Jamey's Space: Travel

The Great Austro-Slovenian Empire

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:41:45 GMT

So... it looks like I "forgot" to make an update in September. I think I've generally been able to do one update a month for a long time now, and somehow I just didn't "get around to it" last month. But why? you ask. Read on and perhaps you'll see.

I took another one of my trips at the end of August: 8 days in Austria and Slovenia. I flew from Sofia to Vienna very early in the morning. I had a 6 AM flight and, with the 1-hour time change, landed at 6:40 AM, tired as could be. I found my hotel and dropped my stuff off and then went to see Schonbrunn Palace. Let me just make a note here, by the way, that there are so few places anymore where you can actually take pictures. I usually end up buying a few postcards as I leave a place because I wasn't allowed to take my own photos. Now, this is probably why they forbid the photography, and the postcards are better than any picture I could take anyway, so I guess it's not so bad, but at times it would be nice to have my own. Anyway, I walked around the amazing gardens while I waited the 15 minutes for my ticket to be valid, then I headed into the interior with my trusty rented audio guide.

After Schonbrunn (I'm feeling too lazy to type umlauts today) (as if I regularly type umlauts), I took the Rick Steves Guidebook tram tour of the loop around the inner city. So very beautiful. Then I headed back to the hotel to meet my traveling companion from America - a friend of mine named Pam. We headed downtown to see the city. There are many very interesting churches throughout the city. The zig-zaggy roof of St. Peter's is certainly different and hard to miss. The damned souls falling from heaven in St. Michael's are also "different" I must say. But just Vienna itself is a joy to behold. The city is so clean and beautiful.

On the second day, we toured the opera, the Hofburg Treasury, the royal apartments in the Hofburg and, um, a globe museum. Interestingly, photography wasn't forbidden in the Treasury, which had crown jewels, pieces of the Cross (you know the one) - one of the Nails! even! - and astoundingly beautful gowns and robes and jewelry from the last thousand years or so. Holy Roman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, that kind of stuff (short-hand for "I don't really know the history"). The globe museum, while not worth going to Vienna just to see, was certainly worth the 30 minutes or so we wandered around in it.

Day 3 was mostly a day-trip to Durnstein on the Danube. Durnstein is a nicely preserved old town on the river and in the shadow of some fortress ruins up the hill. Just a nice place to spend a few hours soaking it in. Also had some fairly tasty food throughout our stay. After Durnstein, we ate dinner, grabbed our bags and headed to the train station for the 10PM overnight train to Koper, Slovenia. Koper is just a couple miles from the Adriatic Sea, so somewhere throughout the night we passed through a good chunk of Austria and all the way through Slovenia.

We arrived in Koper in time to catch the 7 AM bus to Piran, a charming (or was it quaint?) little town on a small peninsula on the Adriatic Sea. We had to wait until 1 PM to check in, so we left our bags and walked around the city, but we hadn't gotten enough sleep on the train and all we really wanted to do was sleep. I finally put on my swimsuit for a few minutes of swimming in the Sea. (I think this makes it two down, five to go, by the way.) The Adriatic is especially salty, or at least it is near Piran, and floating was much easier than any other time I've been swimming. There are actually tours of the salt production areas not too far south near the Croatian border, so I wouldn't be surprised if the salt content was for some reason rather high. We finally got into our room and took a much-needed nap, then got cleaned up and checked out more of Piran.

On our second day in Slovenia, we took the train up to a city I can't think of the name of right now where a bus was waiting to take interested passengers to Skotsyan Cavern. The bus was even free, and very nice. I guess I wasn't sure what to expect about Slovenia. According to my guidebook, it was always the nicest part of Yugoslavia, and it certainly seemed like a nice place. The countryside was beautiful and there wasn't garbage everywhere like you see in Bulgaria. All the houses seemed like they were in nice shape. They're the only country out of the 10 admitted to the EU in 2004 that is already on the Euro. I think they're doing just fine, and managed to avoid that Balkan mess with only a couple of lives lost. Anyway, back to the Cavern, which was quite huge, I must say. I've seen nicer formations in other caves, but the canyon running through this one, with the Reka Reka ("River River") running through it, is really cool, as is the sheer size of the room through which it runs. We had to kill a lot of time waiting for the train back to Piran, so we walked around the small town with the forgotten name and found a restaurant that you can tell doesn't get a lot of tourists, and so that was a nice fun game of miming before they dragged someone from the back who spoke a little English. I think this is the only place we went in Austria and Slovenia where the person we were dealing with didn't speak English. And to think I was always so scared to travel when I was younger because I didn't know "the language". What, am I supposed to learn them all? I can't even learn Bulgarian, and I *live* here. (I've gotten better, though.)

The next day, we headed up to Bled in the "Julian" Alps. Bled is a small tourist town on Lake Bled, home to Slovenia's only island. There's a church on the island and pretty much no room for anything else. It's an extremely beautiful part of the world, this. We took a "pletna" boat out to the island, we toured the castle overlooking the lake and took a day-trip to Vintgar Gorge, which really reminds you where the word "gorgeous" comes from. We only had one full day in Bled, which was actually okay. There were some full-day excursions into the Alps, but the only one we really wanted to take wasn't offered on the day we were there, and we did just fine without it. I could write more, but need to get a move-on.

The next day we took the bus to Ljubljana, where we had to catch the 4 PM train back to Vienna. We got there sometime before lunch and did another Rick Steves guidebook tour. Ljubljana is so much nicer than Sofia. There is a lot of interesting architecture there, and the last thing we did before leaving was tour the most famous architect's house. The guidebook said it takes 30 minutes to do the Jozhay Plechnik home tour and that there are tours on the hour. Well, that sounded do-able and would still give us 30 minutes to catch a cab and make our train. The city isn't that big, afterall, and we had walked to the museum.

So, a huge thunderstorm moved through the area a few minutes to 3. The museum people had called a taxi for us before our tour, so we went ahead with our tour and got through just at 3:30 (although the woman said she had to shorten the tour a little bit for us), and by this time the rain had already stopped. We went out to get in the cab, but there wasn't one yet. We waited 5 minutes before asking the museum to be sure one was coming, and they said they were sure - they use this one guy. Another 5 minutes and okay, well, now we're starting to worry. Finally the guy gets there at 3:45 and we immediately get stuck in traffic. The driver said because of the rain, and it had rained really, really hard for a good 25 minutes, all of the traffic was messed up. You kind of got the impression that people only got in their cars and drove into the middle of town *because* it had rained. There really hadn't been much traffic before that. Anyway, stop and go all the way to the station, and the guy actually did a u-turn at the end and backed up the last quarter mile for us. He jumped out of the car to help us - his job was to figure out the track while we retrieved our bags. We got our bags, he grabbed one of Pam's and we ran, ran ran. Let me tell you - marble floors can be quite slick when they're wet. Got off the concrete and onto some more grippy concrete, went down under the tracks - why, oh why, did we have to go to the furthest track from the station? - and the driver helped us up onto the first train car going all the way to Vienna. I only had a 2-Euro coin or a 20-Euro note to tip the guy with. At this point, we were still mad that he had been 15 minutes late to pick us up, so he got the 2-Euro coin, but immediately aftewards I realized he had deserved the 20, as the train started moving within a minute.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Got to Vienna around 10 PM, found our hotel by the airport and flew out the next day - me to Sofia, Pam back to America.

