Balkan Dancing

Jeff and I performed two Balkan dances in front of the entire school at two Christmas concerts. 
Jeff is the only guy with a blue shirt/vest on.  I'm in a black dress with an orange apron (4th from the end of the line in the first dance).  All the girls in blue dresses are students who actually know how to dance, while the rest of us (in black or yellow) are teachers who are just doing this for fun.  And it WAS a lot of fun even if we don't look terribly professional. 
(Thanks to Brett and Betsy for putting this video together!)

Holiday Travel is Awesome! (Part 1 of 3): EuroSnow

Written 21 December 2009

(This is a rather long screed, so I broke it into pieces. Click here for part 2, or here for part 3. )

Tonight is technically the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, but Shannon and I know better. For us, it was last night, and the forces of light have already defeated the forces of dark. What follows is story of a hapless holiday travelers. It is not a particularly tragic tale, not one that would get the 5 minute “human interest” piece on CNN about the “Blizzard of ’09 strands holiday travelers: area woman unable to rejoin family before double-lung bypass surgery on plane to Iraq deployment while carrying gift baskets to child cancer survivors.” For that matter, lots of people had worse trips here in Europe.

No, nothing so tragic -- just a sucky couple of days.

Winter break is finally here! It was a draining few weeks leading up to it, with parent-teacher conferences, Science Fair, and lots of special holiday events to keep the calendar busy. We were ready to relax. Some internationals chose to fly back to the US/Canada for some family time, but we figured that was too expensive, too much of a hassle, and how often would we have a chance to spend Christmas in Europe?

We didn’t have big plans for break. We just wanted to visit a few friends in Europe, see some pretty scenery, and get a chance to speak German (for me) and English (for both of us). We decided to head to London for New Year’s (visiting Chryssi & David) and Austria for Christmas (visiting Meghan & Justin from Montana while they were visiting Meghan’s parents).

It is hard to get to Austria from Sofia. Flights were over $400, and the bus/train takes 24+ hours. But we found a $25 one-way flight (really) direct to Venice on WizzAir. Sweet. We planned two nice days reprising our honeymoon in Venice, then take the train into Austria (only 6-7 hours now), saving both money and time. Our flight to Venice was Saturday afternoon – nice and relaxing, with no early morning or red-eye flight to screw up our sleep schedule.

We got checked onto our outbound flight, stamped out of the country at Bulgarian emigration, and loaded onto a plane-bound airport bus. Then for no apparent reason, people started leaving the bus, some crying. What’s going on? No announcement, just people leaving the bus and heading back into the terminal. (Life in Bulgaria, especially when you’re flying el-cheapo airlines, is a series of unexplained events forcing information-poor decisions.) Turns out our flight had been canceled. No explanation.

Eventually we found out that all flights into and out of Venice were cancelled that day due to “the biggest snowstorm we’ve ever had here.” Luckily WizzAir has another flight in a few hours and would happily re-book us. Oh wait, that’s what might happen on a real airline. The next WizzAir flight was 3 days later, putting us into Venice one day after we planned on leaving Venice. Along with our Sofia friends Brett & Betsy, who were also stuck not getting to Venice, we considered playing poker with our WizzAir paperwork that theoretically at some point might allow us to get our money back. Can’t say I’m too hopeful on that front.

Time to go back home to regroup (after we found a taxi, which was rather difficult as we weren’t on a scheduled arriving flight). We spent several hours on the internet searching for new flights and hotels, but eventually found a reasonable option. (While at home, we also helped the brother of a Bulgarian colleague who was stuck in Washington D.C., in their blizzard, and who needed a ride to Dulles and/or a place to crash for the night. It’s a weird, wonderful interconnected world. Thanks Neil!) We tried to convince the hotel in Venice not to charge us for the two nights of hotel we’d reserved and couldn’t get to. Still waiting to hear on that one.

We ended up with a $117 flight to Milan the next day. It would have been fun to visit Venice, but our priority was getting to Austria to meet up with Meghan, Justin, and baby Orla. The train from Milan to Innsbruck was about the same distance as the one from Venice to Innsbruck. Sunday morning we went to the Sofia airport much earlier than usual, to avoid any holiday crush of travelers. We zip through security, and then wait. And wait.

And wait.

Our flight is never officially delayed, but we ended up taking off 1.5 hours late. Apparently the entire Sofia Airport had been closed for 45 minutes due to whiteout conditions, but they hadn’t ever mentioned that to anyone actually in the airport.

We had given ourselves a 2 hour buffer to catch a train in Milan, but with the flight delays we were now getting pretty worried about making our train. Surprisingly, the shuttle bus from the airport to Milan worked flawlessly, getting us to the central train station in plenty of time to discover that our train was canceled. That same snowstorm that canceled our flight to Venice the previous day had apparently royally screwed up the Italian train system. Here I mistakenly thought trains were much less susceptible to weather shenanigans than airplanes. Luckily for us, they didn’t bother putting up the “cancelled” sign until moments after we purchased the ticket for that train, forcing us to wait in a very long line for customer service to refund our money and change our ticket. [I would like to award a personal Medal of Traveler Heroics to the man who wore his Santa suit around the train station and passed out candy. Thanks, Milano Centrale Santa, for keeping spirits up among thousands of cold, confused, distressed people.]

Above (top): Brett, Betsy, and Shannon, waiting in line in Milano to change our tickets off canceled train #1. Above (bottom): Milano Centrale Santa, handing out candy. You Rock!

Did I mention it was cold? Think about waiting for a train in a cramped, smelly, smoky meat locker. Americans usually don’t have much to crow about when comparing our train system to the European train system, but here is one area I think we’ve got an edge: heat. Europeans apparently don’t believe that train stations ought to be heated. Whether it is the giant fascist Milano station, the functional, modern, and attractive Innsbruck station, or the dilapidated and oppressively Stalinist Sofia station, none are heated. They actually seem colder than the outside, as they never see sunlight or warmth. Some of the internal rooms/offices are heated, but the main halls and waiting areas are iceboxes. We had tried to pack extremely light for this trip (a total of one small suitcase, one small daypack, and a shopping bag for all of our stuff for two winter weeks). Therefore we weren’t really prepared to endure hours of waiting in a smoky meat locker. We were so excited when our train out of Milan finally showed up, as it meant we could at least wait in a somewhat warm train car, out of the meat locker.

Coming up in Part 2: Verona: "Why the DMV waiting room doesn't seem so bad anymore..."

Holiday Travel is Awesome, Part 2 (of 3): Verona

(This is part 2 of a three part story. See part 1 here and part 3 here.)

