Sarajevo is a place that deserves not only attention, but reflection.

We plled into the station at about 7am and a thin layer of fog and frost had settled over everything. I saw the lights of the city come and go while it was still dark, and we pulled into a secondary bus station in some nondescript village outside the city some time after. Bosnian is another Slavic language, but my Bulgarian only got me about halfway in the battle of understanding. After a bout of pointing and sign language and communication that turned into some new form of Slavic - an awkward middle ground between strangers - I boarded a tram on the advice of the info desk and hoped for the best.

It worked, ans in a moment I was in downtown Sarajevo, the very center of one of the great tragedies of our time. In 1992, the Serbs had completely surrounded the city with artillery and were laying siege to the place almost 24/7. The first glances around the city revealed a mix of new construction, renovation, and the last remnants of the war, still not completely patched up. Walking along the river to my hostel, I passed row after row of old buildings, all pock-marked with the spray of bullets from 15 years ago - the scars of suffering but not defeat - all wordlessly telling a story that ached to be told.

The story, of course, was told, mostly by reporters and camera crews holed up in the now iconic Holiday Inn, right across from the Parliament building and edging a formerly treacherous main drag ominously nicknamed "Snipers' Alley." Nearby is one of several Olympic halls, one of the site of the indoor events of the 1984 Winter Olympic Games. This particular arena is now a department store.

I walked along the river as the city showed its first stirrings of life. I walked until I reached the Old Town section of town, marked along the river by the so-called Latin Bridge. It's a small little stone span, but became the focus of the world's attention when Franz Ferdinand was assassinated there, setting into motion the First World War.

With such a deadly history, one should think the roads would be painted red. In some cases they actually are. Former holes in the pavement etched out by mortar fire were symbolically filled in with red cement, forming the so-called "Sarajevo Roses." Along with the filled in mortar scars in the surrounding buildings, memories of the war are to be found all over.

I checked into the hostel and quickly turned to the streets of Bascarcija, the Old Town, as the city roared to life. The recovery has been total, and one gets a great feeling walking along the cobbled and winding alleyways of the old market streets. Once a major marketplace on the outer edges of the Ottoman Empire, the city was an important link in the trade route between East and West. Today, the mixture of cultures lives on, reminding me strangely of both Vienna and Istanbul at the same time. People of all kinds live harmoniously in this small space. In one city block I counted two mosques, an Orthodox church, a Catholic church, and a synagogue. And who says people can't get along?

I walked and walked my first day, admiring the truly unique culture of Bosnia. And at the same time, my mind wouldn't get settled. This city won't let people ever forget what has happened throughout history. They are proud and full of solidarity. The National History Museum, located in between two gleaming, reconstructed glass towers, squats and crumbles. It has been intentionally left in a state of disrepair - the same condition in which is was left when the war ended - riddled with bullet holes, chunks torn from its facade. Indeed, nobody will ever forget what happened here.

Yet, once inside, the museum is indicative of any modern and well kept structure. This pattern holds true for many places in this city. The people here survived in the small and hidden places, away from the artillery fire constantly falling from the surrounding hilltops and protected against the prying eyes of the ever present snipers. Here, in these tiny nooks, the city's culture lived on and flourished. Today, because of this, Sarajevo is a place teeming with life both inside and out.

My second day, I wrapped up my wandering of the city with a visit to the old Olympic Stadium and Arena. During the war, the surrounding fields and gardens were used as a makeshift burial ground for the thousands of casualties suffered during the 4 year long siege. On this day, however, the stadium was being used for a big regional health conference.

Much like the "Miracle on Ice" that occurred in the 1980 Olympics 4 years previously, in which the underdog American National Hockey Team defeated their Russian arch-rivals, the Bosnians have defeated the seemingly unbeatable rivals of hopelessness and fear. The Bosnians continue to be proud of the fact that their city was an Olympic host. They choose to dwell on the positive aspects of their history, while maintaining a reverence to the tragic ones.

Sarajevo has indeed led a comeback of epic proportions, and in a short time too. The energy and love of life here is an inspiration to me. That this vitality has arisen in the face of such extreme adversity (and while continuing to honor that struggle) is even more so.

I am sitting in the Volunteer Lounge at the Peace Corps office in Sofia, preparing my final arrangements and closing my service, working through a rather large checklist. It has been a relatively uneventful few days, as a cold rain has settled in over most of the country. This also blocked out most of the amazing views that I was looking forward to on the drive back to Sofia - a drive that I've taken so many times. In a way it was rather appropriate - looking out the window and seeing absolutely nothing in the fog... the view was left completely up to my imagination and my memory. This gave me a chance to start thinking of how to put into words what my experience here has been like - something proving to be a very difficult task. I have been preparing for my return for the States, thinking about what my response will be to the inevitable questions of, "What was Bulgaria like?" and "So what did you do in Bulgaria?"

All I can think of at the moment is an incoherent jumble of words and sentences in no particular order:

Bulgaria is... strange, beautiful, cold, ugly, misunderstood, enchanting, unbelieveable. It is filled with people who are incredibly nice and helpful and friendly, yet sometimes closed off and closed minded. Bulgaria is small, yet somehow vast. It's the size of a state in America, but takes longer to travel across than it does to fly back to the States. That travel time is some of the best. You can really see what Bulgaria is made of. It is made of mountains and lakes and sunflowers. It is made of tiny villages filled with massive gardens. It is at times covered in garbage. It is relatively poor money-wise but has one of the richest histories of any country I know of. It is very developed in the cities, and very rural elsewhere. The food is very oily and salty, yet everything is fresh. The tomatoes are the best anywhere.

I worked in an orphanage and a preschool. Kids jumped on my back and yelled my name and gave me hugs every day. They threw walnuts at me. I felt like a hero at times, and a villain at others. I was called a father. I was called a son. I was treated like a member of several different families. I survived winters without heat in sub zero weather. I learned the Bulgarian language and the Cyrillic alphabet. I feel like I did a lot but I have few tangible things to show for it. I did a lot of walking. I did a lot of waiting. I built a fitness room. I taught kids how to read. I couldn't reach all the kids, but I did my best. I did a lot of reflection. I did a lot of growing. I saw more of Bulgaria than most Bulgarians. I swam. I climbed. Mostly I walked.

I could go on for a while, but the main thing seems to be that Bulgaria is a land of opposites. That's really what has struck me the whole time I have been here. It is sometimes one thing or the other, and many times both at the same time. It is for this reason I think that is why it is so hard to sum up my time here, but I hope some day to be able to do so.

For now, I will be heading off on a month of travel to help clear my head and take advantage of my being in Europe. My itinerary is as follows: Sofia, Bulgaria - Nis, Serbia - Sarajevo, Bosnia - Dubrovnik, Croatia - Split, Croatia - Ljubljana, Slovenia - Prague, Czech Republic - Brussels, Belgium - Ypres, Belgium - Bruges, Belgium - Amsterdam, Holland - Reykjavik, Iceland - America. Along the way I hope to give some small updates on what places are like and how it's going.

It is hard to believe I am leaving Bulgaria, the place that I have called home for the past 2 years, tomorrow. Many people here have asked me if I will be coming back, and I say of course I will. But in a way I know that part of me will always be in Bulgaria, and part of Bulgaria will always be in me.

