Ramblings and Blog Police

 Below are some ramblings about life in Bulgaria, blogs, and travel - in no particular order. 

I don't think there is such a thing as "Blog Police" but in a small way I think there should be - specifically to make sure that people who have blogs keep up with writing them.  I can't believe that Jeff and I have written a whopping total of 7 blogs this year (and it's almost June!).  And we didn't write any during February and March.  I guess things have been a bit busy. 

I've just gone through all of our writings since moving to Sofia, and I saw that we promised a lot of posts on our travels abroad.  And somehow, we haven't fulfilled those promises.  I just wrote down as many of our travels and/or memorable events I think we should write a blog post about and came up with 35(!) at minimum.  This is where I figure the Blog Police could have helped us out by ticketing us every time we waited 3 months or more to write about an event.  Maybe the ticket would actually be an automatic post that says snide things about our character or posts embarrassing pictures of us or even tells outright lies that we would need to clear up ASAP, or better yet, maybe we would be fined and that money would be used to offset our (ginormous) carbon footprint or it would be donated to a worthwhile charity (like those poor Blog Police who have to keep track of the millions of blogs out there). 

One of the things I think we have done pretty well on our blog is to write posts about every day life - not just our whirlwind travels.  So, my list of 35+ includes a few of the things we've done in and around Sofia.  I would truly love to be able to post regular blogs (maybe weekly) that include not only our travels, but also our thoughts about world news, little pieces of our every-day lives, something we thought was funny, profound insights, inane stories, or anything we think you, dear reader, will enjoy reading.  I thought with changing jobs this school year, that I would have more time to devote to keeping our blog updated.  Not so, apparently. 

Well, we have 2 more months in Bulgaria/Europe, then we will be back in the good ole US of A.  For those of you who haven't heard yet, we are moving to Massachusetts at the end of August.  Jeff will be teaching science and starting a sustainability program at a prestigious boarding school and I (hopefully) will be finding my way back into the GIS world.  The past several months were a whirlwind of Jeff having Skype interviews AND being flown back to the States for on-campus interviews - twice.  Definitely some highs and lows in those experiences but ultimately, Jeff was offered 3 different jobs!  It was so nice to be sought after in this stunted economy. 

We will be done with our work here at the end of June, then we plan to travel around Europe during July.  Our flight back to the States puts us back in Colorado on July 31.  Then we'll be travelling around the States during August and back to work by the end of August.  Our biggest trip this summer is a week-long hike through the Swiss Alps (staying in huts along the way).  This has been a dream of our since we honeymooned in Switzerland and Italy in 2008.  We also plan to visit Slovenia, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Budapest (all on our bucket list!).  In the US, we will be in Colorado for a few days to see my family, hopefully Yellowstone and Bozeman for a few days, San Francisco for a wedding, Minneapolis to see my sister and her family, and a variety of places in Michigan to see Jeff's family.  Whirlwind.


I'm rambling.  I guess my point of this post was to say that I'm sorry we haven't been posting regularly and I hope to change that.  Today Jeff is on a Hiking Club excursion with some students (I refused to get up at 6AM on a Saturday, so I didn't go), and I promised him that I would try to get a couple of blog posts written while he's out enjoying what Bulgaria has to offer.  I'm trying to decide if I should write about the oldest topic and move forward or if I should write about last weekend and go backward.  Or maybe I'll mix it up and do this in no particular order! 

And if Jeff and I are good about writing, hopefully there will be blog posts about all of these things!  And if we are not good about writing, maybe the Blog Police will help us donate to offset our ridiculously huge carbon footprint...


It's a beautiful day in Sofia - around 70 degrees and sunny.  Nice after having a couple of weeks of cold rain.  The chestnut trees and lilac bushes are in full bloom - the scents around me are heady!  Our campus is an island of vivid bright green surrounded by city.  We are blessed to be living in such a lovely place!


Наздраве!