The trip to Innsbruck was supposed to be 6 hours from Milan, with 2 connections, getting us there at 10pm. Our first train out of Milan was cancelled. Then the next train out of Milan was cancelled. After waiting in the long ticket line (Thanks Milano Centrale Santa!), we got a ticket on a third train, and that managed to depart only 70 minutes late. Welcome to Verona, Italy! Fictional home to Romeo and Juliet!

By now we’d of course missed our connection. Must stand in another long ticket line in Verona. Get directed to different long line, this time for “train information.” Informed that the only way we’d get to Innsbruck in the next 24 hours was if we stood in long line #1 again, exchanged our onward Italian ticket for one on a German train set to leave at 1:00 am. Yes, leave Verona at 1:00 am, three hours after we thought we would be in Innsbruck. Keep in mind that we were paying for a hotel in Innsbruck (whose reception closed before midnight), and we might still be paying for a hotel in Venice. Given the late hour, we chose to upgrade to the fold-down seat option (“couchette”) on the train, giving us a make-shift bed for a few hours that night until we could stumble into our Innsbruck hotel room.

We had 5 hours to kill on a frigid Sunday night in Verona. We didn’t think anything would be open in the city, so went down to the train station McDonald’s. I know, I know, but at least McDonald’s had heat. And maybe wi-fi. Our Bulgarian cell phones wouldn’t work (thanks Vivatel, for not even giving us the option of paying through the nose for roaming charges). None of the shops that might sell a SIM card for the Italian cell phone networks were open. Neither could we buy a calling card for the pay phones. Internet cafes in town were closed on Sunday night. If we could just get on the internet, we could figure out how to contact Meghan & Justin to tell them we would not be meeting them in Innsbruck that evening, and maybe be able to call/write our hotel in Innsbruck to beg for a late check-in and or room cancellation.

Below: Can you tell how happy Shannon and I are to be at the Verona train station McDonald's? Mmm, mmm, can't wait to get me one of those "il Mac"s.

McDonald’s has wifi. It is free. But you need a password. And you can only get a password by getting a text message sent to your Italian mobile phone. If we had an Italian mobile phone, we would have used it to call our hotel! I would have happily paid to use their internet, but there was no way to use their free service. Grr. Happily an English-Italian traveler eventually helped us with the pay phone (calling internationally from a pay phone using coins is harder than you might think), and we were able to call the hotel in Innsbruck to warn them of our late arrival.

Below: Shannon and I had an impromptu photo contest to see who could best capture the mood of the moment from our seats in McDonald's. Some of our favorites are below. In the middle picture, note how excited the girl on the right is to also be stuck at McDonald's, and that the girl on the left appears to be camping for the night. The bottom picture is the douchey guys sitting next to us, who of course left their trash on the table.

At 10:30 pm they kicked us out and closed McDonald’s. Out into the cold station. The only semi-warm place was the waiting room, which reminded me of a 1970s DMV waiting room, except the only people waiting to get their licenses renewed were winos who had recently soiled themselves.

Oh, the stench! Sweat, stale smoke, urine, shit. Too many people packed in, watching the sad old monitor blink more train delays. Every so often you’d get overwhelmed by the humanity, flee the room for some fresh air and space, only to humiliatingly shuffle back to suck up some fetid warmth.

As it got later and later in the evening, the ratio of stranded passengers to actual winos decreased, while the stench increased. We couldn’t take it anymore, so we decided to go walk around Verona. We figured everything would be shuttered up, but at least the exercise might keep us warm.

Up next - Part 3: "Where the hell is the train?"

Holiday Travel is Awesome, Part 3 (of 3): "Where the hell is the train?"

(This is part 3 of this story. See part 1 here and part 2 here.)

Here begins the the only fun part of the evening. Walking around Verona (yes, the same Verona where Romeo and Juliet were so unhappily in love) was quite lovely.

(Below) Shannon trying to enjoy streetlife in Verona, around 11pm on an icy December Sunday night.

(Above) Christmas tree, shuttered Christmas Market, and the old City Gate in Verona, Italy

The streets were decorated for Christmas, there was a public outdoor ice skating rink next to the giant Christmas tree, and a flashy lingerie store located immediately in front of the giant Roman amphitheater.

(Below) Verona: The 3rd Largest extant Roman Amphitheater (holds 20,000 people, still used today), next to a swanky lingerie store.

We would like to go back there in the daytime and/or summer. Unfortunately a sign at the train station that we only sort of understood (our Italian isn’t very good) seemed to warn that they would close the train station at midnight. How could they close the train station at midnight when a train was coming at 1am? Whatever, stranger things have happened, so we hustled back to the station.

At around 12:30 am the Caribinieri (Italian cops…but there are several different layers of Italian cops, and I think these are the lowest on the totem pole…somewhat like traffic cops) closed down the waiting room, kicking everyone out into the train platforms. It was interesting seeing another woman waiting for our train spend 10-15 minutes arguing with the Caribinieri about how they couldn’t just close down the station and make us wait in the cold. (They apparently could, and did.) I don’t think US cops would let someone argue like that…they’d just arrest her for disturbing the peace or something.

Oh well, we could wait 30 more minutes. There was another German train on the platform parked and waiting, whose sign said it was going to Innsbruck and then Munich, just like ours was supposed to. I tried to ask the conductor if this was our train, but no. Weird. This phantom train wasn’t even on the train schedule. Our train was delayed. And delayed. The new time came and went, and they didn’t bother putting up new delays on the board anymore (that would have required there still being employees at the station). There were some families with small kids waiting who were dressed worse than us, unprepared for the subfreezing weather.

We were so tired. We were so cold. I ran up and down the length of the train platform a few times in a pathetic attempt to get warm. The train didn’t come. The other train to Innsbruck was still waiting on the platform. Something strange was going on. I had a revelation: on our way to Istanbul on a previous trip, I knew our train split up at some point, with half the train going to Romania. Maybe this was the same thing, with this train waiting to join up with our nowhere-to-be-seen train. I tried asking the conductor in my foggily-remembered German (with the aid of plenty of hand gestures). “Werden dieses Zug und die anderen Zug zusammen sein?”

Ja?

I was right! “Können wir on dieses Zug warten? Es ist nicht so kalt.” Yes! We could at least wait on this other train, where it was much less cold!

I went out and tried to explain this (in German) to the others waiting for the train, especially the man with the 3 small underdressed children. Another man tried to talk to me in Italian, but I couldn’t explain, so he found a man who spoke both German and Italian to translate (welcome to the Tower of Babel). Everyone piled onto the second train to wait, cramming into the hallways and baggage areas. I can’t believe that the second train had been there for hours and no one else from the train had offered to us to wait onboard (it was only us left at the station) and that no one else waiting had tried to ask what I did.

