Whaaaa...

We took a trip to Greece this weekend, and saw some amazing sights. We'll write about that later. Most of our posts thus far (and hopefully into the future) have been about fun adventures and occasional misadventures, but still fun in that "isn't Bulgaria zany?" kind of way. But please don't get the wrong impression: this transition has been hard, and sometimes you just want to scream with frustration. Since no one would likely even notice me screaming here, I'll have to do it online. Hopefully this will be a rare bitchy post, as we're trying to keep a positive attitude both in our lives and on our blog. Still, maybe it's good to vent.

Things that suck (in no particular order):

1. Crappily made Chinese* crap is much more crappily made here. Who knew? I always get the generic product of most everything in the US, but here I've learned that, say, generic "Scotch" tape (not that you could find the 3M brand) is really quite terrible. I bought some house slippers today (our tile floors get really cold) at a street market for the equivalent of about $4, and I think I may have to give them away. I can't get the awful chemical smell out of them, even after washing them. I left them outside to air out...maybe a feral dog will rid me of them.

* Some of the crap could actually be Bulgarian made. Hard to tell. If so, my sincere apologies to the Chinese.

2. Customer service. This is so hit or miss. Some places (certainly in the minority, but they exist) have someone interested in helping you, or at least trying, even if they don't speak English and my Bulgarian isn't adequate for the situation (which it pretty much never is). More often, either I am completely ignored or am followed around like a hawk by a gang of 4 or 5 surly employees, who apparently are convinced I am desperate to steal a roll of their miserable "Scotch" tape. Today we tried to buy quite a bit of Bulgarian pottery (it's quite pretty...expect to get pieces of this as gifts in the future) at a street market. 4 women in side-by-side stalls were selling nearly identical pottery at similar prices. We chatted a bit with the first saleswoman for a while, then said we'd be back after looking at the selection in the other stalls. She cheerily said she would be there for several more hours and was friendly about 20 minutes later when Shannon returned to buy some items from her. A few stalls down was a woman who spoke nearly no English, and charged a little more, but seemed friendly and had an interesting inventory. We poked at stuff for quite a while, and were in the process of buying a significant quantity of her pottery when Shannon went back to the first stall to buy a few other items (that the second woman did not sell). The second woman got mad, told me to go home, and wouldn't sell her stuff to us. Really, she would not take our money. I will blame communication errors /language barriers for some of this, but really, why wouldn't she sell to us? Later we tried to buy ice cream near the subway, and couldn't get the woman behind the desk to get off the phone to take our money, which we were prominently displaying trying to get her attention. We walked away after she sold ice cream to someone else (though she never got off the phone) who just walked up and ordered.

3. Not being able to communicate. This sucks. It was even worse in Greece this weekend, where I realized that I didn't even know how to say yes or no (I discovered to my horror that the Greek word for "yes" is pronounced the exact same as the Bulgarian word for "no." (it sounds like "nay.") I somehow doubt this is completely a coincidence, given the centuries of rivalries between the two nations. Still, the language barrier makes everything SO HARD. I can't talk to the guards or the maintenance guys on campus, and sadly, often some of the Bulgarian faculty. I can't explain to the surly bag check lady at the grocery store that I want to add one bag to my pile, not retrieve them all, so when she figures it out she gives me an extra-big surly eye roll. I can't read the newspaper. I can't figure out how to cook anything I purchase, unless I get lucky and can find some instructions in German and I can make out enough to be useful (rare). Going to the grocery store is an ordeal in figuring out what might be available, where it might be, and what they could possibly call it here.

4. No place to run that doesn't have an excess of scary dogs, scary traffic, or scary people. This really bothers me, as running is the best way I have to both let off steam and explore the area. Most other faculty just do laps of campus (1/2 mile loop), but that's not really much fun, and we're already in a bubble enough here without spending all my running time on campus too.

5. Smoke. Going out to eat means coming home and taking a shower to get rid of the cigarette smoke in my hair. Thankfully campus is smoke free.

6. Isolation. It's easy to feel isolated, both in time and space. I've been surprised at how hard the time difference makes it...when I want to call friends and family is when they are sleeping, or at work. I am so thankful for email, this blog, Facebook, and Skype, but it's still hard. We're also physically isolated on campus. It's nice in many ways, as we feel secure and don't have many of the annoyances of city life, but it's also isolating, especially without a car or a bike. Going anywhere involves a 15 minute walk minimum, and most places involve an additional 30-50 minutes of walking/bussing/subway-ing to get. It's sort of how I lived in college, but I forgot about the inconvenience of it.

