This is just a test...

It seemed like a nice day to go outside with the class.
It's a crisp, sunny day to ring in October, and we're studying ecology, so I set up a grid on the softball field and had my IB students start counting and comparing populations of different species of grass. It was not a particularly challenging activity, but reasonably interesting, applicable to the unit, and pleasant on a Friday afternoon. Then the air raid sirens went off.  
Our campus shares space with the National Police Academy, and we are lucky enough to have the LOUDSPEAKERS (and I do mean LOUD) they use for emergency signals for our part of town. I think there are only 5 or 6 of these LOUDSPEAKERS for the whole city of Sofia, so they're designed to project. And project they do. You can hear the announcement bouncing and echoing off the mountains several kilometers away.  There was a serious loud announcement of "this is only a test" (or something like it...my Bulgarian's not so good), then dead air, then SIRENS SIRENS SIRENS for a minute, then dead air.."Is this thing on? CLICK CLICK CLICK" [sounds like someone being shot]...SIRENS SIRENS SIRENS (but different this time..more like an alien invasion). All told, there were air raid sirens going off for 10 full minutes, at volumes where you really couldn't hear someone yelling at you 1 foot away. They're designed to be heard for several kilometers, and we were only about 50 meters from the speakers. It was plenty loud where we were. Luckily, this was an unannounced (at least to us) test, although I'm not sure what I would have done had I known. Below is a short video recorded while we were outside trying to count the flowers. Make sure your speakers are set to a normal volume to appropriately appreciate this Bulgarian moment.  Whee!