Our train finally came, only 1.5 hours late (now 2:30 am). Finally, warmth and some sleep! Except not really. Our reserved couchette seats that we paid $50 extra for? “No, they are full,” reprimanded one stern German conductor. She didn’t bother explaining to us where we should go, just seemed annoyed that we had the temerity to want to use our own seats. There were some “regular” seats available in an unheated car, but those cabins (and their occupants) smelled too horrible. After standing around confused and tired for 30+ minutes, and seeing that no one from the train was going to offer us any direction, Shannon and I decided the least unpleasant option was to sit on our luggage in the overflow bicycle storage area. At least it was heated and didn’t smell bad. Welcome to life in steerage.

Shannon, in steerage at about 3 am.

Eventually the one friendly conductor (who I’d seen earlier arguing with the nasty female one about the need to find somewhere to put the family with 3 small children) found a few seats in a heated compartment (not our couchettes, mind you). I managed to get an hour or two of fitful sleep, though I don’t think Shannon did. I tried to set my alarm for what time I thought we would be at Innsbruck, but we had so many delays it was futile. Hopefully they would announce the stations. Nope. At one point I looked out and realized we had stopped at Innsbruck. Shit! Race to throw on shoes, grab luggage, and jump off the train before we ended up in Munich.

Helloooo, Innsbruck! The train station in Innsbruck had heated waiting rooms (even the bathrooms were heated!) and wi-fi available for free from a café. If we’d been stuck for hours at the Innsbruck station, life would have been much less unpleasant. We quickly walked to our hotel as the city woke up, getting there at 6:30 am, only 8.5 hours late. Looks like a nice town – we looked forward to exploring it eventually.

The lovely morning view of Innsbruck from in front of our hotel.

Three cheers for Innsbruck's Hotel Breinössl. Though their front desk had closed at 11:00pm, they left us a key (at this point they had re-opened for the morning, but we hadn’t expected that). The room was much nicer than we expected too. We showered, had our free hotel breakfast, and crashed.

By the time we got to Innsbruck, Meghan & Justin had already left for Vienna, so we didn’t get to meet up with them, but we would have been too exhausted to ski anyway. Sad. Maybe next year.

So, our misadventure by the numbers…

1 canceled flight

1 closed airport

1 delayed flight

2 canceled trains

3 delayed trains

2 hotels booked that we couldn’t use, in 2 different countries

2 couchette seats that we paid for but didn’t get (Deutsches Bahn, I’m coming after you!)

No Venice.

No visit with friends (which was most of the point of this trip!).

8+ hours spent waiting in subfreezing temperatures for trains that wouldn’t come.

Snow? Not that much snow, actually. Where is this big storm? We’ve only seen a few inches anywhere we’ve been.

On the plus side, Verona seemed nice. Oh and it sure is nice to finally be in Austria.

Happy Post-script: I’m writing this 24 hours later, and life is much improved. I much prefer being in Austria than traveling to Austria. After our morning nap, we had a nice stroll through some Christmas markets in the impossibly cute old town, drank hot mulled wine, and took in a Christmas concert at a local church. We had a really hard time staying warm all day…it was cold (about 20° F), but not that cold. I think all of our energy reserves were just shot. Today we slept in, and the sun is shining. Maybe we’ll do some skiing this week, but right now that sounds too cold. Happy update…we just found out the Venice Hotel did not charge us! Thanks, Ca’ San Giorgio! Please give them your business!

We expect to spend Christmas in Salzburg, trying to avoid any unnecessary train travel. We hope you’re all with the people that are important to you over the holidays! Frühe Weinachten!

Taking a breath

It's been quite a little whirlwind for a while here. This weekend is low-key, and pleasantly so. Starting about a month ago, we had many many students out sick with the swine flu, so many that they closed all Sofia schools for a week. Thankfully we stayed healthy, and used the time to travel to Lake Como and Milan in Italy. Hopefully I'll have a chance to post pictures and stories from that wonderful trip soon.

After coming back to school we had tons of make-up tests/quizzes to write/proctor/grade, and then grades & comments were due. I didn't particularly enjoy writing comments (even if they were only a few sentences) for about 150 students. This was the same weekend that we were also cooking Thanksgiving dinner for all the Bulgarian faculty and their families. That was a wonderful event, but exhausting and time-consuming.
Thanksgiving break - 4 days in Istanbul. That trip was also fantastic, and pictures will come, I promise. Returning home after vacationing is always hard for me. Besides being tired from travel, you're going back to work...it can be a rude transition. It's even harder after coming back from places as wonderful as Lake Como or Istanbul. Sofia has some nice bits, for sure, but it objectively pales in comparison. I felt pretty much the same way when I lived in Los Angeles whenever I came back from Zion, or the Sierras. The first glimpse of the LA basin over Cajon pass always made me think about flipping a U-turn on I-15.

The following weekend (Friday night and Saturday) we had parent-teacher conferences. This was a much more difficult experience than at Westridge. At Westridge, we had conferences during the several days before Thanksgiving (no school that week), and many families were vacationing. I taught half as many students, parents made appointments for their conferences (so I could figure out what I wanted to say to each parent) and I generally had a reputation as somewhat of an easy grader, meaning I didn't get too many surly visits. Here we had to do them after a long hard week of school, I had so many parents (70+) come through that I never even had time for a pee break in either of my 4 hour stints, and I had a lot of "concerned" parents who wanted to know why their child was studying all the time for Biology but still not getting an acceptable grade. Oh yeah, and more than half of the conferences were conducted with an interpreter, which added an interesting element (Do you talk to the parent or the interpreter? What exactly are they saying to each other?). I explained (over and over, so that by the second day my interpreter could just more or less give one of three versions of my canned speech) how the textbook (new this year but one that I didn't choose) was very challenging ("the most commonly used textbook in the world, for University students, so of course it is quite difficult for 10th graders that are still learning English"), that I offered students a "do-over" on a test where the class average was a 63%, and that I was adjusting the curriculum to move more slowly through the material to increase comprehension. Sometimes I admitted that I had been learning more about the rest of the Bulgarian curriculum (students are learning just now things in Chemistry I thought they already knew), and that next year I would plan the curriculum differently, not that that would help your fine son or daughter. I told them (repeatedly) to encourage their child to come for help during office hours, and that the material covered second semester would likely be less abstract and more approachable. Lather, rinse, repeat, times 70. It was exhausting. All I wanted to do after conferences was go home and sleep. On Sunday I chaperoned a student hiking club trip, which was a great chance to get outside and to meet some students on a more personal level, but it was also another 10 hours spent doing school-related stuff but not doing any required school work like grading or lesson planning. I couldn't get any sympathy at home, either, as Shannon spent much of the time when I was hiking working on Science Fair preparation. For both of us, it was the weekend that never was.

