If I made a list of what I’ve done, you might not believe me. I’ve looked at bucket lists that many people have set for themselves and have done many of them at 30. Just means I get to come up with new things to do as I go along, I reckon.

Midnight mass at the VaticanSeeing the Pope (JP II; Benedict XVI)31 countries in 30 yearsLived abroad (Bulgaria)World Cup (2006, Germany)Bob Dylan for free on the beach in SpainWorld Cup Semi-final in the Circus Maximus in RomeBull Fight in BarcelonaRunning of the Bulls, PamplonaPyramids (Egyptian, Aztec, & a Mayan temple)Aya SophiaEphesus39 states; DC

Just for starters. Hopefully, since I've added an iPhone to my life and finally paid a little attention to getting started on that, I can be a little better about posting and updating in future.

The Bucket List bit was something I started back in December as I was staring at 30. Now that I've hit 30, the year is as with any other year, just another opportunity and more experiences to talk about. "Gonna keep on tryin' til I reach my highest ground!"

AFN

DCC

21 June 2011

Whenever traveling, my thought always runs to business then at least a little pleasure, and for me that derives from getting to the local restaurants that I can't get in Athens. If a place is particularly known for one food or another, I try to go with that. Yes, I breakdown and go to a chain sometimes because it's easier and quicker.

As a rule though, local is the answer. For the short time I was in Louisville, I managed to hit two spots, both of which had excellent food and the second, which will be a surprise I'm sure, was a local brewery.

from 16 October 2010

Havana Rumba

I decided, based on the recommendation of Hello Louisville, to head to a Cuban spot, Havana Rumba. Louisville isn't exactly famous for its Cuban/Caribbean cuisine, but I wanted Cuban almost as soon as I saw the story on Hello Louisville, mostly because I've heard so much about the different options, but never sampled it beyond a Torta Cubana.

Havana Rumba (top) & their version of Ropa Vieja with black beans & maduros.

After discussing Ropa Vieja, slow-cooked flank steak with sweet/bell peppers and, in the recipe at Havana Rumba, green olives, with one of my colleagues, it was an easy sell when I found it on the menu. Along with the black beans, which were the best I've ever had and perfectly seasoned, and pan fried plantains, each complimented each other perfectly. I had not expected barbecue when I chose to hit a Cuban place, but this was fairly close, even though the slow-cooking method was a bit different.

BBC (Bluegrass Brewing Company)

Beyond the typical pub fair, the brew selection at BBC was wide enough that a 'running of the taps' would hurt you much more than doing the same at Copper Creek in Athens-town. I sampled the Raspberry Meade, which was interesting, but not to my tastes in meades (i.e. trying to do too much to the basic meade).

Die Schwarz-bier. 'I see your schwarzt is as big as mine!'

Meanwhile, the Schwarz-bier I went with, which was a black/dark lager was a pretty good start while watching 3 different football games on 3 flatscreens that they had set up at the bar, which . . . was . . . awesome.

I was in that chair, right at the middle of the bar. Beer & football. Awesome.

They also had a nice Scotch Ale on cask while I was there, and while it was a little warmer than I like (I like my cask ales less-cold than other beers since it brings out the flavor of the ale much better), even for a cask ale, the body and maltiness of the brew was spot-on.

Can you argue with a lady with a big hat & 2 barrels of beer?

Finally, I 'went home with' a Belgian Tripel called Mephisopheles' Metamorphosis, which made a nice compliment to one of the best college football weekends of viewing I've had the chance to enjoy in a while.

"Well, there are many different lesser imps & demons, but the Great Satan hisself . . ." Solid beer.

Good times in the Bluegrass. More from Lexington later.

AFN

DCC

23 October 2010

The Sweet Onion City, Georgia

As this month as suddenly jumped up and gotten to be nearly half-done-with, I'll just get a quick post up. I'm hoping that I'll be able to run a daily (ha-ha) update from where I was/what I was doing 5 years ago as I went through my Peace Corps experience in Bulgaria. And some of them will be new entries, some from my journal, with parts redacted as I see fit, and notes that I sent home, some of which I've posted on here already.

Here's to living in the past and remembering.

13 August 2005 (yes, the year is right)

Obviously, the hope is to have some way to digitize my journeys in Bulgaria and keep me on task with it. Yesterday five years, was actually the first day that I met many of the folks who would become PCVs and later RPCVs with me. Today, we were in the midst of training sessions and staging to go to Bulgaria.

There are several stories I could tell about the experience, getting kicked out the Whole Foods, for example. When you see a cafeteria area in a store and you're not from the area, you assume (as did the three of us who were there--names will be with held to protect the guilty, but you know who you are) that you can consume whatever is sold in said store. The store sold beer. We assumed (there's that word again) that you could drink a beer in the cafe area of the store. We were wrong and got asked to leave.

Oh, and then there's that meeting folks thing, the Stoebner's thought I was stuck-up cause I showed up in a suit and wasn't my normal self after showing up from the airport (i.e. gruff and brusque), which was probably a fair assesment, but they became two of my favorite people in Bulgaria while I was there.

Then there was that Koubi fellow (he's been a lot better about posting our exploits than I), whom I actually 'met' from across the room. He stood up and introduced himself. "Hi, I'm Michael El Koubi. I'm from the great state of Louisiana. I graduated from LSU. And GEAUX TIGAHS!" I looked across the room at that point and realized that it was the guy I'd seen in the yellow gold hat with purple letters that read "TIGERS". I don't know if it was love at first site, but I realized I had somebody I could 1) talk to football about and 2) someone who could probably tolerate watching football with me, as folks are crazy on the Bayou about football.

So, when it came time to introduce myself, I sent a return football message: "Hi, I'm Carey Clinton. I'm from the great state of Georgia. I graduated from UGA and got my masters from Ohio State . . . [etc., etc. I don't remember the details] And GO DAWGS!" He glanced over at me at that point and had that "He-likes-football-too!" look in his eyes . . . He still is due to wear a "Jesus Love Georgia More" T-shirt at some point, but I won't push my luck (no, Koub, I haven't forgotten).

Plane ride and an in memoriam 'tomorrow' . . . and pictures that will be the first of many!

AFN

DCC

Athens, GA

13 August 2010

The Urinal-Constipation (Atlanta Journal-Constitution for the uninitiated) has finally caught on with the World Cup. They may have been posting for a week or more for all I know, but they actually have a couple good articles and links out on the site now on the Cup.

Less than 36 hrs!!!

Sam's Army: Awesome, simply awesome. There are more than the Marietta man (13,999 to be precise or there abouts), Brock Kwiatkowsky, and his family who are part of 'Sam's Army', the Official US footie fan club that the AJC covers, but the fact that he's dropped $25,000+ for his family to travel the globe to see the US team play. I want his job. Ok, and I'm now a member of Sam's Army. USA! USA!

Hipsters & Footie: A nice satirical comment on the 'inside-the-perimeter' hipsters who are suddenly turned on to soccer. I don't have a whole lot of room to point fingers, but I'm trying to learn more about the game and follow more of the European Leagues and . . . gasp . . . MLS (Peters, Columbus Crew if there's a match in Oct). Also a great link to 'Stuff White People Like' (a blog) and it's post on the World Cup.

97% Sell-out: And yes, this one is actually from the AJC also. But the Cup is at a 97% sell-out for the matches which is remarkable for the locale. Don't know how that compares to previous finals, but I do know that the Americans (United-Statesians, as they would say in Latin America) have bought more tickets than any other population. So, without a doubt, interest in the U.S. is up, which is awesome. Just wish I could go.

Shenanigans! (oh, wait, that's Irish): Finally out of Liverpool (or is it Liverpooh?), some tosser, sheep-shagger supporters (yes, that's British vernacular) of the Liverpool FC decided to go burn a US flag. Really? Did you miss the 'Don't Tread on Me' gear that US supporters are wearing. Assholes.

That snake'll bite you!

As I noted elsewhere, the Soviet Union now has a better chance of me rooting for them to win than Liverpool ever will. Ever.

Robert Burns (the guy who wrote the article for FoxSoccer) is dead-on-balls-accurate with his title: "American flag burning by Liverpool fans should incense Yanks ..." If that won't incense you, no amount of bulletin board material ever will, and you need to move to Canada, no matter what your political affiliations are.

Oh, and Nani's out for the Portugeezers. A little old news right now, but add him to the MASH unit.

One of the more sudden posts that I've had in a while. I love it.

AFNDCC9 June 2010Athens, Georgia

Don't do this at home . . . or on the road for that matter.

What not to wear to one of the matches. (from the folks at FourFourTwo)

Sadly, there are guys who wear similar get-ups to the UGA basketball games. Just looks silly. 1) No one can identify who you are. Of course, wearing that, I'm not sure I'd want anyone to identify who you were. 2) Do you really want to know what a body condom feels like? 3) Wearing clothes underneath?

That will be all.

AFN

DCC

7 June 2010

Injury Bug Listening to and watching a replay of the US-Aussie and even though I know the outcome, I can't help but hope we don't lose anyone to injury as seems to be the case with regularity over the last few days.

As a friend texted me earlier today "Robben, Pirlo, Drogba, Ferdinand, Essien, Obi Mikel, Altidore, Ballack, Franco, and Skrtel . . . am I missing anyone?" I responded w/ "USA! USA!" And later that I thought Eto'o was out too based on something I'd read in one of the comment sections of a World Cup article. On further review though, looks like Eto'o will play just w/ a chip on his shoulder which could be bad for Cameroon's side.

So, the English captain (Ferdinand); one of the world's premier players (Drogba, who didn't get to play in the '06 cup as Cote d'Ivoire didn't make the finals, but may yet play); Robben for the Dutch; Mikel for Nigeria; Pirlo for the Azzuri; Essien for the Black Stars; Ballack, who's been out for a while for Deustchland; Altidore who's questionable for the US; Franco for Mexico; and Skrtel for Slovakia who apparently can't get out of his own way when it comes to injuries.

This is a more 'official' article on the whole thing from the AP.

So while some are questionable, it's probably a good thing for some of these players that there are four matches for each side before the knock-outs start. Though, I guess 10 players out of 355 isn't that bad of a percentage when it comes down to it.

Lack of historical perspective?While watching the half updates for the US-Aussie friendly, apparently the WWL has no concept of history of picking up a book or hell running a search on google, as they claimed that the US made it further than it had ever made it in the Cup before in 2002 by making the quarters . . . um. False. While it is likely 'ancient' history in their minds the US did take third in the first World Cup in 1930 but that's before WWII and we don't talk about anything before WWII, except the 1927 Yankees, Honus Wagner, John Heisman, and the beginning of the modern Olympics in 1896 etc. etc. . . . oops.

Don't tell Bertram 'Bert' Patenaude (on right) who was on the US team in 1930 that the quarters is the furthest that the US has made it in the Cup. Oh, by they way, he scored the first ever hat-trick in the World Cup

Nothing like trying to re-write history. You'd think with all the resources the folks in CT have that they'd at least get that right. It may have been a while ago, but at least give the folks who earned the 'furthest advanced' the nod.

Books: Not much has changed.

AFNDCC Athens, Georgia

With an eye toward the Middle East Just a few links today for the Cup & a couple other bits that I've stumbled across over the last day or two.

Football Diplomacy: "98: The most politically charged game in World Cup history" And this is why we read. I vaguely remembered the '98 match between the US & Iran and something being said in the news, but didn't realize the background story that Neil Billingham at FourFourTwo covers had happened.

Football meets higher education: "Soccer Conquers the World" While taking a couple pot shots at the Right in American with the apparent aim of exonerating the Left, Miller for the most part puts some pretty good analysis down. He seems to miss a couple points though, particularly in the simplest area of economics--supply & demand.

While I'm not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, Miller makes an assertion about American football being supposedly blue collar and yet having much higher ticket prices than MLS. He makes no mention of supply v. demand in the analysis. He mentions briefly what appear to be a couple stand-out instances of 70,000-90,000 attendance numbers for football matches, which is great for soccer as a whole but completely neglects the fact that demand more than anything else is what keeps footie prices comparably lower to football ticket prices. There's a reason that Georgia Bulldogs football cost $40+ a head and UGA women's soccer is free.

As examples, I've chosen to consider the champions from the NFL and MLS from the 2009-'10 seasons to look at size of stadium and season attendance averages (most of these are pulled from sources from the clubs' websites and the main MLS site and ESPN).

