I've been to a lot of high school proms. I attended 3 at Holt High School (with Kelly, Beth, and Lindsay), 1 at Onsted High (with Beth), and then chaperoned 6 or 7 more, at Westridge and Webb (with Laura). Last year I didn't get to the ACS prom because I was enjoying post-op at Tokuda Hospital, but this year, I was all in. Sadly, Shannon couldn't join me (it would have cost her over $100), but I'm sure she'll get her chance to attend a prom or twenty with me in the future.
At some level, all proms are the same. The kids dress themselves up all fancy: some of the guys look downright manly, and many of the girls look way too good. Families take lots of "they're so grown up!" photos, the kids get an expensive dinner, a big ballroom is rented, cheesy music is danced to, and kids stay out all night at after-parties doing all sorts of things that parents pretend/hope they wouldn't.
Some things are not the same in Bulgaria. The main differences here were that 1. This was not a school-sponsored event and 2. All the seniors can legally smoke and drink. Which they do. A lot.
I didn't attend this year's prom as a chaperone, making sure kids were behaving. I attended as a guest, invited by the senior class, to take part in their general mis-behaving. It was a very different experience.
The prom-goers start out on campus for class photos around 6pm. With all the parents, grandparents, and siblings well-wishing (and some rented professional photogs/videogs capturing every moment), they took their places standing on the steps of Sanders Hall, just like their beginning of 8th grade photo, except now the girls were in formal gowns, the guys in suits (almost no tuxes), and they were drinking champagne out of their recently earned intramural soccer championship trophy. Yeah, they did that. As a bulgarian senior tradition, the students chant their numbers, counting to twelve ("Edno, dve, tri, cheteri, pet, shest, sedem, osem, devet, deset, edinaiset, dvaiset, WHOOOOOOOOO!") before cheering wildly. If you didn't know your numbers before, a few minutes at picture session would set you straight.
Teachers looking fancy: Lindsay, Pei Pei, Jeff, Hanna, and Abby
Some of the dresses were classy, looking like Jackie O or Helen of Troy. Some looked more like burlesque performers or something in a Tim Burton show. To protect the innocent, I'll skip some of those photos, though I have to say that given the rather revealing things these students wear to school regularly, I'd have to say that the dresses were overall much less whore-ish than I expected, and probably as a whole more decent than the ones from US proms.
All the kids were then shuttled downtown to the Sheraton (the first non-Socialist hotel to open in the country) in various luxury vehicles...it was a fancy car parade: Mercedes, BMWs, Audi's, a swish Chrysler, a Lamborghini, convertibles, some classic cars, and a few students quietly getting into humbler rides.
OK Supertans: The somewhat less-swanky transit option chosen by the teachers.
At the Sheraton, with all the relatives still in toe, more counting to twelve ensued a the entrance. (" ...edinaiset, dvaiset, WHOOOOOOO!!!!!) An Asian man in his late twenties, casually dressed in a t-shirt and shorts and apparently a guest at the Sheraton, looked on with fascination, watching the whole procedure for a good 15 minutes.
All the teachers of seniors plus a few honored extras received prom invitations from the seniors. Considering how much they must have spent on the room, food, and alcohol, I considered it an honor to attend. After waiting for more pictures and "WHOOOO!-ing", the teachers snuck inside and got seated. As a walked in the ballroom, I was handed a glass of champaign. So this is how it was going to be.
Before I got started on my plate of appetizers, a waiter came around offering healthy glasses of whisky and vodka (I declined). Sitting on the table were several bottles of tasty Bulgarian wine (and some Coke, Fanta, and water, just in case). At Westridge prom I had to help the dean of students look for drunk kids, as they would be breathylyzed and severely punished if they were caught drinking. Here students kept coming over to the teacher tables for toasts. Odd.
Besides the smoking and drinking, most of the official prom continued as any other prom would. Some awkward dancing, a dance-off for king and queen, and some teachers trying to stay awake (but mostly the teachers were on the dance floor, getting down).