In exactly a week I will be headed back to Sofia for my final close of service activities - mostly signing off on documents. However, this is also a time for reflection. I filled out my final Volunteer Report Form and my Description of Service recently, and this has put into numerical terms (no easy task) the things I have done here. It is exceptionally hard to number what I have done here. The Peace Corps has told us since day 1 that, as youth development volunteers, we will most likely not see most of the fruits of our labor.

That is especially true with my work at the Detski Yasli (Preschool) here in Preslav. My last day at the Yasli was today, and it was representative of my entire experience there. The children there can call me by name (Bati Greg - "Brother Greg"), and are excited when I play with them and spend time teaching them basic skills. However, when I leave it is as though I am a non-person. The children do not need me there, and yet I still have had some sort of impact on their development.

Youth development, by nature, is a very vague and immaterial assignment. We YD volunteers often joke about "developing the youth," as if that were a concrete and specific task to achieve. In reality, we just do what we think is best for the children. In this country, there is a severe lack of motivation among child care workers. Many times people are employed at child care institutions because it is available and "easy" work, rather than out of a sincere desire to work with the children. For these workers, "developing the youth" is often the last thing on their mind, which makes our work all the more frustrating.

At the Yasli, this was especially evident. With a background in child development I was eager to teach the children there some basic reading skills and some other things. The employees all but laughed at me the first time I brought the subject up, telling me that since they are so little they can not achieve or learn anything. In fact, it is at this stage of development at which the foundations of development are formed, making this time one of the most vital stages in a child's life. I have had some success in teaching basic skills to the children there - namely teaching the children how to count and in some social skills. It was when I started doing this that the staff perhaps realized that spending the time to teach the youngest children (rather than simply watch them) might have a positive impact.

In my opinion this is what youth development is really all about. Not only are we assigned to help the youth, but also to help develop the capacity of the people who work at these institutions. A large part of my work here is uncountable, since it is mainly in just having conversations with people about the abilities and strengths of the children I work with. Even a chance encounter with a neighbor is a "youth development activity," as the subject of the children I work with is inevitably a topic of discussion. People are often surprised when I tell them about how a preschooler I work with can count to ten and sing the alphabet. They are similarly surprised when I tell them that not all the kids I work with at the orphanage are criminals, and are in fact very nice children who perform well in school.

Much of my last week here at the orphanage will be spent in the same way I have been spending my time throughout the past 2 years. I will still be convincing the community members and staff that the children are capable of achieving wonderful things. This is evident in that I was able to teach several illiterate children (some as old as 5th grade) how to read and write, or how to do basic math - something that was never a focus before. Now, some of the orphanage workers have started working with the children one on one to catch them up. It is this achievement that I am most proud of, but the one that is hardest to describe in words and numbers. How do you put in numbers the fact that because of your work, some people might have a more positive view of at risk children and may be more willing to work with them?

I will post my Description of Service here later in order to try to show what I have done here to you all, but really they are just words. I cannot put into words the feelings I have had here and the things I have learned. How do you express in words the feeling when a child says, "You are like a father to me." This coming from a 10 year old child who hasn't seen his father in 5 years, and to a guy who has never had any parenting experience outside of a class in college. I can't tell you the emotions I went through when he told me that. The same day, another boy spit on me and threw walnuts at my face. It is because of this that I have such a hard time talking about my time here.

Perhaps someday I will be able to sort it all out, but for now all I have is the memories. I am forever a changed man for having experienced what I did here. I can only hope that I have been a positive force in the kids' lives.

Sorry that this has been a somewhat jumbled and disjointed post. As you can tell there has been a lot on my mind as I wrap up my service. I hope to write a more cohesive post soon.

It's been both a long and a short summer here in Preslav. The second archaeology camp (based on last year's success) came and went without a partner orphanage, but we were able to do a lot of fun activities with the kids, including a hike to the ruins in town (unintentionally held on the hottest day of the year), a lot of fun art projects that the kids had never seen before, an egg hunt for prizes, and parachute games. The whole 5 day "camp" culminated with an excursion for several of the kids to Pliska, the first capital of Bulgaria, and to Madara, home of the UNESCO preserved Madara Horseman, and one of my favorite places in the country.

I also attended my Close of Service conference in Tryavna, a 3 day affair that begins our transition back into life in the States, and to wrap up the last 2 years we've spent in this country we've come to call home. By the end of the conference, there wasn't one dry eye in the house, including mine, as our work here has become such a defining factor in how we view ourselves. Some of us will stay on for another year, and some will remain on this side of the pond for other reasons (like marriage). Most of us will be coming home to a place we haven't stepped foot upon for over 2 years, but all of us will be moving forward in some way.

When I arrived back to what has become my own home here in Preslav, I was greeted with a brand new refrigerator. The older one, a small space not much better than an icebox, failed in the oppressive summer heat. The new one is much nicer, pretty much the quality of a standard fridge in the States, holds more, chills more effectively, and has a separate freezer.

After moving this new machine into the apartment, I marveled for a moment at how far things have progressed since I've been here, and yet couldn't help but feel a bit bitter that this stuff wasn't around when I arrived. Around town, a brand new store has opened just down the street with goodies like Oreos and other things I haven't been able to find for 2 years.

In Varna, about an hour away, A huge new Carrefour store opened just next to the bus station, offering many more imports from home. The place dominates the surrounding area and acts largely as the European version of Wal-Mart. In the same complex, a sports store opened that sells, among other things, baseball equipment. I had been hoping for such a place for the majority of my time here, and now that it has arrived, at the tail end of my service with just a couple months left to go, I can't help but wonder at how much easier things could have been if it had come just a short time before.

In 2 months I will be coming back "home" to a country in which all of these things are just a given - services that are considered basic to even the smallest communities in America and many other places in the world. It would be an understatement that I have gained a new appreciation for these basic things that we as Americans usually take for granted. This was an expected result of my time here.

What wasn't expected was the realization that many of these things that we consider basic aren't really needed at all. They are luxuries that much of the world cannot even fathom. Why do you need one big store that sells everything when there are several small stores that sell all of the same things independently within a distance shorter than a standard aisle in a place like Target? Why would I want to buy peppers at a store that has no connection to the people that raised them when I can walk out my front door to find people roasting peppers on a fire, just feet away from their own gardens? We see in the States a trend to return to buying local or organic, and we pay a hefty price for what we consider a luxury item (farm fresh produce, personalized service, etc.). We then look down on the people who consider this to be the norm. Who then has progressed more?

Bulgaria may need much more time to progress to where we are in the States and catch up to the rest of the civilized world, but we also perhaps may need to slow down and view progress differently. Having a nice big fridge is a great luxury, and the Carrefour is short trip away, but I don't feel like I need any of it.

Will Rogers once said sarcastically that "We had begun to believe that the height of civilization is an automobile, a radio, and a bathtub. 'Course we're smarter now." He was talking about his own period, but it seems we haven't become much smarter today. We've begun to believe that the height of civilization is a hybrid car, an iPhone (or now an iPad), and a nice big house with many bathtubs. But if my time in Bulgaria has taught me anything it's that progress is measured not in the things you own, but in the things you learn. It's measured not by the things you do, but in how you do them. Progress isn't measured by the things you gain in life, but in the way you live it.

And today, I consider myself one of the richest people in the world.

"We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and to know the place for the first time."

