Last Weekend in Bulgaria

We're leaving. Soon. It's pretty hard to believe. Our two years here are almost up. Classes are through, and I gave my final exam last week. Now all we've got left is a LOT of grading, end-of-year paperwork, packing, moving out, and plenty of goodbyes. We've had some difficult times here, to be sure, but lots of amazing ones as well, and I think a lot of experiences that we'll still be processing for years to come. Next Sunday we're heading out for our month-long European adventurefest, so this was our last full weekend in Bulgaria. Many of our friends went to a big outdoor music festival, but it wasn't really our thing. I wanted to go to the Black Sea for the weekend or do an overnight hike. The reality that we were leaving in a week intruded on these plans, and we settled for one day in the mountains, and one day to get stuff done, which led to a busy weekend.

There's plenty of good hiking nearby on Vitosha (theoretically we could walk from campus, but a 30 minute drive is better), and an hour+ away are great hikes in the Rila mountains. I always like to go to new places though, and there was one major mountain range in Bulgaria that I hadn't hiked in yet: the Pirins. Situated between the ski-resort of Bansko to the north and the little wine village of Melnik to the south, they have Bulgaria's second-highest peak (Vihren at 2914m) and are delightfully rugged due to their glaciated past.  It's a 2.5-3 hour drive down to the Pirin range, which is why I haven't been hiking there yet (well that and the fact that during almost all of the school year there is too much snow for easy hiking). This was my chance.

Driving down after work on Friday, we spent the night in Bansko so we could get a morning start on our hike.  Our decent hotel room including breakfast was only 40 leva (off-season prices)!  Meanwhile our acceptable dinner at a schmaltzy and touristy mehana was 75 leva! Rarely have I paid twice as much for dinner as for lodging in the same town...oh well.
We drove over to the nearby village of Dobrinishte, which has a single ski lift that also provides access to some great hiking. 30 minutes on the lift carried us from deciduous forest at Hizha Gotse Delchev to sub-alpine krumholz and the beautifully situated Hizha Bezbog. Very nice.

Hizha Bezbog, in the Pirin Mountains near Dobrinishte, Bulgaria

We hiked a few hours through excellent mountain landscapes.

Djangal Peak, 2730m, in the Pirin Mountains

I wish we'd had more time. The lift stopped running at 4:30 in the afternoon, which is reasonable in the winter but dumb in the summer when it is light out until well after 9 o'clock. If we missed the last lift, we would  add 2.5 hours of steep (and fairly unattractive)  downhill walking on a ski access road.  The timing of the lift meant we had a farily short outing, but it was still excellent.
At the turnaround point for our hike we decided to go skinny dipping in Big Valyavishko Lake. This is not the coldest water I've swam in, but at 2280 m (~7,500 ft) it wasn't exactly tropical. At least there was no ice floating in it. Luckily it was windy and overcast, and we had nothing to use for a towel. :)

Big Valyavishko Lake, with two islands. Nice.

View East towards Djangal Peak from Big Valyavishko Peak

Swimming in the lake. It was chilly. I swam to the island, just 'cause.

Zoom in of above picture. You can perhaps appreciate from our faces how cold it was.

 
After our dip and air-dry, we realized we had 1:50 to hike back to Hizha Bezbog (and the ski lift) or we'd miss the lift down. It took us 2:30 to cover on the same distance on the way here, and we hadn't exactly been lollygagging.  Unfortunatley, the Hizha was only about 250 ft lower than our lake, meaning we couldn't even enjoy much of "it'll be faster going downhill" speed boost.  Time for a forced march. We hustled up the hills, and cruised on the flats, even running a bit on the downhills until Shannon's feet screamed at her to stop. Neither one of us really thought we could make it. But somehow we did...sweaty and breathing hard but with 10 minutes to spare. Woot!

The rest of the day was uneventful...30 minutes down on the lift, 20 minutes driving down on a windy mountain road, then 3 hours drive home, mostly on neglected and pot-hole ridden Bulgarian "highways." Note to folks living in BG: Google Maps will suggest that it is faster to go to Bansko via Velingrad (instead of Blagoevgrad). Don't believe Google. I didn't really, but I was curious to see the other route. The Velingrad route is about 30 minutes slower but much more taxing driving. The roads are in much worse condition and a lot windier. On the plus side, the Velingrad route has little traffic and is quite scenic, especially in the gorge between Velingrad and Septemvri. The portion west of Velingrad was interesting also, as it seemed like an area of Bulgaria that time forgot, with (I think) Pomak villages (mosques and all) old hunched over ladies in kerchiefs working the tobacco fields, and old men wasting away the day on a bench in town. Interesting byway, to be sure.