Real Salt Lake. Stadium Capacity: 20,008Salt Lake just claimed the 2009 MLS Cup in Nov. Average attendance for 2009 regular season was 16,375. Average attendance for the playoffs was 11,499. When was the last time attendance at an NFL playoff game was 9,000 lower than the capacity of the stadium? Not to mention the fact that the smallest NFL stadium is LP Stadium in Nashville at 69,143, more than 3x the capacity of Salt Lake's stadium. Lower supply, but clearly not much demand.

By comparison, the 2010 Super Bowl Champions, New Orleans Saints, had drastically different numbers. The Superdome's capacity for football is 72,968. Average attendance for home games during the regular season was 70,105, per ESPN's attendance site. Higher supply, higher demand. You do the math or in this case, the economics.

Then there's the attendance for the respective championship finals for both leagues. The capacity for Qwest Field in Seattle as a footie venue is 67,000 (at max capacity, but with 'normal' capacity at 35,700, which means thousands of seats are covered or unsold for most matches). The attendance for the final match in November 2009 was 46,011. Hardly a sellout by max capacity standards. Indeed the closest the Seattle Sounders have come was during a friendly against FC Barcelona to open the stadium and still couldn't quite reach capacity at 66,848. Meanwhile the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa had an attendance of 70,744 with Raymond James Stadium's capacity also being variable from 65,857-75,000.

This isn't to knock the MLS or the state of footie in the US, but there are clearly some flaws in a couple of Miller's assertions. And to paint a clearer picture regarding overall demand for tickets for both leagues, take the bottom 16 NFL teams, in terms of average home attendance and compare them with all 16 teams in the MLS in 2009.

The MLS had 3,609,048 in attendance at all 15 home matches for each of the 16 teams in the league. By comparison, the 16 teams with the lowest attendance in the NFL over 8 regular season home games for each team had 8,638,257 in attendance. Even if you take the bottom 7 NFL teams and just take their home attendance into account, it's at 3,761,051. The numbers speak for themselves.

Yes, soccer is getting more popular in the US, and yes, the fact that NFL tickets are priced higher may help push fans to soccer when they can't afford to go to an NFL game. However, merely citing lower prices for MLS matches versus the NFL, MLB, or NBA seems spurious and irrelevant without analyzing the demand for seats to go along with those lower prices.

While interest in soccer has certainly grown, using examples of what the 'nutty Right' calls the soccer seems at best name-calling and at worst a means, even if unintended, to drive even the 'non-nutty' Right further from the game Miller professes more Americans should and will follow in the future. To debate and convince Americans of the merits and cultural impact of the game, Miller might be better served by not insulting part of the segment of the population he's looking to sway.

Those quibbles aside, footie's popularity in the US is growing, and I am ecstatically waiting for June 11 to get here and am a very recent 'convert' to loving footie & the World Cup myself (a 2006 trip to Germany did it for me and a friend who is nutters over the Mancs). I just hope that in future, finger-pointing and name calling will not keep Americans from watching and enjoying the Beautiful Game.

That was a good deal longer than I intended. Euro Footie Stats: An excellent stat resource that Miller cites in his Chronicle of Higher Ed article. Focuses on the origins of the players currently playing on one of the UEFA sides.

Not Related to Footie, but certainly currentReturning the Favor: The BBC's Adam Curtis has an excellent article up referencing an attempt at a blockade run that Jewish refugees tried to make in 1947 through a British blockade of Palestine. Had a surprisingly similar outcome to what happened with the Turkish Marmara within the last week. Full Circle.

Reading:Anything I can get on the World Cup. Still working through How Soccer Explains the World. Muddling through this month's National Geographic article on South Africa. Miller's included in that as well, etc. etc.

AFNDCC4 June 2010Athens, Georgia

Carey . . . World Cup. World Cup . . . Careyor How I got nutty about the World Cup.or How do you get Americans to care about the World Cup?or How I will occupy my spare time for the next month.

Call it transformative (of my view of world sports more than anything, esp. soccer/football), call it the backpacking trek I wanted after I graduated from UGA, call it anything but boring. As I've read and seen several lead-ins, etc. to the upcoming World Cup in South Africa, I don't feel the need to rehash all that's been said though I will post a couple links and have a few thoughts based on my experience at the 2006 World Cup and my experience watching the Cup this year. More to come over the next month or so.

For starters . . .

1) If the rest of the world shuts down for a month for the World Cup, why don't we? What have we been missing for all these years?

2) Yes, the rest of the world shuts down. I'm not exaggerating. When French President Jacques Chirac leaves meetings of the EU heads of state early to watch France's opening match of the 2006 World Cup, that should tell you something.

3) No, it's not like the Super Bowl for footie. Not even close, not even in the same ballpark, not even the same league, not even the same sport (to borrow an analogy from Pulp Fiction). That's not to diminish my love for American football, especially the college variety. But there's just something else with the World Cup.

4) When in Dortmund in 2006 during the Brazil-Ghana match during the first round of the knock-out stages and approaching the stadium, we heard the popular cheer, "Ole! Ole! Ole! Ole! Ole! Coun-try! Coun-try!" (i.e. insert whatever team you're cheering for for 'country') My response was, "Well Brazil's celebrating." As we got closer to the pitch we realized the cheer was being completed with "Gha-na! Gha-na!" rather than "Bra-zil! Bra-zil!" Can you imagine an American team in any sport celebrating a loss? They were celebrating merely having had the opportunity to play against what many regard as the best team in the world (5 World Cup titles to prove it) and to have made it to the knock-out stages of the World Cup (a first for Ghana that year). It's that big a deal and that big a culturally tied event throughout the world.

Ghanans & Ghana supporters celebrating after losing to Brazil in the 2006 knock-out stage

My introduction, while coming earlier (I remember that the '94 World Cup being in the US was a big deal but that's about it), was turned into fanaticism when I was in Europe for the '06 World Cup. Unreal. Again, there is really no comparison for the passion that the event evokes throughout the world, even if a team's country is no longer participating. Olympics . . . who cares? (based on my experience being in Bulgaria for the '06 Torino games). World Cup . . . I'm leaving work early to be sure not to miss a match.Me at the heroes plaza in Budapest with the '06 match ball.

As we traveled around in '06 we had an official match ball, and that got more looks and stories than we did/would have just being Americans coming to see the World Cup. I'll post more pictures and stories of that as the World Cup goes along, a retrospective, if you will. (For what it's worth it will be part of an overall retrospective/reflection that I'm hoping to post daily on my years as a PCV five years on--believe it or not that begins this August).

What a great journey that was!

Aforementioned links:I Scored a Goal in the World Cup Final: ESPN's interviews & videos with several players over the decades who have scored goals in a World Cup final. Pretty awesome actually.

FourFourTwo's preview: A good footie website in general, but pretty good preview as well.

Fair Play: And believe it or not, Vanity Fair has some pretty good articles up on the Cup as well. Quite the unexpected source.

The Ultimate World Cup Guide 2010: MagBook (a British publication) also has a very good preview in print that includes history of the cup, previews of each team, a bracket/group poster, and some great top 10s as well.

Will post more as I have time and as I find them. Can't wait for the 11th.

Books: In preparation for the World Cup, I'm working through Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World, which is a fascinating read about the sport and its fusion of politics, culture & sport throughout the world, except of course for the US (because on the whole, we don't care). Great read so far and a great series of insights to why the rest of the world is passionate about the sport.

AFNDCC3 June 2010Athens, GA

Alton Brown at UGAIf there's any other way to put it than I have a 'man-crush' on Alton Brown, I don't know about it. The guy's whit & perspective on life is fantastic (the perspective on life comes more from having just viewed his graduation speech that he gave at UGA on May 8, 2010 than his shows). While his whit is evident in the speech as well, my basis for that is from his show Good Eats, which I watch as regularly as I can and is a rarity for me. (I don't remember to watch TV shows very often.)

As a UGA alumnus as well, that only adds to my admiration for him. I'll leave it at that otherwise, but here, in two parts is his speech from graduation. Joe Frank Harris spoke at my graduation in 2003, and the fact that he spoke is about all that I remember, mostly because he was the first governor of Georgia that I remember as a child.

Good Stuff that I missed because I was in Savannah for the Highland Games. Glad someone's posted it on YouTube.

I would add further commentary, but I don't really think that I need to (title is from the speech)

AFNDCC27 May 2010The Classic City

Or So the Cliche Goes . . .Warning/Disclosure: Contains mounds of sap and nostalgia, but I mean every word of it.

With the Sugar Bowl well on its way to an unfortunate route for the Great Satan but a win for the SEC (a silver lining to any cloud), a little writing seems in order. And I'll go with what comes to me . . . At least the Dawgs & Bucks won to balance out the evil . . .

So if I hadn't lost my second camera of the year, there would have been some pictures of me with these guys in the Bahamas for a bachelor party, but as Zane said when I told him the camera was lost (which it really was), "Well played, sir."

Save for business trips, travel's been limited some stateside pleasure travel and a couple international trips for general pleasure lately (such a terrible existence, I know). I had a blast with everything international (the first, see above, to the Bahamas, which the US may as well annex, and then, see below, Costa Rica, which was amazing for multiple reasons) and added Illinois (Chicago) & Vermont to my 'states traveled' list, also awesome trips. Hopefully, pictures of those trips to come, but don't hold out too much hope as they were 8 & 5 months ago, respectively.

Pictures from a bachelor party that did survive from Costa Rica. Yup, that's a live volcano (Arenal) behind us, and no, I don't know why Peters doesn't have any shoes on.

My relative vaguery on the trips results from the fact that the Bahamas & Costa Rica were my first international experiences since leaving the Peace Corps more than two years ago. While I've traveled more than most in the two years since, I miss what can well be called weekend trips to Istnabul or Bucharest. What that should tell you is 1) my PC experience spoiled me regarding travel, even when I enjoy what I do and where I live currently, love it, in fact; 2) sating travel wants/desires is near impossible after 2 years of something new all the time; and 3) well, lists are boring . . .

All of that certainly makes me more appreciative of the travels I can get now and of what I was able to do for 2 years. Having Ben Lawrence and others in Shumen 20 minutes away; Koub 1.5-2 hrs away; Jack & Ronda 2-3 hrs away; my host-family, the Naidenovi, 5-6 hrs away; and numerous other fantastic Volunteers close enough for a weekend's travel is certainly a luxury and boon for seeing more of another country. Meanwhile, members of our group are now spread from coast to coast (as far afield as Alaska, Vermont, NY, GA, Louisiana, & CA and many states between) and in multiple international locales (Japan and Australia among others) and those are the ones that I know. Hard to go have a few beers over a weekend with great folks.

Now, lest family and friends in Georgia and elsewhere think that I am bored by their company or by having beer or coffee with them, that is not at all the case (if you think that, you don't know me very well, for I desperately missed the friends and family I knew before I went to Bulgaria). Per my usual, I'm taking 3 paragraphs to say what 1 sentence would have managed. I miss Bulgaria and my friends I made there, both Volunteers & Bulgarians.

So, as a nostalgic sap and with this time of year being about family, friends, and realizing what you've got, I raise a glass to those with whom I served and those who were my hosts in Bulgaria, thank you.

Looking forward to seeing a couple of you within the month for another version of this, the original, that is!

And Happy New Year!

AFNDCCVidalia, GA 1 January 2010

And while I'm at it . . .

Books: Currently trying to crack into a little Arthur Conan Doyle & Sherlock Holmes, courtesy of seeing the film recently. Currently reading "Scandal in Bohemia" from a compilation, but looking to get a copy of Study in Scarlet. Too many interests too little time . . .

Something I wrote here while back (probably '96-'99) but I really don't remember when.

"Success is the object of simple minds. Mere success leaves unaccomplished and undone half of life's ventures. Stapling oneself to the objectification of success requires primarily a lowering of the overall standard for which we should strive, foreseeing only the minimal level of achievement and accomplishment that necessarily provides and instills notions of acceptance from society. This not only precludes those at the precipice of greatest achievement from reaching those heights, but it also keeps those who have achieved the greatest possible accomplishments for his own person, only to have society as a whole view them or cast them as failures. Truly, this provides the greatest problem for success. Have you succeeded if you have not achieved your own personal best or if your personal best is not consistent with social ideas of success, have you failed?"

To add to that, if I lift a drink to my mouth and swallow the beer that is in the glass, am I, thus a success? Am I a failure because some would call me an alcoholic, merely because I have had a sip of fermented beverage. Who is successful then?

