Life Resumed

This may seem like a strange title, but that's because it's a somewhat murky topic that's going to be the subject of this post. Before reading ahead, let me assure you that I'm not crazy or anything. I'm trying to recount some of the emotions that I've experienced since returning to America, and at times my descriptions fall desperately short of encapsulating whatever I was feeling at various times. I suppose some may call it reverse culture shock or just getting used to being home again. Either way, it's an odd sensation. The first feeling that I remember was when I was waiting in the Rome airport for my flight home and it was easy enough to recognize: exhaustion. It felt like four months of tiredness hit me all at once while I sat there, surrounded by American tourists returning home from weeklong vacations. I just felt weary.

When I finally landed in the Dayton airport and was walking back to greet my family, I felt so overwhelmed that I was almost in tears. At the time, I thought that it was just excitement to see them all again. Now, though, it seems like that couldn't have been all of it. I've been away from my family before (though not for quite this long), but if anything I tend to get emotional when I leave them, not when I am reunited with them. I think that it had just been so much living since I'd seen them. I remember when my younger brother started college last year, our mom came to visit us at Pitt in October (just two months since we had last seen her). But when my brother saw my mom, it was much more striking and surreal for him than it was for me. So much in his life had changed since he had last seen her, whereas my life at  Pitt hadn't changed very much. It must have been something like that. I know that I'm failing to describe this adequately, but the prospect of seeing my closest loved ones was absolutely overwhelming as I made my way to the baggage claim.

Re-entry into the U.S. only gets stranger once you've been back for a while. Random things that I got used to in Bulgaria are now striking when I encounter their contrasting American counterparts. Examples? Cashiers in Bulgaria never give put the money directly in your hand when they give you your change; they always put it in a small tray. Having the clerk at a drugstore put bills and coins directly into my palm feels so strange. In Bulgarian restaurants, the waiter brings out each dish as it is ready, even if it means that some people at the table have their meals 20 minutes before the last person is served. Here, waiters bring all of the meals out together, or if they don't there's some sort of explanation given for some unusual delay. These may seem like trivial things, and they obviously are. But the point is that the sum of all of these trivial things is some creeping feeling of alienation in a world that is simultaneously so...familiar.

And it is familiar. It feels like nothing has really changed since I left. Sure, everyone has some new stories; Birthdays have passed, there have been new developments in family and friends' lives, and appearances have changed. But it doesn't feel different. It feels like the same place that I left (both Dayton, with my family, and Pittsburgh, with my friends). That's what makes it so strange. It seems like time was operating differently while I was gone and so much more time elapsed in my life than did here. Now, this is clearly a mindset that views everyone else in relation to myself; I'm sure that for each of my friends, it seems like a lot has happened over the last four months. But it just doesn't feel that way for me. It feels like my old life was just hanging out waiting for me to return, like the boxes in my bedroom filled with shoes and clothes waiting for me to get back from Europe and reincorporate them into my wardrobe.

But I feel so different. And not in any way that I can understand neatly. I wish I could sum it up in some succinct way and claim a greater understanding of other cultures, a deeper appreciation for some universal nature of mankind. Not a chance. I can barely find an answer for "How was your semester? How was Bulgaria?" I can't even come close to explaining how this semester abroad changed me (or if it even did). All I know is that right now, I feel like Dorothy at the end of the Wizard of Oz (need to refresh your memory?). Her family is surrounding her, and she's trying to explain everything that happened, but they just tell her it was a dream.

Now that it's over and I'm back, it feels like the whole semester was a dream and the second i got back, it was like none of it had ever happened. Except unlike Dorothy, I can't get over it so quickly.  For me it ends here:
"It wasn't a dream; it was a place...This was a real, truly live place. And I remember that some of it wasn't very nice. But most of it was beautiful."

But I can't shake the feeling that I need to convince everyone (or at least myself) that it wasn't a dream...