Faculty table at prom
Dancing the horo at prom (I joined in)
Prom dancefloor. At this point Boyan still had his shirt on.
Teachers mixing it up at prom.
I like this shot.
At midnight the official prom ended, and most students migrated to Sin City, a popular chalga club, for the after-party. Chalga is a Bulgarian creation, a very danceable mix of traditional folk music with a techno beat, all set to insipid/degrading lyrics. There are MTV-like channels and radio stations that play nothing but chalga. Other balkan countries have similar versions of folk-techno, I think, and each country is sure that theirs is the original (just as each country is sure that Macedonia is really theirs...but I digress).
Sin City.
And so it begins. Sin City: the after-party.
Last year only a few teachers went to the after-party. but this year I think at least 10 of us made it. After standing in line to be frisked by some mafia-goons (who were supposedly checking IDs too, as you were supposed to be 18 to get in, but I saw plenty of 10th graders there, so they weren't checking too closely), I almost turned around when I saw that they wanted 30 leva to get in the door (about $22). A $22 cover charge might not seem like much to you US city-folk, but 30 leva will get you dinner for two including a little alcohol at a medium-nice restaurant in Sofia, so it's pretty steep. Sin City is considered the VIP dance club in town, where the celebrities and footballers go to celebrate. I decided it would be a cultural experience and needed to do it, regardless of the 30 leva .
The inside was, well, amazing. LOUD. My ears were still ringing 24 hours later. Bright and flashy, as any good club should be. And PACKED. The students had apparently reserved tables ahead of time that circled the elevated dance floor. I can only imagine what those tables cost, as they came with many, many bottles of very expensive booze. I'm guessing one of those tables (with booze) was 500-1000 leva, but I don't really know.
I only taught a handful of the senior class, so I didn't really know most of them. Too bad, as it was a pretty good show. This was where the booze was flying (and apparently some coke was being snorted). At a place called "sin city" packed with 100+ drunk, horny, and celebratory teenagers (not to mention the regular crowd of mafiosos and their prostitute-lite girlfriends, jammed into the corner and looking a little peeved about the high schooler intrusion), I expect dirty things happen. I tried to leave before I saw too many of them happen.
Can you spot the teacher on the dancefloor?
I danced a bit, both on the elevated dance floor and just in the regular area, and just watched the show. There was a small live band wandering around in addition to the DJ. It was fairly insane. I was both fascinated to watch the spectacle, but self-conscious about being the creepy old guy in the corner staring at teenagers. In the end I stayed about an hour, but as I saw more and more of my current students (all underage, likely there with a fake ID or bribing the doormen), I decided it was time to make for the exits.
It's about 1:30 am, and it's starting to be a junkshow. There are 3 drunk teachers (one partially obscured) in this shot.
All in all, it was an excellent experience. I doubt Deerfield prom will be quite the same!
Short video clip from Sin City:
Social-Political footnote: I couldn't imagine how frustrating it must be for European students to attend colleges in the US, after having (legal) social outlets available like Sin City, and then having to make do with house-parties and illicit dorm room drinking for a few years. Tell me again why the legal drinking age is 21 in the US? Were the kids at Sin City going to do stupid things while drunk? Of course, but no different than US college kids (or high school, for that matter) do at a house party. It seems as if the main reason we're so tough on teen drinking in the US is to prevent drunk driving. I'm all for preventing drunk driving, but maybe it would be better to focus on the driving part, instead of the drinking part. I think drunk driving is pretty rare in Europe (I need some stats to back me up), partly because public transit and taxis are so much more accessible, and partly because driving is so much more difficult (expensive/difficult to get a license, expensive to drive, and if you get busted for DD, you lose your license. Done. You might not get it back for years, if at all). End rant.