-T. S. Eliot

Two years ago today I stepped off the plane into my Bulgarian Peace Corps experience. After a couple of days getting to know the other members of my group, I boarded a plane to a place half a world away into an experience I could never have expected and could never forget. I can remember vividly those first few confusing, desperate hours... Landing in Sofia and immediately being shepherded into a bus, lured by strange Bulgarian chocolate bars (later to become an addiction known as "vafla" haha) in a half-aware state not quite awake, but unable to sleep. We stopped in a small town along the way and I made my first purchase in Bulgarian leva - Spinach and Cheese flavored Bake Rolls (later to become another staple in my life). After nodding off a couple of times, we rolled into the mountain village of Panichishte, greeted with bread and honey by traditionally-clothed locals.

The rest of that first week has become somewhat of a blur, but I can vividly remember saying to a camera "This is life right now," and really believing it, until the camera turned off and I realized that it was an incredibly pretentious thing to say. Moments later we were whisked off to our training site, Krainitsi, and life would never be the same.

Over these two years I've forged some really deep friendships with my fellow volunteers - people I couldn't dream of forgetting. I traveled to 9 different countries. I've done some incredible things with the kids here, including coordinating 2 camps, creating a fitness room, teaching children how to read and encouraging them to make positive life decisions. I have not only gotten to know many incredible Bulgarian people, but have also been accepted as part of their families (thank you Baba!). I've become fluent in a language that most people never even knew existed. I've seen all the ups and downs of this beautiful yet enigmatic country - climbed its mountains, swam in its Black Sea waters, and admired its traditions amidst its beautifully blooming countrysides.

Next week I will go to my Close of Service Conference, during which I will start the process of wrapping up my experience here and moving on the the next phase of my life. This will be the last goodbye to some of the people in my group - a group that lost over a third of its members since meeting for the first time in that conference room in Washington DC. I am among the survivors, and incredibly proud that I have come this far. It's something that can accurately be called a journey - full of joy and turmoil, confidence and confusion, intense and unbearable heat and bone-chilling uninsulated and unheated cold.

In less than 3 months we will leave this country and assume our "normal" lives. But what does that mean if life in this place has become so seemingly normal? I can't wait to find out.

Until next time.

The next stop on our Macedonian journey was Ohrid (pronounced okh-REED), the lakeside resort town located in the southwesternmost part of the country. The bus drive there was a story in itself - a heartstoppingly beautiful drive through the mountainous countryside of a country itself completely covered in mountains. Small mosques and picturesque little churches were visible everywhere in each of the small villages we passed, standing side by side. The villages themselves seemed, to passers by, very well developed and well kept, and I would very much like to come back and explore more of this beautiful region.

After about 3 hours we arrived at Ohrid's bus station, and a few minutes later, we were greeted by the sunny shores of the town's namesake, Lake Ohrid. A small port lies at the center of town, providing a great view of the old part of town. Built on the cliffs lining the northern part of the lake.

Shortly after checking in to our hostel (which, like most places in town, provided a great view of the lake), we headed out to explore the town. Legend has it that 365 churches were built around Lake Ohrid, one for every day of the year. I believe it. Small churches turn up in the most unexpected of places - a back alley, by a remote little dock, in the side of a cliff - they are everywhere here, giving the town a very unique feel, as if the town really hadn't experienced some of the most brutal of regimes, first the Ottomans, then the communists.

One of the most impressive of these is the Cathedral of St. Kliment Ohridski. Kliment was perhaps Ohrid's most famous citizen, and statues of him adorn many cities around the area, including my own site, Preslav. He was a follower of Kiril and Metodi (the inventors of the Cyrillic alphabet), and was largely responsible for its spread throughout the region and its legitimacy as a real form of language for the Slavic people. Interestingly enough, Kliment later moved to the region in which I now live, setting up shop in Pliska, the first Bulgarian capital, about 30 minutes from Preslav.

Today, the cathedral has been restored to its former glory atop the ruins of the old one, overlooking the lake at one of its most beautiful points. His remains are interred inside the walls of the newly restored building, and Slavic-speaking people from all over come to pay their respects to the man who helped give them a voice. As such, the old monastery is considered one of the most sacred places to the Bulgarian people, and indeed all speakers of languages derived from the old Slavonic language.

Also of note to Bulgarian history, the Monastery of Saint Naum is located just a short distance from town. Saint Naum, later known as Saint Naum of Preslav, was a founder and major contributor to the Preslav Literary School, also known for helping to develop and popularize the Cyrillic alphabet. Some of the ruins of this important academy are located not 10 minutes from my house. This was a very special connection for me, and gave me a very personal appreciation of the history of Ohrid.

Like Skopje, Ohrid is dominated by a large fortress atop the tallest hill within the city limits. The fortress provides visitors with the best views in town, and from within its walls one can see all of Ohrid, and all the way across the huge lake into Albania.

On the edge of town, around the cliffs and accessible only by a small boardwalk or boat is the beautiful Church of St. John at Kaneo, built directly on the side of the mountain and looking down into the depths of the lake. Dating back to the 14th century, this small but picturesque church rewards the faithful (or adventurous) with a very unique experience. Removed just a small distance from the noise of the city, the spot seems worlds away, a place where one can experience the same beauty and isolation as monks of old must have sought.

Ohrid has moved into one of the top spots to visit in the region, providing so much history and beauty that it could not accurately be summed up in one small blog post. I could have spent an indefinite time in this amazing city by the lake. Though it is a relatively large city, the scale is diminished when contrasted to the landscape and the history surrounding it. After 3 days I was not prepared to leave, but we had to, and I can only hope that I can make it back to this amazing place.

Macedonia is a region that lies roughly southwest of Bulgaria, north of Greece, east of Albania, and south of Serbia. In 1991, the place declared it's own statehood, and the topic has been subject to endless debate since. The problem arises from the fact that all of these places call the people known as "Macedonians" as members of their own ethnicity:

-Serbia declares Macedonians as Serbs, since Macedonia was one of the parts of the former Yugoslavia during the times of communism. Even today the constitution of Macedonia says that any future reunion of Yugoslavia must include Macedonia.

-Greeks declare that Macedonia is an integral part of the Greek land, having owned it for much of the region's history. They refuse to acknowledge the country as "Macedonia" as this opens the door to Macedonians declaring rights on the Greek portion of Macedonia, which shares the same name but is Greek-speaking. They only recognize the state as the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia," and will block any attempts by the Macedonian government to join the EU until the name situation is resolved.

-Albanians declare rights to several areas of Macedonia. For example, the capital of Macedonia, Skopje, was once an Albanian city. Albanians make up one of the largest minorities in the country.

-Finally, Bulgarians officially declare Macedonian people as "ethno-politically disoriented Bulgarians," since the language is so close to Bulgarian, and the 2 nations share much of the same culture and history. Bulgarian nationalists declare that there are "over 2 million Bulgarians trapped abroad," in reference to the population of Macedonia.

All of the nations raise questions as to whether or not Macedonia is a "real country." This has presented a major problem for this country in the middle of a geopolitical crossroads, and is the foundation of the debate known as "the Macedonia Question."