Taxi Driver #2

So when we first arrived in Bulgaria Jeff wrote a funny post about a somewhat crazy taxi driver we had one evening entitled, "Taxi Driver #1."  We expected to have many more taxi drivers to talk about but for the most part all the drivers we've had have been courteous and friendly.  Until this evening.

Margaret, a friend of my coworker, Lindsay, arrived in Sofia tonight and seeing as how I was the only international staff on campus, I went to greet her at the gate (you have to have a gate pass to get in and she doesn't have one yet).  Lindsay will be arriving later tonight.

Anyway, when the taxi pulled up to the gate I expected Margaret to pay, jump out, get her bags, and we would be on our way back onto campus.  But instead it looked like she and the taxi driver were arguing.  Did she forget to get leva at the airport?  Did she not have enough?  Finally, she stepped out of the car and said, "Are you Shannon? I'm Margaret.  He's charging me 37 lv for this ride and I don't have enough money."  I was dumbfounded!  It costs no more than 8 lv to get from the airport to campus.  This is when I realized that this was not OK Taxi (the reliable and trustworthy company that we always use).  And according to the sign on his window, he charges 4.99 lv for every km.  This is absurd!

So we argued with him - me saying it should only be 8 lv, Margaret saying she would pay 15 lv if he would just give her bags to her (they were in the trunk), him saying it's his company and that's what he charges and he would call the police.  He wouldn't budge.  Grr.  I hadn't brought any cash with me to meet her, so she finally convinced him that if he would take her to an ATM she would pay 30 lv.  What a rip off!  So off they went.

When they got back about 10 minutes later she got out of the car and said, "I'm really sorry to do this to you Shannon, but the ATM wouldn't take my card, so can I borrow 10 lv?"  Poor thing!  What a terrible welcome to this country (although she had been here before). So I ran back to my house, grabbed some cash, and ran back to Margaret and the taxi driver (probably took me more than 5 minutes - it's a bit of a distance from the gate).  I gave her a ten, she had 15, the driver demanded 30 and finally accepted the 2 American dollars she had in her wallet.  We both told him how rude this was, what a rip-off it was, how if he had just accepted the 15 in the first place he could have gotten other fairs already, and finally, how he made an incredibly poor welcome to foreigners here. His response was, "It's not my problem."  Jackass.

The sad thing about this is that Margaret was well-prepared for this.  Lindsay had given her enough cash for a snack and a cab ride from the airport.  She had instructed her to only take OK Taxi and to beware of impostors.  Margaret even asked the person helping her to the taxi if it was OK Taxi and he said yes.  The truth was that the O in OK had a slash in it and they were called Softrans instead of Supertrans (in Cyrillic of course: софтранс vs. супертранс - how is someone who doesn't read Cyrillic supposed to tell the difference?!?).  In fact, their phone number was off by only one digit from OK's phone number.  So having only been here once before, having been told this was OK Taxi, and, I suppose, believing that people are inherently good, Margaret got in and didn't think to look at the price. And paid a price for the corruption that is so common in this country.

So, to finish this story, we love OK Taxi and really hate those nasty impostors.  Here is a good description of how to tell the real OK Taxi from the fake ones (especially at the airport) by our friend Carolyn http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/yeah-o-k-taxi/.  This will be especially useful to anyone who might be traveling here.

We'd heard about this sort of bad experience with the taxis here, but until this evening had not had the pleasure of actually having one of these experiences.

Welcome to Bulgaria, Margaret.  I hope the rest of your stay is much more pleasant.