Science Fair was Wednesday last week, which involved some students showing off research projects they had done, and then the rest of the school being involved in science-related games/activities to keep them occupied. The research projects were great, and I would like to do more to encourage students to do these next year. The science "knowledge bowl" (trivia) and "Science Survivor" (relay race with 4-5 different science-y puzzles) were fun, but they took a LOT of time and energy to put together, and I'm not sure that the students really "learned" anything from them. I felt somewhat like a pinata maker...hours making a game that students tore through in a few minutes. The morning after science fair the whole science department looked like zombies. (How's that for a slasher movie idea...zombie science teachers attack the school after science fair?) I felt like I had a hangover, though I hadn't been drinking. During science survivor, I was the only male faculty member helping to run it, so I ended up with yelling and corralling duties (my low voice is good for something). Next year we need a whistle and/or megaphone, as trying to direct 200 students in a noisy gym (4 different times), with just me yelling...ouch. My throat hasn't yet recovered fully.

Friday night we had a Christmas party at the house of the school president (nice place...Khruschev reportedly stayed there back in the day when this campus housed the Bulgarian secret police). It was the start of the recovery. A lovely evening, with a secret santa gift exchange and a very nice feeling of community. I must admit Westridge spoiled me with lavish Christmas parties, but the happy feeling here was the same, even if the catering wasn't so fancy (well actually, it wasn't catered at all...just food from the cafeteria and various teachers taking turns as bartenders). After the party a large group of both Bulgarian and international faculty went out bowling. Yay, bowling! (For what it's worth, I rolled an 80 the first game and 142 the second...consistency is not my strong suit).

Yesterday we had a mellow "clean-up-the-house and get-grading-done" day, but we forgot about the grading parts. :) We had packed up our bags to do some grading at the Starbucks downtown (it's smoke-free), but on the bus got a call from some friends and detoured to go watch the movie 2012 instead. (I thought it was both awful and fabulous, others thought it was just awful. Shannon pretty much had to go see it for research, as she's talking about earthquakes and volcanoes in class and all of her students are asking her about it.) So right now, I should be grading, but this is much more fun.

What's next? Final week of school, then more exciting travels. Shannon and I are set to perform 2 Balkan Dances as part of a teacher/parent troupe at the Christmas concert this week (in front of the whole school and parents). I'd be a little more excited about that if I knew the dances, but we're working on them. Hopefully we can get some video of that to post here. For Christmas break we're flying to Venice (because a one-way flight was only $25! My carbon-guilt is acting up, but how could we resist?) for a few nights before heading to Austria (destinations TBA...definitely the Alps). We'll spend New Year's in London, visiting with our newlywed friends Chryssi and David.

I know the Thanksgiving-Christmas corridor is a crazy busy time for lots of people, ourselves included. We're having a lot of fun, when we have a chance to slow down and think about it. We miss you all, and regret that we couldn't spend more holiday feasts with each and every one of you, geography be damned. Stay tuned for upcoming posts (with photos!) about Istanbul, Italy, and (a nice place you haven't heard of) Koprivshtitsa, Bulgaria.
Love
Jeff

Sofia - Istanbul - Sofia by train

We've got lots of good stories and pictures saved up from recent travel, but first a post on logistics. I've enjoyed the help of many from Seat61 (train advice), Lonely Planet and Rick Steves' discussion forums, and thought I would share a little bit of logistics for those that are curious or could use the info.

We traveled by train from Sofia, Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey and back for the American Thanksgiving weekend. It was also over the major Muslim holiday of Kurban Bayrami.

We left from the impressively "Brutalist-style" Soviet-era central train station in Sofia at 19:10 Wednesday evening (25 November). I believe there is also a morning train to Istanbul, but am not confident of this (Bulgarian Railways train info). The train station is located next to the much newer (and much more heavily used) central bus station. We did not purchase tickets ahead of time but had no problems getting them less than one hour before departure. We did have a hard time finding the ticket office (downstairs, turn left, look for "Rila" ticket office). Tickets were 58 Bulgarian leva per person (about 30 Euro or 45 US Dollars at current exchange rates), including the sleeper car upgrade. You could get just the plain seat ticket (no bed for you) and save yourself 20 leva, but that seems like a terrible idea. For reference, you can also take the bus to Istanbul for about 40-50 leva one-way (several companies offer this, and I believe the trip is about 8-10 hours).

The train trip is scheduled for 13 hours arriving around 8 am. This seems sort of painful compared to 8-10 hours by bus, or 7-8 by car (it's less than 600 km/370 miles), but we decided we'd rather spend 50% longer on a train and be able to sleep a little than be crammed into a tiny bus seat all miserable night. This transit time for both train/bus includes 2 painful hours for the multiple-step border crossing.

The cabin in the Bulgarian sleeper car that we were in had 3 fold-down single bunks (for the two of us), luggage space, and a small sink. They had fitted the beds with fresh sheets and lots of blankets were available. The rooms lock from the inside, but there is no key to lock from the outside if you're off wandering the train. The cars were heated by a central coal-fired heater, which certainly cranked out the heat but left us breathing in a little more coal dust than we would have liked. The cabins were small and old, but overall in decent shape. Our only real complaint was that there was not a good seating option, especially for a group (although it was not hard to head down to the chairs-only part of the train if you wanted to sit up and socialize.

We got to the first of our border crossing stops about 2 am. Bulgarian border police come through, knock on doors, ask to see your passports. About 15 minutes later, we come to the border crossing itself (located between Edirne, Turkey and Svilengrad, Bulgaria). Everybody off the train, bleary-eyed into the cold night air!

We stood in line for a bit to get our passports stamped before we realized we needed to go to a different window first to get a visa. I don't know about other nationalities, but for citizens of the USA, you can get your visa at the border by paying $20/15 Euro. Note that you have to pay in dollars or euro, not Bulgarian Leva or Turkish Leva. (This is somewhat akin to requiring you to pay in Japanese Yen or Australian Dollars at the US-Canada border, but I digress.) There is not an ATM at the border, or a currency exchange (at least not one open at 2 am). Several ill-informed travelers were doing informal currency trades with other train passengers, trying to get their visa money. The visa is good for 90 days, and you get it from a office on your far left if you are looking at the station from the train. Once you have your visa, go to an office basically straight in front of the train to get your passport stamped. The guy in this office should be awarded a medal for his passport-stamping gusto -- he really gives it a good SLAM!

Passport stamped (Welcome to Turkey!), get back on the train, and you can go ahead and lay down again. Don't get too comfortable though, as you will be woken up at least twice more and asked to show your passport. I'm not sure, but I think this was customs and maybe also Turkish border police. They pound on your door, and you can just open it and shove you passport towards them without leaving bed, although they usually shine the flashlight at you and scrutinize your passport photo a bit.