Many of you probably know that I had a nasty mountain biking accident several years ago. Actually, exactly 6 years ago, today. I spent 2 months in a neck brace and another month in physical therapy - I still can't turn my head very far to the right, but thankfully, that's the worst of my injuries. I was lucky and felt that I had been given a new chance in life, so I made the decision to move on from Yellowstone and try to live my life to the fullest in Bozeman.
Just a year and a few months later, I met Jeff. I new I was in trouble from day one. We had a crazy romance that at times I thought would go nowhere, but luckily 2 1/2 years after my accident, he proposed. We got married just over 3 years after, and we both finished our degrees just over 4 years after. Five years after the accident, we were living in Bulgaria and I was nearly done being a high school teacher. Now, 6 years later, we're still in Bulgaria and I'm a PR specialist - not something I ever expected to do in my life.
I think that I have successfully lived my life to the fullest during the last 6 years. I earned a Ph.D., I married an amazing man who luckily is not only my partner, but is my best friend (insert gag reflex here), I took a teaching job that I was terrified of - and survived, I tried another new job that is so completely different from anything I've ever done or trained for (and I think gained more priceless experience in communications), and I've travelled all over Europe and a bit of Africa and Asia. Now I'm getting ready for another move with Jeff - to Massachusetts in August. Another new chapter that I hope will be full of adventure. A pretty full life.
Today I've been going through what I've done on May 28th for the last 5 years - I always wanted to do something special as a sort of celebration of life. Sadly, I can't remember for a couple of the years, but here's what I do remember:
May 28, 2006 - My friend, Diane, and I went to the Sasquatch Festival at the Columbia River Gorge - heard some amazing music, ate "sasquitches", and stayed dry during a hail storm by huddling under a tarp; the best part was when the rainbow showed up behind us and Matisyahu spoke about second chances - seemed prophetic
May 28, 2007 - Jeff took me and his friend Chrissy and her boyfriend (now husband) David down the Narrows in Zion National Park - one of the most beautiful places on this planet, I think; an amazing hike
May 28, 2008 - ? I wish I could remember what I did then
May 28, 2009 - I had a party at our house to celebrate friends and life
May 28, 2010 - I was here in Bulgaria, I believe there was a birthday get together for Lindsay's birthday
Today, May 28, 2011 - This morning Jeff, Jess (a fellow teacher), and I took seven students to Vitosha Nature Park to join in the national Volunteer Day and help clean up parts of the trail that our school has adopted (this is an initiative I've been working on with the school that I hope continues after we leave!). It has been a beautiful sunny day and we all enjoyed being outside seeing all the flora and fauna of this mountain that is almost literally in my back yard. Wildlife sightings were: two snakes, one dead skink (legless lizard), and two forest long-legged frogs (man can they jump!). After returning home, Jeff and I napped out on the lawn - until it started raining, and then there was a very loud and quick thunderstorm - I'm sure two of those lightning strikes had to hit somewhere on campus. Tonight is also Prom for our school, so all the students (and their families) got gussied up and came to campus to have pictures taken. Prom is slightly different here in that it is not run by the school - in fact, other than the pictures on campus, it is not associated with the school, so the seniors actually invite teachers. If you were not invited, you can buy a ticket for the equivalent of $132. Jeff was invited because he teaches seniors. I was not and since I don't really know the seniors, I decided not to go. That's where Jeff is right now. I'm enjoying a quiet evening at home. I didn't take any pictures of the gussied up students, but I'm sure Jeff will and maybe we'll post some (although most of the dresses this year were fairly tame, unlike what I've heard other years have been like). Anyway, it has been a very nice and memorable day.
On that note, I will leave you with a couple of group pics:
The Vitosha Adopt-A-Trail Crew
Jeff and all of his prom dates!
I hope everyone enjoys their Memorial Day Weekend!
Last year we started hearing a bird in our back woods that had a very distinctive call (besides the cuckoo). It's a single note repeated every 5 seconds or so. We only ever heard it in the evening or at night and we started hearing it in early spring last year. We noticed it when we got back in August, but haven't heard it for a while until about a month ago. We called him our little foghorn bird.