7. Not having a better answer to "Why did you move to Bulgaria?" The usual answer is still "Why NOT Bulgaria?," and I think it's still a good one. There are a lot of great things going for Bulgaria, including the beautiful mountainous countryside and the great neighbors (Greece, Turkey, etc). I wasn't that surprised when I heard confused questions about this back in Montana. What gets me down is when I hear it in Greece, or often even Bulgaria, and often with an incredulous tone. "Why would you possibly choose to come here? I'd leave if I could," is the barely unspoken sentiment. As our taxi driver said, though, "Bulgaria is a little bit shit," and it's hard not to let it get you down. I have been in some other poor/developing nations before (granted not this intensively), but never felt this level of general despair. "Why aren't things better?" is a question that everyone asks, but no one seems to have an adequate answer to.

8. Mold/sewer smell. Our apartment (and several of the other newly renovated apartments, which are otherwise really nice) seems to have been blessed with some creative plumbing that allows odors (varying from "sewer" to "black mold") to seep from sinks, drains, and toilets. If you come home after a day away with the house shut up it can be rather overpowering. I'm afraid it will be intolerable once it's too cold to leave the window open all the time. The school maintenance guys are looking into it, but I'm not so hopeful.

9. Being ungrateful. This is perhaps the hardest thing of all. As obnoxious as many of these things are, I try to remind myself of how good I have it. My housing and wages are much better than most of the population, and I'm likely only here temporarily, on a "vacation" as it were. I feel bad about feeling bad. Oh, it's too meta...suck it up. This is regular life for most people here, and it's hard (and of course it's all relative...I can intellectually also know how much harder it is other places besides here...but it doesn't make it feel a whole lot better about being here, really). Makes me miss a lot of things about the US, even things that I recognize intellectually as environmentally/socially/economically unsustainable.

Thus ends my rant. More zany adventures to follow...

A Day in Sofia

I made a promise to myself when we started this blog that I would add something at minimum once a week. Then I promptly broke that promise. I didn't realize how much time would be spent in preparation for our first week of classes. It took a lot of time and I went to bed every night completely exhausted with no thought whatsoever about catching up on the blog. Still exhausted, but less brain-dead than the last week or so, I will endeavor to make up for lost time by posting this thrilling installment!!! So, without further ado...

I'll start with the day of Jeff's post about the taxi driver. Just over a week ago - I think it was September 8. We spent the afternoon and evening in the center of Sofia. We had a tour guide, Velin, who showed us all the hot spots downtown. And by hot spots, I mean the historical buildings and monuments.

We started at the National Theater in a bit of a drizzle - we kept hoping it wouldn't actually rain, but as the tour got started the skies opened up. Luckily the tour company provided us with an umbrella and Jeff and I had rain jackets on (so Jeff's friend, Paul, got the umbrella). The National Theater was recently renovated and is a beautiful (and colorful) landmark downtown.

(That's me in the middle with Paul on the left and Velin on the right)

Next, Velin took us to the Sofia Sheraton. Yes, the hotel chain. The Sheraton was the first capitalist company to make an investment in Bulgaria even before the communist regime ended. So I suppose it is a symbol of breaking away from communism in Sofia. This building is rather interesting because it has four different uses: The Sheraton facing West, the Presidency facing East, the President's residence facing North, and a mall facing South. AND to top that off, it has a courtyard inside that is basically an archeological site: part of a Roman road, a small portion of a partially excavated town, and the church of St. George (St. George Rotunda), which dates from the first half of the 4th century. Talk about variety! We arrived too late to go inside St. George's, but as Velin said with a shrug of his shoulders, "No problem, you will come back." I expect we will.

Within less than a kilometer from one another in downtown sofia you will find five Bulgarian Orthodox churches (St. George's, St. Sunday, St. Sofia, St. Petka, and Nevski Cathedral), the Bashi Baths Mosque, the Sofia Synagogue, and the St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker Russian Orthodox church. Again, so much variety! And such beautiful buildings.