This whole process took 2 hours. I have no idea why. Apparently it is a similar amount of time if you travel by bus. There were only maybe 30 people total on our train (half that coming back), so I imagine if you're traveling during a busy period it could be much slower.

Once we started moving from the border it was about 4 more hours to Istanbul, and we arrived roughly on-time. The station in Istanbul is much more appealing and welcoming than the one in Sofia, and the international ticket office (for our return trip) is very obvious and easy to find. If you're not carrying too much stuff, I would say that all of Sultanahmet (the "old city" of Istanbul, where most of the tourist sights are) is within a 30 minute walk from the train station. There is also a tram (1.50 lira) that picks up right outside the station to take you around the old town.

We did not buy round trip tickets because there was no discount (over 2 one-ways) and we had heard rumors of an impending train workers strike in Turkey. These rumors were unfounded, so we bought our return ticket Saturday night in Istanbul (once again, no problem without a reservation). We paid in Euro (same price as in Sofia), but they also took Turkish lira and credit cards. If you buy your ticket in Istanbul, you get put on a Turkish sleeper car instead of a Bulgarian one. I would have to say I like the design of the Turkish one better (2 bunks instead of 3, no coal-heat, and chairs in addition to beds), but our cabin was in poor shape. The whole thing smelled kinds moldy/mildewy and the bunk wouldn't stay latched up if we were trying to use the seats. Be sure to get on your assigned train car, because at some point in the middle of the night, half the train splits off and heads to Romania!

The return trip took 14 hours, departing at 22:00 (10 pm) and arriving 1 hour late to Sofia at 12:00 noon. This time the border brouhaha was from 3-5am, but a similar process (although we didn't have to wait for a visa this time).

I had a hard time figuring out what would be open or closed for Kurban Bayrami. This holiday is somewhat similar to American Thanksgiving, in that it is a family holiday with a feast, and offerings are made to the poor. Many things are closed for this holiday. Our first day there (Thursday, 26 November, although the date of this holiday changes from year-to-year) was Kurban Bayrami Eve (known as "Arife Gunu"). Everything we tried to do was open regular hours that day, although the markets seemed really packed for a Thursday night to me (though it was our first time there).

The only major sights that we found to be entirely closed because of the holiday were the Grand Bazaar (Kapali carsi) and the Spice Market or Egyptian Bazaar (Misir Carsisi). These close all 4 days of Kurban Bayrami, in this case Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, (27-30 Nov). Many shops and all banks were also closed during this period. We had no trouble finding plenty of tourist-oriented restaurants, guided tours, and gift shops open the entire time we were there, often until 10pm or later (there is a major tourist infrastructure in Istanbul). On the first day of Kurban Bayrami (Friday 27 November 2009), most of the tourist sites close during the morning (Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace, most museums, etc.). Dolmabahce Palace was closed all day Friday, as well. We did not have any problems with ATMs running out of money or being shut down, although I've heard this might be a problem on the 3rd and 4th days of the holiday, as the banks are shut and don't service the ATMs as often.

I hope this helps some poor confused travelers out there. It was fun to take the night train, and Istanbul was an amazing place to visit. We'll be back soon, I'm sure.

YAY!!! Ugh. (Yay?)

YAY:
We had a fantastic trip to Italy for our "flu-vacation." There will be several posts coming from that trip (I think I took about 300 photos!), but not this week. We both felt actual joy, something that has been a bit hard to come by recently.

Ugh:
But now we're back to work, and what a week it is. The grading period ended today, so grades are due on Monday (and comments for 150 students), meanwhile we're trying to make-up work that was supposed to happen last week and figure out how to adjust for losing a week of the semester. 3 candidates to be the new head of school are visiting this week (and we're supposed to schmooze with them), and all the Americans are supposed to team up this weekend to cook Thanksgiving Dinner for the Bulgarian Faculty & Staff (which sounds like a great tradition, but just more to add to the weekly schedule). Did I mention how tired I am? Monday morning was rough, and we even came home from Italy before noon on Sunday, supposedly giving us time to rest up and get ready. Vacationing in Italy was so fun, it makes reality so...unpleasantly real.

Yay: We only have to get through 8 days of very tough schoolwork, and then it's Thanksgiving break, when we're heading to Istanbul. That will be fabulous I'm sure. After that, 3 weeks til Christmas break.

We can do this.

Stay posted for interesting stories and beautiful pictures...

pizza!

this post was done entirely BY PHONE!

Two Things

So Jeff wrote a very interesting post below, about how "happy" people in Eastern Europe are since "the Changes".  Read it - it's very interesting.  :-)

Meanwhile, I felt I needed to write short little blurbs about two very different things.

First, I'm feeling a bit homesick today.  Probably because I am working on the (hopefully) very last thing to finalize my work for the Park Service on my PhD project.  So I'm thinking about Yellowstone and I'm thinking about Bozeman and I'm thinking about friends and family.  And I'm missing everything (except the loooooooooong Bozeman winters )!  

We got a bunch of pictures from our wedding printed and framed and placed all around our living room.  They are happy reminders that Jeff and I have been so blessed to have the wonderful friends and amazing families we have. 

While I am "enjoying" my adventure abroad (enjoying is in quotes because I'm still not sure what I think of being here), I am missing home both for the people and places, as well as for the ease.  For instance, we have 5 days of freedom next week because all schools in Sofia have been closed down by the Bulgarian government to try to prevent further spread of the flu (and Swine flu).  As we are healthy (so far), we want to take advantage of this "flucation" to travel.  If we were in the States we would hop in our car and drive somewhere.  Here we have to plan what sort of transportation to take: train, bus, plane, or rental car; what language we should know how to say "yes", "no", "hello", and "thank you" in; how difficult will it be to cross borders; which currency will we need; and in general, where should we go!  I hope this doesn't come across as complaining - it's more of a perspective thing.  I'm excited to have this big adventure abroad, and all of the options it presents, but at times I pine for the comfort of the familiar.

So to close this point, I'm missing you - family and friends - wherever you are.  And I'm thankful to have you in my life and to know that you are a phone call/ an email/ a Skype call/ a chat away.  Thank goodness for technology!

My second topic is less emotionally wrought.  You might recall from a previous post that Jeff and I tried to buy some locally made pottery from the Ladies Market in downtown Sofia about a month ago, but were rebuffed by the lady for reasons that still remain a mystery to us.  Well, Jeff finally bought some at the Ethnographic Museum downtown, so we now have place settings for 4.  And here are some of the lovely patterns:

These are from Troyan.  They come in many different colors and each dish is unique - in that these are hand made.  So I wanted to let you all know that this stuff exists and if you are interested in owning a little piece of Bulgaria, we can get pretty much any sort of dish in these designs: plates, bowls, cups, mugs, goblets, salt and pepper shakers, tiny bowls, tiny plates, tiny cups, oil and vinegar bottles, large serving dishes, etc.  So let us know if you would like something!