Today we had a productive day. I got up early (for a Sunday) and did laundry. Then we went downtown and did some shopping. We wanted to pick up some last minute Bulgarian souveniers. We went back to the Ladies Market, which had been the seen of some very frustrating cultural faux pas and/or "neither of us speak the other's language" miscommunications when we first went there in October of 2009. Now we understand the culture better, and our Bulgarian is as good as it will ever be. For no particular reason, we ended up at the shop of the same woman that refused to sell to us 2 years ago, after we offended her in some way. We were more careful this time. We bought pottery from her. We also bought pottery from her neighbors, but we were sure to wait until we completed one sale before we started another, lest it appear that we were trying to play one saleslady off another.
Then we headed over the gift shop of the Bulgarian Ethnographic Museum, where we bought some more pottery (more expensive, but we like some of their styles better). We also bought all kinds of other Bulgarian trinkets that suddenly seem important now that we're leaving. Last item on our souvenir agenda: art. Mike and Kate have lots of paintings from a local artist, and we've admired their work for 2 years. Yet whenever we saw the art sellers by Nevsky Cathedral, we never saw anything we liked. We were determined today. Past the booths selling old Bulgarian war medals and Russian/Bulgarian nesting dolls, we found the painting stalls. We eventually found Stoyan, dealer of some nicer work, including our favored artist, Rusalina Mihailova. We didn't find the exact thing we were looking for (a landscape of a cute Bulgarian village that we had visited...all of her works on sale today were of places we hadn't been), but we were both taken by a nice oil painting (framed and on canvas for only 50 leva) of some rowboats, so we have some art now. 

Sunny summer day in downtown Sofia.

The souvenir vendors near Nevsky Cathedral (the gold domes of the Cathedral are in the background).

Enough shopping...time to get to work. [Well, after a burrito (shannon) and duner (Jeff).] We found ourselves a table at an outdoor cafe in the park near the National Theater "Ivan Vazov" and I busted out all my final exams. Shannon graded multiple choice questions (THANKS SHANNON!) while I worked on the short answer. After a while a classical music quartet set up and played an hour-long concert at a summer festival stage right next to our cafe. It was about as pleasant a day as you can have while grading final exams.

The National Theater from our cafe.

Shannon, wielding her red grading pen.

Fountain in the park.

 It was a little less fun when the second act turned out to clowns. Seriously. Clowns aren't any less creepy when they're speaking in a language you don't really understand. Eventually the clowns drove us away, off to another favorite place, Pizzaria Ugo, where we graded and ate pizza and salad.
Hiking, shopping, grading, and even some laundry. It was a good, productive weekend.

We topped it off with yet another item that I really wish I had a picture of. We were waiting to turn left from the Billa corner onto Malinov (a very busy intersection), waiting next to the meager excuse for a carnival that was currently occupying the vacant lot formerly covered by the Balkanski Circus. As I got ready to turn, I saw a horse headed my way. Half-starved horses are not so rare in Sofia, but usually they're pulling a horse cart. This horse was was running free, running fast, and running at me. It came from across Malinov, near the Shell station, from the lane of on-coming traffic. It careened around idling cars, then bolted across Malinov, heading straight for us. I quickly dug for my camera, but only managed to capture this shot. Notice the blurry leg moving out of the frame to the left. I don't think I've ever almost been run down by a stray horse before while sitting in my car at a major urban intersection.

There's a lot going on here. Foreground: crappy carnival. Background: Vitosha mountain. Far left: A HORSE running down the street.

WikiLeaks hits Bulgaria

Wikileaks hits Bulgaria...
In this rather unflattering description of Sofia, written by a US Embassy staffer in April 2009, the author talks about the terrible streets, wild dogs, and organized crime.There are many nice things about this city and this country, but unfortunately, all of this is true as well (at least the trash strike ended before we got here...we saw one in Naples, Italy in 2008 and man was that awful). I particularly liked this line:

Drab, decrepit soviet style blocks rise up, in
stark juxtaposition to the Porsche dealership. Crumbling
streets with unevenly patched pavement, potholes that can
pass for tank traps, and sidewalks crammed with parked cars
are routine. Basic infrastructure is mediocre to poor.