Well, on April 19th, we had the first ever Earth Day Celebration at our school and one of the non-profit groups that attended was the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds, and the gentleman who was manning the booth was able to help me identify what this bird was. I described to him when and how often we heard the bird - and how it hadn't been heard in a while - and then I tried to imitate its call by saying "beep." Tee hee. He immediately said, does it sound like this? And proceeded to whistle the exact sound of the bird. When I said "yes! That's exactly it!", he said he thought it was the Scops Owl and it would probably be making an appearance in the next week or so.
And to my delight, it did exactly that - at least it's call did, I still haven't actually seen one. Scops owls are tiny (see this link for an example). I hope that some day I will be able to see one, but since they are mostly active when it's getting dark, it might be hard to see them. But I do get to hear them and honestly, I think it's one of the best sounds in the world (a purring kitty is the best sound in my opinion, closely followed by the laughter of a child, so I guess the call of a Scops owl is my third favorite sound). Every evening I hear a pair (or more pairs) having there one syllable conversations. And it just makes me smile.
I found a youtube video of 17 seconds that demonstrates the Scops owl call. Enjoy!
Ahhhh! Vacation. We ended our Egyptian adventure with several days in Dahab, a Red Sea resort. Our hotel was on the beach and we could see Saudi Arabia on the other side of the Gulf of Aqaba. The water was crystal blue and as we found out in our several days there, was the home to so many different species of fish and coral. We arrived in Dahab on January 1st after a painfully long van ride from Cairo. A ride over the Suez Canal and across the Sinai Peninsula. Desert. And more desert. It was hot and dry and blinding. Did I mention desert? Sand as far as the eye can see. With an occasional palm tree or sturdy desert plant. We stopped a few times and once even in what could be called a true oasis. But we didn't really stop for any food or for any movement, so the group of us (Jeff, Hanna, Pei Pei, and I, along with 4 other fellow travellers, Jaime and Maurizio from Columbia, and Catherine and George from Scotland) was pretty cranky by the time we got dropped off at our hotel. But we had to meet up with Ahmed (II- a different Ahmed than the one who took us to all the temples along the Nile) who wanted to take us on a tour of the 2 streets of Dahab and to some place to have tea before we actually tried to find dinner. We were all cranky enough that we grudgingly agreed to the tour, but broke off from the group to have dinner on our own. Jeff and I ended up finding a great Thai restaurant and enjoyed most of our meal (Jeff had to order a second meal because the first was simply too hot (spicy) for him to be able to finish - he was literally sweating).
Sad Jeff - Can't finish this very spicy meal.
Jeff has a New Year's Day tradition of trying to jump into the nearest natural body of water wherever he is. For several years he was in Chicago, so Lake Michigan was the body of water of choice - often excruciatingly cold. In fact, one year, I managed to convince him that jumping in would literally threaten his life - there was ice along the edge and large chunks of ice floating in the water - so we did snow angels next to Lake Michigan instead. In our bathing suits. That was cold enough! Luckily it was not that cold in Dahab. So we put on our Chacos and started wading out into the Red Sea. The tide was out, so the water was only a few inches deep. We weren't sure how far out the coral shelf was, so we decided not to go out that far (it was dark at this point and we were using our headlamps to be able to see what we were stepping on - as I said before, amazing amounts of life!). Jeff was considering just sitting down in the water when we spotted some movement by his feet. It was an eel!!!!! It must have been a baby eel - it was about a foot to a foot and a half long, white body with a black fringe on it's back, and a bright yellow head. I think it must have been a baby yellow-headed eel (http://www.grizzlyrun.com/Files/Images/Image_Gallery/yellow_headed_morey_eel_pic.jpg). With it's jaw wide open as eels do. It was pretty creepy to see in the water only inches from us and only lit up by our headlamps. Unfortunately, neither one of us had a camera, so no picture. That's when Jeff decided that a wade in the Red Sea was enough for his New Year's Day tradition.
