Spring Break

I leave for spring break tomorrow! And this is what it looks like outside...

Gross.

But I'm so excited! Tomorrow morning I have to take an early morning bus from Blago to Sofia and then our flight goes from Sofia to Dortmund (Germany). We have to spend the rest of Wednesday in Dortmund,  but it's worth it because our Thursday morning flight from Dortmund to Zagreb only cost 25 euro. Plus it means that we'll get to Zagreb on Thursday afternoon, which gives us a head start on the break. We're probably going to need it because right now the tentative plan is to go from Zagreb to Pula, then Zadar/Plitvice Lakes, Split, and Dubrovnik, with a possible island day trip thrown in there near the end. It's going to be a brisk pace, but we'll get to see a lot. Plus, my aunt put me in email contact with some distant relatives (think great-grandmother's sister's grandchildren) who live by Zagreb who have invited me to meet them.

Croatia

The last week or so has been pretty jam-packed as well. I had scary history midterm last Wednesday (still haven't gotten the grade yet, so we'll see how that went) and my philosophy midterm was yesterday. Over the weekend, I went on a mini-trip to Sofia. The university had organized a trip to the opera on Saturday where you could buy a ticket here and AUBG got a bus to Sofia. Also, for my Falsifications in History class, our teacher organized a field trip for Sunday to a medieval church and a history museum in Sofia. So my friends and I just decided to stay overnight in Sofia instead of going back and forth.

On Saturday the opera bus left here at 11 in the morning, and we got caught in a little traffic jam and didn't get to Sofia until a little after 1. My friends and I set out on foot to try to find our hostel, which was a little difficult because it was raining and nasty out. We finally made it there and dropped our stuff off. I changed into my opera clothes (good thing I brought exactly one dress skirt here with me) and we decided to go get something to eat because we were all pretty hungry. Since Sofia's a pretty big city, they actually have a number of ethnic restaurants that you might not be able to find in Blagoevgrad (indian, chinese, mexican, etc.) We were all craving something a little different (and spicy! Spicy is hard to find in the Balkans), so we decided to try out a nearby chinese restaurant. The portions were huge (still haven't quite figured out to decipher grams), but the food was really good. I had some spicy soup and a chicken stir fry dish that was wonderful. We took our time and had a leisurely meal, then went to a Starbucks (!) we had passed earlier on our walk. We mainly just wanted a warm place to sit down and plan our next move, but it was entertaining to go to a Starbucks here. It was virtually identical to how they are in the U.S.

Aleksander Nevski Church in Sofia

We decided to split up because some of the people wanted to go to a specific outdoor store to buy backpacks before spring break. The rest of us decided against sightseeing, just because it was so cold and rainy. Even though we didn't have that long in the city, it was just too miserable to be outside. We went to a mall a little bit outside the center of the city that Heather had read about. We took a cab to get there for about 4 leva (remember this...foreshadowing). The shopping mall was actually really nice. I bought a cute shirt for only 6 leva (gotta love a good sale) and some earrings. We didn't have much time there, though, before we had to leave for the opera. Sofia shopping, from my limited experience of it, seems to have much more variety than Blagoevgrad. Some of the stores were much pricier, but you could find some good deals.

Speaking of pricy, this next part is the worst experience I've had in Bulgaria, so I'll try to keep it short...We had to take taxis to get from the mall to the opera house and there were five of us, so we decided to split up. Max, Kyle, and Heather went in the first cab and Chelsea and I got in the second. We checked the rate when we got in, and it said 59 stotinki per kilometer (stotinki to a lev are like cents to a dollar). That's a normal rate, so we got in, but the meter started going up really really fast. I tried to ask the driver how much it cost per kilometer (which, btw, is the extent of my useful Bulgarian for this situation), but he just angrily pointed at the sign on the front. I asked again how much it cost and he grunted something about the meter and pointed at it. At this point, I was starting to get very frustrated, because I knew that we were getting ripped off, but there was nothing I could do (correction: nothing I could say) because I don't speak enough Bulgarian. We called Kyle in the other taxi and he said that their meter was at 20 leva (at this point, ours was around 21 leva). So we thought maybe that it was some sort of nighttime rate. But by the time we got to the opera house, our meter said 46 leva. Now, to take a taxi from Sofia to Blagoevgrad is between 80 and 120 leva, and that's for an hour and a half long drive. There's no way that it should have been that much, but we didn't know what else to do so we just paid it. We found out that Kyle's cab only paid 33 leva (and they were ripped off too). I think that it should have been around 5 leva and that he switched it so the meter was going up by a lev instead of a stotinki...so like going up a dollar at a time instead of a cent. The money part sucks, but the worst part of all of it was the frustration of feeling like I had no control in the situation. Ugh.