 Read the whole article for a full view.  I honestly think things are getting better here, but it's really touch and go. The new Metro system opened a few months after this diplomatic cable was written (construction started in the 1980s, then was abandoned for 20 years), and is still quite shiny. It's great, and will be even better when they open the 2nd line and 1st line extensions that are currently under construction.  Streets are being paved in preparation for this fall's elections (apparently every 5 years the roads get better in preparation for elections, trying to convince voters that their MP is not so bad, even if the rest are bums).  The new expressway around the city (the "Ring Road" or околоврустен пут) is great in the sections where it is completed, and they've gone from 0 to almost-done in less than a year on the sections near the new IKEA (also going up in record time). The juxtaposition of old and new, flashy and trashy, are really quite overwhelming here. We had a lovely dinner last night with some Bulgarian colleagues in their very nice apartment, in a new building completely surrounded by drab, falling-down soviet-era apartment blocks. It turns out we didn't really need a map or directions to her place at all - her instructions of "go to Fantastico and it's the only new building in the neighborhood" were patently clear. I'd like to buy the whole country a few thousand gallons of paint. It would go a long way just to give everything  a decent paint job (something they've tried with some success in Tirana, Albania, actually). So anyway, read the unofficial "official" bad word on Sofia from WikiLeaks. I don't mind saying such things, as I'll soon be posting an album full of beautiful shots of Bulgaria taken on various ACS hiking club outings, which will even out the bad press, I hope.

5 perfect days in Thassos

Apparently some evangelical Christian pastor in the US did some heavy calculating and determined that the end was nigh, in fact, Saturday the 21st of May. Well-behaved Believers would be "raptured" bodily to heaven, while the rest of us would wait for our miserable end. We counted down the hours until showtime, but didn't see anyone ascending to heaven (we had even spent quite a while discussing who among us was most/least likely to be raptured...Hanna didn't have much confidence in my chances!). Although the rapture was apparently a bust, we spent a long weekend in what already seemed like paradise, so it was pretty hard to tell.  The paradise that would have to do for us un-raptured was Thassos Island, Greece.

Thassos Island is known as the "Emerald Island" of the Aegean. It is one of the largest and most forested of the Greek islands. It is far from the cruise ship circuit, and a bit off the beaten path of heavy tourism that fall upon other more famous isles like Santorini.  It is about 6 hour drive south of Sofia, then a short 45 minute ferry ride. Several of our friends have gone before, and all loved it. Shannon was skeptical that I would enjoy going to an island for 5 days -- would I get bored?  No, I wouldn't. It was wonderful. Or, as Shannon says "The most perfect amazing excellent vacation ever!"

The lovely bay that forms the 3km long beach of Skala Potamia and Golden Beach on Thassos. The high point of the island, Mt. Ipsario (1206m) is in the background.

This is the off season in Thassos. Many of the shops/restaurants are still shuttered up for the winter. It's a shame, because the weather was absolutely fabulous. It was about 80 F and sunny every day, with a breeze to keep it from getting too hot. The sea was pretty chilly still (I'm sure the swimming is better in July), but we still got in the water every day, and one day played at the beach all day, alternating from the beach chairs to frisbee in knee-deep water to playing catch/keep-away a little deeper. The beaches were very clean, and the water just sparkled.

20+ teachers (plus some family members, former teachers, and a boyfriend) caravanned down to Thassos, staying in a variety of nearby villas and hotel rooms. It was great. 9 of us shared my villa, about a 10 minute walk from the middle of a 3 km long beach (Skala Potamia and Golden Beach). Thassos is famous for its marble. Several colors are quarried there (including the "second whitest in the world"), and have been for millenia. Somewhat ridiculously, this leads to marble being so commonplace that the street curbs in the main town are main of marble, and crushed marble is even used as gravel on the dirt roads. Yup, gravel roads paved with sparkling white marble. The rocks of the island also made for enchanting sparkling sand (it looked like flecks of gold in the water) and excellent rock-hunting. Carolyn in particular found herself quite a rock collection.

Beachside cafe, with white crushed marble below the chairs.

I took runs along the beach, among the olive groves, up to a little village, and scrambled to a secret cove. One day we circumnavigated the island in our trusty red VW "хаиде". The 60 mile loop showed us different sides of the island, and we stopped at several beaches to sample their different flavors. One memorable spot was fairly unmarked but obviously no secret...we were never there alone. It involved turning down an unmarked dirt lane, driving 10 minutes down a gnarly dirt road, then hiking 10 minutes steeply down to the marble cliffs at the sea. A prehistoric marble quarry had left a hole next to the ocean that filled up with incoming waves. It was hypersaline because of evaporation (check out how well Pei Pei, Jess, and Carolyn are floating in there). The hole was so clear it was deceptive how deep it was...it looked only 3-4 feet deep, but I never touched bottom, even when jumping off a smallish cliff (I never felt brave/foolish enough to jump off the top cliff, but Jamie and Rich did last year after he proposed, apparently!)..