Sorry for the disjointed chronology. I'll do a few more posts in the upcoming weeks about my trip to Istanbul, last weeks in Bulgaria, and traveling in Italy after the semester.

Hiatus

Sadly, this blog is going on a little bit of a break for a couple of weeks, due to computer problems that I'm having. It's not over, though. Not until I say it is.

Keeping up with this blog has taken a decent amount of work. Somewhere along the line, though, I started doing it for myself. Yes, it's still because it makes it easier to keep in touch with family members that are spread out and far away from me; but it also forces me to record and reflect on things that happen to me, places that I see, and people that I meet. I know that when my memories of this semester start to fade, I can come back to this and remember.

So, the blog isn't over. I still have two weeks left before I'm home: one more week in Bulgaria and one week in Italy. Once I get back to the states and can get my computer issues sorted out, I'll pick up where I left off and finish strong. If anything, just for myself.

But if you've read this far, thank you and I hope you've enjoyed it. Expect a few more posts in a couple weeks. Til then, довиждане...

The Second Oldest Lake in the World

Ahh, so I know that it's been a long time since I've last posted. In my defense, last week was incredibly busy and all of my free time was consumed with writing a research paper for my environmental science class. I barely finished in time, but I eventually did get it completed.

So this post will require some backtracking. Namely, to the weekend before last when I travelled to Ohrid, Macedonia. Ohrid is actually the only place I've travelled to so far this semester whose existence I was unaware of prior to coming to Bulgaria. I had never heard of Ohrid until coming here, but early in the semester I learned about it from a number of people.

View of Ohrid from our hostel balcony

Lake Ohrid is situated on the border of Macedonia and Albania and is (as the title of this post implies) the second oldest lake in the world. But more on that later...

We had talked about going to Ohrid, but the plans were sidelined when I got strep throat. I had just started to feel better on Wednesday and on Thursday evening we decided to go ahead and go to Ohrid. Since it was so spur of the moment, I didn't pack until Friday morning at dawn, which had some interesting results (I forgot my camera, packed almost only summer clothes, and brought no makeup with me). But there's something so special about last-minute travel decisions; it makes you feel like the world is just there, at your fingertips, and you can explore it on a whim.

Lake Ohrid

Only Abby, Kyle, and I went this time, so we split a taxi to Sofia and caught a 9:30 bus to Skopje (in Macedonia). The Macedonia/Bulgaria border is interesting; smuggling is a big concern, so everyone has to get off of the bus and they check everyone's luggage and search the bus. I can only imagine what they thought when they went through my backpack and saw my seasonally inappropriate wardrobe. They were particularly suspicious of Kyle. An English-speaking Bulgarian man sitting near us on the bus told me and Abby that it was because the dogs were barking, which meant that they smelled weed and that Kyle looked like he was a druggie (I'm paraphrasing here). But they didn't give him too much trouble.

Street leading to hostel

After getting to Skopje, we caught another bus to Ohrid. We got to Ohrid around 5 pm (6pm Blago time), so it was somewhat of a long journey, but worth it. We found our hostel with the help of a local, since was tucked up in the old part of town amidst some winding (and barely labelled) cobblestone streets. We walked along the main pedestrian street in town, which leads right up to the edge of the lake. We manage to watch the sunset along the lake before having a dinner at a restaurant by the water (I had a lovely fish soup and a red pepper dish, pindzur). Midway through our meal, a quartet of musicians started playing, but rather than the traditional music that one would expect (given the atmosphere of the restaurant), it was a Beatles medley. After dinner we walked along the path by the water for awhile. We went back to the hostel pretty early because we were tired from a late night the night before and the long bus ride.

Making my wish

The next morning, we got up early. We walked along the water in the opposite direction as the night before, which led us to a little boardwalk/pedestrian path thing that was actually over the water. There was a little area with each of the zodiac signs on the railing, and a sign saying to put your hand on your sign, make a wish, and toss a coin into the water. So we happily followed instructions. We walked almost all the way to this church on a cliff, but then we turned back to go back to town. We had to meet our "captain" at 10:45 to take a boat ride. The "captain" was a friend of the hostel who led people on boat rides for cheap prices.