Sounds of Spring

Spring has (hopefully) sprung here in Sofia. I'm sure we'll get some more snowstorms, but the grass is greening up, flowers are starting to appear, birds are chirping, and martenitzi are getting taken off of wrists and hung on flowering tree branches (I myself am holding out a few more days). As I soaked in some sun this fine morning over breakfast on the patio, I couldn't help but enjoy the sound of the birds. I think the birds here sing much more than in other places I've lived. Woodpeckers (several kinds), owls, jays, hawks, various songbirds -- so many kinds withing 300 meters of my house! I don't know if it's because of the deciduous forest here that there is more bird diversity than in the Western US, or because the park-like school campus provides a refuge from the concrete jungle of Sofia, or because my ears are just tuned into hearing things that don't sound like snow. :) I'm also happy to report that, as much as we miss Montana, winter is probably 2-3 months shorter here, something I'm totally OK with. Sofia had a lovely fall, and I think spring will be nice too -- two seasons that don't really exist in Bozeman. Spring break is coming in less than a week (Dad will be here on Wednesday!), and we're ready! I walked around the woodlot behind my house with my still camera, trying to catch the sounds of spring. I put the video on lowest quality, just because I was really trying to catch the sounds more than the visuals. My apologies for the sometimes jerky Blair Witch-like footage. Maybe I'll try this again soon with our camcorder, which I suppose might do better with audio & video. In the meantime, enjoy, and you'll probably have to turn up the volume on your computer to hear much. You also can appreciate Saturday-morning construction, traffic noise, bees, barking dogs -- I think it's a nice mix. The first video is a close up of some bees in the newly bloomed wildflowers in-between the faculty housing and the classrooms, and the second & third are taken along the path in the woodlot.

Saturday Night Musings

It's still fall in Sofia, unlike Bozeman and Gardiner from what I hear.  Snow?!?  -1F?!?  Montana has forgotten a season!  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?  Actually, maybe whiskey, tango, and foxtrot will help all the poor souls who missed fall to keep warm...  We're supposed to get snow next week - maybe even for my birthday!

It's been a really long week.  A couple of weeks ago I was pretty much ready to quit my job here.  I don't enjoy being a teacher.  This is the hardest job I have ever had - this is even harder than finishing my PhD - and that was no easy task!  I have no complaints (or very few ;-)) about the school, my fellow teachers and other staff, the students (except for one or two rotten apples), or really anything about this experience, except that I don't like teaching.  I never realized how invested a person has to be to be a teacher!  I come home utterly exhausted - mentally, emotionally, physically - every day.  I can't imagine teaching all year long - I would go completely  insane.  Thank goodness for the summer "break".  Anyway, I think I've gotten over the getting used to the new job hump though.  I don't think I'm going to quit - at least for the first year, we'll see about the second.  I have decided that I do not want to be a teacher.  I suppose that's not all that surprising.  I had hoped that I would grow to like it.  Maybe I will, but I'm not holding my breath.  When we leave Bulgaria I will find a job back in the GIS world.  That is my passion.  And I'm good at it.  And I'm comfortable doing it.  And even though I regularly swear at my computer, it doesn't ask anything more of me than some electricity and sometimes a connection to the internet.  I can do that.  :)

So, back to the long week.  I had a lesson last week that included a slide show with pictures of the Mount St. Helens 1980 eruption.  I think this was the first time I actually saw some interest from the students.  So apparently I have to show cataclysmic events to get their attention.  I felt like that lesson went fairly well.  Then on Friday (which right now is the first day of my teaching week, so I start a new lesson then) I gave my first quiz.  I think my students hate me now.  I gave it to two sections.  Out of nearly 40 kids only 5 or 6 were able to finish it.  I have not graded them yet - that's this evening's task - so I don't know how anyone did.  But I'm afraid there are going to be a lot of really bad grades.  Is this because they don't know how to study, I didn't teach the topics well enough, I simply made the quiz too hard?  I don't know.  I've only met the kids 3 times prior to the quiz, so I haven't been able to pass along a lot of information.  Plus we're all getting to know each other.  I guess this quiz will be an assessment of my communication skills as well as the kids' study habits.  I teach the 9th grade.  When these kids were 8th graders they studied 4 major subjects: English, math, science, social studies; and then had a few more fun classes like PE and music.  Now in 9th grade they have 14 subjects!  Can you imagine how hard that would be to adjust to?!?  So it falls to me and the other 9th grade teachers to help them figure out how to manage their time well so they can pass all these classes.  I supposed by giving them a really hard first quiz they will learn quickly how much work they're going to have to do to keep up in my class.