But those are my thoughts. They've long been stewing, and will ever.

AFN

DCC

2 August 2009 (from much earlier in my life, but not sure when)

One from my Easter visit to Vidalia and from UGA's campus last week.

Tilling the land: Something, that is as the title suggests, is a standby at my parents house, and it was good to see Dad actually being able to get into his garden this year after a couple years having to miss it, whether it being grandchildren being born or a trip to Okinawa.

The Oldest UGA Standby: Franklin College, or as it's so creatively called today 'Old College', with the fountains having just been turned back on after the 3 year drought and now using water from AC condensation and other sources.

Not a whole lot else today, might be a very light week as I'm getting ready for a business trip to Columbus & Chicago this week.

AFN

DCC

Athens, 20 April 2009

Just seeing what I can do to get this 'back' since I've gotten a new fotoaparat (that's Bulgarski for camera). Some of them will be thematic, others, as this one will be, will be random 'composition' photos or ones when I'm just trying to figure out my new camera. I may even put a couple up on this one.

Lamp at Night: This is one of the lamps that's in my room at my parent's house. Like it or not, it was my grandparents' set at one point. Just thought the picture showed the texture of the lamp well. 11 Apr. 2009Sacred to the Memory of . . . : Bridget Royston, the consort of Capt. Wm. Royston. Just one of the headstones 'off to the side' so to speak of the Colonial Cemetery in Savannah. 11 Apr. 2009.Took a trip with Mom & Dad to Savannah, GA yesterday for a cousin's wedding, which is where the second picture was taken.AFN

DCC

Vidalia, GA 12 April 2009

Today marks precisely one year since I returned to the US for 'good', and as disingenuous as it will sound to post something that I put in my journal today before I remembered/realized that it had been a year. I'm going to do that, because it does that whole 'where they goin', where they been' thing. As I listen to Jeff Buckley's gut wrenching rendition of Hallelujah . . .

"It's a cold & it's a broken hallelujah."

You rejoice for leaving somethings, but there's always something that you miss, and yet always something for which you are grateful where you are right now. I hit both of those today as I was sitting in Manor, GA at Moore's Country Store & Deli and wrote this after I'd finished my college fair at Waycross College and my high school visits to Ware Co. HS & Ware Magnet School (first a picture):

The UGA van sitting in front of Moores Country Store & Deli. Home to the awesome steak sandwich that I had today, with the freshest and best tomato that I've had since I was in Bulgaria.

1 Oct. Manor, GA Moore's Country Store & Deli

" . . . Wel one great thing about travelling is the unique food opportunities. I had not expected more than a country fry-up, and that's essentially what I'm getting, but to have ordered my food (steak sandwich w/ potato logs & butter beans) & a tea and to be told, "Just gitcha a cup 'round in the dining area and grabya a pitcher out of the Coke cooler over there. Have a seat & I'll bring it out to ya." I just smiled . . .

. . . And to listen to the local talk the things, as usual, turn to weather & animals: a gator looking for water and 'there ain't no water near our place. Standin', plenty, but nuthin' running.'; and hunting and a year's worth of meat out of a couple does and a hog or two, not to mention how 'city folks' who go to Wal-Mart and get their green meat don't know meat's not green . . .

. . . I haven't taken it easy in a while getting back to anything in terms of travel. I'm glad I stopped off at this little store with old dial/rolling number gas pumps and benches for sitting out front.

When I left the first time, I asked about the squash and zucchini that they had & made a comment about how good the tomato on my sandwich had been and that you couldn't get a tomato like that from the store any longer, that they were more like cardboard & from CA or FL, and the lady managing the place responded that "We'll have them by the bucket in about 3 weeks and they're picked and growed right over there." Pointing toward the back of the store, the otherside of which lay the family farm.

So I came back for tomatoes & squash/zucchini. And now as school has let out it's become a popular place as I'm sure it does daily about this time.

As I sit writing the first part of this entry I realized that the reason or a reason that I haven't written as much is that I haven't, as I did in Bulgaria/Europe, had the time waiting for trains or buses that was such a commanding part of the experience there. I wished to get away from the wait then. Now, I wish I had the waits. The way 'they' once were: locally grown, slower, where everybody says 'hey', and someone just might walk out the door and say, "A little Coke!" (as a guy did in reference to my glass bottle of Coca-Cola), longing for a little nostalgia of their own. The only difference is that my 'Coke' in Bulgaria probably would have been a kafe, and the part about people wouldn't be saying 'hey' as they walk in the store. But definitely slower & home grown."

It's amazing how close or how many connections I can find between Bulgaria & the US esp. the Southern US.

Love my job.

AFN

DCC

1 October 2008

PS. I'm now working, and enjoying what I'm doing, as the South Georgia Outreach Officer for The University of Georgia's Undergraduate Admissions Office. It's rare that someone gets to combine a love for 'where they goin' & where they been' in one job. Again, one of the things for which I'm utterly grateful at present.

May it Never end!

Next Stop (i.e. there now): WASHINGTON, DC. Yeah, never in a million years thought I'd be in living in DC. I'd barely seen the monuments/capitol, etc., and now I'm living within sight (a block) from the Supreme Court and Capitol, and with the Washington Monument within viewing distance. I'm working with UGA's new Washington Semester Program as the Program Assistant. That said . . . one more chapter. Unfortunately, though I've had the time I haven't had the opportunity nor made the opportunity to write nearly as much as I did in Preslav. One the cafes are MUCH more expensive, two the museums have kept my attention pretty well, and three my bags were lost which has kept the rest of my attention (yes, one of the bags is still lost).

That said, some explanation is due for the absence of posts, etc. First, the hiatus is partially my fault (ok, wholly my fault, but I claim partiality b/c of a paranoia induced by an incident almost exactly a year ago).

The incident, involving a certain ATM story and complaints on my part sparked a fury of a witch hunt by the woman who would become my 'former' couterpart because she thought I hated all things Bulgarian, which is a LIE AND A FALLACY (redundancy inserted for dramatic effect) of the worst sort. Now, if you want me to say that everything that I ever did and experienced in Bulgaria or ANY place that I lived, Vidalia, Athens, Columbus, Washington, was fantastic and I never had any issues or thoughts of 'Oh, that sucks', then we could talk about another lie.

Ultimately it came down to a mistranslation of cultural values and ideals.

Bulgaria: tell people what they want to hear and that things are 'ok.'

US: if you have to tell it like it is, you may have to 'live with it', but you should do so rather than lie.

Now, both of these are generalizations, but, by and large, true in both cultures. The catch is, Bulgaria is much more homogeneous than the US, and as such makes for easier and truer generalizations than most Americans can imagine. Yes, there are people in both places who 'break' the stereotypes.

Ok, so, this is what I wrote (all in italics) and posted on this blog that caused such a shit storm. Looking back at it a year-on from what I called the 'Weekendus Horribilus', I somewhat see where she was coming from, but re-reading it from my perspective. It's frustration, and if you've never been frustrated, then go to Never-Never Land or something like that. I walked home after talking with my then-counterpart stumbling step-by-step (no smartass NKOTB references, please) like I'd been socked in the gut, barely able to breathe and not sure whether I'd be in Bulgaria past the end of February 2007. Now, if you've wondered why my heretofore stellar blogging slacked off/died. Now you know. I just got tired of worrying whether what I wrote was taboo or meeting someone else's standards culturally or otherwise.

Here's what caused the fire-storm (from 31 Jan 2007 which since Feb '07 has been a castrated/clipped version of what's below):

Not a whole lot for today and no pictures, mainly b/c I really just don't want to. I had an interesting day trying to get from one thing to another. I was half way to work when I remembered that I still needed to pay my electricity bill (no electricity right now=no heat=a VERY bad thing), and it's the last day of the month. So the story goes like this. I went to pay YESTERDAY (the bills can't be paid for the previous month until the 20th for some dumb reason . . . go figure), but I show up and there's a plastic card up at the window where I usually pay, I go up and stand there for a second and the lady very crudly (nothing unusual) goes 'What?' I responded that I wanted to pay my bill, and she very gruffly responds 'You can't pay. The program is not working.'

'Do you know when the program will work again?' 'No, we DON'T know.' Such wonderful customer service here . . . So I walk to work at around the normal time today, and half way there, I remember that I haven't paid my bill so I have to return to town and go to the ATM to get the money to pay bills. I try first to see if Peace Corps (PC) has deposited our monthly allowances and check my balance first . . . it doesn't work . . . the lady behind be goes up and it works for her. I try to withdraw . . . still doesn't work. I'm pretty frustrated, angry, pick your word, at this point. I now have to walk another hundred-200 yards away (not that big a deal, but when my colleagues are expecting me at the museum to work on text for the Rome Exhibit, it's not cool at all). Anyway, the other ATM works and I pay my bills. I make my way to the museum only to get there and find out they want me to type (like the Word Processing class you took in high school) half a page of text and nothing too original. Not that bad, but not the most challenging work I've ever had to do. Ok, I think that's about enough for today.

Again, not the sweetest of grapes, but who wouldn't be pissed after that? So, after that Koub came to my rescue, keeping me from destroying something in the town or myself. As a salve, a couple pics. Oddly enough, my beard only makes me look more destraught in the pictures as we were doing the 'Winter Beard-off 2007 Contest of Manliness', so the beard was 3 months along or more at that point. Mardi Gras (when we--COUGH COUGH I) shaved them off. Everyone else quit early. So here are a couple.

This . . . (notice that the Koub had already--a couple days/weeks early shaved his down to a Musketeer-like moustache & chin-poof) All though at that point I wasn't complaining . . . company was good that weekend.

And this . . . morphed . . .

into . . . this . . .

and this (Doc Holliday's got nothing on me!) . . . and landed . . .

On this . . . can I get an encore on the drinks?!

BUT before all that . . . there was Bluegrass in Sofia and the only true gathering of the Winter Beard-off Brothers of the bush . . . that sounds weird . . . oops. Me, Koub, & Trevor.

Now, hopefully, back to normal:

Books: Freedom Rising by Ernest Ferguson an account of the immediate events leading to the Civil War & the Civil War in D.C. which I picked up at the Lincoln Memorial when I made my first visit there. Osman's Dream, the author of which I can't remember and am too lazy to get up and look up, is a history of Osman's Empire . . . i.e. the Ottoman Empire. Oh, and I'm reading a LOT of The Onion lately . . . every Thursday it hits newsboxes.

Weather: I swear I bring warmer/warm-ish weather with me to places that have colder winters. With the exception of this week and a couple weeks in Jan. The weather's been mild. Even during those weeks it's been milder than normal. By milder, at times I mean more miserable b/c it's been warm enough to rain, but not quite cold enough to snow. Windy & cold right now, rainy and some snow & ice every now & then . . . may clear & warm up starting tomorrow.

AFN

DCC, 13 February 2008

Washington, D.C., apartment

A sudden gust of wind . . . and CRASH!

I swear it really was on accident! How many times does that sound like a lie? Gotta love having the wind come through, slam the window shut hard enough that it breaks the window. Good thing I've got a screen on the window for now b/c the window is no longer in it's place (as you can see in the picture) . . . oops! By some miracle it only broke the outer pane of glass . . . not sure how that happened.

Books: Going slowly at the moment.

Weather: Obviously windy today, somewhere in between clear and a passing thunderstorm otherwise.

AFN

DCC, 16 June 2007

V. Preslav, apartment

Here's the post that I tried to load last week, while I was in Macedonia, but the internet wouldn't cooperate. Hopefully more pics to follow today or tomorrow.

So, what to say about Albania . . . 'I spent a week there one morning.' To borrow from a Harry Chapin album when he speaks about Watertown, NY. I struck out yesterday morning from Ohrid and saw Albania (got my passport stamped. ask me about that adventure sometime.) Spent about 2 hrs in Pogradeci (the town closest to the Macedonian border on Lake Ohrid) and then came back and saw Sveti Naum, which is a monastery and the last 'town' on the Macedonian border on the lake. Here are some pics, with one more post to follow.

The first one is of the fortress of Tsar Samuil, in Ohrid, Macedonia. Then the next 4 are of Albania.

This one from Albania is of a bunker that was built in the 1960s when Albania went completely isolationist. It's one of about 700,000 just like it that were built throughout the country. Just to make sure the engineer/designer of the things took the job seriously, they made him prove his product by climbing into the bunker and having it bombarded by tank fire. I guess they worked. I probably saw 20-30 others while I was in the country and I didn't go more than 10km past the Macedonian-Albanian border.