Our boat

We, along with 3 other backpackers from the hostel, boarded the vessel, which turned out to be a very small boat with a weak motor. We had to keep the weight balanced on either side of the boat (there were benches along the port and starboard sides) and any sudden movements could have easily capsized it. Our aged captain turned out to be very entertaining and knowledgeable. He would frequently turn the motor off and just let the boat sit in the water while he told us the history of the lake, the town, the Macedonian people, and his own life. So the following facts are what he told us, with no attempted confirmation on my part: Lake Ohrid is the second-oldest lake in the world, after Lake Baikal in Russia. Ohrid is between 4 and 4.5 million years old. There are 17 species of fish. Ohrid (the town) is the oldest uninterrupted site of civilization in the world.

The captain

He also talked extensively about Saint Clement, the patron saint of Ohrid and one of the pupils of Saints Cyril and Methodius (inventors of the cyrillic alphabet). He told us his personal philosophy, his views on animals, his disdain for Greeks and Bulgarians (for claiming Macedonian national heroes as their own), his fashion preferences (white suit), and his local claim to fame (dance moves). He also pointed out various landmarks on the shore to us. After the boat ride, we climbed up to the church on the cliff (St. John at Kaneo), which had stunning views of the lake and surrounding mountains. After taking a break for lunch right on the shore, we visited St. Clement's Cathedral and the surrounding area, ruins of a university run by St. Clement (undergoing some excavation). We climbed further and went to a fortress constructed by Filip, the father of Alexander the Great (or Alexander the Macedonian, as he is referred to there). We climbed on the fortress walls for more beautiful views of the lake and town.

Abby and I by the cliff near St. John's Church 

Afterwards we went and hung out at the ruins of an ancient amphitheater. It was less impressive than the one we saw in Plovdiv, but it was the perfect site for a mid-afternoon doze in the sun. While we were sitting there, a woman and man walked by. The woman doubled back and warned us (in perfect English): "Be careful. The sun is very strong and you're all already red." After the ominous warning, we walked back down to the pedestrian street and got some gelato. Abby bought some jewelry and Kyle bought a Macedonian flag sticker before we went back to the hostel to drop our stuff off and figure out buses for the next day. Looking in the mirror, we were all pretty sunburnt, particularly Kyle's face and my decolletage.

Sunset and sunburn

Worn out from a long day outside, we had a low-key dinner and went to sleep early. Plus, we had to wake up at 4 am to catch our 5 am bus to Skopje. That bus was followed by another to Sofia and one last one to Blago. By the time I was back to my room, it was 5 pm. As I said, it was a lot of traveling time, but the lake was absolutely beautiful. The water was so clear, and the weather was sunny during the day and chilly at night (perfect).

Last week at AUBG was overwhelmingly busy. Referred to as the Amazing Week at AUBG, it would take forever to go through everything in depth, so here's a glimpse: It featured More Honors (which is sort of like the Oscars for AUBG, if the awards given out were more like the superlatives in high school). All of the categories were entertaining, and each one had a video clip that preceded the list of nominees. The videos were hilarious and very well-made. In addition to More Honors, it was also the last week of beer pong (each week the school holds a beer pong tournament). We lost in the first round (a typical performance). Also, there was a fancy/dressy cocktail party called JMC Rocks, which honors the Journalism/Media/Communications students here. The whole weekend was Alumni Weekend, which included a student/alumni challenge on Saturday. Sunday was the AUBG Olympics, sort of a field day event with all sorts of different competitions, including tennis, swimming, tug-of-war, soccer, and arm wrestling. On top of all this, our Turkish friends hosted an informal "Turkish Night" for a small group of us Americans where they prepared different Turkish food and drinks for us and played Turkish music.