Oh and the longest thing about the week was writing the quiz on Thursday evening, along with writing a homework assignment (actually Jeff did that for me), coming up with a group project for the kids, and figuring out a lecture for this week's lesson.  Ugh.  I was up way too late and still didn't get everything as ready as I would like it.  This is the thing that I promised I would never do again.  I seriously need to be at least one week ahead in my lesson planning.  Thus tomorrow will be a lesson planning day.

Wow - I'm just blathering away here.  I hope you're still reading...

Today we had an open house at the school.  This is where parents get to come in and meet the teachers and find out what is expected of their children in each class.  I think about 20 sets of parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles visited me today.  About half spoke English.  I had an interpreter with me - she graduated from this school many years ago and is working in Sofia right now.  Most of the parents just wanted to meet the new teachers, but a few were curious about  my first impressions of their children.  Having only met each child 3 times prior to this it was a little hard to express my first impressions.  I remembered all of the students and all but one stuck out in some way - that is I remembered them because they have been participating in some way or another.  It was interesting having a conversation through an interpreter.  I wasn't sure which person to look at as I talked!  I heard some words that were familiar, but still couldn't tell exactly what they were saying in Bulgarian.  The open house was for 4 hours.  So during the time that no parents were in my classroom, Valentina and I chatted about her experience here, her university studies and what she's doing now.  She said she loves to hike, so we swapped emails and hopefully will be able to go outside and play together sometime.

So I've set up a website for my students.  It's really bare, but it keeps them informed.  If you want to look at it click here.

Jeff went out with a mixed group of international and Bulgarian teachers to Murphy's Irish pub in downtown Sofia this evening.  I couldn't bring myself to join the party, though.  I'm pretty peopled out.  But I will definitely have to visit the Irish Pub in Sofia, Bulgaria.  Tee hee.  That just makes me laugh.

Still here?

I apparently had a few things to say.  Well, I'll close up these musings with a picture or two for your viewing pleasure.  First, there are some trees on campus that grow these almost tennis ball size fruits that basically look like lime green puffer fish.  I don't have any pictures of the fruits when they're green, but I now have pictures of the fruits after they have dried up and fallen from the tree.  I've heard that these are either buckeyes or chestnuts of some sort.  You can hear the seeds falling and you have to be wary as you walk under the tree or you might get pummeled.

The red things are the seeds - about the size of a large marble.  The brown spiky things are the outer shell of the fruit and the yellowish thing is also the shell but the inside.  The leaf was just on the ground but is not from the tree that these beauties fell from.

Another view for scale:

And one more completely random pic from the far distant past.  I finally reconnected with my friend from many years ago, Lori, from Ohio and she sent this picture to me from a time long, long ago...

Lori is on the right, I'm on the left (did I really have such blonde hair?!?) and Lori's little sister Chris is in the middle.  I hope that puts a smile on everyone's face!  Happy Saturday!

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 Birthday

Last week I turned 31 in Bulgaria -- it was my first international birthday. It was a very busy day, and I had many new experiences.
[I apologize for generally unimaginative writing in this post...we just got back from a several day new faculty bonding trip (more on that in a later post) and I'm pretty tired.]

Shannon was unfortunately chained to her computer most of the day, working on edits to her dissertation (she's almost done), so I had to find other partners for adventure. I was feeling antsy in the morning, so decided to go for a run. I headed out the back gate to try to find the base station for the Simeonovo gondola, which services the ski area (and hiking/biking in the summer) on nearby Mt. Vitosha. I had to cross the Sofia "Ring Road" to get there, which I was expecting to be an expressway, but was actually a severely overcrowded (bumper-to-bumper) 2-lane road at the part nearest campus. [I later learned that the Ring Road is also a major prostitute hangout for Sofia, but I didn't notice any of this on my run!] It only took 15 minutes to run to the base of the gondola, where I could have spent 10-14 leva (about $8-10) for a round-trip ticket up the mountain, depending on how high I wanted to go. I had hoped to come back later in the day to do some hiking on the mountain, but couldn't find willing adventuring partners. Instead I found folks interested in going into Sofia, and I hadn't been there yet.