I actually thought I was going to get around to writing about being in the Peace Corps and Bulgaria, but it is now late, so I'll try to get to that as soon as possible.

Keep up the good work!

-Jamey

Visitors from the West!

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 20:58:43 GMT

Oh, my...

Perhaps I should just dive right in here. I believe that the last time I was here, I was talking all about my wonderful trip to Greece. I decided after that posting that perhaps it looks just a bit too much like all I ever do in the Peace Corps is to travel. I vowed then and there that I'd start to post more of my regular day-to-day life here. I think that's really want you want to read anyway, even though at times it seems fairly mundane to me these days.

Vows... Well, I'm sure some of you know how that goes. Here it is like 14 years later and I haven't made such a posting. I sure have *thought* about it a lot, though, and you know how much I value thinking and thinkers. So without further ado, here's a posting about my trip to Italy. Yup.

My mother, brother John and sister Libby came to visit me back in mid-May. They were here in Bulgaria for 3 days before the 4 of us headed off to Italy. I met them at the airport in Sofia with the car and driver (Kostadine) I had hired. It was a beautiful day and the 3 of them weren't asleep, so we went to visit a couple of the nicer churches in Sofia. There were some very special icons on display at the best of the churches. While these icons - a couple of very old and faded paintings and a picture box full of various bone fragments - mean a lot to devoit Bulgarian Orthodox, they weren't a priority of ours. But unfortunately we had to wait in a long line just to get into the church, and were horrified that once we got inside the church we were in a line just as long as the one we had stood in outdoors. We were only halfway there! And we couldn't just walk around the church (Alexander Nevski Cathedral) to admire it because of the way the line was forced around the perimeter of the church interior. It took us about an hour and a half to see something I thought would take 10 minutes. Thankfully there was a bottled water company handing out free water to the people standing in line. After Nevski, we went to see the nearby Russian Church, which is quite a pretty little church. Then we piled in the car and Kostadine drove us to Sliven.

We got into Sliven a bit later than expected and got Mom and Libby checked into their hotel, and found a place for Kostadine, and then we headed to the famous Tuesday "pizza night". I wanted my family to meet the folks I regularly hang out with here. When we got there, however, it turns out that there was a somewhat overwhelming number of people there and they were only briefly able to meet with Greg and Jan (pronounced "Yen" - the Danish man living here). Everyone else was occupied in other conversations, and Christin happened to be out of town. Oh, well... After pizza, Kostadine drove Mom and Libby to their hotel and then John and I to my deluxe apartment.

The next morning, I had a 7:30 class, so I got up and managed to get there and teach that, then came home with some fresh bread from the store so John would have something to eat for breakfast. We feasted on bread, honey and fig preserves. I had just been given the preserves by a teacher in my adult class. She gave me that and some strawberry preserves, and it's the first time I've been given food since the end of last summer. I was so very thankful and they were both delicious. I had been told by some PCVs that they get so much food from the locals that they couldn't possibly eat it, but here in the big city the relationships don't quite work the same way. I'm fairly annonymous here. I mean, everyone around knows that I ain't from around here, but they don't make a big deal of it. In the smaller towns, there is more or less a complete lack of privacy, but the volunteers certainly receive a lot more attention. There's good and bad in both situations, of course.

After class, John and I took the trolleybus down to Mom and Libby's hotel, the Edona, and I showed them the main walking street downtown. Then I dragged them to my school to meet my school's director and whatever teachers might be around. I thought maybe that would take about 5 minutes, somehow having forgotten that "na gosti" never takes 5 minutes. I had tried to tell myself that we'd just "pop in" more than have it be "na gosti", but a minute after my family was (or were as the Brits say) in Mrs. Vasileva's office, some women appeared with cups and saucers and cookies and coffee and juice, and we had commandeered a translator (Thanks, Daria!). I kept explaining that I appreciated the effort, but I had a class to teach in 10 minutes! And so, naturally, we *all* went to my class, and I made my family *be* the class. Questions and answers for 40 minutes, and then back up to finish up the na gosti. I then dragged them down to my favorite sandwich (I'm using the term loosely) shop for a quick lunch, then it was off to Nesebar.

Nesebar is a town on the Black Sea with a beautiful old town with thousands of years of history, full of old churches and cobblestone streets and old wooden houses, surrounded on all sides by water (other than the narrow strip connecting it to the mainland). We had an interesting adventure there trying to find a "famous" "black Madonna" icon, only to be denied in the end by the church cleaning crüe. We ate dinner at a restaurant with an astounding view of the sea and headed back to Sliven around dusk.

The next day, we went to Veliko Turnavo, another Bulgarian town with a lot of history, including having off-and-on been the capital of whatever has been called "Bulgaria" over the last 1500 years or so. We toured Tzarovets castle there and even paid for a guided tour since it was a free day for admissions. We had lunch there in VT in a restaurant with an amazing view of the winding river valley and surrounding cliffs. Libby and John bought some trinkets or t-shirts or something from a very cute girl in a shop there. (I really wasn't paying attention to what they were buying.) When we were done in VT, we headed to Sofia and after a tiny bit of trouble, managed to find lodging for the night.

The next morning, after a brief stop for some traditional Bulgarian pastries to go, we drove down south to visit Rila Monastery, which I think I wrote about once about a year ago. It was the first day with bad weather, but it wasn't actively raining while we touring the monastery, so it wasn't too bad. The pictures aren't as bright and sunny as we'd have liked, but everyone enjoyed seeing the place. John and even went up the road a bit to see the famous "dupe-ka" ("the hole") that climbing through somehow proves that you are without sin or something like that. I think something has been lost in the translation since John and I both made it through. We had tentatively planned to visit Baba Vassi in Bobov Dol, but because of the weather and traffic, we decided there simply wasn't enough time and instead went directly to the airport to fly off to Rome.

We did some stuff in Italy for 8 days or so and then I headed back to Bulgaria and the others back to America. It was a great time! I'm so happy they came to see me! Woohoo!

So... Keep up the good work!

-Jamey

Thrace, anyone?

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:47:42 GMT

Well, well, well... Look who it is... If it isn't ol' Bulgaria-Llama-Pants hisownself. Greetings from the land of Babbas and Goat cheese! ...the land that gave us everyone's favorite bacteria Lactobacillus bulgaricus. I hope you are all doing well. I certainly can't complain. Oh, wait. Yes I can. I can keep up with the best of 'em when it comes to complainin'. I've got some "mad" complaining skills. Yes siree Bob.