So basically, the week was jam-packed with festivities, barbecues on the lawn outside of the dorms, and various off-campus events. In the midst of this I somehow managed to write my entire Environmental Science paper without missing out on too much of the fun.

Now tonight I leave for Istanbul, where I'll be staying from Friday morning until Monday night (classes are cancelled Monday for Easter). I have two papers due next Wednesday, but then I'm done with classes for the semester next Thursday. We might try to go to the Black Sea coast the weekend before finals, but I'll definitely be going to Italy after the semester ends. I booked a flight to Milan last night with Abby. Right now, our tentative plans include Cinque Terre, Florence, Naples, Sorrento, Capri, and finally, Rome.

I'll be back in the U.S. in less than a month! Time is flying by, but there's still a lot of traveling ahead of me.

Some more pictures:

Cool cars in Ohrid 

Boardwalk

View of the town from the boat

Cool rock formations 

St. John's Church

Beautiful water

View of town from the fortress

Pindzur

Too cold to swim, but never too cold to wade

PS. Special thanks to Kyle and Abby for the pictures in this post!

Another Week in the Life

Hello,

I'm back again, though with a less exciting week to report on. There were some definite highlights, though. Last Wednesday, I went to see the AUBG musical, Moulin Rouge. I knew that they held auditions for it way back in September and have been working on it ever since. And some of the first people that I met at AUBG were involved in the musical; Abby's neighbors, my first friend from a class,  and a girl from my one-day involvement in the women's choral group. This, combined with the general aura of anticipation and the buzz surrounding the show, convinced us to buy our tickets a few weeks ago. Wednesday was the third and final night of performances here in Blagoevgrad, to be followed by a national tour with shows in Sofia, Stara Zagora, Varna, Burgas, and Plovdiv (I think the cast and crew are missing about a week of school).

Poster for Moulin Rouge

I wasn't really sure what to expect, but the show was absolutely wonderful. There were some really elaborate large dance numbers that had good choreography. The leads were all great singers and actors. I hadn't seen Moulin Rouge since I was in the 6th grade, so we watched the movie version earlier that day so it would be fresh. Remembering the story made the live version all the better. It was just exhilarating. I love live theater, and it was crazy to see how talented some of my classmates (or dorm-mates or people I pass on the street) are. I think that this sensation was amplified since AUBG is such a small university. You recognize people around even if you don't know their names. It was neat to see how people that I randomly see around are actually really good dancers or singers or actors (or all of the above, as in most cases).

Another highlight:

Melnik

A spur-of-the-moment day trip. On Saturday, four of my friends and I decided to take a trip to Melnik. It's supposed to be the smallest town in Bulgaria (population under 300, if I'm not mistaken). It's known for its architecture, wine-making, and unique mountain formations. The architecture is mostly Bulgarian National Revival-style, which is like what we saw in the Old Town in Plovdiv. It's very charming and beautiful. The town itself was full of little hotels with terrace restaurants, and the narrow main street was dotted with people selling homemade wine in plastic coke bottles. The weather was beautiful and we wandered for a while before sitting down to lunch.

Wine cave

After lunch we hiked up to a wine cellar that was in a cave in the mountains. This was really neat. The path up to it was treacherous, at least in ballet flats. But it had a beautiful view of the town, and there were two little outdoor pavilion areas with tables and chairs. For just 2 leva, you could go in and explore the wine cave (and get a "free" glass of wine). The cave itself was full of barrels and barrels of wine, and the vintner himself got us each a glass from one of the barrels, depending on what type we chose.

This was my first wine-tasting (still underage in the U.S.), so I didn't really know what I was doing, but it was hardly a conventional atmosphere. We were the only ones there, so I felt no shame in fully exploring the cave. We kept going back until it got more and more narrow, including climbing up into this raised area where you had to crawl or sit. I'm normally a little claustrophobic, but the cave wasn't that big that I got scared. As long as I could see the exit, I was fine. We found out later from the vintner that the tunnel I had been in was actually a ventilation tunnel to control the amount of humidity in the cave. So not quite a playground, but close.