The next several days were spent snorkeling, reading, relaxing, and enjoying the sun at the beach. The snorkeling was amazing. So many fish and the water was incredibly clear - we watched a lot of scuba divers and their bubbles while we enjoyed all the different fish and coral under the water. Life everywhere! It was beautiful! We even saw a lionfish - we were warned not to approach these guys, so it was cool to see it (from a distance!). After snorkeling the first day we discovered the joy of Bedouin tea. Yum! And warm! Especially after being in the water for some time. Jeff was so cold he stood in the sun shivering for at least half an hour before he even started warming up. The tea helped a bit.
Enjoying Bedouin tea after snorkeling. That's Ahmed II on the left.
While there we tried all sorts of different international dinners: Thai, Mexican, Indian, Italian (pizza). The restaurants often offered "American" breakfasts, which were varied and not usually something we Americans would have for breakfast (except for the fried eggs). Good, but not like home.
One day, Jeff decided to try windsurfing, while me and the girls got massages. Hanna and Pei Pei also braved the world of a hair cut and a facial. I have to admit that I was glad I didn't partake, especially when we saw the facial steamer they were using for Pei Pei and how it was plugged in to the outlet with _bare_ wires. She said she felt a shock or two.
Part of our tour package was a camel ride! We got on the camels and were led along the beach path to an area where we saw what seemed like hundreds of kite and wind surfers. We enjoyed a beach sunset again with Bedouin tea and Ahmed II did some card tricks for us. The camels made interesting noises behind us - they're hard to explain, maybe Jeff can add to this. All of us had sore thighs, stomachs, and backs after the ride. The camel movement is really exaggerated. You have to move your spine a lot to keep balanced. I wasn't going to pay for a camel ride, but I was glad this came with the package so I could experience it.
On our last full day there, Jeff and Pei Pei did a hike up Mt. Sinai while Hanna and I enjoyed a very lazy day at the beach. Jeff will hopefully write about his adventures in the mountains in the last of our Egypt travel series.
We changed our plans at the last minute so we could fly back to Cairo rather than suffer through another road trip across the Sinai. The fellow who picked us up to take us to the Airport was also named Ahmed (III). Apparently Ahmed is one of the most common names in Egypt. The crazy thing about flying out of Sharm el Sheikh was seeing the Russians in ski suits and furry boots getting ready to fly back to the cold north. It was blazing hot outside. Crazy juxtaposition.
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!
It’s now been almost 3 months since we were in Egypt, but Egypt has been on the minds of many across the world recently, and we’ve been glued to the updates that came out of Tahrir Square. I wrote this a month ago, on a plane, but was too busy to ever post it. Now that I'm on spring break, I actually have a minute to breathe and catch up.
I hope the months and years ahead yield increased democracy and opportunity for our new friends in Egypt. But we didn’t fly to Egypt to see a revolution, so here is another installment of the other, timeless Egypt, the one that everyone should really try to see once in their lives.
The Nile
“Egypt is the gift of the Nile,” as the saying goes. The longest river on Earth, it brings waters from rainy mountains of Ethiopia and jungles of Uganda to one of the driest places on Earth. In Upper Egypt (southern Egypt, but the upper reaches of the Nile) town of Aswan it is usually several years between rainfall events. The massive river rolling by the parched desert was really quite a difficult thing for my brain to reconcile.
Despite being only about 3% of the land area, the Nile Valley and Nile Delta are home to nearly all the arable land and nearly all the people in Egypt, and this has been true for thousands of years, so that is also where the vast majority of the historic temples and ruins are. This means that cruising the Nile is an essential way to connect with history and see the sights.
Nile cruise boats are the most popular way to see the sights, with rooms for hundreds of guests are often luxury affairs (floating hotels, really), though I’ve been warned that some are much seedier than they travel brochures promise. No matter. We wanted something more basic, more historic, more authentic, more…sailboat-y.