The Sofia Opera

The opera was nice, though. The building was beautiful, and we were in the top balcony. We saw Rigoletto, and the music was beautiful. I had absolutely no clue what was going on in the story, though, because the singing was in Italian and there were Bulgarian captions on a screen above the stage. At the intermission, one of our Bulgarian friends gave us a synopsis of what had happened so far, and it was hard to believe that she was watching the same opera as we were...I looked up the plot on Wikipedia afterwards and it made much more sense. Even missing the story, though, it was cool to hear the music and see the costumes.

After the opera, we walked to our hostel and changed clothes. There was actually a bar in the basement of our hostel and we had received a voucher for a free drink when we got there, so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be a legitimate bar, with tons of people who weren't staying in the hostel. It was an interesting crowd (lots of hippies and dreadlocks) but we met some cool people. We befriended a Fulbright scholar teaching english in Serbia, which is neat because it's something I might be interested in trying to do. Also, it was nice to not have to walk very far to get back (as in, up the stairs).

Boyana Church (picture stolen from Abby)

We got up around ten the next morning and checked out of the hostel. We grabbed something to eat, then took a taxi to the National History Museum (just outside of the city) where we were meeting our history professor and classmates. From there, we first went to the Boyana Church, a medieval church nearby. It had some of the most beautiful paintings I'd ever seen, frescos from the 11th-13th centuries. It was really small and only 8 people could go in at a time, but it was worth the wait. Once all of the groups had gone through, we went back to the museum.

Part of the National History Museum in Sofia

Our professor led us around the museum which was in a really neat building that used to be the home of a high-ranking Communist leader. It went all the way from prehistoric times to the 20th century, and was pretty interesting. The last museum we went to for that class was the Blagoevgrad city museum, which had no heat and was not that impressive. This one was much cooler. It had a lot of Hellenic and Thracian  artifacts that were beautiful. After the museum, we took the bus our teacher had arranged back to Blagoevgrad. We got back here around 6:30 pm and then I had to get down to business to get ready for my midterms/papers.


Now I just have one more class today and then I leave tomorrow morning for Croatia! I can't wait. But I really need to pack, so I should probably stop procrastinating.

Beograd, Trifon Zarezan, and Midterms

Hello dear readers:

It's getting harder to update this in a timely fashion as the semester gets busier and busier, but I'm trying...

The Danube and the Sava Rivers in Belgrade

I made it back safely from a great weekend in Belgrade, Serbia (aka Beograd). We left before dawn on Friday morning, which was a little bit of a struggle. Several of us had gone out to karaoke night at the Piano Bar on Thursday night, and had only gotten back around 3am. I took a little nap, but we had to leave at five. Kerri went around to everyone's room to make sure they were awake, but she had to send me in as reinforcements to get everyone at the last second. Max was still in his room at like 5:10 (we were supposed to leave at 5) and Kyle was still in bed. We managed to get everyone in the van though, and didn't leave too far off schedule. The general transportation plan was to take an AUBG van from Blagoevgrad to Sofia, then a bus from Sofia to Belgrade (with a change in Niš, a city in southern Serbia).

We made it to the Sofia bus station in time for our 7:30 bus and we reached the Serbian border around 9. The border crossing was uneventful. We had to get off the bus on the Bulgarian side and go through individually, but going into Serbia an official just came onto the bus, collected everyone's passports, took them away for like 10 minutes, then brought them back.

Trg Republike

The bus drive through Serbia was scenic...I slept for about 40 minutes, but I was awake for most of the time. We got to Belgrade at around 3 pm and the first matter of business was figuring out how to get to the hostel. This was more difficult than it should have been since Kyle didn't bring the Eastern Europe guide book that I lent him. I asked for directions at the information desk (in Serbian) but it was too hard to hear the woman in the glass booth, so I was trying to read her lips. I could sort of figure out where we needed to go, but I decided instead to just ask where to buy a map. Luckily I had some U.S. dollars to change, because the exchange place wouldn't accept Bulgarian leva. So I got some dinara (the currency in Serbia) and bought a map. That combined with asking for directions a few times from people on the street and we were able to make it to the Republic Square (Trg Republike). Our hostel was right off of the square on a little pedestrian street and it was easy to find.