After a little bit, we took our wine glasses outside and enjoyed the view of the city. As the sun grew lower in the sky, we descended from our mountainside winery and walked back through the town. We stopped so Kerri could buy some honey from an array of roadside preserves and other homemade canned goodies. We tried to get a bus back (Melnik is only about 2 hours from Blagoevgrad), but in our typical fashion, the sign was wrong and we had missed the last bus. We took a bus to nearby Sandanski instead and took a cab from there to Blago for only 5 leva apiece more than the bus. Not such a bad deal.

This is where the story turns sour. So as not to displease my more sensitive readers (Ellen), I'll keep it brief. I had a very high fever and a bad sore throat starting that night and continuing for several days. The AUBG doctor saw me on Monday morning (after I spent all day Sunday sleeping) and told me that I had strep throat. My lovely roommates filled my prescriptions for me and I continued sleeping until the antibiotic started working (about yesterday afternoon). I skipped all of my classes Monday, took a midterm Tuesday morning in a feverish daze (it's fine, though), and kept sleeping until today.

But the good news is that I'm feeling much better. Travel plans got put on hold during my period of illness, but hopefully I'll get back to working on that soon.

Until next time...

Nice vintner

The group in the cave

Path in Melnik

Homemade wine for sale

School Stuff and Pageantry

Hi again loyal followers,

I'm back with more of my life here in Bulgaria. Last week was relatively stressful academically speaking, with a philosophy paper, my Bulgarian folk music midterm, and a philosophy presentation all crammed together in a few days.

So most of my weekend looked like this: 

But there were some exceptions to the working. We went to the Irish pub in town on St Patrick's Day, and even got some green beer, which was fun. St. Patrick's Day wasn't too much of a big deal here though, compared to the U.S. Most people weren't even wearing green, and it probably would have been inappropriate to pinch. But there was still some degree of festivity.

Part of the band at the mehana

On Friday night (after a day at the library with Abby), my roommates invited me and a few of my friends to go to a mehana (sort of like a traditional tavern/restaurant) with them. It was similar to what we did for St. Trifon Zarezan day back in February, but at a different mehana in town. There was live folk music playing, and all four of us Americans tried our hand at dancing the horo, with varying degrees of success. The evening ended with dancing on benches and tables, which seemed to be perfectly acceptable. My roommates are actually a lot of fun. They seemed quiet early on in the semester, but I've gotten to know them a lot better over the last month or two and they're actually really funny. They've taught me some Bulgarian (mostly slang words, but nothing too offensive) and they think it's funny when I try to use it. I'm actually going to miss them both a lot when I leave.

Sunshine at Skapto

The rest of the weekend I spent in the library, distracting myself from Pitt's excruciating loss in the NCAA tournament with Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy. I turned that paper in on Monday, then spent Tuesday studying for my Bulgarian folk music midterm. It turned out to be equally as strange as the class has been so far; we were given two general concepts to talk about and basically had to write everything we know about them. The professor caught two people cheating (looking at sheets with notes) during the test, but he didn't take their tests away. It was bizarre. Thursday I had my big philosophy presentation, which actually went surprisingly well despite my intense anxiety. After I finished, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders since my week was basically over.

Miss AUBG

We had beautiful weather over the weekend (70s and sunny), so I spent most of the day Friday and Saturday either laying outside on a blanket or exploring Bachinovo Park (just outside the town). On Friday night I went with my friends (and also most of the school) to the Miss AUBG pageant, which had been publicized around campus for weeks with giant pink posters featuring the silhouette of a girl in stilettos standing with her legs spread and her hands on her hips. This was actually amusingly close to the reality...The pageant was held at a nightclub with a catwalk/stage and there were tons of people there to watch. The girls competed in a number of different categories, the most entertaining of which was the talent portion. One girl danced with ribbons, one girl danced with a giant exercise ball, and one girl belly-danced. There were some singers and one girl played the violin (and of course, having an actual talent, lost). They also paraded around in bikinis at one point with angel wings on. In addition to a formal gown segment and an interview portion, I think that there was also some sort of group dance number. It was hard to see everything from where we were standing, but even so it was quite the spectacle.