So... Jamey's posting an update again... He must have gone on a trip. So right you are. How very perceptive of you. The first week of April was spring break (proletna vacantsia) for schools in Bulgaria, so I headed down to Greece. Due to a last-minute problem with a travel companion, I ended up going solo. So... a bit lonely at times, but still a very nice trip.

I took a bus to Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city and a very important city during Roman, Byzantine and Ottomon times. I was actually thinking before I went that Greece might not look all that different than it's northern neighbor (Bulgaria) so I was quite surprised at how much more modern it felt. And it seemed as soon as the bus crossed the border that everything got cleaner and the roads were in better shape. The bus trip took about 10 hours from Sliven, stopping for long breaks more often than usual. It wasn't too terribly bad.

Thessaloniki, especially along the waterfront, has tons and tons of cafes. I thought Bulgaria had a big cafe culture. Greece puts Bulgaria to shame. One gets the impression that hanging out at cafes is all anyone does there. And the cafes were pretty much all different looking, some of them very trendy and/or stylish. I wasn't surprised to see the Starbucks, but I didn't expect to see TGI Fridays. And then Ruby Tuesday. And then Applebees. So... even though I was looking forward to some good Greek food, I couldn't resist a nice juicy burger at Fridays or Ruby's. (I chose Ruby's for nostalgic reasons.) Once I saw the menu, however, I couldn't resist the BBQ baby-back ribs. It's the best thing I've ever eaten.

Thessaloniki has a very nice arheological museum and some lovely churches. There are also miscellaneous ruins - mostly Roman - scattered here and there. The most famous monument there is called The White Tower, which unfortunately was closed for renovations. Anyway, I thought it was a lovely town. I liked it a good deal.

From there, I headed out to a very small town named Vergina. Back in 1977 an archeologist found several royal tombs there, one of which is believed to be that of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. The museum was built to look like a buriel mound and does a beautiful job of showing the tombs. No photography allowed in the museum, but there were many beautiful gold items found in the tombs, including some stunning gold crowns. Some of the treasures from the museum had been housed at the museum in Thessaloniki, but were brought to Vergina once the new museum was found there. Vergina itself is a very small town, although there are at least 3 hotels that seem to have opened only in the last year or so as the site becomes more popular. I was there before tourist season, so I pretty much had the place to myself. The only restaurant open was the one all the locals eat at, although there are 10 or so that are so much larger and seem to be bursting at the seams waiting for the first bus-load of tourists.

From Vergina, I took a bus back to Thessaloniki to transfer to another heading close to the center of Greece to a place called Meteora. Meteora is one of the most fascinating places I have yet to see. A surreal landscape of towering monoliths, many of them topped by monasteries, or having smaller structures built into openings in the rock. Without the monasteries, it would still be serenely beautiful, but with the monasteries, well, it's quite a marvellous place. My hotel room had a view of the rocks and was on the end of town closest to the hiking trails/roads to the monasteries. There are actually two towns: Kalambaka and the smaller Kastraki. I stayed in the smaller one. Again, it isn't tourist season yet, so I got a pretty nice room and only saw 3 others at the hotel during breakfast: one Greek man who comes every year at Holy Week, a young American who is volunteering at The American Farm School in Thessaloniki (currently seeking a new president - apply online!) and the young man's mother from America (Thanks Mom!). I walked over the hill to Kalambaka and saw more tourists - from France, Germany, the US and England - but most of the "tavernas" were still nearly empty and most weren't serving their full menus yet. I acually rejected many of the restaurants because I didn't want to be the only one eating in them. I had a full day there, so spent 6-8 hours visiting 5 of the 6 monasteries. Soon after I got to the first one, it started lightly raining. By the time I was through with the second one, it was raining more steadily, and after the 3rd it was a pretty good downpour. By the time I was through, my pants were soaked from the knees down and just mostly wet from there up, thanks to my umbrella. Anyway, the monasteries were quite lovely, although after a while there was certainly a bit of sameness about them. But a wonderful place to hike around, even in the rain.

My next stop was Delphi, to consult the Oracle there. Turns out she moved out and didn't leave a forwarding address (ha ha I am so funny), but she left behind some nice ruins. On the way, I had two hours to kill between buses in Amfissa, so I explored the remains of a Frankish castle during one of the crusades. I stayed in a hotel in the modern town of Dhelfi - I guess they changed the name to protect the innocent? Anyway, again, I beat the tourist rush (although being somewhat close to Athens, there were certainly many more tour groups, including overnighters from Germany and America) and was given a nice room with a stunning view of a gorge all the way down to the city of Itea on the coast of the Gulf of Korinthos. It was still raining when I got there, but by the next morning had stopped, so I was able to do some nice touristing. The problem I ran into is that because it was Good Friday, the ruins and the museum didn't open until 12:30, so I had to wander around aimlessly waiting to see anything other than the free parts across the street. Anyway, it was a nice enough place, although only worth a several-hour visit instead an all-day kinda place.

From Dhelfi, I headed down to Athens. Saw the usual big attractions, although being Holy Saturday, everything closed at 3:00 in the afternoon. All of the restaurants and most of the shops in the touristy areas stayed open, but the other 90% of Athens was closed, including the historical sites. Anyway, I joined a tour group for the morning and saw the Acropolis and had a quick bus ride around the city, and after that, I went to the fabulous National Archeological Museum. Saw the changing of the guards at the Parliament building/Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Their soldiers sure to dress and walk funny. The second day I explored the city on foot. The weather was perfect while I was there. Early the next morning, I took a plane ride back to Sofia. They have a brand-spankin' new terminal at the airport and it's quite lovely. Passed over some beautiful mountains on the way back. But then I was back in the reality of Bulgaria and its buses and so that's how I spent my Proletna Vacantsia.

I've written enough for now. Go check out the photos.

Keep up the good work.

-Jamey

Gripna Vacantsia

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:35:35 GMT

Here's something interesting... I don't have school this week. I found out on Sunday that our school was going to have a flu vacation on Monday through Wednesday of this week. Apparently enough kids had the flu (a.k.a. "grippe" - I mean, that's what they call the flu here: grippe. I just thought that was old geezer talk over in America.) that they decided we shouldn't even bother. Older PCVs tell me this happened last year too. This afternoon, they let me know that the gripna vacantsia has been extended through Friday. So... 9-day weekend. Woohoo! If only they had let me know ahead of time - then I could have planned for something. Anyway, I've been getting caught up on some things at home.