Jess jumping into the quarry hole.

Jess, Pei Pei, and Carolyn in the quarry hole.

The refraction does funny things to their body size. That and the high salinity that makes them float really well make for silly pictures.

Another day Shannon, Martyn and I did a 6 hour round trip hike to the very top of the island, 1206m high Ipsario Peak. It was quite a stunning hike, with huge cliffs, ancient trees, views to the beach, the mainland beyond, and even the not-so-close island of Samothraki. There was so much contrast on the island, with a great beach, a stellar hike, history (we kept driving by and sadly never stopping at any of the many Ancient Greek archaeological ruins...I've heard they're pretty good though).

Martyn and Shannon climbing up to the summit of Ipsario peak. The ferns above treeline made is super green.

The beach viewed from the summit. We of course went swimming after the 6 hour hike.

Jeff and big big very old and gnarly tree.

We all got plenty of sun, sea, relaxation, and good food. Our two-day work-week after Thassos was HARD -- everyone just had such a great vacation, and it fully felt like summer. At the time, we still had a full 5 weeks of the school year left! Still, I have to thank the monks Kiril and Methodious, who brought Christianity and literacy to Bulgaria 1200+ years ago, as our long weekend was in honor of their efforts. Thanks K! Thanks M!

In summary, Thassos is freakin' awesome. Beautiful beaches. Great hiking, ancient ruins, etc etc. We had no crowds, though I'm sure that's a different story come July and August.  Either way, highly recommended.

Click below for a Flick slideshow with some additional pictures.



P.S. Bulgaria finished a new piece of freeway a few months ago, that allows the main Serbia-Greece highway to bypass Sofia with a proper 4-lane limited access divided highway (called the "Lyulin" highway). This 17 km section is lovely, but I never expected to take it, as it doesn't go anywhere I want to go...just for bypassing the city if you're on a through route. NOTE: If you're heading north from Greece, and trying to get to Sofia, near the town of Pernik you'll come to an exit. It will tell you to exit for Pernik, and stay straight for Sofia. If you follow the signs for Sofia, you'll zip right over the "old road" between Pernik and Sofia, that cuts between Lyulin and Vitosha mountain. The old road is congested, windy, and in bad condition,  but is also goes to Sofia. The new road is shiny, empty, well-paved...a generally excellent road. Well, excellent unless you're trying to go to Sofia. The new road will eventually connect to the city center from the west, which is quite a bit out of the way for us in Mladost, over on the southeast. I said eventually, as you currently can't get to Sofia at all from this road. That's right. If you follow the signs for Pernik, you can get to Sofia via the old road. If you follow the signs for Sofia,  you can't get to Sofia.  Nice highway, Bulgaria, but you need to maybe work on your signage, maybe just temporarily cover up some stuff until you finish the rest of the road.  On the other hand, I suppose it's not so much worse than the 710 freeway in California, that heads from Long Beach to Pasadena. At least it's supposed to. It stops several miles short of Pasadena, leaving you in a surface street traffic nightmare, and it's been this way for decades, so if you're trying to go to Pasadena, it's best to NOT take the road labeled to Pasadena. Tricky.

Prom - BG style

I've been to a lot of high school proms. I attended 3 at Holt High School (with Kelly, Beth, and Lindsay), 1 at Onsted High (with Beth), and then chaperoned 6 or 7 more, at Westridge and Webb (with Laura). Last year I didn't get to the ACS prom because I was enjoying post-op at Tokuda Hospital, but this year, I was all in. Sadly, Shannon couldn't join me (it would have cost her over $100), but I'm sure she'll get her chance to attend a prom or twenty with me in the future.
At some level, all proms are the same. The kids dress themselves up all fancy: some of the guys look downright manly, and many of the girls look way too good. Families take lots of "they're so grown up!" photos, the kids get an expensive dinner, a big ballroom is rented, cheesy music is danced to, and kids stay out all night at after-parties doing all sorts of things that parents pretend/hope they wouldn't.
Some things are not the same in Bulgaria.  The main differences here were that 1. This was not a school-sponsored event and 2. All the seniors can legally smoke and drink. Which they do. A lot.