Yet somehow, the Macedonians have clung to the idea that they are a distinct people, and are fiercely proud of their country and the things they have contributed to the world throughout history. Some important figures who hailed from the region are Alexander of Macedon (aka Alexander the Great), Kiril and Metodi (inventors of the Cyrillic alphabet), and more recently Mother Teresa (born in Skopje). Whether or not these people are "Macedonians" is really beside the point. Macedonia declared itself an independent country in 1991, declared Macedonian it's official language, and immediately began the long process of trying to prove its statehood to the world.

I spent my last bit of vacation here in Peace Corps on a quick trip down to the source of all this confusion, and quickly found out that Macedonia is, in fact, a real country. It contains real people and has a real culture, that after mixing together aspects of all the different surrounding nations, becomes something all its own.

We started our trip in the capital city of Skopje, just 5 hours away from Sofia by bus. The city was very walkable and for a capital city, very small and manageable. The main attraction here is the Kale Fortress (which is somewhat redundant, "Kale" is Macedonian for "fortress"), which towers over the Vardar River in the middle of the city. The fortress walls have been restored, and the huge Macedonian flags adorning it's parapets are visible all over town. The view from the fortress is unparalleled, giving the visitor a view of the whole city below it.

The center of town boasts the recently constructed Memorial House of Mother Teresa, built in the style of a traditional home, and then decorated with fanciful murals depicting symbols of peace. Atop this structure stands the Memorial Chapel, a very modern structure devoted to the ideals of Mother Teresa and her quest for world peace. Light streams in everywhere, giving the building a very special feel. The building also houses a museum with relics such as her Bible, various notes, and displays chronicling the life of one of the most famous citizens of Skopje.

Near the center, and across the river lies the Old Town. The way the streets wind around little mosques here reminded me of my visit to Turkey, and indeed the whole place has a more Eastern vibe to it, a very nice change of pace from the largely Eastern European feel of the town. Shopkeepers can be seen outside plying their wares and haggling with customers just as they would in a places like Istanbul. Duner Kebabs and Turkish tea are found readily and abundantly...

The Turkish influence can be felt all over this side of town. Again, Macedonia was once part of another nation - the Turkish Ottoman Empire, which once controlled the majority of the Balkans. However, unlike Bulgaria which seems to have repressed much of its Turkish influence, Macedonia seems to have embraced it (at least a bit), and mosques can be seen all over, dotting the countryside, and peeking out in the middle of cities. The cuisine is a bit more Turkish influenced as well.

In the middle of town lies the Old Stone Bridge, one of the oldest structures in town, and still basically in tact after about 500 years. This bridge has seen many owners - the Albanians, the Turks, the Serbs, etc. - and seems to be a symbol of Macedonia itself. The bridge connects the new center to the Old Town and the fortress, and in this way connects all aspects of its history right in the most central part of the city. As the waters of time pass under the bridge, the structure stands, unchanged from empire to empire as a testament to not only the perseverance but also the very identity of the Macedonian people, a people have taken aspects of every culture and have pieced them together to create something all their own.

So what is the answer to the Macedonia Question? It certainly seems like a real country with a unique culture that embraces all of the other cultures that are fighting over it. Perhaps it's easier for Americans to understand the concept. We are taught that our country is a melting pot of cultures, and that we should embrace and integrate all that we can. Macedonia seems similar in that regard. It stands out as the sole melting pot in a corner of the world where concepts like purity and nationalism are held in high regard.

This weekend I was able to take a day trip over to the city of Kazanluk, a nice town in the middle of the country, to take in the annual Festival of the Roses. Kazanluk is located in what is called the Valley of the Roses, so called because of the vast swaths of roses grown there. This tiny region of the country accounts for about 60% of the world's production of rose oil, which is then used to make products such as perfume and other things sold for their aroma. As such, the rose has become something of a national symbol for Bulgaria.

The area is also known as the Valley of the Thracian Kings, being home to several dozen ancient Thracian tombs, including one preserved as a UNESCO heritage site. Another site, the ancient city of Sevtopolis, was completely covered in water when the communist government brilliantly built a dam right next to it. There are plans in the works to resurface the ruins of the ancient city, but those are just theoretical right now. Other attractions in the area include Shipka and it's amazing golden domed cathedral, the place in which Bulgarians repelled the Turks with Russian help, and Buzludja, the strange UFO shaped building that used to house the headquarters of the Bulgarian Communist Party.

On this day, however, we just stayed in Kazanluk for a bit and enjoyed the festivities. The day opened at the rose fields outside of town, where plenty of people dressed in traditional costumes invited us to go out into the muddy fields and pick roses for ourselves.

The view from the valley below is incredible, and the blooming roses fill the whole area with their fragrance. It's a bit overpowering at first, but makes for a very unique experience.

Later, we watched as traditional musicians and dancers put on a presentation near the fields. This performance was attended by the President of Bulgaria, as well as tons of ambassadors (as well as their amazing cars with their national flags on them). After that it was picture time for the tourists. There were people from pretty much everywhere in attendance, all being showered with rose petals by little children in traditional costumes. Meanwhile the old men continued playing their music...

Walking back from the fields, we stopped at the national Rose Museum, located at the Institute of Roses and Other Aromatic Plants. I had no idea there was such an institute previously, but here it was - containing specimens of basically every color rose possible, as well as specimens of lavender, lilac, and other flowers. The garden was all very picturesque, though the museum was anything but interesting.

Before catching the bus at 3, there was another dance session at the square, which today was lined with all sorts of vendors selling traditional pottery and various rose-containing products. It seemed like much of the town had converged on the square as live horo music blasted away. All the people came from a huge parade featuring what seemed to be every single group in the city and surrounding area. This made for a huge party-like atmosphere, bringing together all the different groups in one big festive dance.

I had to get back to my town, so the visit was cut a bit short, but overall I really enjoyed this festival. I think with that, I've attended almost every major festival in Bulgaria (this one is one of the big ones). There's one last one in August that takes place only every 5 years, and so it will be a treat to go experience that. The Rose Festival was a great time though, and a good taste of Bulgarian culture for everyone involved.

Several years ago with my family, I went on a trip to Germany, Switzerland, and Austria that lives on in my memory as one of the best trips I have ever taken. That trip stoked my wanderlust into a frenzy and is probably one of the main reasons I love traveling so much today.

During that trip we made just a quick jaunt into Austria. Salzburg was, as I recall, a very beautiful town. Even then, it seemed that Austria was a very elegant place filled with castles, old impossibly detailed architecture, and of course a lot of Mozart. At the end of the trip, my grandfather remarked that he wished we could have gone to Vienna, but it was too far away, and we were off again to some other incredible destinations in the area.

On my latest trip, I finally got around to seeing Vienna - a place that people have talked up so much in my life I had doubts that it was even a real place at all. Finally I would be able to experience this magical place. My experience in Vienna was somewhat bittersweet. We arrived to the city at a time in which, apparently, everything was being renovated. Almost every beautiful old building and gigantic landmark was wrapped in scaffolds, undergoing either cleaning or else some other restoration work.

This was most evident in St. Stephen's Square, home of the massive and amazing St. Stephen's Cathedral. Though the amazing tile-patterned roof and the giant spire were visible, much of the lower portions of the cathedral were shrouded in scaffolds and a protective covering that oddly enough had massive pictures of the place that stood behind it. I thought this was funny because so often we go see a place in person because the pictures don't do it justice, and here stood the structure - itself basically a giant picture. Still, visiting there gave some sense of the scale, and the visible portions of the spire and walls gave a fleeting idea of the amount of detail present on the surface. It also made me shudder at how hard it must be to clean it all. The top half of the cathedral has been cleaned and restored, a beautiful white stone masterpiece, while the bottom half is covered in soot and ash. I am sure that when all the restoration is done it will blow people away.