Happy Sunday!

Bulgaria is one of "most discontented" countries

Bulgaria doesn't make the western news very often, so when I see an article (let alone a "special report") in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune (via Reuters), I take notice. With the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (what they call "The Changes" here in Bulgaria), there are lots of "Are you better off now?" pieces. This one takes the angle that lots of people (and in growing numbers) are nostalgic for socialism. I've excerpted some interesting bits below, but the whole article is worth a read (although I also think the whole article could have used some better editing!).

"We lived better in the past," said Anelia Beeva, 31.

"We went on holidays to the coast and the mountains, there were plenty of clothes, shoes, food. And now the biggest chunk of our incomes is spent on food. People with university degrees are unemployed and many go abroad."

snip

A September regional poll by U.S. Pew research centre showed support for democracy and capitalism has seen the biggest fall in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Hungary.

The poll showed 30 percent of Ukrainians approved of the change to democracy in 2009, down from 72 percent in 1991. In Bulgaria and Lithuania the slide was to just over half the population from nearer three-quarters in 1991.

snip

Over 60 percent say they lived better in the past, even though shopping queues were routine, social connections were the only way to obtain more valuable goods, jeans and Coca Cola were off-limits and it took up to 10 years' waiting to buy a car.

snip

Nearly three years after joining the EU, Bulgaria's average monthly salary of about 300 euros and pension of about 80 euros remain the lowest in the club. Incomes in the more affluent Poland and the Czech Republic, which joined the bloc in 2004, are also still a fraction of those in western Europe.

A 2008 global survey by Gallup ranked Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania among the 10 most discontented countries in the world.

snip

"People are losing faith that one can achieve success in an honest, decent way. Success is totally criminalized," said Boriana Dimitrova of Bulgarian polling agency Alpha Research.

My crazy taxi driver talked about this back in September. Bulgaria is still "a little bit shit," he said. For retirees ("pensioners") things are definitely tough. Our school employs lots of retired people as security guards, gardeners, and custodians. Many of them are highly educated. One of the custodians used to be a geography teacher. Most of the security guards were engineers in their previous lives. But they need to supplement their pensions by working part-time or even full-time just to get by. Average wages (as the NY Times article says) are only 300 euros a month, and pensions are a fraction of that (80 euros a month). Bulgaria is one of the least expensive countries in the European Union, with most things costing only about 50% of the EU average. Still, when wages are so low, life is tough for many.

At the same time, capitalism (and corruption) has allowed a minority to make lots of money, so there is more and more available (and very conspicuously) to those with means. Late model Audis and Mercedes ply the same traffic jams as 20 or 30-year-old Russian Ladas. Yesterday as I walked down a main street in Sofia, searching for a tasty дюнер (pronounced "dooner", referring to something similar to what I would call a "gyro" back home), all I could find was McDonald's, KFC, and then another McDonald's! (Ugh.) This increasing availability of luxury western products (I don't mean to call KFC a luxury product, but it is seen as somewhat "exotic" here) has crystallized widespread dissatisfaction with the system here, I believe.

In terms of the "most discontented," I had a talk with the students in my advisory group about shaking hands when you meet someone, making eye contact, and smiling. Smiling in public is simply done a lot less here. I explained that in the US, even if someone is having a terrible day, they are much more likely to put on an expression of friendliness and happiness, even if it is a false expression. Here dour expressions or no expressions at all are much more common with the man on the street or the woman on the bus. I won't go into which one I think is necessarily "better," but I thought it was worth my students (most of whom plan to go to University abroad) considering what they may find in other parts of the world.

School's out!

The Bulgarian Ministry of Health and Education just canceled our classes for next week due to the Swine Flu epidemic. My understanding of Bulgarian news is mostly limited to rumors and mistranslations, but I believe all Sofia-area schools are being shut down. After hovering in the high 20% range all week, our school actually crossed the fabled 30% absenteeism threshold today, so our school would have likely been shut down individually, even if they hadn't issued a city-wide closure. Kind of crazy. For the last few days, the students that were here knew that we might cancel school, and there was a "last day before Christmas vacation" squirelliness to classes. I've never been somewhere that was shut down for health reasons (the before (the students are calling it a "flu vacation"), although I think Westridge should have been a few times.

I'm supposed to report to work on Monday for meetings, lesson planning, and grading. Maybe Tuesday also, but no one really knows. We'll have to make up the missed school days later in the year, which won't be pretty.

But the good news: insta-vacation! I want to go somewhere that I can get last minute travel to/from cheaply, and where the swine flu season is not any worse than here. :) We're both still healthy, and hoping to keep it that way. Even if I just do lesson planning and grading, I might as well do it somewhere exotic, right? I'll take your suggestions for last minute travel destinations in the comments...

When pigs fly....

So...swine flu. Yeah, I thought it was kind of a joke too. One of my friends here made a nice "piggy flu" Halloween costume. But now things are getting a little crazy. Maybe it was that virology class that I took at Northwestern that still gives me the heebie-jeebies, but sometimes I have a hard time not believing the hype. I don't necessarily think that H1N1 is the new 1918 Spanish Flu, but there will be one, and when the next epidemic flu strain comes, it will be ugly.

30% of Shannon and I's students were out sick today. Yesterday there were almost 200 students out sick in our school (out of 700), and I'm sure it was worse today. The cafeteria ladies were (sometimes) wearing surgical masks. We're supposed to be getting anti-viral hand sanitizers around school, but I haven't seen anything yet. (I wish they would put paper towels in the bathrooms, maybe more people would wash their hands!). I gave a "wash your hands -- cover your cough -- get some sleep -- stay home if you're sick!" lecture to any students that did come to class today, but who knows if it did any good. The pressure-cooker environment of our school doesn't help the situation. Students (and faculty too) come to school when they shouldn't, because they don't feel like they can afford to get behind in their work.

There have been four deaths in Bulgaria so far attributed to H1N1. 48 schools in Sofia have been temporarily closed so far for "flu vacations," and I would not be surprised if we are shut down soon as well. Even if we don't get shut down, it's pretty hard to figure out coherent lesson plans with a rotating cast of students and empty desks.

Google has had success tracking flu outbreaks based on the number of searches for "flu" and similar phrases. The results are scientifically sound and have been published in the journal Nature. Here is the current chart for Bulgaria.

