This year Easter is a week later than the Protestant Easter. This of course has to do with some long standing calendar differences. Anyhow, this gives me a chance to write twice about Easter. Last week I wrote about <a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2012/04/08/american-easter-in-10/" target="_blank">Easter in my childhood growing up in the States</a> and now I'll write about Easter in Bulgaria.

I've spent Easter in Bulgaria twice now. Here's a link to last year's post on <a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2011/04/24/easter-traditions-in-sofia/" target="_blank">Easter Traditions</a>.

Here are my general impressions:
<ol>
	<li>Shop windows full of kozunak and people queuing up in bakeries to buy them.</li>
	<li>Red Easter eggs. None of this pastel pink business. These eggs are red, red.</li>
	<li>Egg fights. Basically you take your dyed hard boiled egg and hit another person's egg. If your egg doesn't crack you can then go on to fight another egg.</li>
	<li>Lamb and leaf lettuce salad. (Interestingly spring is also one of the only times that Bulgarians seem to eat with any regularity left lettuce salads.)</li>
	<li>Spring onions, fresh garlic sprouts, radishes and strawberries are all for sale but I don't think the strawberries are actually seasonal/local until later in the spring.</li>
	<li>A midnight service on Saturday and throngs of people both inside and outside of the churches.</li>
	<li>A staple of the service are candles. Everyone has one. They are everywhere. This is incredibly beautiful.</li>
	<li>Old women selling flowers on street corners.</li>
	<li>Green grass.</li>
	<li>Bulgarians greeting each other with: Christ has risen! And responding with: he has risen indeed!</li>
</ol>
The holiday feels much, much less commercial to me here. There are no pastel M&amp;Ms or jelly beans to be found. The Easter bunny seems not to exist. While there have been some displays in grocery stores like Billa selling egg dye they are pretty minimal. I walked by one the first time and thought: who put this shelf in such an awkward place right next to the eggs? Then I looked at it again and realized the display was next to the eggs because it was egg dye.

Wishing you the best wherever you are whether or not you're celebrating this holiday today!

Want more? Maybe you should check out these past In 10 Posts:
<ul>
	<li><a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2012/04/08/american-easter-in-10/" target="_blank">American Easter</a></li>
	<li><a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2012/04/01/learning-bulgarian-in-10/ ‎" target="_blank">Learning Bulgarian</a></li>
	<li><a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2012/03/18/in-10-bottles/" target="_blank">Bottles</a></li>
	<li><a href="../2012/03/11/in-10-12-muffins/" target="_blank">Muffins (Self-made and Take a Cake-made)</a></li>
	<li><a href="../2012/03/04/in-10-martenitsi/%20%E2%80%8E" target="_blank">Martenitsi</a></li>
	<li><a href="../2012/02/26/in-10-carrefour/" target="_blank">Carrefour</a></li>
	<li><a href="../2012/02/19/in-10-bulgarian-homemade/" target="_blank">Bulgarian Homemade</a></li>
</ul>