I didn't attend this year's prom as a chaperone, making sure kids were behaving. I attended as a guest, invited by the senior class, to take part in their general mis-behaving. It was a very different experience.

The prom-goers start out on campus for class photos around 6pm. With all the parents, grandparents, and siblings well-wishing (and some rented professional photogs/videogs capturing every moment), they took their places standing on the steps of Sanders Hall, just like their beginning of 8th grade photo, except now the girls were in formal gowns, the guys in suits (almost no tuxes), and they were drinking champagne out of their recently earned intramural soccer championship trophy. Yeah, they did that.  As a bulgarian senior tradition, the students chant their numbers, counting to twelve ("Edno, dve, tri, cheteri, pet, shest, sedem, osem, devet, deset, edinaiset, dvaiset, WHOOOOOOOOO!") before cheering wildly.  If you didn't know your numbers before, a few minutes at picture session would set you straight.

Teachers looking fancy: Lindsay, Pei Pei, Jeff, Hanna, and Abby

Some of the dresses were classy, looking like Jackie O or Helen of Troy. Some looked more like burlesque performers or something in a Tim Burton show. To protect the innocent, I'll skip some of those photos, though I have to say that given the rather revealing things these students wear to school regularly, I'd have to say that the dresses were overall much less whore-ish than I expected, and probably as a whole more decent than the ones from US proms.
All the kids were then shuttled downtown to the Sheraton (the first non-Socialist hotel to open in the country) in various luxury vehicles...it was a fancy car parade: Mercedes, BMWs, Audi's,  a swish Chrysler, a Lamborghini, convertibles, some classic cars, and a few students quietly getting into humbler rides.

OK Supertans: The somewhat less-swanky transit option chosen by the teachers.

At the Sheraton, with all the relatives still in toe, more counting to twelve ensued a the entrance. (" ...edinaiset, dvaiset, WHOOOOOOO!!!!!) An Asian man in his late twenties, casually dressed in a t-shirt and shorts and apparently a guest at the Sheraton, looked on with fascination, watching the whole procedure for a good 15 minutes.

All the teachers of seniors plus a few honored extras received prom invitations from the seniors. Considering how much they must have spent on the room, food, and alcohol, I considered it an honor to attend. After waiting for  more pictures and "WHOOOO!-ing", the teachers snuck inside and got seated. As a walked in the ballroom, I was handed a glass of champaign. So this is how it was going to be.
Before I got started on my plate of appetizers, a waiter came around offering healthy glasses of whisky and vodka (I declined). Sitting on the table were several bottles of tasty Bulgarian wine (and some Coke, Fanta, and water, just in case). At Westridge prom I had to help the dean of students look for drunk kids, as they would be breathylyzed and severely punished if they were caught drinking. Here students kept coming over to the teacher tables for toasts. Odd.
Besides the smoking and drinking, most of the official prom continued as any other prom would. Some awkward dancing, a dance-off for king and queen, and some teachers trying to stay awake (but mostly the teachers were on the dance floor, getting down).

Faculty table at prom

Dancing the horo at prom (I joined in)

Prom dancefloor. At this point Boyan still had his shirt on.

Teachers mixing it up at prom.

I like this shot.

At midnight the official prom ended, and most students migrated to Sin City, a popular chalga club, for the after-party. Chalga is a Bulgarian creation, a very danceable mix of traditional folk music with a techno beat, all set to insipid/degrading lyrics.  There are MTV-like channels and radio stations that play nothing but chalga. Other balkan countries have similar versions of folk-techno, I think, and each country is sure that theirs is the original (just as each country is sure that Macedonia is really theirs...but I digress).

Sin City.

And so it begins. Sin City: the after-party.

Last year only a few teachers went to the after-party. but this year I think at least 10 of us made it. After standing in line to be frisked by some mafia-goons (who were supposedly checking IDs too, as you were supposed to be 18 to get in, but I saw plenty of 10th graders there, so they weren't checking too closely), I almost turned around when I saw that they wanted 30 leva to get in the door (about $22). A $22 cover charge might not seem like much to you US city-folk, but 30 leva will get you dinner for two including a little alcohol at a medium-nice restaurant in Sofia, so it's pretty steep.  Sin City is considered the VIP dance club in town, where the celebrities and footballers go to celebrate.  I decided it would be a cultural experience and needed to do it, regardless of the 30 leva .