Our felucca, before we boarded in Aswan, with our faithful (and possibly not-yet-high) crew, Mustafa and Ramadan.
Rigging.
Glassy water reflecting the felucca and clouds along the Nile.
This is my favorite picture from the full-of-amazing pictures trip. It's now my computer desktop. You can see the Nile, feluccas, a tiny riverside oasis of green, then sandy sand forever.
The felucca is a traditional Nile boat. Broad abeam and with a huge lateen rig (only one sail, like a Sunfish, if you’ve sailed one, but about 3x the size), they are able to pull ashore easily (by pulling up the centerboard), move in the slightest of breezes, and are remarkably stable. The Nile flows north to the Mediterranean, but the prevailing winds blow to the south, making the Nile a perfect river highway. Today the feluccas are nearly entirely used for recreation, but it’s not just foreign tourists that go. Residents of Cairo (“Cairenes”) and other cities often hire a felucca for a few hours to laze away a sunny afternoon. Our boat was probably 14 feet wide and maybe 30 feet long. There was storage below deck but no cabins or bathrooms -- just an open deck boat with mattresses to lounge on and a canopy to keep off the sun.
Chilling on the mattress-covered deck. Shannon had a hard time believing I would want to do an activity this chill.
Hanna and Pei Pei chill-axing.
Hanna, Jeff, Shannon, Pei Pei wading into the Nile.
Our Nubian captain and mate (Mustafa and Ramadan) sailed and cooked us simple but delicious meals on a camp stove, while our job was to enjoy the scenery. The crew also stayed thoroughly glassy-eyed as they huffed on joints and listened to Bob Marley, but they seemed quite able to do their jobs adequately.
Captain at the helm.
In addition to our Nubian crew there were Hanna, Pei Pei, Shannon and I, our guide Ahmed, a doctor and lawyer from Columbia studying in the UK, and a Scottish retired couple that had lived in Tasmania for decades and this was their 92nd country visited. We watched the cruise boats steam up river in a hurry of black smoke while we lazily half-drifted downstream (not much wind, but we weren’t in a hurry). Shannon couldn’t believe that I would volunteer (even ask for) such a low-key component to the trip, but then again maybe she didn’t realize the medicinal effect that sailing has on the soul.
Shannon dangling her feet.
Feluccas tied up in the morning.
We sailed for 1.5 days, from the city of Aswan (by the big Aswan dam), but only made it maybe 50 km downriver (less than an hour’s drive). We had two nights on the boat, where we beached next to a flotilla of other maybe 10 other feluccas enjoying the same slow travel.
Doing Yoga in the desert.
The first night we tied up next to a Nubian village, so there were bathroom facilities (and a bar/restaurant if you wanted) on shore. The second night we were on an uninhabited beach, which meant that improvised latrine facilities were the order of the evening.
Or perhaps should have been the order. A few of the boats tied up nearby were full of 20-something singles on a party cruise, and they did what 20-something singles do. There was a fun (for a while…then this fuddy-duddy wanted to sleep) drum and dancing circle around the campfire, there was drinking, presumably there were trips to the bushes for some nookie. What there certainly was not was any sort of outhouse or designated toilet area. Hanna discovered just how poorly trained in outdoor hygiene this group was. After walking the wobbly gangplank from the boat to the beach, and heading out for a pre-bed pee, she came back to the boat understandably angered “Someone shat on the trail. It’s all over my pants.” Nice. Actually, in the morning I discovered the whole beach was littered in human shit-mines. Hey all tour operators: please install an outhouse or three at your beach landing spots, and/or train your passengers how to dig a proper backcountry cathole.
Campfire with drinking and partying and such. Us lame-o's left early, in time to find the shit on the trail.
