started working a little better a little sooner.  The first day that actually felt better was Thursday. And I flew out of Walla Walla to Seattle on Friday at 2:40pm.

There's something horribly unfair feeling about that but that's what happens sometimes.

Sometimes a holiday isn't at all what you expect. Like when I got hit by a senior citizen who was too old to be driving in front of the local post office as I was trying to cross the street. My dAd/chauffeur said he watched it happen in slow motion. Not me. One minute I was standing trying to cross the street. The next minute a little old lady has backed her car into me. I whack the back of her car with my hand. Luckily I am okay.

[caption id="attachment_4184" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="Doughnuts"]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4184" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2011/01/10/back-in-sofia-and-dreaming-of-walla-walla/img_6976/"><img class="size-large wp-image-4184 " title="Doughnuts" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_6976-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="409" /></a>[/caption]

It's also lucky that doughnuts cure almost anything. Like the shock of being hit by a little white haired lady outside of the post office.

Oh wait, dAd and I had already been planning on going to the local doughnut joint. I love. <em>Love</em>. Apple fritters. dAd had a maple bar.

[caption id="attachment_4185" align="alignleft" width="614" caption="Front: apple fritter and back: maple bar"]<a rel="attachment wp-att-4185" href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2011/01/10/back-in-sofia-and-dreaming-of-walla-walla/img_6978/"><img class="size-large wp-image-4185 " title="Front: apple fritter and back: maple bar" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/IMG_6978-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="614" height="409" /></a>[/caption]

There's nothing quite like a fresh made doughnut and a crappy cup of coffee. We ate all of our doughnuts, drank half of our coffees and that was that.

Friday, I roped my dAd into running some more errands with me. We swung by the house at lunch time so that I could say good-bye to my brother N. and his girlfriend K. Climbing out of the car, I happened to look down and partially hidden under some leaves was a $10 bill.

How lucky is that?! I gave it to my dAd. It's the start of his "Bulgarian Vacation Fund."