The inside was, well, amazing. LOUD. My ears were still ringing 24 hours later. Bright and flashy, as any good club should be. And PACKED.  The students had apparently reserved tables ahead of time that circled the elevated dance floor. I can only imagine what those tables cost, as they came with many, many bottles of very expensive booze. I'm guessing one of those tables (with booze) was 500-1000 leva, but I don't really know.


I only taught a handful of the senior class, so I didn't really know most of them. Too bad, as it was a pretty good show. This was where the booze was flying (and apparently some coke was being snorted). At a place called "sin city" packed with 100+ drunk, horny, and celebratory teenagers (not to mention the regular crowd of mafiosos and their prostitute-lite girlfriends, jammed into the corner and looking a little peeved about the high schooler intrusion), I expect dirty things happen.  I tried to leave before I saw too many of them happen.

Can you spot the teacher on the dancefloor?

I danced a bit, both on the elevated dance floor and just in the regular area, and just watched the show. There was a small live band wandering around in addition to the DJ. It was fairly insane. I was both fascinated to watch the spectacle, but self-conscious about being the creepy old guy in the corner staring at teenagers. In the end I stayed about an hour, but as I saw more and more of my current students (all underage, likely there with a fake ID or bribing the doormen), I decided it was time to make for the exits.

It's about 1:30 am, and it's starting to be a junkshow. There are 3 drunk teachers (one partially obscured) in this shot.

All in all, it was an excellent experience. I doubt Deerfield prom will be quite the same!

Short video clip from Sin City:



Social-Political footnote: I couldn't imagine how frustrating it must be for European students to attend colleges in the US, after having (legal) social outlets available like Sin City, and then having to make do with house-parties and illicit dorm room drinking for a few years. Tell me again why the legal drinking age is 21 in the US? Were the kids at Sin City going to do stupid things while drunk? Of course, but no different than US college kids (or high school, for that matter) do at a house party. It seems as if the main reason we're so tough on teen drinking in the US is to prevent drunk driving. I'm all for preventing drunk driving, but maybe it would be better to focus on the driving part, instead of the drinking part. I think drunk driving is pretty rare in Europe (I need some stats to back me up), partly because public transit and taxis are so much more accessible, and partly because driving is so much more difficult (expensive/difficult to get a license, expensive to drive, and if you get busted for DD, you lose your license. Done. You might not get it back for years, if at all). End rant.

Six Years

Many of you probably know that I had a nasty mountain biking accident several years ago.  Actually, exactly 6 years ago, today.  I spent 2 months in a neck brace and another month in physical therapy - I still can't turn my head very far to the right, but thankfully, that's the worst of my injuries.  I was lucky and felt that I had been given a new chance in life, so I made the decision to move on from Yellowstone and try to live my life to the fullest in Bozeman.

Just a year and a few months later, I met Jeff.  I new I was in trouble from day one.  We had a crazy romance that at times I thought would go nowhere, but luckily 2 1/2 years after my accident, he proposed.  We got married just over 3 years after, and we both finished our degrees just over 4 years after.  Five years after the accident, we were living in Bulgaria and I was nearly done being a high school teacher.  Now, 6 years later, we're still in Bulgaria and I'm a PR specialist - not something I ever expected to do in my life.

I think that I have successfully lived my life to the fullest during the last 6 years.  I earned a Ph.D., I married an amazing man who luckily is not only my partner, but is my best friend (insert gag reflex here), I took a teaching job that I was terrified of - and survived, I tried another new job that is so completely different from anything I've ever done or trained for (and I think gained more priceless experience in communications), and I've travelled all over Europe and a bit of Africa and Asia.  Now I'm getting ready for another move with Jeff - to Massachusetts in August.  Another new chapter that I hope will be full of adventure.  A pretty full life.

Today I've been going through what I've done on May 28th for the last 5 years - I always wanted to do something special as a sort of celebration of life.  Sadly, I can't remember for a couple of the years, but here's what I do remember:

May 28, 2006 - My friend, Diane, and I went to the Sasquatch Festival at the Columbia River Gorge - heard some amazing music, ate "sasquitches", and stayed dry during a hail storm by huddling under a tarp; the best part was when the rainbow showed up behind us and Matisyahu spoke about second chances - seemed prophetic

May 28, 2007 - Jeff took me and his friend Chrissy and her boyfriend (now husband) David down the Narrows in Zion National Park - one of the most beautiful places on this planet, I think; an amazing hike