One place that wasn't covered in scaffolding was the beautiful Belvedere Palace, now housing a massive art museum and home to some of the world's most expensive paintings (such as a collection of original Klimt masterworks, such as his famous "the Kiss"). The gardens outside are immaculate and the paintings lining the inside of the building aren't so bad themselves. Funnily enough, the lobby of the building was being restored, though all of the paintings were available for viewing.

Mostly, we wandered the streets of Vienna, gawking at the beauty and luxury of it all. In Bulgaria, many of the structures are visibly worn and falling apart, or else very utilitarian and gray. It was a great pleasure therefore, to just walk around in a city in which most of the streets look like this:

One exception is this oddity but Friedrich Hundertwasser - the HundertwasserHaus and Kunst Haus Wien. Hundertwasser was an architect who believed that the current course of modern architecture was sucking the soul and life out of city dwellers. He sought to change that by creating buildings that are vibrant and green. The interiors of the buildings all feature uneven floors made of different materials, because he believed that architecture isn't just about the look and function of a building, but a complete sensory experience. The block of apartments is covered in plants, some of which grow freely out of the windows (apparently in order to clean the air around the building), and the exterior is made to be as visually stimulating as possible.

It seems the city of Vienna has always shared Hundertwasser's view that the city's landscape should be as stimulating as possible. The old town area contains hundreds of ornate and historic buildings, concentrated in an area you can cover in just a few hours. But doing that defeats the point. Vienna is a place in which people are made to slow down and enjoy their surrounding, and indeed life itself. Life has always been good here, and the mood of the people and the atmosphere around town reflect that.

Vienna really is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I didn't get that view from just the architecture and the landmarks, since many of them were hidden at the time. Even though much of the city was being renovated when I went there, the whole feel of the place was something that really touched me. The renovations themselves show how much pride the Austrians have in their most important city. More important though was the whole vibe of the place. It attracts visitors from all over the world, but still retains a sophisticated yet laid back charm. I'll defintiely be back in the future. Maybe then, when the renovations are complete, the city will surprise me all over again.

We left Bratislava very early on our second day, so early that many people were still coming back from the bars on our way to the train station, even though the sun was coming up. This made for an interesting few interactions. At any rate, we hopped on a train just in time and were on our way to Budapest.

This city was pretty highly hyped before I came, being billed as one of the most beautiful cities anywhere. Naturally I was skeptical, and arriving at the train station my skepticism was initially proven correct. The area around the station reminded me much of Romania with its old Gothic buildings. However, when we came up on the other side of the metro, closer to where our hotel was located, my views started to change. Already without even venturing into the main part of the city I had seen a wide variety of architecture, and green spaces were everywhere.

We checked into the hotel and changed our money. My wallet was stocked with around 40,000 Hungarian Forints or some ridiculously super-inflated number like that, which really isn't a lot, but it went a long way and I still had some left after leaving.

Our hotel was located on the Buda side of the Danube River, the more residential side of a city that was originally 2 different towns - Buda and Pest. Buda is a bit less dense, and the main attractions on its banks are the Fisherman's Bastion and Buda Castle. We made our way to the Fisherman's Bastion, and stayed only for a short time since it was super touristy. The whole place seemed like something out of the Magic Kingdom without the rides and with just as many tourists. I think the place itself was built just recently in order to serve as a viewpoint across the Danube. There is a beautiful cathedral located here, and a pretty nice old town area, but overall not very worth it.

The Pest side quickly salvaged things, already living up to its billing as one of the most beautiful cities even as we were crossing the bridge over the Danube. From the middle of the Danube, the scope of the city was made evident, and magnificent buildings line each side of the river. King of all these was the Hungarian Parliament, topped with what seems like hundreds of little spires. Buda Castle gracefully looks down from the other side, looking more like a stately library or museum (which it now is) rather than a castle.

After walking around Pest for a while, seeing the giant St. Peter's Basilica in the center, and walking up and down some of the main roads, we settled in for a tour of the Jewish Quarter. Tours aren't something I usually enjoy doing, but this one was really well done by local volunteers, and really may have been necessary to navigate the tiny winding streets of the area.

Around the time of WWII, the Jewish Quarter was walled off from the rest of the city, and the people inside left to starve in this makeshift prison. Today, the quarter has been declared a World Heritage Site, and has become a somewhat eclectic neighborhood of collapsing buildings and monumental synagogues (including the largest in Europe). Tons of restaurants and cafes lurk inside many of the buildings, making for a truly unique atmosphere.

On our second day in Hungary, we took off on a day trip to Esztergom - home of the largest church in Hungary. We arrived after riding by commuter train and bus for about and hour and a half. The journey was well worth it, as the Basilica is a gigantic work of art. The sheer size is impressive enough, but even more so is the interior of blue marble, creating a beautiful space more than fitting to be the seat of religion in Hungary. We climbed to the top of the dome at the Basilica, which gives an incredible view of the area, including the town and across the Danube into Slovakia.

The rest of the day was spent bumming around in the charming center of Esztergom and then returning to Budapest where we took a stroll along the Danube for a bit. There we came across one of the most moving memorials in the world. A collection of bronzed shoes lines a section of the Danube near the Parliament, marking the location where Nazi soldiers regularly shot residents of the Jewish Quarter into the water. Most were never seen again or given a proper burial. As such, the shoes are filled with candles, flowers, and other mementos to keep their memory alive and to ensure that nothing so brutal ever happens again.

Our final day in Hungary continued the pattern of walking a ridiculous distance every day, this time deeper inside Pest, where we saw Vajdahunyad Castle, where a local fair was taking place. After stuffing our faces with marzipan and various meats, we watched some local kids doing a performance of some Medieval tradition, followed inevitably by some hip hop. The castle was enough of an attraction. I swear I've seen some parts of this thing in Fantasy Land at the Magic Kingdom. The thing that set this place apart and on a different level from the Fisherman's Bastion, however, was the authenticity of the place. From what I could gather, most of the visitors were locals, and the place just had a nice vibe about it, rather than the rushed and overpriced nature of the Bastion.

Our day, and our time in Hungary, came to a close at the top of Gellert Hill. The highest point in the city, the hill is covered with a massive park and is topped by an old fortress and a Communist era statue. From the fortress, the whole scope of the city unfolds before your eyes, making the climb a worthwhile experience. Bisected by the Danube, the dual nature of the city is made clear - each side trying to outdo the other in terms of grandeur. It's a lot to take in.

Overall, I think that Budapest's reputation as one of the most beautiful cities in the world is truly deserved. I think that's because its very nature sets it apart from other places. It's one unified place competing against itself, giving it the motivation to keep itself beautiful and to keep pushing the envelope to keep it ahaed of... itself. Yet the city is a paradox in other ways as well - wonderfully classic and fashionably modern, touristy and yet with a nice local vibe, gigantic and yet liveable. All of these things make Budapest a place that cannot just fade into the depths of your memory. Like the shoes that line Pest's promenade, the city remains in your mind as a place that reminds the visitor what life was once like and yet also what it could be.