After we dropped our stuff off (there were 9 of us traveling, btw...all American exchange students), we headed to a nearby bank to withdraw some dinara since we couldn't change our leva. Kerri was the last one to use the atm, so the rest of us were waiting outside when she came out and yelled for me to come help her. The machine had given the money out, but then sucked it back in before she took it. But it gave her a receipt. So she was panicking (a lot), and the guard, who saw that there was an issue, directed us into the bank. I was unneeded, though, because the teller he sent us to spoke English. So I mainly was just needed for moral support. We had to wait for an hour and a half while the teller tried to get it sorted out, but in the end Kerri didn't get the money. She has to settle things with her bank in the U.S. when she gets back.

pljeskavica 

At that point, we were all starving, so we headed to a restaurant our hostel recommended on Skardarska street (a really neat cobblestone street) called Šešir Moj (my hat). It seemed like it catered to tourists wanting an "authentic" Serbian meal, but we were actually the only people who looked like tourists there (maybe since it's the off-season). But the food was delicious; I had pljeskavica sa kajmakom, a meat patty type dish with a creamy dairy product. It's hard to describe, but it was really good. The restaurant had a little folk quartet that came and played several songs for our table (particularly Chelsea, who at least two different musicians personally serenaded).

After dinner we went back to the hostel and I took a shower. I was pretty tired from the stress of traveling (especially in such a big group), but one of the hostel employees, Natalia, offered to take us for a night out on the town, so I decided to rally. We went to a couple of bars with her, but most of them were really crowded (like too packed to move), so some of us came back relatively early. Belgrade is known for its nightlife, but I wanted to get a decent night's sleep so I could sightsee on Saturday and since I was already tired.

Me, at the fortress, being a dork

On Saturday, I insisted that we split up into two groups of five and four so that it would be easier to get around. It was just too draining to be traveling in such an enormous group. So I led my group of both Abbys, Jaron, and Kyle. Max, the second most competent, was selected to lead the other group of Heather, Chelsea, and Kerri.

My group decided to head first to Tito's mausoleum, which was the only thing that we wanted to see that required bus travel rather than walking. We found the bus stop and got on, but we hadn't bought our tickets at a kiosk (thinking that we could buy them on the bus), but then we couldn't. At this point, we were riding the bus illegally and we decided that we would hop off if the man who checks tickets got on.  I was a little trigger happy, though, and insisted that we get off only like a stop later when a man who looked official got on.

Bombed Building

It ended up being fortuitous, though, because we were right across from something that we wanted to see: the old military headquarters that was bombed during the Kosovo conflict by NATO/the U.S. in 1999. One of the hostel employees told us to take pictures from the opposite side of the street, because there are military police outside of the buildings and they would have made us delete them from our cameras. It was weird to see the damage from U.S. bombings. A friend from Serbia told us that the reason why they haven't repaired or torn down the buildings is because of their location. The street that they're on is where most of the foreign embassies in Belgrade are located and also where the foreign ministry building is. The idea, then, is that all of the foreign diplomats and important international visitors will be reminded visually of Serbia's suffering....This is just what one person told me, though.

Tito's tomb

After that, we actually purchased bus tickets and got back on to go to Tito's mausoleum. We overshot it a little bit, so we just crossed the street and took the bus back in the other direction. There's three main parts to Tito's resting place: the museum of Yugoslav history, the old museum, and the house of flowers (where the actual tomb is). Walking up towards the museum, it looked sort of bleak. The weather wasn't too cheery over the weekend...it was cold and cloudy and drab. I think that in the warm weather it would be beautiful, but it felt very austere on an overcast day. We skipped the main museum and headed to the house of flowers, which was actually really cool. In the center, surrounded by plants, was Tito's marble tomb and some of the surrounding rooms contained different exhibits. It had some info about Tito's life, especially the festivities around Youth Day, an annual celebration that he held in May in Yugoslavia.

After that we checked out the old museum, which contains some gifts given to Tito from foreign dignitaries and also some exhibitions on loan from an ethnographic museum, if I understood correctly. It had some neat folk costumes and amusing captions, which we enjoyed. Afterwards, we headed back to the city center and had lunch at a restaurant we found tucked back away from the main road. We had been looking for a different one, but our map was wrong, so we sort of stumbled upon the one we ended up eating at. It was another fortuitous mishap, though, because the restaurant we ate in was excellent. They didn't have an English menu, so I was trying to translate things for my friends, but eventually some of them just had me pick a dish out for them. I tried sarma this time, another traditional Serbian dish. It was sort of cabbage stuffed with meat and other things. Whatever was in it, it was delicious. I sampled some of my companions' food too, and it was all wonderful.