In other news... Two Fridays ago I had to make my quarterly trip to Sofia for my VAC meeting. After the meeting, we went to Carl, the director's, house for supper. He had chili - real chili, too, and yummy - with, even more importantly - real cheddar cheese. They sell a lot of different cheeses at the bigger supermarkets here, but they don't have cheddar and I haven't found a very close equivalent. He had real chips and salsa, too. Anyway, there were about 20 of us over there. We ate and talked and a few of us played guitar for a bit. Then we headed downtown for some live music. Lilly of the West was playing at Toucan Bluzz and Rock restaurant. The place had a really lousy set-up for live music, but the band sounded really good. It was nice to hear some good ol' fashioned bluegrass in Bulgaria. Lilly sounds a good bit like Alison Kraus, and she knows it, so sang several of Alison's songs, which is just fine by me. The mandolin player is from Kentucky, I think. Rumor is that he's got his sites set on Ms. Lilly. Turns out that Carl knows Lilly and that her band has played at his house. That would have been pretty nice, especially since it was so hard to find a place to stand to see the band at Toucan Bluzz. Oh, and about that name... I didn't have the heart to tell them that native speakers of English would pronouce that word in such a way that it would rhyme with "buzz" and not "booze". Close enough.

On Sunday, Melody and I walked around Sofia for a few hours to kill time while we waited for our respective bus departures. Melody was in town for the meeting and we had stayed at the same hostel. We visited a couple of the churches in Sofia and they are quite beautiful I must say. At 2:30 she got on a bus home and I boarded a bus for Dupnitsa.

Remember Dupnitsa, the training HUB for my first 3 months here? Now why would I be heading to Dupnitsa? Everyone knows that's the wrong direction for Sliven! Why, I must have been heading to Bobov Dol. Yup, you figured it out. I went back to Bobov Dol to visit Babba Vassi. I got there about 5 and saw all sorts of familiar faces: Dyado Mikto, Nikki, Nora, Ventsi, and of course, Babba Vassi. A 15-year-old relative of some sort, Hristina, was also there visiting. We chatted and ate and then we ate and chatted. I didn't bring my dictionary, so I had to rely on the small amount of Bulgarian I have picked up - still waiting for that "click" - and on the way Babba Vassi and I had of communicating with each other for thost first 3 months. It was some good fun. Somewhat awkwardly, at about 10:00 a Martin Lawrence stand-up comedy special from about 5 years ago came on TV that night and Hrsitina, Vassi and I ended up watching it. There the three of us were, sitting around the table: a 15-year-old female I had just met, a 60-year-old female I think of as a mother/grandmother type, and me. It was probably the filthiest language I've ever heard in my life right there on a regular TV station. Each sentence had more f-words than other words at times. And he went on and on about male and female genitalia. I was checking out the Bulgarian subtitles - to learn, you know - but I could tell that they weren't translating literally most of what he was saying. The f-word was something along the lines of "your momma". Anyway, Vassi and Hristina were enjoying the comedy. I was just uncomfortable for the most part, although parts of it were pretty darn funny.

On Sunday I slept late, as I am wont to do, and got up for a breakfast of Babba Vassi's "toaster" sandwiches - essentially open-face cheese sandwiches (but not with cheddar!). After that, I went for a walk up the hill and way up to the top to where our training center was. The town was so quiet - except for the chickens, dogs and goats, or course - because it was a Sunday. And naturally nothing had really changed. It is so very different than the world I'm living in here in Sliven. Every day I question what I'm doing here in this city that doesn't need me when there are so many Bobov Dols that need the help. But I also remember finding Bobov Dol somewhat depressing because of the lack of jobs and the awful school there. It would certainly be a lot harder to accomplish anything there. Anyway, the grass is always greener, they say... Who knows if I'd be happier elsewhere in Bulgaria? Nyama znachenia. (It doesn't make a difference.)

I came back on Sunday afternoon and actually made pretty good time. I left Bobov Dol at 1:30 and was in Dupnitsa at 2:00. At about 10 after 2 I flagged down a Sofia bus and got there about 3:20. I caught the 4:00 Sliven bus and was in Sliven by 8:00. 6 and a half hours doesn't seem so bad given how long it can sometimes take to get places here when traveling by bus. I delight in the fact that I can go stand on the side of a major highway and that a bus will stop and pick me up. Pretty sweet. And it's the opposite of what happened to get to Dupnitsa, where I caught a bus at the station heading south and it just stopped in Dupnitsa to let me out on the side of the highway. Who'd a thunk it? Back in the old days I wasted a lot of time trying to find the direct buses. That, it turns out, is for chumps.

Last week I taught my good ol' teaching schedule - you know, the one where I have 7:30 classes twice a week, with 3.5 hour breaks? Only I started up a couple of classes for the teachers. It was impossible to come up with a time that was convenient for even two of the teachers to meet at the same time, so I ended up with two groups: one meets Monday at 10 for 1 hour and Wednesday at 1:30 for 2 hours; the other meets only once a week, on Thursdays at 10 for 2 hours. This is the best we could do. And I have 3 students in the first group and only 2 in the second. I miss my summer class when I had 12-15 students! Oh, and because of the gripna vacantsia, no classes for the teachers this week either.

I think that more or less gets me caught up. Oh, my washing machine broke about 2 weeks ago. My school keeps telling me someone will look at it and they'll take care of the problem, but nobody every comes. Meanwhile, I've been experiencing the joys of washing by hand. There are some PCVs that have to wash everything by hand for 2 years, so I can't really complain. And my friend Tony (from Istanbul trip fame) is coming to visit. The weather has been really warm here and perfect for hiking, so of course on Friday evening it is supposed to cool way down, just in time for Tony. Such is life. I haven't had an official visitor yet, so it's pretty cool that he's coming.

So that's that.

Keep up the good work, everybody!

-Jamey

Istanbul - The Final Chapter

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:30:16 GMT

Well... I might as well get this over.

Istanbul, Day 5. I forgot to mention something way back at the beginning. The original plan was to stay in Istanbul until the 28th, then spend the nights of the 28th and 29th in Bursa, then come back to Istanbul on the 30th to be there for New Year's. Once the other people from our ever-increasing group began showing up, though, we lost the willpower and/or momentum to head out of Istanbul. So the 28th started just like all the other days: 8 olives, a bit of feta, tomatoes, cucumbers and bread with butter or jam.

Most of the group decided that it was a good day to visit Asia. There are two bridges across the Bosphorus strait, but that's no way to get to Asia. For a 1.30 lira token, you can take a ferry up the Bosphorus and get off on one of many stops. There is one ferry per day in the winter that goes all the way up the Bosphorus, but we weren't quite in the mood for a 6-hour cruise on a cold winter's day, so were all too glad to have missed that ferry. We asked when the next ferry was and where it went and were told that at 1:00 we could go to Chengelkoy. Sounded good to us, but it was just after 11:00, so we headed back to the Spice Bazaar to kill some time and for a couple of us to get some of the 1 lira chicken duners for a quick snack. It's also only 2 lira there for the lamb duner, and Tony and I grew quite fond of this little cheap stop in the middle of so many expensive options. A duner would appear to be some meat cooked on a verticle spit, like a Greek gyro, on bread, maybe with tomatoes and/or shredded lettuce. We would have welcomed some sauce, but took what we could get.