May 28, 2008 - ? I wish I could remember what I did then

May 28, 2009 - I had a party at our house to celebrate friends and life

May 28, 2010 - I was here in Bulgaria, I believe there was a birthday get together for Lindsay's birthday

Today, May 28, 2011 - This morning Jeff, Jess (a fellow teacher), and I took seven students to Vitosha Nature Park to join in the national Volunteer Day and help clean up parts of the trail that our school has adopted (this is an initiative I've been working on with the school that I hope continues after we leave!).  It has been a beautiful sunny day and we all enjoyed being outside seeing all the flora and fauna of this mountain that is almost literally in my back yard.  Wildlife sightings were: two snakes, one dead skink (legless lizard), and two forest long-legged frogs (man can they jump!).  After returning home, Jeff and I napped out on the lawn - until it started raining, and then there was a very loud and quick thunderstorm - I'm sure two of those lightning strikes had to hit somewhere on campus.  Tonight is also Prom for our school, so all the students (and their families) got gussied up and came to campus to have pictures taken.  Prom is slightly different here in that it is not run by the school - in fact, other than the pictures on campus, it is not associated with the school, so the seniors actually invite teachers.  If you were not invited, you can buy a ticket for the equivalent of $132.  Jeff was invited because he teaches seniors.  I was not and since I don't really know the seniors, I decided not to go.  That's where Jeff is right now.  I'm enjoying a quiet evening at home.  I didn't take any pictures of the gussied up students, but I'm sure Jeff will and maybe we'll post some (although most of the dresses this year were fairly tame, unlike what I've heard other years have been like).  Anyway, it has been a very nice and memorable day.

On that note, I will leave you with a couple of group pics:

The Vitosha Adopt-A-Trail Crew

Jeff and all of his prom dates!

I hope everyone enjoys their Memorial Day Weekend!

Why, hello there, Mr. Scops

Last year we started hearing a bird in our back woods that had a very distinctive call (besides the cuckoo).  It's a single note repeated every 5 seconds or so.  We only ever heard it in the evening or at night and we started hearing it in early spring last year.  We noticed it when we got back in August, but haven't heard it for a while until about a month ago.  We called him our little foghorn bird.

Well, on April 19th, we had the first ever Earth Day Celebration at our school and one of the non-profit groups that attended was the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds, and the gentleman who was manning the booth was able to help me identify what this bird was.  I described to him when and how often we heard the bird - and how it hadn't been heard in a while - and then I tried to imitate its call by saying "beep."  Tee hee.  He immediately said, does it sound like this?  And proceeded to whistle the exact sound of the bird.  When I said "yes! That's exactly it!", he said he thought it was the Scops Owl and it would probably be making an appearance in the next week or so.

And to my delight, it did exactly that - at least it's call did, I still haven't actually seen one.  Scops owls are tiny (see this link for an example).  I hope that some day I will be able to see one, but since they are mostly active when it's getting dark, it might be hard to see them.  But I do get to hear them and honestly, I think it's one of the best sounds in the world (a purring kitty is the best sound in my opinion, closely followed by the laughter of a child, so I guess the call of a Scops owl is my third favorite sound).  Every evening I hear a pair (or more pairs) having there one syllable conversations.  And it just makes me smile.

I found a youtube video of 17 seconds that demonstrates the Scops owl call.  Enjoy!

Egypt Part V: The Red Sea

Part I: Getting There
Part II: Cairo and Pyramids

Part III: Temples
Part IV: Sailing Down the Nile

Part VI: Jeff Climbs a Mountain

Ahhhh!  Vacation.  We ended our Egyptian adventure with several days in Dahab, a Red Sea resort.  Our hotel was on the beach and we could see Saudi Arabia on the other side of the Gulf of Aqaba.  The water was crystal blue and as we found out in our several days there, was the home to so many different species of fish and coral.  

We arrived in Dahab on January 1st after a painfully long van ride from Cairo.  A ride over the Suez Canal and across the Sinai Peninsula.  Desert.  And more desert.  It was hot and dry and blinding.  Did I mention desert?  Sand as far as the eye can see.  With an occasional palm tree or sturdy desert plant.  We stopped a few times and once even in what could be called a true oasis.  But we didn't really stop for any food or for any movement, so the group of us (Jeff, Hanna, Pei Pei, and I, along with 4 other fellow travellers, Jaime and Maurizio from Columbia, and Catherine and George from Scotland) was pretty cranky by the time we got dropped off at our hotel.  But we had to meet up with Ahmed (II- a different Ahmed than the one who took us to all the temples along the Nile) who wanted to take us on a tour of the 2 streets of Dahab and to some place to have tea before we actually tried to find dinner.  We were all cranky enough that we grudgingly agreed to the tour, but broke off from the group to have dinner on our own.  Jeff and I ended up finding a great Thai restaurant and enjoyed most of our meal (Jeff had to order a second meal because the first was simply too hot (spicy) for him to be able to finish - he was literally sweating).  