My luck with traveling by plane this year hasn't exactly been the best... Back in October I had planned to do this trip to Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest with some friends. That ended up falling through when the budget airline we had booked with went bankrupt and all the flights canceled. Then last time around, as I posted earlier, I booked a flight to Belgium which was grounded due to the Icelandic volcano spewing ash all over Europe. Now that isn't to say I haven't enjoyed my travels so far - I've been to some amazing places, and still hope to get to some more before I leave. I have just had to get to these places on the ground.

This week, I had another go at the Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest trip, and gave the airline industry another shot. This time, luckily, the flight went off without a hitch, and we arrived at the Austria airport early in the morning and were off to Bratislava, Slovakia as soon as we could - coming back to enjoy Vienna a bit later after stopping back through Hungary.

To tell the truth, I had no idea what Slovakia would have in store. Bratislava, the capital, about an hour from Vienna, seems to be constantly overlooked, being located between three major tourist destinations (Vienna, Budapest, Prague). All in all it's a small town, and because of this it's sometimes not considered worth the time, or at best worth a day trip.

When we arrived, it looked much like Bulgaria - concrete housing blocks everywhere, a very industrial feel that belies its Communist past like many of these old Soviet buffer countries. The thing that immediately struck me though, was that despite the grayness the city was very clean and orderly. New modern construction was going up everywhere, and many of the old blocks were being painted in nice colors, or otherwise looked well kept (in contrast to Bulgaria where they are often found in derelict condition with the facades falling off) It was easy to get around in the town, and we found our way to the hotel with no problems.

Things changed, however when we started walking around and getting deeper into town. The lushly green center serves as the gateway between the towns two main attractions - the Danube River and Old Town Bratislava. We found our way there after following the Danube for a while and generally getting lost.

The Danube, as it flows through Bratislava, is a natural buffer between the old and new parts of town. The two sides are connected by the Novy Most (New Bridge), a gigantic UFO-looking structure clearly from the days of the "forward looking" Communist days, able to be seen from most places in town.

Directly next to the Novy Most stands Bratislava Castle. The castle was partially destroyed at the turn of the 20th century, and was rebuilt in the 50's sometime. Today, the structure isn't so much a castle, but something like a big white cube on top of the hill. They've generally done a good job of restoring it, and from a distance it is very charming. Seeing it up close was slightly disappointing, being completely painted white, old stones and all. They've added some random windows to make them more symmetrical, and in doing so, I think maybe some of the character has been lost. Walking up to the castle some of the original parts have been preserved (the gate, some of the lower buildings, the walls), and those ivy-lined and cobbled places gave some impression of what it was like before it was rebuilt. The real attraction here wasn't so much the castle, but the park surrounding it, and the incredible views its position affords, looking out over the Danube and the Old Town below.

Speaking of the Old Town, this was by far the highlight of the visit. A winding network of random cobblestone streets weave through classical buildings containing all sorts of restaurants, cafes, and shops. It has been beautifully preserved, and has miraculously avoided much of the really "touristy" things that places like this sometimes attract. We walked around the area for hours, discovering new places around every corner, and there are a surprising amount of churches, towers and other attractions within the relatively small confines of the Old Town.

Later in the day we climbed back up to the castle to check out the Slovakian Food Festival that was going on. We sampled some of the local dishes and drinks prepared excellently by gourmet places around the country (as well as some foreign offerings such as Arabic and Japanese). Walking behind the tents and eating our food, we took in this view of the Old Town below:

After walking back through the old town and hanging out at a cafe or two we turned back in to the hostel, exhausted after a day of nonstop walking and exploring. The city had more than enough to offer for a full day of sightseeing, relaxing, and eating, and I could have stayed for another if we had the time. However, we had bigger places to move on to - traveling to spend 3 days in Budapest and later a couple of days in Vienna. Though the time in Bratislava was short, I could definitely see myself coming back here again sometime in the future. The town has a relatively untouched character, yet is still pleasantly developed, offering anything a traveler could need or want.

I think the most interesting thing about the visit to Bratislava was that it offered a vision of what some places in Bulgaria could become in the future. Here is a city that 20 years ago was probably falling apart as so many other former Communist cities were at the time of the fall of the Wall. With a bit more time, I could definitely see Bulgaria developing into a similar place. Plovdiv's Old Town is already almost there, and Varna's isn't far behind. With its new membership in the EU, I can see it happening sooner rather than later - if things line up right.

Perhaps when I return to Bulgaria after some time, I'll be similarly pleasantly surprised just as I was by Slovakia...

When I was younger, my first exposure to the existence of the Acropolis was (I'm not sure shamefully is the right word) due to Yanni's extremely popular TV special and concert CD "Live at the Acropolis," which my mom owned and played frequently. I'm not sure, but I would wager to say that this CD is still one of my mom's favorites, seeing as though the number of times I heard the CD in its entirety back in the day probably counts in the hundreds. I also remember vividly that the music was also used as the soundtrack for Epcot's fountain show. In fact, it wasn't until later, when we started to study history in school, that I found out that the Acropolis was a real place. It was not until much later that I realized that its function was not primarily an amphitheater for concerts. Still, even though I eventually learned the deep history of the Acropolis, I have always associated the idea of it with that strange mustachioed man on TV.

When I arrived to Athens, one of the first things that was visible to me was, in fact, the Acropolis. It is extremely hard to miss, being located on one of the highest places in the city. It is visible from most places in town, and the sight of it helped guide me from the bus station down a number of winding little side streets to the Plaka district, above which the Acropolis sits. Plaka is a very confusing place, especially for a person with only a vague idea of where he is going, as I was. However, a mere glance upwards orients you in the right direction.

The right direction, as it turns out, wasn't the only thing you need to navigate these streets. I eventually reached a neighborhood there that no cars could drive through, being instead reduced to a confusing network of stairs and sidewalks between houses built on the side of the hill. A number of signs pointed the way to the entrance of the Acropolis, but they usually went around in circles. Still, the place was extremely charming and a joy to walk through, even if I had no idea where I was or even what time it was (as if that really mattered).

Luckily, an old local man finally showed me the way, and I ascended the hill until I reached the Propylaea, the gigantic gates of the main complex. A huge restoration project is currently underway at the Acropolis and there is scaffolding everywhere. Still, the scaffolds do not detract from the beauty and scale of the place, and in fact makes you wonder how the old temples survived all these years, through wars and years of rule under different empires, without any sort of work until the project began only in recent history. It is a different sort of beautiful to know that steps are being taken so that future generations can come to see the place.

Just below and away from the Propylae, sits the gigantic Odeon, or the theater of the Acropolis. This was immediately recognizable to me for the reasons sited above - the image of Yanni burned into my memory, with the lights flashing all around the place and thousands of people in the stands watching the orchestra. Apparently, they still hold regular concerts here in the summer. I think that it would, in fact be an awesome experience to see a concert here, as the atmosphere is amazing. The back of the theater is amazingly preserved, lined with several elegant yet strong arches that have survived for thousands of years. The stands have been restored, giving a visitor an idea of what it must have been like to sit there so long ago. The Parthenon is visible just behind the theater, and past the arches lies the city, stretching on in every direction out to the Aegean sea. It's a pretty amazing sight.