I decided to head off to see some of the lesser-visited areas around the Spice Bazaar and it was nice to get away from the throngs and to see all the random stores selling random things. Soon enough it was time to catch the ferry and we all met back at the dock for the trip. For the record, our party was comprised of: Armando, Alex, Valerie, Tony, Marcy, Krissi, Stacy, Lauran and me.

The boat stopped at 4 other docks before finally reaching Chengelkoy about 45 minutes later. Along the way, we saw a few palaces and some really nice "summer" homes along the Bosphoros called "yalis". After debarking, we wandered around the small neighborhood of shops and homes we found ourselves in and were called into a restaurant by a man whose job is to do such things. The waiter was visibly disappointed when all we wanted was coffee. We had our 2 lira Turkish coffees, a few had tea and a couple shared some baklava. After coffee, we walked down to the Bosphorus shore and checked out what there was to see (hint: water, boats, Europe across the strait) and at 4:30 we caught the ferry back to Europe. So... I have now been to Asia, but feel that until I *really* go to Asia that I'll have to have a footnote by that entry.

Istanbul, Day 6. This was pretty much a lazy day. We went back to Istiklal Cadessi, the big shopping street, and walked around and had Starbucks. After lunch, we walked down the hill and over the Galata bridge to the Spice Bazaar and Grand Bazaar areas. Tony and I had decided that we'd be leaving in the evening and had hoped to get to the Basilica Cistern for a tour before we left, but never got there that day. After a quick snack, we took the extremely crowded but beautiful tram 6 stops, then made the walk over to the even more crowded underground metro system for the rest of the journey to the bus station. Although we had come by train, it seemed that a bus might have been a better option. Well, we didn't realize it was Friday until we got to the bus station and *all* of the buses to Bulgaria were full. We went from office to office and couldn't find anything. We knew that the train left around 9:30 or 10:00 so reversed our earlier trip and got to the train station just about 9:30 and were happy to see that the train left at 10:00. However, there were no seats on the train either, so we had to stay one more night in Istanbul, which wasn't too bad of a thing, and we were easily able to find a place to stay.

We walked around the touristy area Sultanahmet and found a kebab cart that sold what Tony and I agreed was the best food we had had in Istanbul. (The next day we tried to find it again and the cart was nowhere to be found.) The next day, Istanbul, Day 7, we toured the Basilica Cistern, a huge structure that at one time could hold 80,000 cubic meters of water, or something like that. It was supposedly not used and was forgotten about for centuries, although some people knew that they could lower a bucket through a hole in their basement floor to get water, and some people even caught carp through these holes. I'm not sure I believe that the structure was completely forgotten. It was a really nicely done site, although now there is only about a foot of water. You can still see the carp swimming around. All of the columns used to build the cistern were taken from other places throughout the Byzantine empire - there are 336 columns - and it was completed in 532 AD. I'm really glad we got to see this place.

After the Basilica Cistern, we made our way to the Great Palace Mosaics Museum, where we saw numerous mosaics that had been lost under layers of building and rebuilding until not so very long ago. Many fantastic creatures (one of them supposedly an okapi-headed unicorn) and lots of hunting scenes and pictures of animals attacking each other. Also there was a monkey trying to catch birds in a tree using a stick. Lots of weird stuff.

After one last trip towards the Grand Bazaar and the surrounding streets, where merchants were already closing their shops in anticipation of the four-day holiday Bayram, we went back to our old hostel to see who was around. We ended up with Todd and his Bulgarian girlfriend and this guy named Chris who got stuck in the single bed in the middle of the hostel bedroom the rest of our group was now in. There are 6 bunkbeds around the walls and this one bed stuck out in the middle. One of the random hostel workers seems to sleep in a bed in the room and was usually trying to sleep when everyone else wanted to be awake. Anyway, this fella Chris works for the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and was taking a little holiday trip.

While walking around looking for a cheap beer (Efes seems to be the only brand there), I started talking to Chris and asked him where he was from in America. He said he's from Tennessee, so I told him I grew up in Tullahoma. He stopped, his mouth dropped, and he said, "*I'm* from Tullahoma." I asked his last name (Call) and he asked mine (Pratt). He graduated Tullahoma High in 1995. I asked if he knew my younger brothers and he started naming people from that *other* Pratt family in Tullahoma, but I mentioned Philip and that name sounded familiar to him. I told him I had heard the names "David Call" and "Rachael Call" sometime in my life and he said, yeah, those are his older siblings. He also went to St. Paul's Church, although his mother has now moved to Manchester. What are the chances?

Tony and I had earlier bought a train ticket home (we had been told at the bus station that the buses were already sold out for Saturday night as well), so at 9:00 we left the others and headed back to our hotel to get our bags, then to the train station nearby. At 10:00 the train took off and we found ourselves in a 6-person couchette again, only this time we had to share it with 4 strangers, none of which spoke English, but all of which spoke Turkish and Bulgarian. The two sitting by the window had quite the spread of food and drink. They had small glasses with them for their "raki" liquor, and tall glasses with them for their Efes beer. They brought out peanuts, salami and other snacks. They had a little cassette player sitting out on the table. They started up the music and brought out the cigarettes. The older of the two smoked almost non-stop the whole way. They also rejected the offer of pillows, sheets and blankets from the conductor before Tony or I could stop them, and they said we could get them later. They also said we should stay up until the border crossing, then sleep. We could get the pillows and blankets then. Well, the border crossing wasn't going to be until about 3 AM, so around 12:30 or so a couple of us tried to get some sleep on the very top bunks, but the smoke, the music and the lack of proper coverings prevented much of that.

I could go on and on about the return journey, but let's just say it was the most miserable travel experience I've ever had, and I'll never take the train to Istanbul again. I probably got 45 minutes of sleep all night. Ugh.

So here I am, back in Sliven. And now Bulgaria is part of the European Union. I go back to teaching next Monday, this time back on the morning shift, but without the extra 16 hours of classes I was substituting for.

And so now... I'm caught up. If you've read this far... congratulations. Make sure to check out all the Istanbul photos. Leave a comment if you feel compelled. Ask questions if you've got 'em. But don't smoke 'em if you've got 'em. Ugh.

Istanbul Part II

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:19:28 GMT

I failed again at keeping my last blog short. I won't make any promises this time.

Day 3 (Boxing Day for those of you who care for such things) started with the same breakfast as Day 2. The sun was finally shining that day, although there were also snow flurries off and on during breakfast. We headed up to the spot between Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque for a few pictures, then went to the Archaeological Museum.