These 2 are of the butcher shops in Albania that I mentioned yesterday. As you can see, VERY 1900-1910s-esque with no electricity and the meat just kinda hanging around. The no electricity was consistent enough that every shop & restaurant had generators running throughout the whole time I was there, and NONE of the shops had lights. As if it was/is an unresolved issue. Everyone, naturally enough was sitting outside, and I understood NONE of the language. I did learn how to say thank you though - falem nderrit. (Dad, no comments about flegm allowed).

Then a picture (as I was leaving) of me at the Albanian border, or as they call it Rebublika e Shqiperise (if you can figure out how to pronounce that, let me know!

Books: Les Mis, Oliver Twist, Deuteronomy, Augustine, and Dubliners still. Getting through the next part of Les Mis ('Marius') pretty quickly, and actually just passed the half-way point in the book (pg. 726). Hopefully with the alternations between books, I'll still be able to finish that one and a couple others before I leave.

Weather: Warm-ish. The Bulgarians I work with keep talking about how hot it is and I just smile and think, 'It's a little warm.' I can't really say much because there isn't a word for 'warm' in Bulgarian. On the other hand the fact that my fridge isn't wanting to work doesn't help things at all.

AFN

DCC 23/29 May 2007

Ohrid, Macedonia, internet club/V. Preslav, museum

Well, I have internet access, but it doesn't want to upload my photos, SO I've drafted a post and will add the pics when I get back to Bulgaria with pictures, etc. Enjoying myself so far and RELAXING. Not a whole lot other than that that's not included in the posts that I'll have up by Monday, hopefully.

Oh, just in case you're curious as to where I am in the world right now, I'm on the shores of Lake Ohrid, in the town of Ohrid, Macedonia. Since I've been here I've been to Albania & back, to the town of Pogradeci. And I also hit Sveti Naum, Macedonia, a monastery built over the grave of St. Naum of Preslav/Ohrid, one of the students of Ss. Cyril & Methodius., and the brother of St. Clement of Ohrid (Kliment Ohridski)

Books: Les Mis (made it past pg 600, and realized that after I finish this part 'Marius' I only have 2 parts left! but 800 pages), Augustine (finished the first chapter, finally), and Deuteronomy (ch 28). And I'm working on getting to Oliver Twist too, but haven't read any from that since I've been traveling. Oh, and lest we forget, the Lonely Planet Eastern Europe travel book. I've been reading that a lot lately.

Weather: Partially influenced by the nearby (i.e. on it's shores) lake, the weather has been a mixture of flash-in-the-pan rain showers and clear, warm days since I've been here. It WAS raining in Bulgaria when I left, which is EXCELLENT b/c they had been without significant rainfall throughout most of the country for a month or so.

AFN

DCC, 23 Maj 2007 (the Macedonian version of 'May')

Ohrid, Macedonia, 'Internet Plaza'

One more month, 3.67 to go . . . and Macedonia and the beach in between.

BOY, do I feel lazy! But not really. I've been writing along and along in my journal and I've posted some pictures on facebook, OK, that AND I have been lazy. Here are a few pics that 'highlight' the last month. I'll be off to Macedonia and (BRIEFLY) to Albania over the next week, and I hope to post from there, but we'll see. Here are some pics from the last month. In that time, I've been to Turkey, Greece, back to Turkey and back to Bulgaria. In the next week, I'll hit Macedonia & Albania, good Lord willin' & the creek don't rise!The Church of Ss. Peter & Paul (Petar & Pavel): In Preslav, the only church that was built during the Ottoman period. The most noticeable architectural feature of these churches was one that required them to be built shorter than the local mosque. As you can see in this picture and the one below, these churches were built dug into the ground. Amazing how religions will make themselves more important by height if nothing else. This church was built in 1808, not many churches in the States were built before then.

WAY before the Ottomans: This is a complex that would likely have been the highest point in ancient Preslav, the Palace Monastery. The view is from the SW of the complex and toward Shumen, the Shumen Plateau, and modern Preslav.

Typical Bulgarian Scene: A lada & clothes on the line . . . I'm actually a fan of this picture . . . Amazing how that'll happen.

Istanbul . . . and the W. Coast of Turkey: This was from the roof of our hostel in Istanbul, the Aya Sofia (fully named 'the Church of the Holy Wisdom of God' is 1000 years older than St. Peter's) and the Four Seasons Hotel (once an Ottoman Prison) in the background. I LOVED Turkey. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more when I'm in Macedonia or when I return to Bulgaria.

Books: Managed to finish (finally) The Phantom of the Opera, by Gaston Leroux. I got to book 10 of The Iliad before I got to Troy (which was pretty cool to see after having read a good chunk of the book). Still SLOWLY working on Les Mis, Deuteronomy, Dubliners, and Oliver Twist. I picked up a really interesting copy of the Qur'an (translated by Marmaduke Pickthall) while in Kusadasi, Turkey, which actually is 'backwards' for western/English readers and has the text in both Arabic & English. I've also started Augustine's Confessions since I last posted as a 'devotional' type read. I think that's about it. Wow, now that I'm doing this, I REALLY hate that I've neglected/forgotten about this for a month.

AFN

DCC 19 May 2007

V. Preslav, apartment

Somehow lately, I can only seem to remember/get myself to post when I've returned from the orphanage. I really don't know why except that I leave somehow both utterly satisfied yet utterly tormented at the same time. I feel tormented by the fact that I may not have given the kid in the corner the attention he/she wanted, but at the same time I realize that I can't do it all. I leave emotionally and physically exhausted every time, but as I said, completely satisfied with the experience.

As much as it sounds like me patting my own back, I find it gratifying that I'm finally doing something similar to what I thought I might be doing when I joined PC. I have been satisfied with my work at the museum, but as with almost anyone who applied for PC, I did not expect to be working in a museum, going weekly to an orphanage, then coming home to an apartment that's not a mud hut or with thatched roof, sit down at my computer, enter a blog, and drink a beer while I'm doing it. When friends who have been in PC tell me they had to walk 3km each way every now and then just to check at a store to see if they had Coca-Cola, I even count myself lucky on that end (I've got cold Coke just downstairs from my apt, any time I want it. No Dr Pepper though). I wonder what that must have been like to have that PC experience, but mine has been very different. And the exhaustion and helplessness at not being able to help the kids as they need it.

When one kid who's only been at the orphanage for 2 months shows you his room for the first time and the walls are covered with some form of mildew/mold, you cringe because you want to be able to change that, but you know you can't. Or when a 10 year old who has nothing wants to give you as a gift the deck of cards that he has or the Bible (in Bulgarian), but when you say no 'you need to be able to play with the cards.' He responds, 'Let's play.' Or 'No, you need it so you can read it.' He responds, 'I don't need it. I can't read.' 'But you need to be able to read.' 'I've got others to do that for me.' Then he turns around 30 minutes later and says 'You are like a dad to me.' You really don't know how to respond.

It's a bit crushing to the egotistical part of you that wants to believe you can change the world for the good. I long ago gave up the idealistic notion that I could change the world and be able to see it in my lifetime. While I still believe that I can change the world, I know I likely will not see it, and that if I'm 1 volunteer out of how many thousands (even those who are involved with other organizations), maybe there are things that I can't conceive of accomplishing. But maybe a collective change can happen . . . who knows? It's almost like pondering all the books that have been written and imagining trying to read all of them, daunting at best, overwhelming at worst, but much easier to comprehend knowing that someone else may have read what you couldn't.

Pics and more pics

Just a few pics that I've not posted yet from the last month or so as I've taken around Bulgaria.

My first mosque: The Tombul Mosque in Shumen (quite literally the 'Belly' Mosque because of it's appearance like a belly. It's the largest in Bulgaria and the second largest in the Balkans (not including Istanbul of course). As it happens, I'll be seeing the second largest in the world in about two weeks when I visit there, the Blue Mosque, and a couple more that are larger than the Tombul Mosque as well.

Making vuglen, charcoal, that is: My host-dad, Ivan making his own coals. He was like, 'having charcoal premade is easier, but this tastes better.'Petya & the Balkans: And the backyard neighbors. Just a shot I took while we were grilling the pork . . . mmmmm. They bought half a pig at Christmas and we finished the last of it for Easter. I started & finished both.

Mule Carts verbotten: Yes, they actually have signs telling people that they cannot drive mule/donkey/horse carts down certain roads. They're readily ignored as the traffic policing is fairly lax here, but how would you like to have that sign show up on your driver's license test?

Kukers and Easter: I.e. Pagan & Christian elements all mixed up together. The 'ceremony'/celebration was for the town and officially welcoming spring (the costumes the guys are wearing are supposed to be to ward off the cold spirits of winter and welcome spring (dating back to the Thracian period). The guys are called Kukers, and Kukeri festivals happen, mostly in the south, in Bulgaria throughout January & February and into Apr & March depending on the towns tradition, all intended to welcome the coming of spring. I've seen pics of guys with masks similar to these but 3-4 feet high off of their heads. One of those traditions that won't likely die out.

Books: Wow, man have I read almost nothing since the last time I posted. I did finish my Lenten devotional by Hahn & Aquila, which I need to write a little bit about at some point. Still working on Dickens, Homer, Leroux, Joyce, Deuteronomy, and added Augustine's Confessions as my devotional.

Weather: Coolish (compared to last weekend, got to 75 at least) today and variably cloudy & sunny, it's probably about 50-55 right now and it's supposed to warm back up for the weekend, but we'll see.

AFN

DCC, 18 April 2007

Veliki Preslav, apartment

Christ is Risen! In Truth, He has risen!

Such is the greeting and reply for Easter here. The main title is the transliterated version of it. I just got back from the Bulgarian Orthodox 'midnight mass'. Unlike ours/the Catholic midnight mass, it's for Easter and not Christmas. Refered to as Velik Den (the Great Day) in everday conversation, but more fully called 'Velik Den na Hristovoto Vuskresenie' ('the Great Day of Christ's Resurrection') in Bulgarian. I love the greetings that they do for such holidays here, such as New Years when they greet you with 'For Many Years to come'/'Za mnogo godini'. I also like the procession around the church during the Service of Light, but I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

The service is very similar to the Catholic Vigil Mass beginning with a Service of Light, what sounded like the Exsultet, the introductory prayers, the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Sadly, with each subsequent part, the number of people grows smaller and smaller, with the number cut in half by the end of the Service of Light. Many parts of the service are lost to other people talking (particularly when the Service of Light is done, which is done outside, like the Catholic Service of Light, except that there is much more talking and what seems like less reverence here, simply an observation). During one of the readings, it was difficult to hear because of the ringing of the bells on the thurible (the device in which the inscense is placed).

And unfortunately (and perhaps the Catholic service was like this pre-Vatican II), there were many prayers that the priest entoned, refering to one saint or apostle or another, that could not be fully heard because through most of the prayers, the ladies beautifully singing (the only one's singing) 'Lord have mercy' repeatedly overpower the rest of the service. Again, it may be a point of me not knowing the tradition of the Orthodox Churches, but the ceremony seemed to overwhelm parts of the service that are important but lost for one reason or another, such as the reading of the Gospel during the Service of Light that is difficult to hear because of people talking excessively.

Now for tomorrow, and other traditions that I like here, lamb, for one thing, which seems to make a more direct connection to the Passover and Christ's place as the Paschal Lamb, and of course, kozunak/Easter bread, which Mom actually made as a tradition at our house before I came over here, but it's been a tradition here much longer than in our Home. And, lest we forget, the Easter eggs, which are not so much hunted as they are cracked one against the other to see who has the 'strongest' egg. I had the one that lasted longest when I was here for the Eastern Easter last year. This year they just so happen to fall on the same weekend, which is about a 1 out of 4 years occurrence.

I've been told that we're going to Kurtovo (from old Bulgarian meaning 'Soldier's town'), which is purported to be the exact center of Bulgaria, where last year I was 'kidnapped' and taken to a lunch that my host family didn't have time to attend. I'll include more tomorrow and as time allows, b/c apparently we've been asked/instructed to stay longer this year so that we can have lunch in the town. So we'll see what happens. It's late here, time for bed.