I rode the Metro train with Garth to meet another new faculty member, Carolyn, downtown. Carolyn was in Sofia last year on a Fulbright scholarship (teaching English), and liked it so much she's working at our school this year. Carolyn used to live downtown, so she made an excellent tour guide of the old part of the city.


Birthday Self-portrait #1

Downtown Sofia is quite nice, and pleasantly very different from the Mladost neighborhood where I live. Mladost is on the outskirts of the city, and must have been a planned Soviet-style development (the sub-neighborhoods are actually numbered, Mladost 1, Mladost 2, Mladost 3, and Mladost 4). In Mladost there are lots of high-rise Soviet-type block apartments, interspersed with vacant, weedy/littered lots, interspersed with pastures (complete with cows/horses), interspersed with brand-new development. Quite a mish-mash. Sidewalks are inconsistent when they exist at all, often interrupted, abandoned, or parked on.

Mladost streetlife


Mladost View: The two towers are part of the police academy on the land that used to be my school campus (before communism). Both were abandoned mid-construction around 1990. The right tower is still derelict (and is the view out my bedroom window), while the left tower is finally being finished, and is now almost done. The buildings to the right of the towers are the under-construction "Russian School", which is less than a 1/2 mile from my "American School" oddly enough. Vacant fields in front, and Mt. Vitosha in back.

Downtown Sofia, on the other hand, is a smallish, low-key version of many of the other European cities I've visited. There is plenty of streetlife, and it is all very walkable. Streetfront shops, streetcars, street vendors, grand old churches and stone buildings with nice architecture.
After a tasty "modern Bulgarian" lunch, we took a stroll.

This is Carolyn showing us a big bowl of french fries covered in local cheese.


Artfully aged building on the street in downtown Sofia where Carolyn used to live.


We passed lots of booksellers (a few things in English) with tables under tents, a nice park across from the National Theater (with some guys playing backgammon), and several churches, including the Alexander Nevski Cathedral, the "largest Orthodox Christian cathedral in the Balkans." It was built to honor the Russians (mainly) that "liberated" the Bulgarians from the Ottoman Turks, after 500 years of Turkish rule (around 1878, but I don't have my dates down exactly). It was my first time in a Orthodox church. [The Russians were mostly acting out of self-interest, trying to have a friendly pawn instead of a foreign empire controlling Balkan/Black Sea transit routes, but that's a different post...]


Booksellers downtown. Customer service is spotty in Bulgaria, especially in Sofia. I picked up a Chemistry textbook to show to Carolyn and the saleswoman ripped it out of my hand to shoo me away. At another stand, the guy was more friendly, and wanted to chat in broken English. He talked about how "America is great country, but with terrorism, many people hate. You are rich and free, but don't want others rich and free. You need export your standard of life."
Interesting, and I wish we could have spoken each others' languages better for a more in-depth conversation.


Street life.


The National Theater in Sofia


Fountain in the park across from the National Theater.


Russian Church


Nevsky Cathedral


Flower ladies in front of Nevsky

Inside the church you first notice the burning incense, and the prayer candles. It's a good vibe. It is big, and ornate, but felt more actively used and spiritual (and somewhat less of a tourist point, though it certainly is one) than many of the large Catholic cathedrals we toured last summer in Italy. In Bulgaria the custom is to buy gifts for others on your birthday, so I bought Carolyn some gelato (Garth didn't want any) by the National Theater and Shannon some flowers by the cathedral. The flower ladies probably picked these flowers from their garden, and this might be their only source of income, so I didn't mind too much as they somehow talked me _up_ in price. My language skills are certainly still at the "I'm a tourist, please take advantage of me" stage.