Close-up of the church at Zemen Monastery

On Sunday Bulgaria sprang forward an hour, a time change that I felt acutely when I woke up to leave for my history field trip. For my falsifications in history class, we've taken two field trips so far: one to a local museum in Blagoevgrad and another to Boyana Church and the National History Museum near Sofia. This was our third and last of the semester and we went to Zemen Monastery and Kyustendil (a town in western Bulgaria). Zemen Monastery features the oldest church in Bulgaria, the church of St. John the Theologian. It had beautiful 11th centruy frescoes of the passion of Christ and various portraits of saints inside, but we weren't allowed to take any pictures (you'll just have to go there yourself someday). The weather was nice out, which was good since we had to go into the church in two groups since it was so small. While the other group was inside we wandered around the monastery grounds and looked out over the village of Zemen (the monastery was at a high elevation).

Zemen, not Kyustendil

After the monastery, we went to Kyustendil, a town of important historical significance in Bulgaria. As I've written about before, Bulgaria actually refused Hitler's orders to deport the Jewish population. Kyustendil was actually where the resistance to the order began when some local leaders lobbied politicians in Sofia to halt the deportation orders. The Jewish people in Kyustendil had already been ordered to report for deportation when the order was finally denied by the Bulgarian government.

In Kyustendil, we went to a neat art gallery featuring the works of Vladimir Dimitrov Maistora, an important Bulgarian painter. The paintings were beautiful and many featured portraits of local people (he was from near Kyustendil) surrounded by local fruits or flowers. There were a lot of pretty landscape paintings with very vivid colors as well. It's the largest public collection of his work, and it was interesting to see because his homeland, Bulgaria, obviously provided the primary inspiration for the paintings.

Kamen Bridge

We stopped at a bridge that was constructed during the 1400s under the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria. It was scenic and the sun was setting. By the time we got back from the trip, it was around 7 pm, so it was a long and full day, but I enjoyed it.

Now, I'm back into school mode for a while. I spent a considerable part of yesterday laboring over my schedule for the fall back at Pitt. I'm working on plans to travel to Lake Ohrid in Macedonia in a few weeks and the plan is still to go to Istanbul over Easter weekend. Plus, I've got to start planning for after the semester ends, when I'll have a week to travel before my flight back to the states.

More pictures:

Results portion of Miss AUBG 

St. John the Theologian's Church at Zemen Monastery

 Martenitsa bracelets 

Talent portion of Miss AUBG

Sunshine and Thessaloniki

Hi again...

As usual, this blog provides a good outlet for procrastination by allowing me to rationalize not working on something (in this case, my philosophy paper) by instead doing something somewhat productive (writing this post). But this is going to be relatively short...

Sunset in Thessaloniki

The White Tower

Last weekend, my friends and I decided to go on an impromptu trip to Greece. Early in the week, most of us were worn out from spring break and trying to get caught up on sleep and schoolwork. On Thursday afternoon, someone suggested going to Thessaloniki for the weekend, and we went ahead with it. We left on Friday at noon and our bus got in around 4 pm. Our hotel was within walking distance from the bus station, so we dropped our stuff off and went to the harbor in time to watch the sunset. Thessaloniki has a nice long street that follows along the edge of the water. There's a bike trail and a pedestrian part right along the sea, and on the other side the street is lined with cafes. We walked for a while before picking a restaurant. After dinner, we walked back to the White Tower, which was previously used as a prison and for executions but now is a museum and a city landmark. We wound back along the water and through the city to go back to our hotel (along the way stopping for some amazing ice cream).