(Nevski Cathedral)

We were told by Velin that the Russian Orthodox cross has great meaning. The top, smaller, cross represents the plaque that was hung over Jesus' head. The sedond cross is a representation of the beam where Jesus' arms were stretched out on. The third cross, which is at an angle, was where his feet were nailed and points up towards the criminal that believed that Jesus was the son of God (in case you don't know the story, Jesus was crucified with two criminals, one whom believed in him and for that reason was saved, and one whom did not believe in him and was not saved). Finally, at the bottom of the cross is a crescent - the symbol of Islam. I think this might be unique to the Balkans, where the Turks ruled for many centuries. The crescent is not there as a symbol of tolerance, but rather as a symbol of how the Orthodox church is mightier than Islam since the Turks ultimately gave up their rule in this area around a century ago.

(St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker Russian Orthodox Church)

My favorite moments of this trip were when we were in St. Sofia and Nevski Cathedral. At both churches we got to hear some of the choir sing. Wow. The acoustics were amazing and the voices were so heart-stoppingly beautiful. I don't know how many were singing in St. Sofia, but it was quite a surprise to see that only 3 were singing in Nevski Cathedral - it sounded like a large choir. The sound just went through me. Simply wonderful. I understand that the choirs here are often made up of some of the most talented and famous opera singers in Bulgaria. I will go to Nevski Cathedral for a holiday sermon just to hear the choir.

We got to see a changing of the guard at the Presidency. The guards goose stepped for 8 steps, then ambled for another 8 or 10, then back to the goose step for 8, then ambling, etc. For some reason the guards were stationed outside of the guard huts (even though it was raining). Looked like a miserable job. The changing of the guard we saw had no pomp and circumstance, but I'm guessing when there is an important event it could be quite a sight to see.


One of the coolest things we saw on this tour was actually down in the subway. In order to gain access to the turnstiles to ride the Metro, you must walk through the ruins of the fortress and part of the eastern gate of an ancient Roman town, Serdika. I've never seen anything like it - such a strange juxtaposition of ancient and brand-spanking new (did I mention that this particular subway station opened only 2 days before? - although the underground walkway has been around for several years).

We saw many monuments and many museums. All in the rain. By the time were finished (2 1/2 hours later), we were all pretty soaked and cold and tired. But we really enjoyed the tour. Now we know what to show everyone when they come visit (hint hint)! We asked Velin for a good local eatery and he pointed us to Pri Yafata (При Яафата). After a wrong turn and a few blocks the wrong way, we finally found this lovely restaurant and breathed a sigh of relief when we sat down for dinner.

We arrived just before 6pm, which is practically breakfast time in Sofia, much earlier than most Sofians would deign to be seen out, so we mostly had the restaurant to ourselves. Our waitress, Marina, was from Ukraine, but has lived in Sofia since 1992. She was very excited to practice her English with us and give us a few lessons in Bulgarian. She even took a picture with us and moments later came out with the picture for us to keep.

(Marina is between Jeff and Paul)

Next was our interesting taxi ride home that Jeff describes in great detail in a previous post.

Taxi Driver #1

[This is called "Taxi Driver #1" because I assume there will be many more interesting taxi drivers in our future.]

My high school friend Paul was visiting for 2 days (yay, our first visitor!), so we took a walking tour of Sofia (with a paid guide and everything), followed by a lovely meal of "traditional Bulgarian food." Perhaps Shannon will post on those later. Our previously summer-y weather changed dramatically on Sunday, and today was rainy and in the 50s Fahrenheit, making the walking tour rather chilling. [Sofia was actually the "coldest city in Europe" on Sunday and Monday. Awesome.]

We took the subway downtown (and got to use a station that is brand new...it opened yesterday.) We rewarded ourselves with a taxi ride home, trying our best to find a legitimate cabbie (many pirate cabbies will charge 10 times or more the standard rate to unsuspecting tourists).

I got in the front seat, closed the door normally, and was immediately scolded by the driver not to slam the door. I apologized. The scolding continued. I apologized again. The driver spoke pretty good English, and when I didn't hear/understand his question, he mocked me "What, do you not understand English?" "In the United States, what would a cab driver do if you slammed the door like that?"
I explained that in other countries I had been, such as Costa Rica, the cabbies are also very concerned that closing the door too hard will damage the car, and I tried to apologize for not treating his car with more respect. I was getting annoyed too, however (his smoking in the cab didn't help), so I also said that cabbies in the US really didn't care how you closed the door. He definitely did not believe this. We were stuck in downtown traffic going nowhere while the meter was running, and the cabbie was irate about me not gently nuzzling the door into my bosom. I considered getting out and finding a new cab, but then he seemed to shift his spiel from me to his government and Bulgaria in general. I will try to re-create this for you, but really, it's a poor reproduction.
I hardly asked any questions or responded with more than grunts at first, as he had a monologue that didn't seem to need input, as he narrowly dodged impacts with large, large buses.