After lunch, we headed to Strahinjica Bana street, which is in Dorćol, the bohemian quarter of town. We wandered around and took pictures then headed back up through the Student Park to Knez Mihailova street, the big pedestrian walkway. We actually wandered into the middle of a band playing music in the street; like a full marching band. I have no idea what the occasion was, but we stopped to listen for a while. We walked down that until we got to the entrance to Kalemegdan Park. There was a really cool view of the city from the Monument of the Victor (commemorating Serbia's victories in the First Balkan War and World War I). Also, there's a fortress there that is basically situated on a cliff overlooking the confluence of the Danube and Sava Rivers. As part of the military museum located there, there were a bunch of replicas of weapons (like tanks, etc.) around the fortress. We enjoyed scampering around and playing for awhile and exploring the fortress. Actually, I think that the fortress was my favorite place in Belgrade.

Kalemegdan Fortress

Afterwards, we did some shopping on Knez Mihailova street until dinner, where we went to a restaurant near the old Saborna Church. The restaurant was called Question Mark (as in, it doesn't have a name, just a question mark on a sign outside). The food was good, of course. I tried ljutenica, a red pepper dish that is like ajvar, but hotter. The highlight of dinner was a little boy at the table near us who spent most of the evening milling around the restaurant pretending to be a velociraptor. After dinner we went back to Kalemegdan Park to see the view at night, which was stunning.

ljutenica

We headed back to the hostel after that, and Natalia took us out again. This night we went to two places with live music, which was really cool. I was worn out from such a full day of sightseeing, though, so we didn't stay out too late. The next morning we got our act together and headed to the bus station. We had some added stress when they didn't accept card and we had to scramble to find an atm, but it all worked out. On the bus ride back, I mostly slept and ignored my schoolwork looming ominously on the horizon.

Ulica Knez Mihailova

My overall impressions of Serbia were good. The people there are very kind. Not that Bulgarians aren't nice, but I felt like there was a warmth to Serbians that stood out to me. A lot of interactions (like the bank, asking for directions, etc.) could have been a source of inconvenience to them, but the Serbians I met were very patient and friendly. Of course, this interpretation may be biased by the fact that I actually could speak the language.

Until I went to Serbia, I thought I was doing alright here in Bulgaria (in terms of the language). I can pick up on some words and I've been able to manage in restaurants and the like. But going to Serbia, I could actually understand people (and they could understand me!). It seemed like most people in Belgrade spoke English, so there wasn't too great of a need, but I really enjoyed at least getting to practice. And some actually told me that I speak well! So I was happy.

The Belgrade group at Kalemegdan at night

Coming back to classes was stressful. I had my first midterm last week right before we left for Belgrade, then I had a presentation on Monday and a history midterm on Wednesday. The presentation went alright considering the amount of stress it caused me (I don't like public speaking). Monday was Valentine's Day for those of you in the States (and here too), but more importantly it was Sveti Trifon Zarezan day. He's the patron saint of gardeners and winegrowers, and people here celebrate his feast day with the standard eat-drink-be merry combo (specifically, wine, since he's the saint of winegrowers). My Bulgarian suitemates/roommates invited me to come with them to a mehana that night. They had a table with about 25 people, but just four of us were exchange students. There was live music playing (Bulgarian Folk Music!) and I even danced a horo. My roommate helped me learn on the spot, but once you pick up on the basic step, it's not too hard since it's the same thing over and over. I really enjoyed the atmosphere. The mehana was packed, and all of the Bulgarians were having so much fun. It was really cool to see my roommates let loose, too, since usually I see them when we're (ok, they're) studying. I had a great time...so great that I accidentally slept through my nine am class on Tuesday. One class isn't too big of a deal.

I've spent the rest of the week studying for various midterms and attempting to plan my spring break trip. Spring break starts in one week! Or, for me, less than a week; I'm actually leaving a little early. I'm officially going to Croatia, and obviously I'm incredibly excited. I still have a test and a paper to do before I leave, though, so I need to get some work done.

I'll check in one more time before spring break and I should have a more definite itinerary then. 

Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon

Hello all-

Sorry that it's been awhile since my last post. This one's going to be a short one, too. I'll throw in some random pictures to make it more interesting

It's absolutely beautiful outside here. Today I had class at 9am, then nothing until my night class later, so I took a nap then after lunch I hung out outside for awhile. It's like sixty degrees and sunny, so we took a blanket and just hung out for a hour or two. I tried to do some reading, but instead I mainly just ended up laying in the sun like a cat or something. I'm in such a good mood, now, though.