Sad Jeff - Can't finish this very spicy meal.

Jeff has a New Year's Day tradition of trying to jump into the nearest natural body of water wherever he is.  For several years he was in Chicago, so Lake Michigan was the body of water of choice - often excruciatingly cold.  In fact, one year, I managed to convince him that jumping in would literally threaten his life - there was ice along the edge and large chunks of ice floating in the water - so we did snow angels next to Lake Michigan instead.  In our bathing suits.  That was cold enough!  Luckily it was not that cold in Dahab.  So we put on our Chacos and started wading out into the Red Sea.  The tide was out, so the water was only a few inches deep.  We weren't sure how far out the coral shelf was, so we decided not to go out that far (it was dark at this point and we were using our headlamps to be able to see what we were stepping on - as I said before, amazing amounts of life!).  Jeff was considering just sitting down in the water when we spotted some movement by his feet.  It was an eel!!!!!  It must have been a baby eel - it was about a foot to a foot and a half long, white body with a black fringe on it's back, and a bright yellow head.  I think it must have been a baby yellow-headed eel (http://www.grizzlyrun.com/Files/Images/Image_Gallery/yellow_headed_morey_eel_pic.jpg).  With it's jaw wide open as eels do.  It was pretty creepy to see in the water only inches from us and only lit up by our headlamps.  Unfortunately, neither one of us had a camera, so no picture.  That's when Jeff decided that a wade in the Red Sea was enough for his New Year's Day tradition.


The next several days were spent snorkeling, reading, relaxing, and enjoying the sun at the beach.  The snorkeling was amazing.  So many fish and the water was incredibly clear - we watched a lot of scuba divers and their bubbles while we enjoyed all the different fish and coral under the water.  Life everywhere!  It was beautiful!  We even saw a lionfish - we were warned not to approach these guys, so it was cool to see it (from a distance!).  After snorkeling the first day we discovered the joy of Bedouin tea.  Yum!  And warm!  Especially after being in the water for some time.  Jeff was so cold he stood in the sun shivering for at least half an hour before he even started warming up.  The tea helped a bit.  

Enjoying Bedouin tea after snorkeling.  That's Ahmed II on the left.

While there we tried all sorts of different international dinners: Thai, Mexican, Indian, Italian (pizza).  The restaurants often offered "American" breakfasts, which were varied and not usually something we Americans would have for breakfast (except for the fried eggs).  Good, but not like home.  

One day, Jeff decided to try windsurfing, while me and the girls got massages.  Hanna and Pei Pei also braved the world of a hair cut and a facial.  I have to admit that I was glad I didn't partake, especially when we saw the facial steamer they were using for Pei Pei and how it was plugged in to the outlet with _bare_ wires.  She said she felt a shock or two.  


Part of our tour package was a camel ride!  We got on the camels and were led along the beach path to an area where we saw what seemed like hundreds of kite and wind surfers.  We enjoyed a beach sunset again with Bedouin tea and Ahmed II did some card tricks for us.  The camels made interesting noises behind us - they're hard to explain, maybe Jeff can add to this.  All of us had sore thighs, stomachs, and backs after the ride.  The camel movement is really exaggerated.  You have to move your spine a lot to keep balanced.  I wasn't going to pay for a camel ride, but I was glad this came with the package so I could experience it.

On our last full day there, Jeff and Pei Pei did a hike up Mt. Sinai while Hanna and I enjoyed a very lazy day at the beach.  Jeff will hopefully write about his adventures in the mountains in the last of our Egypt travel series.  


We changed our plans at the last minute so we could fly back to Cairo rather than suffer through another road trip across the Sinai.  The fellow who picked us up to take us to the Airport was also named Ahmed (III).  Apparently Ahmed is one of the most common names in Egypt.  The crazy thing about flying out of Sharm el Sheikh was seeing the Russians in ski suits and furry boots getting ready to fly back to the cold north.  It was blazing hot outside.  Crazy juxtaposition.


Here are some pics from Dahab to end the post...

The view outside our hotel door.

Dahab at night.

Relaxing on the beach.