Luckily the Bulgarian government is all over this one: they will vote soon about whether to approve spending (~ $8 million US) to order swine flu vaccine. That's right, about whether to order it. There is none available in Bulgaria. If they approve the funding, it might be here in January.

Shannon and I are healthy (for now), and I am very thankful for that. We're trying to get some rest, eat well, and wash our hands both regularly and fervently. Even if it's "just" the regular flu going around, and not something more insidious, the idea of being unpleasantly ill in a land where I don't speak the language nor understand the health care system is rather unappealing, to say the least.

On the plus side, we met today with a visiting insurance broker from our health insurance plan. I have never had and doubt I will ever have again a health insurance plan with coverage this good. It's worldwide. $100 annual deductible. Many things are 100% covered, and most everything else is 90%. Emergency medical evacuation is included if we need treatment and we're not somewhere that can provide a suitably "Western" standard of care. Our agent told us that if she tried to buy a similar plan for her employees in the USA, it would cost about $1600/month/employee. So that's nice.

The Bulgarian equivalent of "Cheers" is "наздраве" (pronounced "NAZ-dra-vay"), which translates as "To your health!" (Much like the German "Gesundheit!").
I think it's time for a hearty наздраве all around.

Clouds Lifting

The clouds lifted over Sofia today, and my spirits did as well. We've had 10 days or so of pretty much solid cold, drizzly, windy, misty nastiness. A few nights it got below freezing, and the heat is not yet turned on in our classrooms or offices. They have been trying to turn it on for a few days now, but it's an old, creaky system, and no significant amount of heat is coming out yet. Oh well...maybe next week (until then the little portable electric heater Shannon and I bought last weekend is coming in quite handy).

I'm leading a field trip tomorrow for my International Baccalaureate (IB) Biology class. Field trips are not a common thing at our school, to the extent that one of my students had to ask "What's a field trip?" We're studying ecology right now, and we've got this mountain with a national park just a few miles from campus, and it seemed a crime not to go outside a little. This time of year planning an outdoor field trip, especially one up a mountain, involves having a little luck with the weather gods. Fingers still crossed, but right now it is supposed to be clear and rather warm and pleasant tomorrow (highs in the 60s F down here, but of course cooler up top).

I've been freaking out trying to figure out how I would get my class there, where we would go, what we would do, all that stuff. I only have 5 students in that class, so I get to be a little flexible, but I still wanted to have some sort of a plan. I thought we would take the ski lift up, but it's down for maintenance during October, so I'm having the school driver take us up the access road in a van to the top of the ski lift. Problem is, I have never been up that road to see what ecological communities are along it that might be worth investigating, or what the logistics of such a trip would be.

I had thought I might do a scouting trip a few days ago, but the weather continued to be lousy. Finally, today, the clouds parted, and the sun came out, revealing a lovely snowy mountaintop.

After school, I weighed my options. On my mountain map it shows a public bus line running up the mountain road, although I've been unable to determine how often it comes, where or when it stops. I decided to take a taxi. That's right: I took a taxi up the mountain today. :) Growing up in Michigan I think I took one taxi before the age of 18, so I never thought I'd be taking one up a mountain.

The driver was friendly enough, but spoke very little English (a common theme of taxi drivers around here, you'll notice). We managed to communicate that I spoke some German, and his daughter was fluent in German. He called his daughter on his cell while he was battling ring road traffic (scary). I attempted to explain to her in German, then English (I discovered her English was better than my German, at the moment) where I wanted to go, and then she translated for her father. It was pretty comical. I was surprised at how hard it was for me to speak German all of a sudden, especially since I keep trying to use German or Spanish phrases when I'm wracking my brain for Bulgarian words.

It was a beautiful drive up the mountain...fall colors, a clear view of the city, and no other cars. It was about a 30 minute trip from my house, and my total bill was about $15, including tip. Not bad, and if there were two of us it probably would have been cheaper than the gondola ride.
I didn't really have a plan of what I was doing at the top (there are hotels/restaurants up there, but all closed in this off-season between summer hiking and winter skiing). Mostly I wanted to poke around, see where some trails went, look at the vegetation, figure out where to take my students. I also wanted to be able to get home, and not freeze. I had not dressed warmly enough (that's twice in a row now for Vitosha...that mountain keeps surprising me).
Once again we called the cab driver's daughter. I asked her to ask her father if he knew if the one and only bus was still running that time of day, and if so when/where it might come. She translated for her father, who found some random guy outside and asked him in Bulgarian. The verdict was that I should be able to pick up a bus back down in 30 minutes or 1.5 hours. Though I didn't really believe I could catch this bus (if only catching buses were as easy as catching colds...), I felt confident with my new cell phone in my pocket that I could extricate myself from most unforeseen circumstances, so I paid the driver (with a healthy tip) and set off. As I walked away, I asked a bystander if spoke English (a little), and if he knew anything about the fabled bus (he didn't). I thanked him and moved on.

I walked around aimlessly for about 30 minutes, getting chilly but enjoying being out of the city on a silly after-school adventure. I considered walking down the mountain to a new town I hadn't been to yet, but thought better of it. I talked to a random maintenance guy about the bus, who was confident that I had definitely missed the last bus for the day, but I could probably hitch a ride if I walked down along the road. I decided I would walk down a forest path that frequently intersected the road, so that I could bail and hitch a ride (or call another taxi) if I wanted, or (hopefully) have a pleasant woodsy walk back to town if things went well.

Right about as I was about to set off down the path, I discovered the first gentleman I had encountered and asked about the bus. He was waiting in his late-model Audi (engine running) with his wife and kids in the back seat (empty passenger seat).
"You go to Sofia?"
"Yes."
"Want ride?"
[of course]
"Get in."
This nice man had actually tried to follow me on my walk to hail me back, to warn me that I had missed the bus (I had seen some weird guy whistling and waving in the distance, but didn't know he was trying to get my attention). When he couldn't get my attention, he waited for me, just so that he could give me a ride back home! (A ride that I hadn't asked for, and didn't expect!)

"I like mountains, and I like people. I want to help you," he said.

Turns out he owns a construction firm, he didn't work today because his kids were sick (they were coughing all over me from the back seat...yay, swine flu!), and he likes to ski. He learned some English back in the early 1990s by living in Cyprus. I didn't know that Cypriots speak English, but now I do. He drove me all the way back to campus (I kept offering to get out and catch a bus/taxi once we were in "civilization," but he wouldn't let me). We exchanged phone numbers (so happy to finally have a phone!) and said he wants to take me skiing this winter. Nice.
So...a taxi up the mountain for $15, a free ride down. Not bad for a Wednesday afternoon. I didn't really get a hike in, but just knowing for the future that I could get to a trailhead or three on my own makes me feel so much more independent. This is my first time in 10 years I haven't had a car, and my first time since age 5 that I haven't had a bike. It's a hard adjustment for my independence, especially as it's been hard to figure out the public transit system. The knowledge that I can call a taxi (yay, cell phone) and go hiking after school for a reasonable fee makes me feel very happy, even if that road will close for the winter soon. At least I know it's there.