Why, he began, after 20 years of "changes," [since the fall of communism], is Bulgaria "still a little bit shit," as he put it? You see that Mercedes S-Class. Bulgarian Mafia. So much corruption. The government and the mafia are "like this" (folding both hands to together...not sure how he was steering at this point). It is so hard to get by in this country. I have to drive 20-22 hours a day. I rent the car, pay the gas, pay the insurance, and I only get 30-35 euro a day. It is not enough. I had a cigarette today [I'm guessing more than one], a coffee. I had lunch. But not enough to take home.
We had a child this spring. The president goes on TV and encourages us to have children, to stay in Bulgaria, not go to other countries in Europe [Bulgaria has a declining population, with low birth rate and high emigration to countries with better economies]. The government promised us 300 euro when our daughter is born. I fill out the paperwork, they say "we have no money now. Maybe later." I apply again, no money. They never have any money.

Why does the USA have perfect roads, perfect economy, perfect government [I would beg to differ, but in comparison, I see his point]? It has been 20 years? Maybe it will take 20,000 years for Bulgaria to get like this.
[I asked if he liked Boiko Borisov, the new prime minister, former mayor of Sofia, and generally considered to have strong ties to the mafia, at least in his past. ]
I love Boiko Borisov. He is our Messiah. He is our Ba-rack O-bama. He is our Spider-Man. He is our...how you call...Bat-Man. I hope he will fix our county.

But...[as we veer around 2 more buses]...the problem is not with our government. It is our people [I've heard this frustration with their own countrymen/culture from some other Bulgarians as well]. We must fix ourselves. I don't know why our country is a little shit.
[He talks about his sister the teacher in Dallas. I don't really understand part of what he is saying about how $10,000 is a lot or little here/there...very confusing. I say we are teachers, and mention the school.]
Oh, that is a very good school. For many Bulgarians, that is the dream to teach there, to be able to send their kids there.
Why do people in your country have such a problem with Barack Obama because he is a black man? White, black, red, I don't care. We're a new generation [he is 31 years old, like me]. Why does it matter?
[and on and on...]
*********************
So that was Milo, Taxi Driver #1. I would have paid the $7 cab fare just for the cultural insight/discussion, never mind the transportation. He scribbled his cell phone number on a sheet of people for me, in case I want to call him and have my own personal cabbie in Sofia. I just might. Of course, I'll have to be a lot more careful with the door.

Bulgarian Gems

Shortly after the rest of the new international teachers arrived here (was that really only a week and a half ago?!), we were taken on a 3-day tour of several lovely places in southwestern Bulgaria: Rila Monastery in the Rila Mountains, Melnik - a wine producing town just north of the border with Greece, and Kovachevitsa - a traditional village in the Rodopi Mountains. Follow me on a short trip to these Bulgarian gems. Click here for a MAP showing the location of these stories.

This building along the "ring road" around Sofia is I think some sort of interior design store. I think working here would give you a headache.

We had lunch at a "traditional Bulgarian" restaurant, located next to a stream in a steep mountain gorge. People have asked what Bulgarian food is like, so here is a picture. Jeff was too hungry to wait for me to get a picture, but his meal was a sausage on a bed of mixed vegetables, served on a still-sizzling skillet.


RILA MONASTARY
After a twisty-curvy drive up into the Rila Mountains we arrived at Rila Monastary. Set in a small valley with gorgeous mountains as the backdrop, Rila is a beautiful and peaceful place for meditation and reflection. Apparently you can spend the night here - it's a good place to stop along a mountain trek - and they lock you in at night. Rila Monastery is generally considered the spiritual heart of the Bulgarian Orthodox church. Over the 500 years that Bulgaria was ruled by the Muslim Ottoman Turks, Christian religious centers were often in hard-to-reach refuges like Rila.



We also got to enjoy fresh/hot/greasy donuts as we left.


MELNIK
We spent the rest of that afternoon in Melnik. This is the "smallest town" in Bulgaria. In the early 1900's there were 20,000 people there, but now there are only a few hundred people left, mostly retirees and foreign second-home owners. There are several wineries, two of which we visited and sampled. Although the Melnik reds are supposed to be wonderful, the majority of us didn't like the reds much and preferred the whites.

