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50 stories - Irena Nikolova

25 July 2022 Events and Discussions

Sydney

Network manager at Google

 

Hello, my name is Irena Nikolova, 39, from Pleven.

I currently live in Sydney and work as a data center manager at Google. I graduated from Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", majoring in computer systems. I began my career as a network engineer in Sofia and soon after, I started working for the largest search engine on the Internet – Google. It happened by chance after applying for an internship program.

I moved to Sydney 9 years ago, and to this day I still think that Australia and New South Wales have some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. We often go on  day trips to very well maintained and beautiful beaches and national parks. Unfortunately, we are still looking for koalas in the trees, and fortunately, we have not yet encountered venomous snakes or spiders!

I have two children - Mila (7 years old) and Martin (4 years old) who speak Bulgarian (they especially often switch to Bulgarian when arguing!) and who sometimes attend the Bulgarian Sunday school here. They are looking forward to their name days (when we celebrate according to Bulgarian tradition), March 1 (to tie Martenitsa) and Christmas (so they can visit the Bulgarian gathering in the park, receive gifts from Santa Claus and use their survachkas). The Bulgarian gathering for Christmas is held in the park, because it falls in the middle of summer here!

With the exception of the last few years and because of the Coronavirus, they spend at least a few weeks a year in Bulgaria and excitedly talk about their adventures there when they return to school. I sincerely hope that tourism, relations and friendship between Bulgaria and Australia continue to develop so that more Bulgarians and Australians can enjoy the other country, its culture, history and geography.

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