The market

The next morning, we headed to one of the cafes by the water to get some coffee and plan the day's activities. I had an amazing iced coffee. Also, one of the cool things about Greece is that they always bring out little pastries with your coffee (or, if you get a beer, they bring you a little dish of pretzels or popcorn). We decided to split up and reunite in the evening. Abby and I wanted to go shopping, so we left the boys behind. First we went to this wonderful outdoor market that we had passed through on the way to the coffee. It was right off of Aristotle Square, one of the main landmarks of the city. It's a beautiful plaza lined with palm trees and cafes. We wanted to explore the market more, though. I love outdoor markets, and this one didn't disappoint; it had all sorts of different booths, with some selling raw meat or fresh fish and others with fruits and vegetables, lots of olives, or nuts. There were also booths with non-food items, like clothes, religious icons, and antiques.

Olives in the market

I wanted to buy a blood orange to eat, so I went to one of the fruit booths and pointed and asked for one. The guy said "One kilo?" And I shook my head and said no, that I just wanted one orange. He picked one out for me and when I tried to pay, he shook his head and smiled. So I got a free blood orange!

After the market, Abby and I went shopping, mostly along this one main street called Tsimiski. We shopped for a couple of hours before taking a break to get something to eat. It was so nice outside, so we ordered salads at a little cafe and sat outside. The menu had no English, so we just asked the waiter for salads and what he brought was amazing.

Abby with salad

After our little meal, we continued shopping until it was time to meet back up with the boys. We met them by the White Tower and watched the sun set over the water. It was beautiful, and afterwards we went to a seafood restaurant that was really good and had live music playing.

The next day we had to catch our bus back to Bulgaria at nine am, so we got all of our stuff together and walked back to the bus station. It was only 8:30, but we found out that we had missed our bus; apparently it left at 7:30, not 9. There were no other buses that day and we all had midterm exams that week so everyone sort of wanted to get back and have some time to study. We decided to take a taxi back rather than stay another night in Greece. We managed to get a flat rate rather than a meter, which probably saved us a bunch of money. It cost 35 euro per person, but it was worth it for the time it would save us. Unfortunately, though, there were five of us, so we had to fit four in the backseat. It was very crowded, but we got out at the border to stretch and our taxi driver stopped and bought us coffee at a cafe in Bulgaria, near Sandanski. We ended up getting back earlier than we would have with the bus, but it was somewhat of an uncomfortable drive.

Overall, it was a really nice and relaxing weekend. The city was beautiful and the weather was just amazing. After traveling so much over spring break, it was nice to take a short trip to somewhere close by where we didn't feel obligated to do too much sightseeing.

More pictures:

Walking along the water

Fishies in the market

Iced coffee

View from our hotel balcony

Part of Aristotle Square

Yum

Lastly,  Aristotle Square again

Anyways, now back to the philosophy essay. The "study" part of study abroad forces me back to reality. Duty calls...

Midway Musings

So, word on the street is that I'm about halfway finished with my semester abroad. Honestly, it's crazy for me to try to think about that. Time has passed so quickly. It seems like forever ago that I got here, but it also seems like time is moving too fast for me to keep up with.

This post is going to be more of a collection of random thoughts, lists, and observations than it is a narrative.

Reflections:

Top five things that I miss most about the U.S. (excluding friends and family, obviously):

1) college basketball (also, the oakland zoo)

2) rite aid/target

3) mexican/indian/chinese food

4) pandora/hulu (neither website works here)

5) schenley plaza

Some things that I (unexpectedly) love about Bulgaria and/or studying abroad:

1) New holidays:

Trifon Zarezan, Baba Marta, International Women's Day...what do these all have in common? They're all holidays that I had no idea even existed until I came here. The novelty of a lot of traditions associated with holidays in the U.S. has sort of worn off, but participating in new ones with unfamiliar traditions is really cool. Definitely wasn't something that I hadn't thought about before studying abroad, but the adoption of new holiday traditions is awesome.