I returned to campus (about an hour travel, including the metro ride and walking back from the station) in time to head out to dinner (Pizza, Bulgarian style) with most of the international faculty who had arrived so far.

Pizza in Bulgaria has a thin crust and light sauce (similar to Italy), but the toppings can get pretty weird: corn, peppers, pickles, eggs...some are good, some may be an acquired taste. There's a typical pizza place right outside the campus gates, but this was an "upscale joint" about a mile way. Tasty, and it was a fun crowd for dinner conversation.

Birthday Dinner with Shannon

The remaining 7 new international faculty were set to arrive in Sofia around 11 pm. We wanted to welcome them to their new home (it made the first night so much better for us when folks came over to our apt) so we had a bit of dance party while waiting for them to arrive. I got to dance really white to birthday themed songs in 3 different languages (English, Bulgarian, and Spanish). It was a good time.

When the van carrying the new arrivals rolled onto campus around 11:45 pm, I don't think they knew what hit them. About 10 people accosted them out of the dark, carrying bottles of beer for them and shouting "Welcome to Bulgaria!"
We shared beverages and stories until close to 2am on our porch.

Whew...this is sort of a laundry list of happenings, but it's all still a little too fresh for a more interesting reflection. Hope you enjoy the pictures anyway.

Lastly, thanks to all that emailed, called, left messages, or Facebook posts with birthday greetings -- they were much appreciated!

I Love Love Love Our New Apartment

Especially the pink comforter we got (and check out those pillows!):


Well, Jeff doesn't really like it. In fact, he's going to head to a bedding store today to get a new comforter, new sheets, and some pillow cases. I think Ivo (our friendly all-around go to good guy on campus) is going to get the rest of the furniture for all the flats in our villa today. Including a TV. We have cable for the first time in our young marriage. We're hoping to learn some Bulgarian via the news channels, but I'm guessing we'll still spend more time in front of the computer than the TV.

Here is a map of where we live now:


View American College of Sofia in a larger map

You can zoom out to see a couple of other landmarks we've bookmarked.

Jeff might have already mentioned this, but we're living in the villa called "Frat House" or Villa 16. There are three flats here: two single-story units and one two-story unit. We are in the back in the two-story unit. Bedroom and bathroom upstairs, kitchen, living room, and small bathroom downstairs. Everything is brand new - except the antique stairs - and very modern. We're guessing around 600 sq ft of living space. Lots of light. I love it! So, a quick tour:

Front door - we have a nice patio space

Kitchen

Living Room

Cupboard under the stairs :)

Stairs

Bedroom with the bathroom through the closet

Bathroom - we have a very nice and very large shower. The whole room is tiled and there is a drain in the floor, so I suppose we could just hose down the room to clean it.

Apparently we'll be getting some more cabinets/closets in the (near?) future. We are lacking in storage space, so we look forward to getting cabinets installed.

We've met a lot of really neat people. There will be 18 international teachers living on campus this year and 6 off campus (about a mile away). We're starting to make plans for weekly poker (or other card game) nights, progressive dinners, and other general hanging out events. Every day I feel more comfortable and ready to face this new job.

The rest of the new international teaching staff arrives tomorrow evening. We'll have a welcome dinner at the boss's place on Wednesday, then off on a little school-led tour of some well-known locations in southwest Bulgaria: Rila Monestary and Melnik, along with a little village that I can't remember the name of. Back on Saturday. Officially we report to work on September 3.

Oh - and we are finally getting a taste of summer. The days have been sunny and warm and we don't even have to wear long-sleeves at night. We had to get a fan to keep us cool at night. We've been told it's really dry here. Ha! Apparently those people haven't been to Montana or Colorado, because it's relatively humid here compared to there! And now there is a bit of a thunder storm happening on Mount Vitosha (the mountain south of our flat). Haven't gotten any rain here yet though.