Yesterday consisted of a couple classes (E.E. history and Philosophy), then we had to watch this documentary for my other history class. It was called "Beyond Hitler's Grasp" and it told the story of the Jews in Bulgaria during World War II. During the war, Bulgaria was actually an ally of Nazi Germany, but King Boris III of Bulgaria refused Hitler's demand to ship the Jewish population of Bulgaria to death camps in Poland. There's obviously a lot more to the story than that, and the documentary about it was fascinating. It showed some of the different layers to what happened, including the involvement of different Bulgarian politicians and Christian Orthodox leaders.

My brother said that he likes the food pictures,
so I figured I'd keep 'em coming

I had a relatively uneventful weekend as well. On Thursday night, some of my friends and I went out for a drink with my two roommates (Sonya and Gergana) and one of my suitemates (Toni). This is one of the first times that they've gone out, and it was really fun to hang out with them. On Friday, during the day I hung out and did some reading (I am perpetually behind on reading here; well, not really ever behind, but always in need of reading to keep up). Friday night, we went back to our favorite restaurant, which is called Kuklite (The Puppets). It's the traditional bulgarian restaurant up on the top of this hill in the Old Town (I think that I've mentioned it before). This time, we had a Bulgarian friend with us, which helped facilitate things since this is one of the places where they speak no English. One of the catch phrases or mottos that comes up constantly here is "Take a Bulgarian," which basically means that it's some task (like going to the post office or calling somewhere) that will be incredibly difficult to complete without someone who actually speaks Bulgarian. Luckily, we've made enough friends by now that "Take a Bulgarian" isn't too difficult; we can always find someone to help us.

Speaking of Bulgarian helpers, the good Samaritan from our Plovdiv trip, Kristina, the girl who helped us get a taxi, is actually in my Bulgarian Folk Music class. I was happy to see her in class then after that weekend because we didn't really get a chance to thank her enough and we didn't know if we would meet her again. Also, I'm all about making friends in that class, since we're only going to have a final exam and no other grades. Plus, it takes an army to decipher our professor sometimes. Last week, I was talking before the lecture with two Bulgarian guys who sit by me about how hard it is to understand him. One of them said that he had friends who had had the professor for choir and that he was always telling them to "Be more precious," when he actually meant "precise." Once the lecture started, within five minutes the professor actually used the word "precious" in place of "precise," and I was glad to have had the warning (although it was very difficult not to laugh since we had just talked about it). Plus, I've been using that class to practice my cyrillic by writing the names of the songs and musicians in cyrillic and the people who sit around me check it for me to make sure that it's right.

On Friday, we went to a rock show at a local bar. It was actually a band made up of AUBG students and they were really good. I love live music, and they were good performers. They played all in English, and it was all recognizable songs (my favorites were one by the Arctic Monkeys and a cool rock version of Hey Ya). After that, I'm going to try to keep my eyes peeled for more live music around Blagoevgrad.

More food...tarator and half-eaten shopska

Saturday afternoon I did something very out of character- I had a massage. There's a spa right by the main building and we heard that it was good, so we decided to check it out. I got a back massage, and I actually liked it, despite my aversions to strangers and being touched. I decided that I'm too young to be so set in my ways, since my ways can't possibly have been around for that long, so I'm going to try new things even if it's a little out of my comfort zone. And this time, I was pleasantly surprised. Massages here are cheaper than in the States (or so my friends said...I don't really know spa prices in the U.S.). It was a little intimidating due to the ever-present language barrier, but the receptionist at the desk spoke English, so at least we knew what we were ordering. But the massage was really nice and relaxing and I may even get one again sometime.

I should probably stop writing this since I have my first exam here tomorrow (in Environmental Science) and I haven't started studying yet. Other things to briefly report: I almost joined a women's choral group that a girl from my Philosophy class is in, but one afternoon taught me that I am vastly under-qualified. I think that Abby might stick with it, though, and I probably go to their concert in a few months because I'm sure it will be amazing. I do think that I might join the newspaper here (not to write, just to proofread) but I'll have more info on that if I actually do it.

And, the most exciting news to report: this weekend I'm going to Belgrade! I am so excited. We just booked our hostel and we're having someone help us book bus tickets tomorrow. We'll be leaving on Friday at dawn and then heading from Sofia to Belgrade. I should get back on Sunday night. I literally cannot wait. If it weren't for this pesky exam I'd be completely over the moon, but for now I need to take things one at a time until the weekend.

Sorry if this post was sort of scattered; there are just too many things on my mind for me to properly report everything. I'll check back in once I get back from Belgrade.