Finally, at the top of the mountain lies the big daddy of all ancient temples - the Parthenon. This structure is receiving the most restoration work, and cranes jut out from the middle and scaffolds line the walls. It's an absolutely gigantic building, and pictures do not do it justice. I was surprised at the size and scope - having previously thought that there was no way it could be as big as people said it was. I was wrong. It towers over everything.

I arrived just before the hoards of tourists descended on it, and still it was pretty crowded. This is definitely one of the places that is special not because it's untouched and undiscovered, but precisely because so many people have been to it, connecting everyone who visits it, all the way through history. It's an incredible and indescribable feeling to stand in the shadow of the Parthenon and be amazed, just as the others there, and just as others in ancient times must have been amazed. The detail in the top of the Parthenon is evident, and you can still see the statues in the friezes.

Right next to the Parthenon is the Erechtheum, which I previously though was much larger. It is however mostly untouched by the scaffolds, and gracefully sits at the edge of the Acropolis cliffs. The Porch of the Caryatids, seen on the side is pretty amazing in itself, and very beautiful. It's hard to conceive how the detail of these statues has remained intact, especially since they bear the weight of a gigantic stone ceiling, whereas most of the other ceilings around the Acropolis have been destroyed or otherwise collapsed. The other slender columns around the temple provide a nice contrast to the sheer, almost overwhelming massiveness of the Parthenon.

After leaving the Acropolis I went for a hike in the nearby hills, which have all been preserved as a sort of park, containing other interesting places such as the prison of Socrates and some old Byzantine churches. The best thing from this park however are the unspoiled views of the whole Acropolis complex, giving you a taste of what it may have been like to live there in ancient times.

The best vantage point was from the Hill of the Nymphs, atop which sits the remains of another temple, beautiful in itself. A nice path led up to the temple, which was part of another complex that served as a lookout and guard post towards the sea, which you can see from the hill. However, away from the tourist crowds, and directly across from the Acropolis, the main attraction was the view.

I walked around in the park for hours, just enjoying the views and the feeling of walking the roads that the ancients paced. There was a complex of old ruins that once housed philosophers, and another that served as a meeting place for politicians. Everywhere in the area there was something of former importance, or a place that some ancient deity considered sacred. This brought me back to the old stories we were taught in school - the old myths, and later Greek history. It all came alive for me, and it was easy to see how such places were considered important then. It was truly an inspiring moment to look out over the old city and reflect on how the events that transpired in this place have had such a profound ripple effect through history. Even today, we are still using Greek ideas and philosophies, and the places in which those concepts developed are still here.

I think that the most incredible part of it all was not seeing the ancient buildings. Though an amazing experience, being amongst the buildings was only a vehicle to experience the most amazing feeling of all - the connectedness that I felt to the past and the people that have lived there throughout the ages. Standing there on that hill and looking out over this marvelous place, the present is linked to the past - philosophers, soldiers, scientists, architects, artists, teachers, friends, family... even Yanni. Everything just comes together.

I made my last blog post in the beginning of March. As the end of April approaches, I am sorry to say that I have sat down several times to write a blog, but couldn't find the words. Over the next couple of days I will try to remedy that situation.

Much has happened, the biggest of which have been a visit from my family to Bulgaria, the completion of my fitness room project at the orphanage, and a trip to Athens (from which I just returned last night). These large scale events always make writing much easier for me, as though it takes something big to make me recognize all of the smaller noteworthy things, reflect on them, and then finally share them with everyone. So I'll start with the event that's still the most fresh in my mind - the trip to Greece, and then I'll work back from there, and hopefully the momentum will help get the words out.

Originally I had planned to go to Belgium, and had booked a flight out there and made all the necessary reservations and plans and everything. The first flight got cancelled due to the situation arising from the Icelandic ash that blanketed northwestern Europe for a bit. I arranged for a flight a few days later hoping that everything would be cleared up, and upon arrival to the airport a few hours early, it seemed that everything was a go. However, at 4:30am, the departure board suddenly changed to show a big red "cancelled" notification next to my flight again. A young Belgian couple next to me contemplated taking a bus from Sofia to Paris, and then on to Brussels. I contemplated following them (since the window in which I could take vacation was closing), if only that trip wouldn't have taken over 36 hours. My best laid plans had suddenly been lost in the volcanic ash forever, and so I trudged back temporarily vacationless to Sofia's center to reformulate things.

After a time, I got it into my head that I would head south into neighboring Greece. Armed with my guidebook and a sleepless mind, I quickly pulled together something vaguely resembling a trip, and would spend 4 nights in Athens and its environs. It struck me as I finished making these hasty plan and laid down for a quick couch nap before heading to the bus station that this is probably the only time in my life I will have been able to, almost completely on a whim, change my travel plans form one continental extreme to another. The next morning, I woke up in Greece.

Athens had always been a place high on my list of places I wanted to visit, having studied Greek mythology and history for a majority of my childhood. The stories always captivated me, and instilled in me a deep interest in history. It was exciting to finally step off the bus and have everything made real.

I think the first thing that struck me was how big and modern the the city of Athens is. I think in visiting these historic places we originally have this romantic notion that it's all ruins and history, without stopping to think that over the course of 3000 years, a very real city has developed on the same spot. The result is an awesome layering effect - having ancient ruins laying directly beneath newer buildings from the late 1800s and then modern architecture topping it all. This creates a real sense of place while walking around town.

After arriving I walked directly to the center, where I had a quick breakfast and then headed straight on to tackle the sights - the most impressive of which is the gigantic Acropolis, to which I'll dedicate another separate blog post.

With the arrival March, the Bulgarians symbolically ring in the arrival of the Spring season with the uniquely Bulgarian holiday called Baba Marta. Baba Marta, literally "grandmother March," is the personification of the first month of Spring. She is an old lady, who brings flowers and sunshine when she is happy, or rain and cold wind when cranky.

The first day of March also brings with it the exchange of martenitsi - red and white bracelets given to represent the new life and purity that spring will carry with it. Tradition holds that you have to wear these bracelets until you see a flowering tree. At that time you take off the martenitsi and tie them to the tree. This is one of the only things I can think of that only exists in Bulgaria.

Martenitsis tied to a flowering tree

Here in Preslav, Baba Marta must still be pretty angry, since we've been having rain recently, with more cold temperatures and rain lingering in the forecast for a while longer. However, when she showed up at the preschool she seemed pretty happy. On second thought that wasn't the real Baba Marta, but a staff member dressed up to give martenitsis to the kids. Songs were sung and games were played to celebrate the arrival of Spring. At the orphanage, more martenitsis were distributed from various groups around town. Most of the children's wrists cannot be seen under the sheer number of them all. As for myself, I got a few from people around town, including from the preschool staff and from the other members of my horo class.

I'll be wearing my martenitsis until I see that first bud on a tree around town. Although I'm not particularly superstitious, I'm secretly hoping this will lend success to my fitness room project...

Until next time...

It’s been a long time since my last update, for whatever reason. Maybe it’s because of laziness, maybe an inability to put my thoughts into words lately, but not for lack of things to write about.

There’s always something to write about.

Several things have come and gone, some of them noteworthy enough to write a blog post about (my fitness room project coming up will get a blog post soon), some of them somewhat newsworthy but not exciting or interesting enough to have a blog post written about them (my birthday and the Super Bowl), and many of them not exciting or interesting at all (going about my daily life, or how I do laundry seemingly every day now).