AFN

DCC 8 April 2007 (early morning)

Banya, host family's house

Great day to be alive

Ok, that's a little bit of a lie, moseying always felt good and is an art form, but I had a great stroll today and just sitting at the cafe in the town square at the center here in Banya. I managed to fill my first journal, which has taken 3 years to do, but an accomplishment nonetheless since it's some 240 pg and I've never actually filled a journal before. The weather was absolutely stunning again (I'm stealing my own thunder for the 'weather' section, but it was part of what made the day great. I am REALLY going to miss being able to walk to the/a cafe, to walk to the restaurant, to walk to work. I will enjoy having a car again, but being able to get to work or whereever by walking has been great, and MAYBE I've decreased the ol' 'environmental footprint' for what that's worth, more and more lately anyway.

Going by one of the houses on my walk, I said, 'Good day' to a baba (grandmother) as she was coming out of her front door with the intention of saying hi and continuing on my walk, but she responded, 'Hello, my boy,' (here calling someone 'boy' or 'girl' is not in anyway considered to be offensive. I'm sure there's someway that it can be, but I didn't take it as such), 'You're not from around here are you? Don't believe I've seen you before.'

I stopped walking and chuckled lightly under my breath. 'Well . . . I live in Veliki Preslav, but I was born in America.'

At that point she walked to the gate and motioned to me to come (the motion for 'come here' in Bulgaria is with the hand held toward the ground and waving toward the breast rather than toward the head). As I was not in any rush (something else that I will truly miss about Bulgaria, that things are more relaxed than the States, even the South), I happily obliged.

As she was closing the gate behind her, she said, 'I'm sorry, my boy. I didn't hear a word you said. I didn't see your lips.' Curious as to what exactly she meant, I let her continue without asking. 'You see,' she explained, 'we babas can't hear so well. We need to look at people's lips to understand what they are saying. So, now that I can see you, where are you from?'

'I live in Preslav, near Shumen--'

'Da, da, I know where it is.' She interjected, which is common here, people talking over/around/through each other.

'--but, I was born in the States.' At that point her daughter had come out to see what was going on. I said, 'Dober den/Good day.' And the baba continued.

'Well, what brings you here then?' in a curious rather than letigious manner.

'I came for the holidays.'

'No, no, how did you end up in Banya?'

'Well, I've been in Bulgaria for 20 months, and, nearly 2 years ago now, I lived here during training for three months.'

She smiled excitedly, and continued with the questions, 'With whom did you live?'

'With the mayor.'

'Who?'

'With the mayor, the Naidenovi,' Forgetting that the better explanation would have been to give the gender with the last name (men & women's last names are slightly different because of gender rules in Bulgaria).

'Naidenova--' The daughter spoke up.

'Yes, exactly, Naidenova.' My turn for an interjection, the 'appropriate' gender included.

'He was with the group that one of the boys lived with Pavlinka.'

Saying it together I entoned, 'Exactly so.' and the baba, 'Yes, yes, I remember.'

Turning to her daughter she explained what she had said to me about not hearing what I said the first time and about baba's needing to see lips to understand with the daughter guessing somewhere in the explanation that her solution was for me to speak loudly rather than seeing/reading my lips.

'So what are you up to then?'

'Well, I'm just out for a walk.' (razhodka in Bulgarian is more like a stroll, i.e. you're out to walk rather than to go somewhere. There isn't actually a word in Bulgarian for 'walking' except saying, 'going by foot'.)

As if correcting my answer, but interested that I was just out for a walk, 'Are you in town for the holidays?'

'Yes, just visiting for the holidays.'

At that point, the baba, asked the question or form of the question that every volunteer has heard at some point while in Bulgaria: 'Do you like our Bulgaria, our country better than America?'

As is normal, I gave an American 'Uuh'. Then answered, 'That's very difficult for me to answer that question, and I cannot say that--'

'You can't say that you like Bulgaria less than America.'

I agreed. 'I can't. I love my country, but there are things in Bulgaria that I love that you don't see in the States.' (During this explanation she interjected, 'Life is very difficult here, I agree. There are many poor people.' which is interesting b/c I never really said anything about that, and it's not the first time during such a conversation that I've heard something similar).

Continuing, I explained, 'Everything is more relaxed here and I love that. Everyone is always busy in the States.' (Another, interjection, 'Yes, people go for walks or just go for a coffee and sit and talk.') Both of us were talking at the same time again, 'In the States, people are in a hurry and want to get coffee, but want to get it in a . . . ' I made a motion of a big cup and made up a word for paper cup, forgetting that there isn't a word/combination of words for paper cup in Bulgarian. ' . . . paper cup.'

'In a plastic cup,' the daughter corrected.

I chuckled at my mistake and continued, 'Yes, plastic . . . always in a hurry.'

The baba took up the explanation, with me occasionally saying 'Da, da' in agreement, 'We sit down and have a meal and talk and talk, sometimes for hours, so we can know people better.'

The whole time I was doing the Bulgarian head-shake/bobble for yes (they nod for no here). 'We once did that much more often in America, but now we have to drive everywhere and no one really goes for walks.' (and by that I mean that no one just goes to walk/stroll, we're either going somewhere or walking for exercise, and there's a difference in Bulgarian. They'd look at you like a fool if you did any power walking here and weren't on a tread mill in the gym.).

At which point she asked about how much we worked in the States, and I reponded '8-10 hours a day depending on your job/work.'

She responded, 'Oh, that's a lot, 20 years ago, I worked 8 hours a day with 2 days' (her emphasis on the 2) 'of rest. And I took them, now people work so much and only take one day off a week.' (here they're quite literally called 'rest days'). I kind of nodded in agreement.

She then complimented me, 'Well, you are a very nice boy and it's good to hear these things from you.' I thanked her. 'It's very good of you to come back to visit on the holidays. That you may be happy and healthy.' (It's a Bulgarian greeting/send off/toast 'Da ci zhiv i zdrav'/'That you may be happy & healthy.')

Again, I thanked her and said, 'And you as well. Happy Holidays.'

'Happy Holidays! Chao, chao!' (It's the Bulgarian form of 'ciao').

'Chao.' I responded, and she turned slowly back to her gate and went in and I turned and continued again on my walk, reflecting and somehow completely happy that I had just had that conversation. One of those things that you hope stick with you for a while.

Ok, I was going to post a few pictures, but I need to get ready for the midnight Easter Vigil service here. I'll post some later.

Books: Again more writing and some seasonal readings from the Bible.

Weather: Fantastic. I will post 1 pic from the day just so you can see how clear it was.

AFN

DCC, 7 April 2007

Banya, host family's house

Rezpeti Petuk: The symbolism of crawling under the table 'pod masata' 3 times to represent the 3 days between the Death & Resurrection of Christ, to represent the tomb itself, and looking very much like a casket with the flowers brought in through out the day is pretty powerful when you do it yourself, but when you see a 60 year-old grandmother do it (as the one is in the picture, you can see her feet under the table) it becomes even more so. Then coming out from under the table, placed directly in front of the Crucifix you come out on your knees in front of the Cross: 'That at his name every knee should been, in heaven, on earth and under the earth.' If there is any other symbolism or history behind the tradition I'll find out and write about it on here. Essentially it's a more drawn out version of the Catholic Good Friday service 'Veneration of the Cross.'

The rest of the pictures are in order (the first I took later than most of the pics below) of a few of the things I saw today. The first is a Co-Cola ad at the Central Train Station in Sofia. The second is in Plovdiv at the main square of a new fountain and the Hotel Trimontium Printsesa in the background and some artist hawking their wares in the foreground. The third is in Banya of a family stripping dried corn off the husks that I saw walking from the bus station to the church here in town and then to my host family's house. Finally is a picture of the method that they use to dry the corn here (one of many, I'll post at least 1 other tomorrow). I took it for Mom b/c she had wanted a picture of it while they were here in December. The white in the distance are not clouds, but the snow capped (barely) Balkan Mountains.

After I got here we went to the Trout farm/restaurant for dinner (Ivan, Petya, & I) and then went to see Kalina (thier youngest) in a 'review' (i.e. a fashion show) in Karlovo, which was actually a first for me in Bulgaria or in the US.

Books: I've been writing a lot over the last 2 days in my travel journal and have not read much other than thereadings for Good Friday and a couple paragraphs here & there of other things. As I write this, I'm entering my 100th blog on this site and about 2 pages of writing from filling my travel journal, which will be a 'first' for me in filling a journal.

Weather: Amazing after a rainy day yesterday. My feet are yelling at me for it too since I wanted to walk everywhere that I could today.

AFN

DCC 6 April 2007

Banya, host family's house

I could again write 2 or more pages on my experience today. About the kid who was crying because he has no family to go home to for Easter. Apparently his mother committed suicide and no one really knows where his father is. Or about the four who came with Susan today at Cafe Avenue as a treat and made the Coca-Cola and hot chocolate that they got as ambrosia, talking about how much they loved it and how wonderful the weather was (it was a wonderful day, indeed). Or about one of the boys about 9 or 10 yrs. wanting to write in my pocket journal and my asking him the Cyrillic alphabet and him needing to refer to a poster in order to complete the task, only to be saved by dinner time. Or about the youngest orphan, who came speaking no Bulgarian, is starting to pick up some words and starting to mimick others, now calling me 'Theethko' when the others call me 'Chichko'. Or about dinner consisting of 2 sandwiches, one jelly sandwich and one sandwich with butter and cirene (сирене salty feta cheese). Or about the 50 or so shoulder rides I gave because they wanted the attention. Or how I pulled out my camera and let the kids take a few pictures, being extremely nervous about it being dropped and broken. Or about . . . you get the idea.

Anyway, here are a couple of the pics. I won't narrate, except to say they were taken just after dinner was served and as the kids were finishing up. It's just kids being kids.

Books: Still working on pretty much the same books. I was interested to read the passage from Dt 6 (or maybe 7) that gives inspiration to Jewish families keeping the Ten Commandments on their doorways, and I honestly wonder why more Christians don't do it.

Weather: An absolutely glorious spring day, clear most of the day and in the mid-60s. I could have spent the whole day just sitting outside and reading & writing. I'll post more from what I wrote at the Cafe today when I have time to type it up. Here's a pic giving you a meagre idea of the day.

PS: I'll be traveling to Banya to visit my host family over the Easter weekend. I will hopefully post a time or two, but Friday maybe my next post at the earliest. Unless of course tomorrow morning gives me good shots of the mountains from the museum.

AFN

DCC 4 April 2007

V. Preslav, apartment

Ok, with the exception of the first picture, all of the photos are of today and yesterday.

Today was pretty much a 'business' day, i.e. I got paperwork together for leave requests and getting my utilities reimbursements taken care of for the months of Jan.-Feb., not really related to the museum, but work that has to be done nonetheless.

Oh, while sitting at Cafe Avenue (see below) I saw a car with a trailer full (about 5ft x 5ft) of lambs being carted off for the slaughter for the Easter festivities this weekend. Lamb & rice is the traditional meal for Easter here in Bulgaria. AND I hope to take a photo of the Preslav Mountains (the mountains south of town and the museum), which are dotted/strewn with the blooming trees and absolutely beautiful right now. I just hope I can catch the color/white well enough in the picture.

I visited Razgrad and Abritus (the ancient town on Razgrad's outskirts), which I mentioned briefly yesterday. But I was floored by things that are constant reminders of Bulgaria's past and the fact that things are changing here. I can only comment on my brief experience here in regards to changes that I have seen, but changing from one oppressive regime (the Ottoman Empire) to another (Soviet-style communism) in less than a century still have very strong reminders of both pasts and demand understanding before seeing/understanding Bulgaria's future with the EU. I do not pretend to be an expert on the struggles of preserving Bulgaria's history and culture, but the dichotomies that Bulgaria's past and future bring up leave me aching to understand the tensions that they create. I'll explain more in the captions, but I think you'll get the idea. I want to understand so much, but I don't know, if, in a life time of studying Bulgarian and other Slavic cultures, I could put myself/imagine myself in the place of a Bulgarian or any person for that matter who lived under one of the previous regimes or under any oppressive regime. Here are the pics . . .

'Palm' Sunday: As the parish/convent is relatively poor, they followed one of the local traditions of using flowering/budding branches for their 'palms' for Palm/Passion Sunday last week. I just thought it was pretty unique to have that instead of palms, which makes me wonder what they use for Ash Wednesday services as the palms from the previous Palm Sunday are usually burned to get the ashes in the Catholic churches in the States. 'Monument of Culture': That's what the sign says. It made me and my colleagues sad to see the factory in the middle (i.e. within the city's walls) of the ancient town of Abritus. It was the first of many reminders of a past when the government and people were not as attentive to culturally & historically significant monuments.