That's it for now. До скоро!
-Shannon

Into the city: Metro & Rakiya

After a lazy day on campus spent recovering from jetlag and months of general insanity, Shannon and I went into Sofia proper (we are about 5 miles from the center).  We went with veteran teacher Sarah (she taught geography and biology last year, and will teach biology this year) and met up with Garth, a new English teacher. Garth has been in Sofia for a few weeks already, and took quite a few Bulgarian lessons (many more than us) from the same instructor we were using for the last few months.  He can actually speak some, whereas we are barely able to sound out words. Oh well...we'll get better.

Above: Walking to the Metro. Here is a busy Sofia street in our neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, known as "Mladost." This is also a good example of Soviet-era apartment blocks.

Above: Looking south back towards campus and Mt. Vitosha, the mountain on the edge of Sofia. The geography reminds me somewhat of Pasadena, actually, with a big, gently-sloped mountain adjacent to a sloping plain.

 

Yes, that is indeed the Golden Arches, open 24 hours even. That is the Cyrillic transliteration (in italic script, which is quite different than regular script) of "McDonalds."

We walked about 30 minutes to the brand-spanking-new (opened in April 2009, I think) metro station. It was probably the nicest subway station I've seen, which was in contrast to the actual subway cars, which appeared to both be new while also being 1970s Soviet surplus. Kind of funny. I'll have to get a photo later to post.

 

On the Metro...on an above-ground portion.

 

Sarah and Garth, on the Metro

Dinner was at Pod Lipite ("Under the Linden Tree") a nice restaurant that served traditional bulgarian cuisine. We all had yummy bread and a shopska salad (a tasty Bulgarian standard, made primarily of tomatoes, cucumbers, and a feta-like cheese). After we ordered the salads, our waiter, who speaks American English after living in the US for several years, suggested that we really needed to have rakiya with our shopskas to make it more authentically Bulgarian.

Ah, rakiya.
Rakiya is a brandy, usually made of plum or grape, that is often homemade and is considered the national beverage of Bulgaria. It is also considered the national beverage of several other Balkan nations,  but saying that out loud (especially after much rakiya has been imbibed) might be enough to start another Balkan land war. Andris and Prairie tried to convince to drink some of their clearly-homemade rakiya that they had brought back from Bosnia, but I managed to decline, expecting I would be in for plenty of rakiya merry-making in Bulgaria.

As the waiter was challenging both my manhood and my level of cultural experimentation, I figured I had to try. Garth also took up the challenge. I expected it to be terrible. It was...much worse.  The nose was like a fine plastic-bottle tequila, like Pepe Lopez mixed with an equally-refined vodka such as Wolfschmidt. Not so bad. But the body...Drain-O with hints of Windex, I'd say. Horrid. Luckily, they don't serve it as a shot or in a tumbler with ice, but in a little bottle like a airplane wine bottle, forcing you to sip, and thus truly savor, these fine flavors. If you start with some shopska salad, do a rakiya sip, then immediately replace it with more shopska, the burning in your eyes isn't so bad. Apparently rakiya is an acquired taste.

 

Our first rakiya sip...

 

After...ooh, it burns. Notice the grimaces.

I only had a single serving of rakiya, and about 1.5 glasses of wine with dinner, but this morning I felt like I'd been hit by a truck, tired and sore all over. The rakiya seems a somewhat improbable culprit, but considering I didn't really do anything yesterday, I'm not sure what else to blame.  Not looking forward to more rakiya anytime soon.

-Jeff

WANTED: Dead or Alive!

This is a quick post, especially for Scarlis and Jenny G. As we got into the van at the airport last night, the song playing on the radio was none other than Bon Jovi's Wanted: Dead or Alive. 80s rock is alive and well in Bulgaria. Things are going to be alright. :)

Sofia, finally!

After one of the craziest weeks of our lives, we finally made it to Sofia, Bulgaria! Let's recap the week. Last Friday, Shannon successfully defended her PhD thesis, and is now "Doctor Shannon," a doctor of Ecology and Environmental Studies. That evening we had a great going away/PhD celebration party at our house. It was supposed to be a BBQ on the patio, and we were supposed to be all packed before-hand, but constant rain and our massive piles of stuff messed with those plans. Oh well...we just shoved aside the packing boxes and had the party inside. Thanks so much to everyone who came -- it was great to see you all and we appreciated your well wishes.