But I digress from the point of this story…which was that just floating on the Nile (vaguely sailing, but mostly not going fast enough to qualify) was immensely satisfying. It was my favorite part of an overall unforgettable trip. “Roughing it” with no bathrooms aboard might not be for everyone, but if you like camping, you need to try a felucca ride. I only wish we had gone for more nights.
It felt timeless.
This wasn’t much different than how people had traveled 5000 years ago on the Nile.
We had time to read.
Time to Nap.
Time to watch the ibises and egrets.
Time to watch the small-time farmers work their tiny plots of irrigated, amazingly fertile Nile valley land.
Time to chat about world politics with Ahmed, who was happily and ridiculously wrong about the odds of a revolution in Egypt happening anytime soon.
Time to wade or swim in the Nile. It is a silent river, but moving quite fast. I had to swim basically full speed to stay put when heading upriver.
Time to play cards, including teaching ourselves an Egyptian game called tarneeb.
Time for Hanna the science teacher to explain to Ahmed, the Columbians, and Scots about the cycles of the moon.
Time to just be.
Like the Nile.
See some more photos below.
Crew climbing the mast in the morning to set the sails.
Sunset.
The big mainsail.
Hanna explaining the phases of the moon to Pei Pei Maurizio, Jaime, and our guide Ahmed (I).
A few hundred meters from the river...on a sand dune that pretty much stretched across the continent.
Today was awesome. It was also fully Bulgarian, and this post will not really do it justice, but I need to try. We have a 3-day weekend to cap off our flu-vacation, and we decided to stay local. Shannon is still recovering from the swine flu, and there are some corners of Bulgaria we still want to explore.
The city of Pernik is ugly. Really, really "gosh, I actually need to take a picture of that" ugly. It's an old coal-mining town about a 35 minute drive southwest of campus, and it is known for, among other things, decaying (but not entirely abandoned) industry and power plants.
Rusty "Skybar" in Pernik
Not-totally-abandoned factory (power plant?) in Pernik
Sounds like a great destination for a 3-day weekend, right? Pernik is also home to the annual "Surva" festival of masquerade games. This is the 20th one, andthe tradition goes back to the 1960s (it used to be biannual, but it has grown in popularity so much that now they do it every January). The games come out of pagan history and are a sort of New Year's festival, wishing for a good harvest, fertility, health, etc.The fun part is that people (men, mostly, but more and more women/children) dress up in crazy costumes (supposed to be monsters) to scare away the evil spirits for the new year.Cowbells are very very popular as well, which are supposed to enhance the power of the mask in scaring off the demons. That's the basic story. There is clearly a lot I don't understand, like why some people are dressed like clowns, or bears, or transvestite clowns...it's all a little overwhelming. Pernik's festival has become the largest in the Balkans, attracting 5000+ participants from all over the Balkans plus random ones from places like Spain and Palestine. People are drinking heavily. It's cold. It's loud. It's weird. It's wonderful. Enjoy the pictures, and for those around Bulgaria next year at the end of January, this spectacle really is a "must-see."
Check out the size of his cowbell. Compensating for something, perhaps?
These girls from the Ukraine just had the biggest grins.
Parts of his mask appear to be made with spray insulation. Awesome.
Shannon, Abby, and Kat with a member of my favorite Surva group, from Bansko. All of their costumes were of this sheepskin, and they danced to make it all shake and sway fantastically.
Shannon with Katerina, a woman she just met 5 minutes before. Katerina was from the Ukraine originally, but now lives in Bulgaria. She offered us hot wine, repeatedly, and rather insistently after she found out that Shannon had the flu. She invited us to her farm this spring. She was very drunk.
Proud Balkan mama and her cute Bansko monster-son.
Part of a town group from Gabarevo, with cannon.
This cross-dresser was really good at shaking his/her hips. I don't understand how they fit into the whole festival tradition, but most dance groups had a few.
Father and son monsters.
Festival poster.
Wolf-monster, taking a smoke break.
Yeah, I'm the butter churn guy.
Oh, did I mention it was loud? Here are two videos, mostly for the sound.