On one side . . .: Standing in the middle of the main square of Razgrad, you look toward the north you see the Ibrahim Pasha Mosque. (I'll get to facing south below). The mosque was built by Ibrahim Pasha who was Grand Vizier (1523-1526) of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent. Quite an interesting history if you have time to check out the link to wikipedia. I don't remember the exact story of the statue of the winged man in front of the mosque, but what I do remember is that he tried to make wings while locking himself in the mosque so that he could fly. Completing the wings, he climbed up to the top of the minaret and tried to fly. It didn't work so well for him. On the other . . . : And facing south . . . the communist monolith. I'm not sure exactly what the building's original intent was, but it currently has a hotel, restaurant, and sweets shop. And it's visible from most of the city and is the first thing that you see when approaching the city from the southeast/Shumen. Other than being a reminder of the communist past I don't know much about the building.

'My' cafe: Just the view that I have, almost daily, weather permitting, of Cafe Avenue, which has outdoor seating across the street. The building itself was constructed in 1932 which you can see on the front above the small terrace. It amazes me that the chipped plaster revealing the bricks that are underneath (which you can see on the building) is something that Americans intentionally put into the 'decor' of a restaurant or building for that 'old look', but here it's typically viewed as something to be repaired (as evidenced by the new plaster around the upstairs/terrace door). Amazing that we, Americans, are so bereft of things 'old' that we seek to make the new buildings or restaurants look in need of repair by others' standards.

Sunset in Preslav: This is the view that I would have if my apartment were on the west side of my building. As it is, it's on the east side and I've gotten several good sunrise shots, but this is the first sunset shot that I've had the opportunity/taken the opportunity to snap. Not the most breath-taking view, but it's an area that I see everyday whether I just go to the store or if I'm going to work or anywhere else in town for that matter.

Books: Hmm . . .Still have to catch up on Dickens, but other than that still working on the same books I was yesterday.

Weather: Odd weather today, good weather, but odd. It was clear, then clouded up & didn't rain at all and then cleared up by sunset, as attested above . . .

AFN

DCC 3 April 2007

V. Preslav, apartment

First of all . . .

GO BUCKS! Here's hoping it has a better effect than it did in January.

So today's business travel took us to Razgrad (about 1hr away toward the Danube) for the training that we set up for the grant that we received at the end of January, which took us to Abritus an ancient Roman town and site of the Battle of Abritus which is famed for being the first battle at which a Roman Emperor (Decius) died in combat. Situated on the Beli Lom River, humans have occupied the area around the old town on and off since 18,000-15,000 BC (since Paleolithic times). Talk about ANCIENT. I was in awe thinking about that most of the day. I wrote a bit in my journal today and may post some of that on here later. That said . . .

What to do in Bucharest, Part II

To be read: 'DO NOT miss this restaurant!'

Continued from part I . . .

Admire more pictures: And realize that there was a picture of me that I had no clue about and one that's CLEARLY from the future.Then . . . the House Specialty: Yes, a pork leg/ham, grits/polenta (depending on where you're from), sauerkraut, some horseradish, and some veggies . . . and more beer. Absolutely delicious. Koub & I doing what we do best . . . enjoying good food & beer. Between the meal & dessert: Wander around the restaurant and go downstairs to find musicians rehearsing and find more pictures on the walls, depicting, you guessed it, the history of beer.

During dessert, admire some more: The decorations around the columns in the restaurant.

Recall the beer's source: The bar area and the upstairs seating . . . I miss it already!

One more time, the restaurant is called Caru' cu Bere. If in Bucharest, GO!

Books: Finally getting back into my rhythm, today I read a couple chapters from Phantom, which continues to be an easy read and a good alternative to knowing only about the musical/movie versions; and finished Book 4 of The Iliad, also slow going. Still working on Deuteronomy, Dubliners, Twist, and the Church Fathers (now reading John Chrysostom).

Weather: Glorious day today, great until the sun went down and started getting chilly and I stayed out in it too long and gave myself a headache and a general body/muscle ache.

AFN

DCC, 2 April 2007

V. Preslav, apartment

Updates from/for today to come in the next post . . .

What to do in Bucharest, part I

To be read: 'DO NOT miss this restaurant!'

First, just in case you need a birds-eye view, here's the marker from Google Earth (great program, if you don't know about it, check it out) . . .You WANT to get here!: It's adjacent to the National Museum of Natural History on Stavropoleos St (Calea in Romanian) and just off Calea Victoriei, and naturally, labeled Caru' cu Bere (unfortunately the site is only in Romanian).

First: Find this building: It's on Calea Victoriei (Victoria St.) and referred to as the CEC (an economic building of some sort). Directly across from it is Stavropoleos St. From the Calea Victoriei, you can see the sign that says 'Bere' which is what caught my eye to begin with while we were wandering around . . . go figure.

Go to THIS building: You're almost there, and if you're lucky, you'll have a choice of sitting inside or outside. Regardless, go inside and check out the decor.

If you're looking at this view, it's a GOOD sign: You're in the door. You may need some help with the menu, but the staff was more than helpful while we were there and the beer, very drinkable (no surprise there). But in all honesty, it was very good beer and extremely good food, especially the House Specialty for two (pics and revelation of the House Specialty to follow in Part II).

While inside, waiting on the house specialty: Order a beer (go for the big one!) and admire the 'pretty' pictures celebrating the beverage that has been shared at war and peace tables alike . . . beer.

To be continued . . .

AFN

DCC, 2 April 2007

V. Preslav, Bulgaria

Just a few more pics from the Clinton-Wolfe Family.

Mary West Wolfe: Charles E. Clinton/David W. Wolfe's mother. Date of picture unknown. Taken in Lewes, Sussex Co., DE.

Reece Beckett Wolfe: Grandpa Clinton's father. Same info as above. I found both of these photos tucked away in an old cedar box (small box) at my grandmother's house about 10 years ago or so. No one remembered seeing them before then. The box had been Belle Clinton's before she died.

Nellie & Dessie Wolfe: I don't know which child is which but these are Grandpa & Grandma Clinton's first 2 children.

The picture tells the tale: This likely would have been taken in Texas or Oklahoma, more likely in Texas.

Charles & Belle Clinton: As members of the Salvation Army in California, likely taken in the 1920s.

AFN

DCC 31 March 2007

V. Preslav, apartment

Nope, this post has nothing to do with any travels that I've done or that any volunteers have done. However, it has everything to do with the travels and family of my great-grandfather Charles Everette Clinton, Sr. (nee. David West Wolfe) and his wife Belle Crenshaw Clinton (her first name was Rebecca, but she didn't care much for it). Oh, them and the 13 kids they had between 1898 and 1920, when my grandfather Robert H. Clinton was born in Los Angeles. The pictures, in this post and others are mostly of Charles (I'll call him Grandpa Clinton). There are two of his parents and a couple of their oldest children Nellie & Dessie.

Just a few 'quick' facts to explain why I'm as interested in this 'case' as I am (as if them being my direct ancestors weren't enough). Grandpa Clinton was born in Delaware in 1860 as David West Wolfe--we think his middle name was West, but in the various census records (before 1910), his middle initial is either W., S., L., or R., go figure. Anyway, by 1898, he's living in Texas and married on Christmas day of that year to Belle, who was 20 years his junior. The reason we know nothing about him between 1880 & 1898 is that they 1890 census records burned and for some reason had no copies anywhere.

So, from that point, Grandpa Clinton, David at that point in time, and Belle start their journey, staying in Bonita, Montague County, TX just long enough for Nellie to be born in 1899. By 1900 they are living in Jacksboro, TX and it goes from there. So as to spare you the entire litany, from that first move to Jacksboro until they finally 'settled' in Los Angeles in 1920, they moved at least 13 times, living in five different States, and with almost every move it was California-Arkansas or Arkansas-Kansas or Texas-California. Moves that would be logistical nightmares even today, but that would have been monumental in that time period, not to mention that they were having 13 children along the way, 9 of whom lived to adulthood. No cars, no planes, no personal movers, you get the idea. And even after they 'settled' in Los Angeles they moved 3 times within the city of LA itself. Ok, that's about it for now here are the pics . . .

I almost forgot . . . For some unknown reason (there are 3 stories, but I won't get into that just yet), he changed his name from Wolfe to Clinton. Likely, the change came by 1904 when his second son (first to live) was given for his newly chosen name, i.e. Charles E. Clinton, Jr.

And oh, by the way, he was employed as a butcher, as you could probably gather from the pictures.

All of these are scans that Dad did of the originals that we have at the house in Vidalia. If you want to download them click on them to open up the full sized picture and right click & 'save image as'.

Charles E. Clinton (Grandpa) probably in Oklahoma: Some of the pictures have the information for location and all that written on the back or in the picture. This one I'm not sure about. As you can see the man kept a massive mustache. For those of you who call me 'The Beard', now you know where I get it from

'That's not a knife! THAT'S a knife!': Grandpa Clinton in a very well stocked store, the one holding the knife. MAYBE in California.

Again, possibly OK: As you can tell, this is a cropped & lightened picture of the one above. Grandpa Clinton again, no wonder I like big knives.

When the pictures label themselves: This is quite possibly one of my favorite pictures, not just of Grandpa Clinton, but in general. He's in the middle. We know this is Mangum, OK based on the letters on the right hand side above the over-hang 'MANG' and based on the fact that Grandpa Clinton & Belle's 3rd child, Sanford Wolfe, was born there in 1902 and died within the same year.

Again, labeled on the picture: This one has the label written in pencil on the back. Grandpa Clinton is behind the counter.

I'll post a couple other pics that I talked about above a little later today.

Books: Kind of on a rest/hiatus from the books for the moment. I've been doing a lot of genealogy 'work'/investigating lately so my time for reading has been replaced by that.

Weather: Never thought I'd WANT it to be January again, but it was actually warmer in Jan . . . go figure.

AFN

DCC 31 March 2007

V. Preslav, apartment

Update 12 The Orphanage & Some travels

Ok, the countdown has officially begun. As of today, it’s 5 months, 12 months until I finish my Peace Corps service and embark on a few weeks of travel (Cairo & Alexandria, Egypt; Sarajevo, Mostar, & Medjugorje, Bosnia; Dubrovnik, Croatia; Kotor, Montenegro; Belgrade, London, Paris, & Dublin included).

Other, not-so-distant travels will be to Istanbul, Kusadasi, Ephesus, Troy, and Gallipoli in Turkey, and from Kusadasi the Greek island of Samos, and on another trip to Macedonia and Albania to the west of Bulgaria. So this update is less about me than some of the experiences I’ve had at the local orphanage recently.