Shannon also noted new-found independence today. She ran some errands that included taking a bus, calling her Bulgarian tailor on the phone (who doesn't speak English), and then going to the grocery store. Today was apparently the first time Shannon has left campus alone since coming to Bulgaria, venturing into the strange, strange world we live in without assistance (I hadn't realized until now that she hadn't done this yet!) Having her cell phone helped give her the confidence to do that also (who knew how reliant we have become on our phones?). We both felt proud/satisfied with our after school activities today. Gaining independence makes everything feel more surmountable.

One more thing that makes me happy: I downloaded on my cell phone a bulgarian-english dictionary which came in very very useful for my pidgin communications today. Yay, technological gadgets!
G'night, all!

Greece! (Mt. Olympus & Meteora)

On the long weekend we had in September to celebrate Bulgarian Independence Day, we drove to Greece with Brett and Betsy to attempt to climb Mt. Olympus and to visit the Meteora, home of monasteries on clifftops. It was about a 6.5 hour drive down to our hostel on the seaside in Greece. We left early enough that we avoided major holiday traffic jams or holdups at the Greek border. It was a stormy Friday night, but we hoped that the weather would clear for our hike. When I tried to talk to the proprietor of the hostel, it dawned on me that I had gone to a completely new country without speaking a single word of the language. I didn't even know "yes" or 'No' and we had not brought a guidebook or phrasebook! Luckily the tourist infrastructure in Greece is well-developed. Most road signs are posted in English as well as Greek, and most restaurants/stores/hotels had someone that spoke a little English. I still felt utterly American about the whole thing, just assuming I could get by with my home language in a foreign land. I've never done that before. [When I did look up a few words, I discovered to my horror that Greek for "Yes" is pronounced the same ("Nay") as the Bulgarian word for "No!" No wonder they've had a few wars between them over the centuries!

The rest of the crew crashed out early (before 9:30 pm, I think), but I was awake and hungry, so I had a pizza at the empty hostel bar while I watched distant thunderclouds occasionally light up the Aegean. The owner brought me several glasses of wine, gratis. Very nice.

Our hostel "Summit Zero" near Litochoro, Greece. There was an ocean view from the patio.

In the morning we were instructed by the owner, who seemed quite knowledgeable about Olympus, that we definitely could NOT camp on the mountain. We could only stay in the mountain huts. Fair enough...no need to drag all of our camping gear up a rather stout mountain (2918 m, 9,573 ft).

Hiking up Mt. Olympus.

We hiked in the rain/mist/fog for about 3 hours to the first hut. It's a large place, with a dining room and beds for 140 folks. It was quite crowded. There were no rooms at the inn, and they didn't think there were any beds at the other huts further up. Oh, and you could definitely camp right outside the hostel. Too bad our tents were 3 hours down trail at the car. Shannon decided to curl up by the fireplace while the rest of us hiked another 1.5 uphill, hoping we might break through the clouds. No such luck. The views just kept getting foggier and foggier. We had also been told that the final push to the summit involved some semi-sketchy rock scrambling that would not be possible if it were wet. It was definitely wet, and I don't think it was going to dry out anytime soon. With no housing and no expectation that we would either be able to summit or be able to see anything if we did summit, going further up seemed futile. We gave up. The gods on Olympus were apparently too hungover from their bacchanalia (literally, in this case) to come out and play. Not to be seen on this visit. The postcards make the mountain look rather dramatic, with snow-topped craggy peaks and views to the ocean. Or so we're told. Maybe we'll head back for another attempt some day.

The view above the hut never got better (top), so here was our "summit victory pose" nowhere near the summit.

Goats blocked our path both up and down the road to the trailhead. Here I'd already shoo'd them off the road, a little, and they mostly stayed out of the way.

We headed down to a cheap beach town (Leptokarya) for a dry place to sleep. All tacky beach towns are the same, I think, no matter if you are in Maine, California, or Greece. Cheap towels with imprints of scantily clad women on them, loud bars, ticky-tack plastic crap from China for sale, all the same. The main drag seemed to have a dozen bars (all showing European basketball), and only one semi-awful restaurant. There were lots and lots of hotels with tour buses...these people had to eat somewhere, but I have no idea where. I had hoped the weather would clear overnight to let us have a sunny beach morning, but no such luck. I actually bought a pair of umbrellas as I wandered down to the beach. It was a very trash-littered, deserted beach. I considered going swimming, just to have swum in the Aegean, but it seemed rather silly as I stood there in my raincoat and umbrella. I did wade in up to my knees, just for posterity or something. Beach towns in the off-season, especially on a rainy off-season day, are somewhat sad, pathetic things.

The Aegean Sea. Somewhat anticlimatic after years of reading Greek history.

We drove inland 2 hours to the area known as Meteora. This was one of the only places my well-traveled uncle Jim had recommended, so I figured we ought to check it out. I hadn't really heard of it before, but given the number of tour buses there, apparently I was the only person in Europe that hadn't. Tourbus traffic jam in Meteora.

The nearest full-service town is called Kalampaka, if you're looking for it on a map.

Meteora is a collection of beautiful rock spires (1000 ft high or so) that has developed a collection of monasteries over the last 900 years. Originally monks hung out in caves up on the cliffside, and gradually developed chapels and then rather elaborate monasteries.

Hermit caves (above).

St. Nikolas Monastery, built into the cliffside cave. You couldn't visit this one, at least not while we were there.

The clifftop locations provided both defensive protection against ruling classes of different religions (such as the Ottoman Turks) as well as removal from day-to-day mental clutter to allow for appropriate meditation. Originally, the only way in was to climb rope ladders that were released from the top, either that or getting a ride in a net raised from a pulley system. Only in the last century were stairwells carved out of the rock faces to allow easier access.

When we got there it was still cloudy/rainy/misty, but the clouds were high enough that they allowed partial visibility. The changing visibility was actually pretty neat, as the monasteries disappeared into the clouds and then reappeared. Very "atmospheric," as they say.


We tried hiking around through the rock pillars to access some hidden ruins, but couldn't really find the correct trail (granted we didn't have a proper map either).

The pulley system used to raise heavy stuff, or sometimes people,into the monastery.

Varlaam Monastery - this shows the height of the cliffs pretty well. Rather impressive.

Brett and Betsy - nice cover-up skirts!

That's all for now. There are more pictures posted at my Flickr account, so click on over if you want to see the whole slideshow.