There were many, many wonderful treasures plundered from throughout Turkey and a few other places in the Roman Empire in the Museum. We also ran into 3 other PCVs from Bulgaria there, although I had never met any of them so never would have known if Donald hadn't started talking to them. After a couple of hours looking at all the Greek and Roman sculptures, we started getting artifacted out and so blew through all the smaller pottery and coin collections. There was an entire section on Asian art in another building that we just didn't have the energy for. We needed food and needed it soon, so headed directly for Taksim Square and Istiklal Cadessi.

This time we took the tram across the Golden Horn all the way to the end 3 stops later. Again, this part of the tram route isn't in my 2005 guidebook. After you get off the tram, there is a brand new underground funicular that takes you up to Taksim. We dined at another yummy semi-affordable cafeteria-style place and we were all happy. Another stop at Starbucks for Tony and then a slow saunter down the hill past all the shops. (Did I mention there are 3 Starbucks on this street?)

There is a trolley line that runs the length of Istiklal Cadessi that we never figured out where exactly one would board, or if it were free or not, but it is a very cute trolley. Anyway, at the bottom end of the tracks, there is still a long, steep walk to the bottom. There is also a very old underground funicular for this section, but we didn't take it at this time. Partway down the hill, we stopped at the Galata Tower (1348) for a few pictures. But between the bottom of the trolley and the Galata tower is the largest collection of music stores in the world. I don't know that for a fact, but there had to be 30 or more shops in a couple of short blocks. Almost all of them had dozens up to a hundred or so stringed instruments hanging on the walls and from the ceiling. It was all I could do to not run in and buy a new guitar - they were all so beautiful. But I was a good boy and resisted the urge - the free one I have here is fine. I didn't even want to know what the prices were because I might have been tempted. And even though there were many guitars available, there were even more lutes and some other stringed Turkish instruments for sale. All very interesting to me.

We again turned in earyish after only 1 beer downstairs at the hostel. At this point I want to mention that this downstairs area at the hostel was a major source of annoyance to our group. There was only one man working at the hostel that had any idea what was going on. If you asked anyone else anything, they'd invariably tell you that you'd have to wait until the manager got back. But that didn't stop a half-dozen or so younger men from hanging out at the hostel constantly. We aren't sure if they were children, relatives, friends or bums, but they were almost always there. One of them fancied himself quite the DJ, and they had this obnoxious sound system set up in the basement. There was no other lounge or place to hang out, and nothing but bunkbeds in the rooms to sit on, so we were kind of forced to hang out in the basement when we were there. So we had Mr. DJ playing music for himself that was far too loud for the hostel guests to have conversations at their own tables. And they had a giant screen TV that some people wanted to watch BBC news on but it was rare that we could get the DJ guy to turn the music down enough that we could hear the TV. The TV's volume was generally only loud enough when stupid dating shows were on. There was also one occassion when one of the random hanger-outers - I'll call this one "The Pacer" - got a phone call and went outside to talk but kept the door propped open for a good 10 minutes right next to our table, freezing us out. On another occasion, Tony and I were playing cards and the DJ guy reached over my head and unscrewed the light bulb. I said, "We are using that." He said, "Oh, we're just trying something. It is my friend's birthday today." Thanks for asking. After a couple of minutes he came back to screw the bulb back in but couldn't get it to work. Nice. So... don't ever stay in Istanbul Hostel if you go.

On Day 4, the 27th, other members of our group started showing up. The bulk of us headed to the Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar is a huge shopping district that became totally enclosed over time. There is shop after shop after shop for many city blocks in each direction. It is very easy to get lost in there. The walkways are very narrow for the most part, and every shop you pass has a man or two stationed just outside to draw people into their rug/scarf/pillow case/backgammon/Turkish dishes/etc. store. The rug guys seem to be the most relentless, which is funny to me since they are by far the most expensive items they sell there. I wonder what their success rate is.... 0.000001% perhaps. Seems to keep hundreds of them in business though. After a couple of hours at the Grand Bazaar, we headed downhill to the Spice Market. In between and all around, every street and every alley was filled with nothing but shops. There is very little you can't buy in that part of Istanbul. The Spice Market is much like the Grand Bazaar, but smaller and chock full of shops selling - surprise, surprise - spices. But amongst the spice vendors were the same rug/scarf/dishes sellers as were at the Grand Bazaar. Pretty overwhelming, but incredibly interesting to see. Outside the Spice Market, we found one of the many places selling dried fruits and nuts and the prices were less than half of what they were charging just inside. We loaded up on figs, raisins and apricots. Mmm... delicious.

After the markets, we finally headed to the Blue Mosque, the largest and most beautiful of the mosques in the city and right across from the Aya Sofya and close to our hostel. You have to take your shoes off to visit, and women are supposed to cover their hair, but we noticed many women didn't even try to cover their heads. Oh, well... Anyway, inside it was beautiful, but again the sky was cloudy outside, so there wasn't as much light streaming through the small windows for me to get great pictures, but I got a few. Another benefit to the Blue Mosque is that it is free with a "donation suggested" and I forgot about the donation part by the time I got out. Oops. Saved some money, though. Donald and Valerie bought some favors from Allah, though, so they'll be good for awhile.

The only other thing we did was walk through a very ornate old bathhouse, or hamam, near the Blue Mosque. The bathhouse is now a gallery to show off some rugs, but there are no pushy salesment there, and we were the only ones in the place other than an American couple (who, oddly, had spent the night in our 6-person hostel room one night). It would have been a beautiful place to take a bath, I must admit. I actually never did visit one of the hamams, although many of the women in our group did visit one one night and were quite pleased with the experience. I guess the thought of having another man roughly bathe me doesn't appeal much - they have men wash men and women wash women - but someday I might go for the experience.

That evening, Tony, Abigail, Elise, Krissi and I went to the bottom of the Istiklal Cadessi to find a restaurant mentioned in the guidebook. We took the old funicular this time. We were looking for cheapish food and ended up paying way too much, but the food was good. Again, we stopped for Tony to get his daily Starbucks fix and took the new funicular back down the hill from the top.

And that was the end of day 4 in Istanbul.

Christmas in Istanbul

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:35:33 GMT

Because my last post here was so long, I'm going to try to break up my ramblings about Istanbul into multiple postings. This is part 1: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Istanbul.

It all started the evening of December 23rd. At 5:00 PM I boarded a bus heading to Stara Zagora. A few minutes later, Valerie and Donald boarded a train in Russe heading to Istanbul. I got to Stara Zagora at 6:00 and wandered over to the train station and checked my bag, then walked into town to find a bite to eat. I walked around for over and hour just killing time and finally ended up at a pizza place that was decent. Earlier I had called Ryan, a PCV who lives there and he was with his girlfriend on a bus heading home. After I finished eating, Ryan called to say he'd be over soon. Just after haning up, a Bulgarian woman gestured that I could join her at her table where she was drinking coffee. This has never happened to me before, in any language, but I refused because Ryan was coming soon, but I ended up talking to and finally joining Tasha after a few minutes. Turns out she is from Sliven, too, and her sister lives in Stara Zagora. She asked for my phone number so of course I gave it to her. She doesn't speak a lick of English. We'll see if she calls. We'll see how I feel about it if she does. But I digress...