It’s hard to go to the orphanage and not feel some twinge of being completely ungrateful for the blessings I’ve been given. Not that I consider myself an ungrateful person, it’s just remarkable to go and see these kids who have absolutely nothing, some with no family at all others with family who have either abandoned them or who cannot afford to rear them, and yet somehow even in the smallest things, things that we consider trash or things that we take completely for granted or intangible things that they do not normally get, they find the greatest joy and pleasure. I’ll briefly tell about each of the examples that I mentioned so as not to seem completely vague and general. So the kids who have no family, there are ones whose parents have died natural deaths. Then, there is one, who is a great kid, whose father murdered his mother and so far as he knows they’re both dead, the father being either shut away in jail or dead otherwise. As for the children who have family, some may as well not have family and some have families who cannot support them throughout the whole year. Those whose families may as well be dead (I hate to speak so bluntly about this, but for some of them it’s a matter of fact) have been either abandoned as infants or sent up to the welfare of the state, either way they and the children whose parents are in fact dead apparently cannot be adopted since Bulgaria’s laws do not provide for adoption in the course of their minorities. Finally, there are those, like Master Noah Claypole in Dickens’ Oliver Twist, who have families that cannot afford paying for a child or children (there are several sets of siblings who live in the orphanage) and return to them during school holidays, Easter, Summer, Christmas, etc. Whether they go to better or worse conditions I do not know, but the fact that one of the children told another PCV (who was visiting) that he had once lived on a train in Varna, that should tell you something about the conditions to which at least some of the children return. (Note: Noah Claypole was a ‘charity-boy’, identified by their hats and breeches, whose parents were, apparently, reputable enough to have the child sent to a poor school with little or no fees and not have him/her go off to the orphanage or work-house as was the fate of Oliver Twist. While Claypole was afforded somewhat of a higher status than Twist because of this and used it to his advantage to bully and berate Oliver during his short apprenticeship with an undertaker, the children at the orphanage here are given no such status.) As for the trash, I cleaned up some pencil shavings using a scrap piece of paper, balled it up, and asked my site-mate (the other volunteer who lives in Preslav), Susan, where I should put the ball. She said, “Just put it on the floor, we’ll clean it up at the end of the day.” I shrugged my shoulders and said, “OK,” and thinking nothing of it held it in my left hand and dropped it and hit it with my right hand like I was serving a volleyball. It was an instant hit (no pun intended). The smallest kid at the orphanage, who also happens to speak almost no Bulgarian (the majority of the kids at the orphanage are Turkish or Roma/Gypsy, which happen to be Bulgaria’s most significant minorities) and came to the orphanage speaking only Turkish a couple weeks ago, saw me hit the paper ball pounced on it and started hitting and throwing it with me. Soon other kids were playing keep away/monkey in the middle (the Bulgarian for keep away) to be followed by the same game with a larger ball that another kid went and made and brought back. I was amazed at what energy and excitement they had for the ‘trash.’ On the taken for granted scale (obviously this varies depending on a person’s experience), to begin, hugs, attention, affection are all things that the kids seem to ache for and enjoy more than anything. I’ve given them piggy back rides, carried them on my shoulders (both called ‘horse rides’ in Bulgarian which have earned me the endearing nickname of ‘Horsy’ ‘Konche’ in Bulgarian), lifted them up over my head, run up and down the hall with them, let them draw/write in my pocket notebook/journal (they were floored that I wanted to learn Turkish phrases FROM them). And they do not get bored with it so easily as we/I did when I was younger. Then there’s the taken for granted with the food. I’ve eaten with them a couple times. Once, they were fed ‘kasha’ (a regular in their diets which is basically roux), which I ate a little bit of with the kids telling me, “Here, eat the bread, don’t eat the kasha.” The second time they had an egg, sweetened & thickened tomato sauce (called ‘lutenitsa’), a 1.5 in. square piece of cheese, and bread. According to Susan, it was their best meal since she arrived her in Preslav seven months ago. And when the kids get their 6 leva a month, they buy food or inexpensive toys. The food that they buy, without thought or the slightest hesitation, almost recklessly, they share with each other and with whomever is there at the time. The first time that I went to the orphanage happened to be the day that they got their money for the month and I witnessed it first hand. I would have been/was so stingy with MY things & food. I briefly touched on the intangibles above, the hugs, attention, and affection that these kids unabashedly give if they are shown the slightest bit from anyone else, particularly people older than themselves. Within the first two hours I visited the orphanage, the kids were calling me ‘Chichko’ (‘Uncle’) simply for running around with them and giving them a little attention. I wanted to wrap up with a nice summary or whatnot, but I guess I just wanted to write this so that people know it happens, not to condemn one system or to say that one way is better than another to do things, because I certainly do not know the answers nor could I been to suggest them. It’s just something that I do not want to forget and something about which I think other people should know. Since my last update, I’ve traveled to Bucharest, Romania, adding another country to my list. I completely enjoyed Bucharest and that pleasantly surprised me. Bucharest is probably the most under-rated city to which I’ve been traveled. Sadly, the shadow of Nicolae Ceausescu still casts largely over the city in travel books and recommendations, with them focusing more about his ‘crimes’ than about the highlights of the city. I've attached a picture of me in front of Ceausescu's most infamous 'project', the Palace of Parliament, the second largest building in the world and larger in terms of volume than the Great Pyramid of Giza. It also helps that I found what now ranks as one of my favorite restaurants world-wide, Caru’ cu Bere, a beer-hall next to the Romanian Museum of Natural History. If it tells you anything, I ate there 3 times in a day-and-a-half. I’ve posted about Bucharest a couple times on my blog 1, 2. Hope this finds all of you doing well and enjoying the young spring.

Peace! CareyBooks: Bleh, a general disorganized mess right now. See the last post for what I'm 'reading' on. Have not read as much in the last week or so, except for sticking to my 'weekly' reads.

Weather: Warm/cool depending on the time of day and whether the sun is out, looks to be warming into the 60s over the next few days, should be GREAT!

AFNDCC, 28 March 2007V. Preslav, apartment

Not a whole lot going on, just trying to lay low for a little while on the travel front as I've got plenty of travel coming up in April & May. There's a lot of planning going on right now, but not a lot of travel. That said, I'll 'relive' some of my older travels this one from the first weekend of March . . . yup, Bucharest. There should be one more Bucharest after this.

On the work front things are going well, working on some translations and starting our digitization project. I also got to go on a hike as work last Friday (I could really dig this archaeologists' gig--pun intended), and I'll hopefully be able to post those pictures today or tomorrow, but for now, here's Bucharest.

Bucharest, Romania, Part II

Around Bucharest

Palace of Parliament, again: Click on the pic and it should open up to a wider shot. I put together a panorama using a program that I recently found Autostitch.

A School of Architecture that doesn't look ugly: After all the schools of architecture in the States are trying to go with the post-modern whatever it is (I know that's not the technical term) for designing their new buildings (which looks like crap, if you ask me), it was GREAT to see an architecture school that was appealing to behold.

Palace of Vlad, again: Tried to lighten the pic up a little bit and you can see a little more of the bust, but not much . . .

CARU' CU BERE: If you go to Bucharest GO HERE! Don't believe the crap rating that Lonely Planet gives it, the food was excellent, good quality, down to earth food, and if that's what Lonely Planet wants to call 'average' then maybe I don't want anything to do with the hoity-toity 'good' stuff they advertise. And oh, btw, the prices weren't nearly as high as advertised in LP either. Besides if you go to a place (I'm thinking Romania here) and you get Thai food, what's the point? I'll do a full post dedicated to Caru' cu Bere today or tomorrow with a map ID & everything.

Inside Caru' cu Bere: The dancing and costumes look surprisingly similar to the Bulgarian folk costumes, amazing how that'll happen with neighbors!

Books: Still working on Homer, Leroux, Numbers, Hahn & Aquilino, Joyce, and Dickens. Yes I'm just that much a glutton for punishment!

Weather: WINDY, WINDY, WINDY! and cloudy, but the wind's been blowing for the last 3 days to beat all. It's a good thing it didn't actually get cold this winter b/c the wind chill would be about -10 right now if it had gotten cold during winter.

AFN

DCC 21 March 2007

V. Preslav, apartment

Not a whole lot from today. Looks like I'll be headed up into the nearby mountains with some colleagues tomorrow to one of the nearby archaeological dig sites, which should be interesting, and I may post some pics from that on here rather than Bucharest (won't that be a jumbled mess). After much delay, here's part 1 of Bucharest. Links to come later

Bucharest, Part I

3 March 2007

Not that Romanians or Bucharestians would be terribly happy that I've identified their largest city with the two most notorious Romanian rulers, but those are the folks that people know and whether you like him or not, Ceausescu made Bucharest what it is today. It's a shame that so many people judge the city on what Ceausescu did. Not to mention with Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) and Dracula, Romania makes its largest tourist buck. Bucharest is truly a beautiful city, and while it's not to the level of Paris (for broad boulevards, and well, there's the absence of the Eiffel Tower & Notre Dame and . . . I could go on) as the Romanians would have you believe, it certainly has it's charming moments that make a very easy connection between the French and Romanian capitals.

Koub (another PCV) & I headed up across the Bulgarian-Romanian border for a day-trip to Bucharest. It's only about 1.5 hrs from Ruse (the Bulgarian border town) and about 3.5-4 hrs from me. Taking the 6:30 bus, we arrived for a very full day of sight seeing etc. Neither of us really expected much, but both of us ended up being 'wowed' and thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the 'other' new EU country. These first few pictures are before our discovery of Caru' cu Bere (the oldest beer hall in Bucharest). I'll include more on that tomorrow, but man was that a GREAT find.

Fountains & the Palace of Parliament: From Piata Unirii looking west to the second largest building in the world (following the Pentagon) and in terms of volume it's the 3rd largest, holding a greater volume than the Great Pyramid at Giza. The amazing thing about the fountains is that it's a series of fountains that are really hard to describe or grasp without seeing them. The whole of Piata Unirii is crossed (by that I mean the fountains for a cross) and then circled by fountains, and in the middle of the boulevard leading up to the Palace, fountains run the entire length. It would be impressive indeed to see them later in spring or summer.

Piata Revolutionei (sp): The square where Ceausescu gave his last speech before fleeing in a helicopter only to be caught and killed a short time later. The monument to the revolution (the obelisk) I wanted to crop and put a big martini glass upside down on top of it. I'm sure that will piss someone off, but it looks like an olive on a toothpick that should be in a martini.

I'm votin' for yours truly!: Me in front of the Atheneum Romanum (or something like that) It's the national theatre/opera house of Romania and was built in the late 1800s and frequented (i.e. music performed) by George Enescu (sp).

Ruins of Vlad the Impaler's Palace: It's unfortunate that the sun wasn't providing good light for pictures of that area b/c there's a fair sized bust of Vlad just in front of the column that's in the background. In the foreground you'll notice a depiction of Vlad with two men impaled on his sharpened fingers.

Well, I'm votin' for yours truly, too!: Me in front of the Palace of Parliament. Friggin' huge! It's got its own weather systems! It's a virtual planetoid! The thing is indeed huge. It has a 'great hallway' on the inside that has marble columns the full length of its 150 meters (yes you could play football inside). And not just American football, the largest room in the place is the size of a soccer pitch. And they only showed us the first 2 floors. Oh, did I mention that the building is only 94% complete?

Books: Finished the first 'book' of The Iliad. sitting at the local cafe today. It's becoming one of my favorite past-times (not reading the first book of the Iliad, but reading there in general).

AFN

DCC, 15 March 2007

V. Preslav, apartment

I may be able to post here at work today a little more later, but it'll be Rome if I post (I don't have the Bucharest pics on the comp at work yet). Having trouble with blogger at my apartment lately for some reason.

Books: Starting The Iliad today. Still working on Leroux, Mystology, Joyce, Dickens, and Numbers as well.

Weather: Warmer & clear . . . can't wait to go sit at the cafe in a little bit!

AFN

DCC 15 March 2007

V. Preslav, musuem

First things first . . . HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Don't go getting old on me ;-)

Man have I been lazy about posting for the last week. Now, to get back to a 'regular' posting . . . I still haven't posted a lick on Bucharest nor some decent pictures I took about a week or so ago right after I got back from the 'other' new EU country, Romania. Things have been relatively uneventful for the last week and a half and I'm ok with that. We (museum staff) made a day of it yesterday in Shumen to get the tripod, camera bag, and compact flash disk for the camera that we've purchased as a part of the Digitization project (funds courtesy of USAID and the Small Project Assistance Fund-SPA). I've been doing fairly well keeping up with my reading, etc. (see the books section if you wanna know more about that).

And, I'm in the beginning stages of planning a trip to Macedonia and Albania, specifically Ohrid and Tirana. I'm planning on being in Ohrid, which is very closely linked historically with Veliki Preslav, on May 24 which is both a Bulgarian and a Macedonian National Holiday, celebrating the Cyrillic Alphabet and Cyril & Methodius (interesting since they didn't actually create the Cyrillic Alphabet, but that's for scholars to argue about not celebrants . . .)

I'm writing/posting this as I work/search for museum display cases, so if it seems a bit disjointed, there's a reason. Ok, for now a little more from Rome, and HOPEFULLY I can pull myself away from cooking and playing with my new hard drive (which I just got working yesterday) to post a little about Bucharest, which I LOVED. It helped that we found a beer hall to rival Hofbrauhaus. (I'm sure I just got some raised eyebrows there). It may not carry the tradition or fame of the Munich beer hall, but for decor and atmosphere and the HUGE pork bone that was the house specialty AND the 2.50 euros for a liter of good beer, I rank it ahead of that Munich landmark. Then again, when it comes to beer halls, they're all (the one's I've been to anyway) ranked pretty highly on my list of 'places to eat/go', so go figure.

Rome Day 4, Part VIII

25 December 2006, Christmas Day

Back from Trastevere

All of these are ones we took on the way back from Trastevere to our hotel, and they're the last for Christmas day, hence the repitition of apparently similar pictures and there being only 4. (For those of you who know Rome I know you're thinking that St. Peter's & Trastevere are on the same side of the Tiber, and they are, but we took a bus most of the way back since we had our passes, and traffic directly along the Tiber runs one-way on either bank.)