2) Being desensitized to foreign languages:

Just walking down the hallway in my dorm or in the stairs on the way to class, I hear so many different languages being spoken. I can usually identify Bulgarian or Russian, but it no longer is striking to me to hear them. I would probably be more surprised to hear an American accent (there aren't that many American students here and I know most, if not all, of them).

3) Tomatoes

4) Hilarious bus travel:

Taking a bus here is incredibly entertaining, as long as you're not in a bad mood or anything. First of all, the buses stop all the time. Whenever the bus stops, everyone piles off to smoke, including the driver. People sometimes go into whatever little cafe is nearby and sit down and have a coffee. Breaks can last anywhere from five minutes (very rare) to forty-five minutes. What's even funnier is that the bus schedule seems to take into account various unscheduled or seemingly unplanned stops and delays. It's like they plan for the driver to randomly sit down and order an expresso. Also, at border crossings and customs checks, an officer just gets on the bus, collects everyone's passport, and leaves. He comes back like ten minutes later and gives the stack of passports to the driver, who usually gives them to a random passenger to redistribute to their rightful owners. The most entertaining bus ride so far was from Dubrovnik to Skopje on the way home from spring break, where the driver smoked while he drove (he just cracked open the window). He even let some passengers smoke too, but he had them stay up front by the window.

6) Music in public places:

This is sort of hard to describe. The music in bars here is just very different from in the states. It's a little dorkier. You might hear motown hits or oldies rock in a bar full of college kids, which was sort of weird at first. I love it though, mainly since I'm a huge fan of Elvis and his contemporaries. People here dance differently than in the States, too. Along with the music, it's just generally dorkier, which I prefer. Music in restaurants can be strange too. Like, you may see a restaurant full of old Bulgarian men eating simple traditional dishes and drinking beer, and the latest Katy Perry or Enrique Iglesias song will be playing. Nice restaurants may randomly have some nineties or eighties throwbacks, like Tina Turner or Shania Twain. There's obviously lots of Bulgarian music too. I still have yet to go to a chalga club, but I will at some point. I guess the main thing that I'm trying to say about the music is that it can be unexpected for the venue at times, but I really enjoy that about Bulgaria.

7) Dorms actually being a social hangout place.

8) Interesting lectures:

I went to one last week about the war and genocide in Bosnia in the early 1990's. The talk was given by someone working in Bosnia currently on the Commission for War Crimes. It's something that I'm very interested in, so it's neat to be somewhere where you actually have access to experts on the subject. At Pitt, there are guest lectures all the time, but only occasionally (rarely) do they relate to the Balkans. Here there are more opportunities to learn about subjects that aren't as easily accessed in the states.

9) Open windows with no screens

10) Early spring weather!

Though I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, coming here was sort of scary. Mostly I was scared that I would hate it here. Even though four months isn't a terribly long period of time, it would have been hard to endure if I had been miserable, mainly because of what I would have been missing. I love Pitt a lot and am very happy there, and I knew that if I had stayed there this semester, I would have continued to be happy. So by coming here, I knew that I was giving up being somewhere where I know I would be happy to go live somewhere where it was uncertain whether I would be happy. This understanding caused a lot of anxiety for me in the few weeks before I left.

Now I can sincerely say that I made the right decision. I am very happy here and I have had the opportunity to travel to places that many people never see (or in some cases, are even aware of). I am taking classes (some of them, at least) that I couldn't take in the U.S. and that I actually really enjoy. There honestly hasn't been a moment (except maybe that first night) where I regretted or questioned my choice to come here; it is unequivocally worth it.

It's weird to think of leaving. There's so much that I love about it here and there's so much more that I want to see and do. I think that by the time May rolls around, I will be ready to go home, especially to see loved ones. But for now, I don't want to leave. I like it here, and it's scary how quickly this semester has gone by. I still have time left, though, so I just need to take advantage of it.

I'll tell of my trip to Greece next time...