After eating dessert while Ryan and his girlfriend ate, I headed over to the train station. At 10:40, only 10 minutes late, the train pulled into the station and I had no idea where to get on the train. I had 2 minutes to figure it out, but Valerie rescued me and I found our little sleeping compartment. A couple hours later we pulled into Dimitrovgrad and I rescued Tony and showed him our compartment. The train also picked up a couple of cards heading towards Istanbul from Sofia. Supposedly the train I got on started in Bucharest, Romania. The one from Sofia may have also had a car from Bosnia. Hard to tell, but there were only 5 cars on the whole train. This may or may not be what was once The Orient Express, but more or less looked like crap, but would do.

On the train, it was almost impossible to get any sleep. The conductor came by a couple of times to check tickets. We got to the border crossing at about 2 in the morning, I think. We spent about an hour stopped on the Bulgarian side, then went for about a half hour or so and stopped again on the Turkish side. We all had to get out and pay 20 USD for a visa to visit Turkey, then get in another line so a different person could put an entry stamp on the visa. It was below freezing and half the line was outside the door. They could have arranged that a lot better. One woman at the front of the line was howling in tears at one point. We have no idea what that was all about. We reboarded the train and sat there seemingly forever. Various passport checkers and ticket checkers came by. The train finally started moving again about 5 AM and as soon as we feel asleep again someone else came to check tickets again. Ugh.

We finally rolled into Istanbul about 9:30 AM, I think. We wanted food and coffee, so after taking out some Turkish lira from an ATM, we found a nice Turkish pastry/coffee place between McDonald's and a Burger King. Turns out For those of you who used to keep up with such things, by the way, due to massive Inflation in the past, the Turkish lira had become somewhat of a joke, with a cup of coffee costing about 1 million lira. Well, a year or two ago they dropped *six* zeros from their currency and so it has about the same value as a Bulgarian leva. (1 Turkish lira = 0.706464147 U.S. dollars; 1 Bulgarian lev = 0.674809366 U.S. dollars - rates provided by Google.com.) Interestingly, many of the street vendors and other retailers still yell out prices in millions, so we often heard "2 million" or "4 million" for things that cost 2 or 4 lira.

We found our hostel after a short walk, mostly uphill. Valerie wanted to kill Donald for the route he chose - something about the cobblestone streets and her wheeled bag - but that's a story for another day. We got checked in, dropped off our bags, took showers and went out for some touristing.

The first place we hit was Aya Sofya. Other names: Latin - Sancta Sophia; Greek - Haghia Sofia; English - Church of the Divine Wisdom. Somehow it doesn't quite seem like the English translation says the same thing, but oh well... Emperor Justinian had it built and it was completed in 537. In 1453 Mehmet the Conqueror had in converted into a mosque. In 1935, Ataturk proclaimed it a museum. The outside doesn't look like much, but inside is quite nice if you can look past the scaffolding taking up much of the center where the dome is being renovated. There are many beautiful Christian paintings and mosaics still everywhere, and then there are many Islamic touches as well. It was hovering around the freezing point outside and was quite overcast, so not a lot of light was streaming in for my photos, but I managed to get a few that were decent. I bought a 10- or 12-pack of postcards of the place for 2 lira for my photo album just in case. Plus, those helicoptor shots from above are pretty hard for me to get.

After Aya Sofya, we were all hungry for some real food so found a place that wasn't obscenely expensive for a late lunch. When we got the bill, though, the waiter was very reluctant to show us the bill and instead just told us it was 36 lira. We asked for the bill so we could split it up properly and he kept explaining to us that 36 divided by 4 is 9 lira each. We said we all ordered different things. He pointed to each of us and said something about 9 lira and "same", followed by the math lesson. He finally gave us the check and it was virtually indecipherable but we couldn't help but notice some sort of strange charge near the bottom where they had added over 25% to the bill for service or tax or something. We went ahead and paid the bill and left mad and hoped that we had learned some sort of lesson. The guidebook warned about such practices, but this is the only time something like this happened to us. Turns out the tax is already included in the prices, so this guy was just gouging us.

We headed back to the hostel, amazed that it wasn't even 6:00 yet. We were all extremely tired. We managed to kill time in the basement bar/restaurant area of the hostel drinking beer and playing cards. The 4 lira beers there were the cheapest in the neighborhood. Most of the touristy restaurants charged 7-8.50 for 50 cl of beer (pretty much a pint). When you've been paying about 1.20 for the previous 8 months, it's hard to fork over that kind of dough, especially on a volunteer's salary. So, most of us just had 1 beer and drank it really slowly. We weren't in much of a drinking mood anyway. By 10:00 all four of us were asleep and didn't wake up until after 9:00 the next morning. That dang train trip sure did us in. Anyway, that was Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Day, we got up and got showered and dressed and went downstairs for breakfast, the first of 5 in a row all exactly alike: 8 small olives, 1 small piece of feta (which we now call "sirene" [SEER-uh-nay] because of the Bulgarian cheese), 3-4 thin half-slices of tomato, 5-6 thin half-slices of cucumber, a few pieces of bread, butter and sour cherry or apricot jam. Oh, and an instant coffee or a tea.

We toured the fabulous Topkapi Palace, including the separate Harem tour. We were there for at least 4 hours, I'd say. So much to see, and we probably didn't even see everything. This, too, was built by Mahmet the Conqueror staring in 1453 and was used by the sultans until 1839 when they moved to fancier European style palaces. You'll just have to check out my photos from this place to see much of its splendor, although you have to see it to appreciate much of it. There were also places where you couldn't take photos, such as the Treasury, which houses a collection of precious objects, including an 86-carat diamond (the world's 5th largest) and part of the skull and arm of John the Baptist. Seriously. And in another room are holy relics such as some of Mohammed's hair and a tooth, and a man (an imam) sits in a booth in the corner endlessly chanting verses from the Koran.

For dinner, we headed across the Golden Horn, a small inlet off the Bosphorus Strait to the part of town called Beyoglu. We started at the top of Istiklal Caddesi, the main shopping street in Istanbul, at Taksim Square. We mostly headed over there so that Tony could get a Starbucks fix. Strange what 8.5 months away from Starbucks can do to some people. We all had a coffee and wished each other a merry Christmas. We decided to do a semi-secret Santa kind of thing and spent the next hour trying to find something decent under 15 lira. We did okay, but probably could have done without the added stress, but one of the party really wanted it, so we all agreed. I got a nice book from Valeria and bought a nice Starbucks Istanbul mug for Tony (who was going to buy one for himself anyway).