We met a spry 87-year-old man, who took us to his nephew's winery. He told us that he would take us to a winery located higher up in the hills, but he was concerned about his blood pressure. I hope I'm as active as he is when I'm 87!
In a Melnik wine cellar & tasting room -- how much for the whole cask?

We had a wonderful dinner with the whole group (I think there were 15 of us). We all tried the Rakiya. After seeing Jeff and Garth's faces after they tried Rakiya (in an earlier post) I was not excited to try it this night. But this bottle was much better. Not that I liked it too much, but I think Jeff found it good enough to try a couple times more.


The rakiya glass here is an example of traditional Bulgarian pottery.

ROZHEN MONESTARY
The next morning we headed up yet another twisty-curvy road to the top of the mountain above Melnik and the Rozhen Monestary. A beautiful setting with flowers and grapes everywhere. Rozhen was founded in 1217, destroyed by fire and Turks a few times, but the current buildings are about 300 years old (those grape vines in the bottom shot are about that old too!).




LESHTIN
From Rozhen we headed east across the Pirin Mountains on our way to Kovachevitsa, in the Rodopi mountains. We passed through a "Pomak" village (ethnic Bulgarians that were converted by the Ottomans to Islam, and then generally despised by other Bulgarians), a Roma (Gypsy) village (more social outcasts from "regular" Bulgarian society), then had lunch in Leshtin, where ping-pong (err, I mean table tennis) is taken very seriously...
Note the carefully crafted stone platform for the, ahem, ping-pong table.

KOVACHEVITSA
Our final destination on the second day was Kovachevitsa. The architecture there is wonderful - a mix of thick wooden beams and artfully stacked flat rocks. The homes are a seamless mix of indoor and outdoor space. The upper floors extend out above the lower floors in a Macedonian building style. [This region of Bulgaria is known as "Pirin Macedonia." The borders and even the outright existence of Macedonia is still a hotly disputed topic in Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, not to mention in the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" itself.]

We enjoyed yet another wonderful meal at a local pub. We even got to dance some traditional line dances. Our group was separated into two different houses, one at the top of the hill. We played cards and partied late into the night. I'm afraid the locals probably didn't like us much as our party was on an outside porch and audible throughout town. Breakfast the next morning was the best meal of the trip: a form of French toast with cheese and jam. Yum! Along with fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, select meats and other cheeses, and espresso!

There are not many "sights" to see in Kovachavitsa. It is just a beautiful and relaxing mountain village, carefully restored old homes (our guesthouse was built in the 1700s), a single restaurant/pub, and more swallows than I've ever seen. A lovely place.

BACK TO SOFIA
We headed back to Sofia by late morning and had a quick stop in Bansko - the best ski resort in Bulgaria (so they say - we'll find out more after it snows!).

We were all exhausted, but I think also pumped about this new place we're living. Sofia itself is a fast-growing city in a fairly poor country. There are nice places and nasty places, often right next to each other. As we're not really city people, we were thankful to have the chance to get out and see the truly beautiful Bulgarian countryside. The new international teachers group is a lot of fun. I think we'll get along famously and have a great experience here.

A feral dog speaks.

Ruff Ruff. Ruff Ruff Ruff.
Hey, seriously. Listen to me. Ruff Ruff.
I hang out in the woods. Ruff.
Sometimes I lounge all day under a car by the guard shack, hiding from the sun. Ruff Ruff Ruff. I'm pretty mangy. Ruff Ruff.
What was that? You want to sleep?
Ruff Ruff. I don't really care. Ruff Ruff.
There are some really neat squirrels over there. Ruff Ruff.
Ooh, trash! I like trash. Some of it has food in it. Ruff Ruff.
I probably won't bite you. Ruff Ruff Ruff.
But I might. Ruff.
Mostly I'll just bark.
Ruff. Ruff Ruff Ruff.
Maybe if I'm feeling rowdy I'll chase you when you go for a run.
Ruff.
Why would you run from me if you didn't want me to chase you?
Seriously. Grrr. Rrrwar. Ruff Ruff.

Travelogue (LA Times)

Check out this LA Times travel section story about Bulgaria, written in 2008. From what I've seen in 2 short weeks, it's pretty apt (and amusing).