We spent all day Saturday packing, with Shannon's dad doing a masterful job with stuffing the Uhaul truck. We didn't get on the road until 7:30 at night (a wee bit after our planned 9am departure), drove til midnight, got up at 6 am and drove the rest of the 750 miles down to the Denver area, arriving just in time for another going away party! :) Down at Shannon's parents we got to spend the evening with her aunts and uncles and our friends Heather, Bajji, Dave, Leah, and Hanna. Thanks all for coming out to see us off.

Monday was more packing, as well as all the last minute "Oh my god we're leaving the country for 2 years" tasks, so we were up until well past midnight, again. Just trying to get so exhausted that we could sleep anytime, I suppose. We left for the Denver airport at 6:30 am.

Tip for international travelers: don't get 3 legs of your flight on 3 different, non-partner airlines. We didn't have a choice, as we didn't buy our own tickets, but it made life much more difficult, having to go to the ticket window in Denver, Chicago, and London to get our boarding pass for the next flight, and each time beg/cajole them to not charge us again for the extra luggage (United claimed months ago that we could pay them up front for the whole trip, then tried to change their story at the airport...not OK.)

After wandering Heathrow stupidly for almost 2 hours as we tried to figure out our next flight, we eventually got to use part of our 8.5 hour layover to take the tube ("Mind the gap!") into the city and spend a brief lunch break at the Tower or London with Chryssi (we're excited to be on the same continent as her again).

Traveling is almost always tiring and somewhat stressful (at least the way I usually travel...sorry Shannon!), but as we were on our approach to Sofia it started to hit me just what we were getting ourselves into. I said to Shannon, "I've done some crazy sh*t in my life, but this is definitley up towards the top of the list!" We were arriving well after dark in a new country where we didn't speak the language, we didn't know where we would be staying, if anyone would be around to orient us, if we could even get to a grocery store the next day, yikes yikes yikes.
As we landed, the passengers applauded, and a smile broke over my face. I like places where they still applaud a safe landing (or is it the excitement of a vacation destination?), as opposed to just expecting perfection.

We got all of our luggage (8 checked bags in total, plus 2 carry-ons each). We just walked right through customs without even slowing down. The school sent a driver with a big van for us, and took us on the surprisingly short (<15 minutes) drive to the school, which is set off from the main city a bit and is very quiet and peaceful on campus. We weren't sure if we were going to be living on campus or about a mile away, but we were taken to a beautiful apartment right on campus. They are still working on restoring the building, turning what was known as the "Frat House" into 3 separate apartments, but this one is done, and all the furnishings/fixtures/walls are brand new (they were still assembling furniture yesterday). We aren't sure that we'll get to stay in this unit, but we hope so...it's probably the nicest apartment I've ever had! We were very happy that the school had been thoughtful enough to buy a few essentials for us (bread, cheese, meat, soap, beer, wine...), which made the apartment much more welcoming.

After we'd been here about half an hour (about 11pm), 3 of our new colleagues came by to welcome us. It was very much appreciated, as we could ask them lots of questions (and polish off that bottle of wine the school had left us!).

I'll post some photos later on, but things are going well so far. Everyone has been very helpful and friendly, our apartment (or what will hopefully be our apartment) is great, and the campus seems nice and wooded.

Thanks to everyone who has been sending us well wishes. It was very hard to say goodbye to everyone -- we hope you'll write/call.

FYI, you can call us at area code (зоз) 5eight6-lfive71, and it will connect to us via Skype [I put some weird characters in the phone # to ward off web-crawling robo-spammers, but if you can't read it, just email us]. Free for us, and all it costs you is whatever a call to Denver costs (no international charges). We're 7 hours ahead of US Eastern Time Zone here, and are still trying to get used to the jet lag.

bye for now...
jeff