After that, we found a good place to eat that wasn't too expensive and then headed back to the hostel. According to the guidebook, city bus T4 would take us straight from Taksim to Sultanahmut but we couldn't find such a bus. When we asked, we were given other bus numbers that we also couldn't find, so we took a taxi. Going over the Galata bridge back to Sultanahmet, we noticed that the beautiful city tram system had been extended and now crosses the Golden Horn, so after that we were able to take the tram most places, although for 4 people the taxi wasn't too expensive. After another 1 beer and a little card playing, we again turned in fairly early, although this time it was getting close to midnight.

So that was Christmas in Istanbul. I'll try to wrap up the trip in my next posting.

Keep up the good work.

-Jamey

Gurkovo Donkey Rally

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 13:22:07 GMT

Yesterday, Saturday, September 2nd, I traveled to Gorkovo to watch their annual Donkey Rally, or Donkey Races, or whatever it was called. They hold this annual festival every year. :-) I got up early on Saturday morning to catch an 8:10 bus to Tvurditsa in order to meet Fredy there and catch the 9:30 mini-bus to Gorkovo, about 15 minutes farther down the road. Well, at 9:35 the mini-bus pulled up and was already over half full. There were about 20 people waiting for the bus by this time. Fredy and I helped squeeze/shove the last babba onto the bus and could barely get the door closed behind her - seriously - as we graciously allowed the locals to use the bus. (i.e. There's no way I'd ever have tried to get on a bus that crowded. There were probably 30 people on a bus designed to hold 15 at the most.) After watching the bus fade away into the distance, I asked Fredy, "Well? What next?" Fredy immediately stuck out his hitchhiking thumb to the next couple of cars that came by.

Hitchhiking didn't seem like a great option (I'm pretty sure we're not allowed) so we asked around a bit and nobody had any good ideas so we walked to the train station. Turns out there's a 10:30 train, so we bought tickets and had a coffee while we waited. Now, the fest was supposed to start at 10, so I was a bit dissappointed, but it wasn't the end of the world, and the coffee was decent. We got to Gurkovo at about 10:50 and then still had to walk 25 minutes to get to where the festival was. Gurkovo isn't that big of a town - they just happened to have built the train station 20 minutes away from it on foot. An interesting thing about Gurkovo is that it is on the main highway between Turkey and the only bridge across the Danube on the Bulgarian/Romanian border, so there is a constant stream of very large trucks driving through this fairly small town on the two-lane stone road through town. Well, it's interesting to me, anyway.

Okay, so we finally got to the festival and paid our 50 stotinki to get in. Mind you - that's nearly 37 cents for those of you in the U.S. We found some other PCVs we knew would be there and a few more we didn't know would be there and found a seat to enjoy the show. Greg from Sliven was also there and had ridden his bike the 51 kilometers to get there. He left Sliven way later than me and got to Gurkovo before me, so so much for the bus/train combo. I don't know what we missed, but when we got settled there appeared to be some sort of time trial in progress as one donkey + cart team at a time would go around the track around the football field. Everyone's favorite seemed to be the babba, although the old East German Trabant (I think that's what it was) which had been turned into a donkey cart looked pretty nice to me. The Peace Corps entry, driven by the local PCV, Mitch and another from very close-by, another Greg, was made to look a bit like a tie-dyed Conestoga wagon with a Peace, Love and Happiness theme.

So, they had the time-trial thingy (I guess), then did a donkey cart tug-of-war, then a bareback donkey race the length of the football field and followed it up with donkey soccer. By the time they started the soccer, we were all pretty hungry so we missed that and anything later because we had to leave the stadium to get some food and beer. Right next to the stadium was another of those fascinating Bulgarian cemetaries, so I took a few photos there after lunch. A bit later all the PCVs got together in the middle of the field and soon thereafter those of us not staying there for the night headed to the bus station and called it a day.

Photos here.

Sinite Kamanie Overnight

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 13:10:09 GMT

This weekend, the Sliven PCVs (Greg, Christin, me), along with the Assistant Peace Corps Country Director, Marcy, and three others from Sofia hiked in Sliven's famous Sinite Kamani (The Blue Stones or The Blue Rocks) Nature Park. [Sinite Kamini is pronounced "SEEN-uh-tee KAHM-uh-nee".] The three others were Joel and Paris from MBAEC and Kamelia from an anti-human-traffic non-profit organization. Kamelia was the only Bulgarian in the group and just happens to be Paris' girlfriend. I had met the two of them before at an ATIP conference held in Sliven in July. ATIP stands for Anti-Trafficking In Persons, which is a very serious issue these days in Bulgaria, especially due to the state of Bulgaria's economy and lack of opportunities. MBAEC is a volunteer program for recent MBA graduates from top business schools in America (http://www.mbaec-cdc.org/).

At about 10:30 on Saturday, the 7 of us met at a grocery store named "Mercanto" to buy a few snacks before heading to Sinite Kamani. We hiked to the park and got there at about 11:30 and just kept on walking, pretty much uphill the entire time, all the way up to Karandilla, the area at the top of the hill. There were many paths to choose from, but being the more adventurous types, we chose one that was poorly marked and impossible to follow.

Around 1:30 or 2 we stopped for lunch, a fabulous feast of bread with Greg's Skippy peanut butter and fig jam and Marcy's lutenitsa (a red pepper/tomato pastey kind of spread), kashkaval (you all remember the "yellow" cheese here, right?) and yummy bread, plus a great big bag of GORP. I was so hungry I forgot to take pictures at lunch. There were also many places along the way where there were cold water springs outfitted with spouts convenient for filling a water bottle. These places are named after the spout, or "Chuchur" in Bulgarian and not the spring, or "Izvor".

Along the way we consulted the map 3 or 4 times and could only guess at where we were and make a decision based more on a feeling than a knowing. We knew we always had the option to turn around and hike back to the bottom and take the convenient chairlift to the top. However, miraculously, we made it to the top around 4 or 4:30 and there was much rejoicing.

We stayed in what we thought was going to be a "hizha" (a simple mountain hut with beds, bedding, food and running water) named Byala Mechka (White Bear - there's a polar bear on the sign), but it turned out to be a pretty decent looking hotel. At 15 leva per person per night, it was probably 5-7 leva more than a hizha would have been (I think), but the hizha we tried to stay in was booked. Something is better than nothing, and this place was pretty nice.

On Sunday, after breakfast, we hiked about 15 minutes to the chairlift and took it back down to the outskirts of Sliven because the Sofia crowd needed to be on their way home around 11. At the bottom of the lift, 5 of us hiked about 20 minutes back up the mountain to the park's famous Halkata, or Ring Rock and after a few minutes and a few photos, we headed back down to join the other two and headed on home from there.

It was a glorious time! See related pictures here!