None of the pics need a whole lot of explanation. The first is of a bar that I saw and liked the name (I've become quite the fan of Dionysius/Bacchus since playing the part on Halloween last year). Then the last 3 are looking across the Tiber toward St. Peters in varying shades of darkness, chose your own poison as to which you like!

Books: Well, I'm finishing up Book 5 of The Lord of the Rings (which is part of The Return of the King and tells of the Battle of Pelennor Field, the Ride of the Rohirrim to the rescue of Gondor, and the passage of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli through the Paths of the Dead and other happenings) today, and taking a break long enough (I'm thinking til May more than likely) to read The Iliad which I'm hoping to finish prior to my trip to Turkey, which will include a visit to the ruins of Troy/Ilium, hence the pause. Kinda cool to be able to read a book and then go to the place. Of course that seems to be the theme lately with Dubliners, Les Mis, The Phantom of the Opera (my new 'second' book), and I'm also hoping to read the letter of Paul to the Ephesians before my Turkey trip as well since I'll be going to Ephesus as well. Other than the 'travel' reading, I'm on Numbers Ch. 26, having just finished reading the tangential, but interesting story of Balaam and his prophecies to Balak, and beginning to read a little of St. Ambrose today.

Weather: A little cooler the last couple days, but the temps have stayed above 40 and have hovered between 45-55. It has been a bit windier too, which has made things feel a little cooler.

OH!!! I did forget! They just opened a Kaufland (basically a mini-Wal Mart) in Shumen (the big town close to me) and my stars & garters! they have SHRIMP! and fresh basil and sweet potatoes and . . . I could go on, but I'm sure most of the folks who will read this in the States won't fully appreciate finding those things here. It makes me smile! . . . and tonight for dinner something with shrimp in it!

AFN

DCC 14 March 2007

V. Preslav, museum

Curiously good

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

by Mark Haddon

about 4 stars (272 pg)

The quote on the back of the book says something about a guilty pleasure, and with books that's something I just don't get. You're reading, you're educating yourself (theoretically anyway), and even if you re-read something you read years ago as a child, you might/will likely pick up a piece of perspective on the world that you might have missed back then or forgotten. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and could very easily have read it in 1 sitting had I the time and had I not wanted more of a 'break' from some of the 'classics' I'm trying to muddle through. (Not that I'm not enjoying them, just taking more time with them). Oh, and as much as this is advertised as a 'children's' book (for which it won the Whitbread Award back in 2003 when published) . . . there are enough f-bombs dropped to make it an R-rated movie if they were true to the original text. (BTW, they are making a film based on the book, directed by Steve Kloves, who has been the screenwriter for all of the Harry Potter film versions. I doubt it will include some of the stronger language.)

The book is about Christopher Boone, a 15 year-old boy with autism, with Asperger syndrome, who is particularly gifted in math and science (which I learned from my friend Catherine, who works with autistic children, is called a restricted interest), and the book is also written in first person from Christopher's perspective. It makes for a very interesting and informative read, going through the 'detective work' with Christopher as he seeks to discover the killer of his neighbor's dog, Wellington (the neighbor is Mrs. Shears) and the consequences and happenings after that night. While there were points while I was reading that I became exasperated with some of the comments or thoughts that Christopher made, I couldn't help but trying to imagine what it must be like for those who don't have the safety of reading a book and being 'done' with autism, and it's something that I would not be 'ready' for right now.

The book provides fascinating insight to the lives of those with autism, which whether it is true or not is a truly remarkable feat in itself, having the author put himself in the shoes of someone who has 'special needs' as they put it in the book. If you have the time, which as I said this one doesn't take much and is a very quick read, I highly recommend it, if for no other reason than to bend your own perspective to that of the autistic child.

Other Books

I've also recently finished reading about all the Popes (the link is to the pre-Benedict version, but it works): Short biographies of All the Popes: From Saint Peter to Benedict XVI (64 pg). Not a bad read and one I could do slowly. Working on Numbers from the Bible and a book by Scott Hahn and Mike Aquilina on mystagogy of the Catholic sacraments called Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians. It focuses on the teachings of the 'Fathers of the Church' (including St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Basil the Great, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and Augustine, among others) regarding the sacraments which were typically given on Easter Sunday and then taught about for the 50 day period between Easter & Pentecost. Very interesting stuff and looking at things that I probably would never have thought of.

Also working on (yes I have too many irons in the fire, but I'm trying to read as much as I can while I have the time) Tolkien still (The Return of the King); and I've added Dickens' Oliver Twist (I'm reading it in serial format as it was published, but doing it weekly instead of monthly, which means I should finish right about the time I get done w/ Peace Corps); AND I've also read the first story in Joyce's Dubliners with hopes of reading about one per week as well for when I go to Dublin in October . . . I think that's more than enough for now.

Weather: BEAUTIMOUS day (beautimous is copyrighted btw, I made it up. It'll be in the dictionary one day . . . ok, maybe not). Anyway, great spring day got some really good pics and the blossoms are starting to perfume the air. Here's hoping it stays warm . . .

AFN

DCC 6 March 2007

V. Preslav, Apartment

I swuh . . . I wuz gonna do more of a post today, but I got weighlayed & seduced into drinking by some Bulgarian friends of mine . . . I swear it wasn't my fault! . . . I was minding my business reading . . . ok, now you REALLY don't believe me . . . Anyway, tomorrow is off to Ruse then Bucharest for the weekend . . . here's to weekend trips to foreign countries . . . woooooooo! Oh, and to Rome!

Rome Day 4, Part VII

Santa Maria in Trastevere & 'Dog Parking'

Ok, not much today that hasn't already been advertised & I don't feel like writing much just now anyway. It's Santa Maria in Trastevere inside & out & then something about Dog Parking . . . there were guys trying to sell these whirlling helicopter type things to everyone outside (i.e. they shot them 50-100 ft up in the air by force and then let them float down) and THEN there was this fellow who made me think of Uncle Greg who was out in front of the fountain in front of Santa Maria in Trastevere playing the flute. It was the flute that made me think of Uncle Greg, and him playing it for Aunt Sun in his white tux at their wedding . . . I just wish you could see the flautist in the picture. Then there's the pic of the 'Dog Parking' . . . I got nothing else.

Books: Finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time today. I'll post more about it next week, but that's where I am for now on that. I don't know what my next 'second book' will be, but I suspect it will be The Illiad. Still working on Tolkien and didn't get as far as I would have liked today b/c of the invitation to 'piem bira' (to drink beer) . . . and NO, Amy, I couldn't have said 'no' . . . I'm in Bulgaria. It's harder to say no here than you think. It's more personalities than you think . . . Numbers & the Popes to follow . . . and actually I'll prolly finish the Popes tonight . . . Numbers, it's on to Ch. 12 or 13 (I don't remember which).Weather: Like I've said, I just hope my weather karma holds up . . . it was GORGEOUS & 60-ish today . . . I got to sit outside at a cafe & finish a book and drink a cappucino & 2 beers . . . is there much better in the spring time? You get the picture.AFNDCC 1 March 2007V. Preslav, apartment

So my experience the other day at the orphanage deserves more time and writing than I’ve given it, and hopefully I’ll be ambitious enough to write it out tonight & tomorrow. But, it’s been much longer since I’ve posted anything from Rome or any pictures of the day. Now, I can guarantee that there will be photo posts today and tomorrow, but for the weekend I’ll be heading to Ruse and Bucharest for a quick visit to add another country to the list. Hence, I’m pretty sure I won’t post again on Rome until Tuesday at least (b/c I’ll want to post some from Bucharest and Ruse).

I had a good visit from the PC doctor today who was/is making her yearly rounds to PCVs and chatted with her for a bit. I actually was more full of ideas than I have been in a while. I need to make sure I communicate many of them to my colleagues as they are away at the annual archaeologists conference presenting their finds from last year’s digs. Man were they busy this week preparing for that!

Anyway, here are some more photos from Roma . . .

Roma Day 4, Part VI

25 December 2006, Christmas Day

After our walk through the Ghetto, we continued across to the Isola Tiberina and then on to Trastevere. Mom wanted to see Rome's traditional medical center and I wanted to get over to Santa Maria in Trastevere, which we had approached last summer but never made it there. Santa Maria will come tomorrow.

The Bridge to the Isola: Mom crossing to the island that holds both the remains of St. Bartholemew (pics to come later) and the traditional Roman hospital based on an ancient legend that a snake (a symbol of the god Aesculapius, patron of medicine, etc.) slithered from a boat to the island symbolizing/following the Caduceus. The west end of the island today looks like the bow of a boat to commemorate the sailors who were on the boat, see 2 pics down to see some of the bow. Below is another of Mom directly in front of the hospital, not the best pic w/ the cars & all. And then one of her w/ the Tevere/Tiber behind her and the island & hospital again.

Trastevere Street scenes: One of the oldest neighborhoods in Rome, being 'across/beyond the Tevere/Tiber River' from the ancient part of the city, literally 'Tras-tevere'. For many years it was one of the poorest sections of the city, but now is one of the most popular for real estate & tourists for a 'true' sense of Rome. These are just two random street shots I took on the way to Santa Maria.

Books: Tolkien (p. 42, a slow 2 days), Still on Haddon & the Popes as well. Numbers Ch. 11 is next in that pursuit. In Tolkien, they've just met members of the Dunedain clan (Aragorn's kin) a part that's not in the movies and they're making their way to Rohan, and Gandalf/Mithrandir & Pippin are in Minas Tirith.Weather: Clear & warmer today. Should be in the 50s tomorrow, prime day for sitting at a cafe (outside, of course & reading for a while), which I aim to do for a little bit.AFNDCC 28 February 2007Veliki Preslav, Apartment

After I paid for lunch today I had 6 leva in my wallet, that’s roughly $4.00.

At midnight, I had 2 leva in my wallet, four martenitsi on my wrists, 150 grams of sunflower seeds, the leftovers of a bag of popcorn, and a chocolate covered wafer bar in my jacket pocket, and that feeling in your gut that you don’t know what just happened and you can’t begin to explain it. I smelled a little like the smoky pizza restaurant/bar that I had just left with three other Volunteers, but I no longer have any doubt about the verse about God feeding and looking after you, for he feeds and looks after the animals of the world (I’ll look it up later). Matthew 6:25-34 specifically: “Therefore, I tell you, don't be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn't life more than food, and the body more than clothing? See the birds of the sky, that they don't sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you of much more value than they? "Which of you, by being anxious, can add one cubit to the measure of his life?’”

If you’ve cared enough to read this far, all of that was because of the first visit that I’ve taken to the local orphanage. That feeling in my gut was from the unrelenting selflessness that the kids at the orphanage showed in sharing what meager extra sustenance they receive each month as well as the ‘kasha’ (gruel/roux I originally put gruel, but it didn't even qualify as that. It was simply roux, which according to wikipedia is just a mixture of fat & flour. Gruel actually has a little bit more nutritional value, not much.) that the orphans refused to eat that I tried to stomach but couldn’t eat more than what I dipped with 2 pieces of bread and a bit of hot dog and 2-3 bites off of a spoon. Not to mention the fact that all of the martenitsi I am now wearing were made for me by the orphans. I’ll write more tomorrow.

Just want to end it with the 6 leva (which I worried whether it would last me the next 2 days til I got paid) that I had in my wallet at lunch was equivalent to the money that the orphans got individually today for the entire month of March for snacks or spending money or whatever else. Of the sunflower seeds, popcorn, hot dog, and chocolate covered wafer bar, ALL of them came from the money that they kids had been given for themselves, which they insisted that I and the other volunteers take and eat. Incredible . . . when I was that age (7-10), I would have talked about something being mine, despite all the preaching that we got about sharing . . . WOW.

Books

This really seems superfluous after what I saw today, but I finished the second part, 'Cosette', of Hugo (to pg 574, I think). I’m taking a break to read Book 5 of The Lord of the Rings (i.e. the first part of The Return of the King), and I’m still reading on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the Popes.

Weather

Beautiful day. It’s been a little colder lately, but nothing as cold as Bulgarian winters normally dictate. It got into the 40s today and was clear . . . By Fri-Sat, it’s supposed to be back in the 60s for highs. I swear the weather karma has got to run out sometime.

AFN

DCC 26-27 February 2007

Veliki Preslav, apartment

PS. Sorry it's been a while. It's been an interesting 2 weeks.