So with all that in the mix it gets harder to work up a blog post of any substance. I like writing about things that I feel have some weight to them. I like the end result of what I write to be a fully thought out result of an observation I make, or a trip I go on, or something of the sort. And I hope the end result comes out well on the side of the reader. That is unless you readers would like me to write up a daily account that would read more like a to-do list than anything cohesive or (what I would perceive as) interesting.

The reason I was inspired to write something today was from a quote taken from a conversation I had with my coworker the other day. We were discussing an unfortunate event that happened earlier in the day. A couple of the orphanage boys skipped out on class, stole some bags and started running. They were eventually caught, but the damage was already done. The boys were scheduled to be transferred from the VP orphanage to a different one. The discussion was hardly surprising, but what took me was what she said during a pause in the conversation.

“There is always something to be angry about.”

Now I suppose this is true, but it seemed to capture the essence of working here perfectly. This is a place in which you have to pick your battles, to focus on the good things that happen, and to take every day one step at a time. Often the situation here is to forget those common pieces of advice and to expect everything from everyone all the time. When someone thinks that things should be perfect all the time, of course you’re going to be constantly angry.

However, it’s not just a reaction, but an expectation. People (including myself) have fallen into the trap of expecting something bad to happen at any time. When we have the expectation that something will get on our nerves or go horribly wrong, the chances are we will highlight it when it does. It also clouds our ability to seek out the positive things during the day. So of course, with this mindset of expecting to get angry, a host of problems arise. We identify the children we work with as being impossible to help rather than searching for their strengths and developing them (the view of most people here in town). We treat children as problems to be dealt with rather than individuals who are constantly learning and gathering information about the world around them.

And with that being said, the danger is that children develop the same view from the influence of the people they learn from - that they are problems that need to be dealt with, or could do something that will cause an anger explosion at any time. The expectation becomes that they cannot change who they are, and who they are is a bad kid who cannot do good, or is stupid, or will never do anything of consequence in their lives. The case today may have stemmed from our expectations of them as “bad kids.” The boys might as well have carried the label as a bumper sticker on their foreheads. And of course they played the part today. And of course people were angry about it.

But this is to ignore the good things that happened on the same day. This is to ignore the positive steps taken by other kids. Rather than thinking that there is always something to be angry about we should remind ourselves that something positive happens every day. More than that, children are constantly developing in positive ways that we cannot readily identify in the moment. Admittedly this is more difficult, and very hard to see day to day. That’s what makes being in this line of work so challenging, and at many times frustrating. The progress isn’t always easily evident. There may not be a clear talking point at the end of the day, while bad events are readily identifiable and easy to latch on to.

It’s just a matter of training yourself to believe that one small, hard to identify positive outweighs the gigantic negative.

Until next time...

So after less than a day of rest in my site after Christmas, I was back on the move – this time for a week long trip down into Turkey to the gigantic and ancient city of Istanbul (or Constantinople… however you prefer…).

The change was apparent as soon as we stepped off the bus as we tried to negotiate a decent cab fare – the first in a long series of haggling that would become one of the themes of the trip throughout the week. After a relaxing first night walking around the area of our hostel and settling down with a hooka, we got up and started to tackle the city. And when I say tackle the city I mean wander around aimlessly, stumbling on interesting things along the way. I usually prefer to explore cities by getting lost in them…

The first day we took a lot of pictures in the main square, which features 2 incredible buildings right across from each other…

On the left side stands the Blue Mosque – the crowning achievement of Sultan Ahmet and built by the same architects (apparently) that designed the Taj Mahal (a dubious claim, but interesting nonetheless). As you get closer and closer to the building, the scale becomes more and more apparent, despite the delicate appearance of its domes and minarets. The Blue Mosque is fully functional, and calls to prayer blast from the minarets 5 times a day – long drawn out wails that can be heard throughout the city. Inside, the floor is divided into two halves – one side for worshippers, and the others for those just passing through. Both sides seem to offer an equally impressive view of the interior of the mosque, which is decked from floor to ceiling in individually hand painted blue tiles, giving the building its nickname.

On the right side of the square is the gigantic Hagia Sophia (pronounced Ayasofia, and translated as “Holy Wisdom”) historically one of the most important buildings of Christianity before it was sacked and turned into a mosque by the Ottomans. Built over 1500 years ago when the city was the capital of the Roman Empire, the structure has been added on to over the years, allowing a visitor to peel back layer after layer of history. Standing in the great hall is a breathtaking experience, as one looks up into what was once the largest dome in the world until St. Peter’s was built about 1000 years later. The contrast on the inside is unmistakably apparent, as historians have started to uncover the early Christian frescoes and mosaics that adorned the ceiling and walls. Right next to these ancient paintings lie Islamic decorations and references to Mecca. In this way, standing in the Hagia Sophia not only serves as a reminder of so many great eras of human history, but also serves as a connection between two major world religions (often at odds with each other) – a very humbling experience indeed.

Also located on a far corner of the square is the entrance to the Basilica Cistern, a magical place of water underneath the streets of Istanbul. The huge room once served as the city’s water supply and dates back to the Roman times. This is evident in the 400 columns that support the arched ceiling of the chamber, which feature all 3 major Roman architectural styles – Doric, Ionic, Corinthian. Two of the columns stem from images of Medusa, turned upside down and sideways in order to negate the evil gaze. This is apparently to protect the place from harm. Apparently they have done a good job, as it’s still standing despite the chamber’s extremely fragile appearance. Recent renovations have placed a beautiful lighting system throughout the cistern, creating a mystical atmosphere as you walk around this amazing and ancient place.

The second day brought us to the famous Grand Bazaar, a neverending maze of corridors and alleys that spans an entire district of the city, all lined with countless vendors selling everything from scarves to carpets to drums. Of course, each one claims to have the best goods in the whole city, and of course this means that they want you to pay a premium for it. But then the fun starts… “For you my friend I give special price," and the haggling begins. Every interaction with the vendors is an intricate dance – wavering between too high and too low, until you land somewhere in the middle. I think I fared pretty well for myself, buying a Turkish drum and a scarf for myself.

The madness didn’t end there, however. We also made a stop at the Spice Market, which was even crazier than the Grand Bazaar in its vendors’ pleas for business and haggling. Smells ranging from the sweet to the pungent bombard you on all sides, as you walk down the great hall lined with mounds of herbs, tea, and Turkish delight. Regardless of the massive crowd, I made it out of there with a pretty good sampling of spices.

There were relaxing parts too, such as a stroll along the sea, and our exploration of the old Topkapi Palace. The confines of the palace offer the best views of the city and of the Bosphorus Strait, which divides European Turkey from its Asian side.

Upon leaving Istanbul, I realized that just one visit to this place is not nearly enough to absorb all that this place has to offer. The sheer size of the city alone (ten million… Bulgaria, by comparison, has a total of 7 million people in the whole country) is enough to make one realize that there are probably countless treasures hidden throughout… places that will never make it onto any map or into any guidebook. Our group found one such place, and its friendly owner treated us to an incredible New years experience... Dancing horo together with strangers and friends alike under the fireworks as the whole city rang in New Years is something that I will never forget.

The whole trip left a good taste in my mouth, and I definitely want to return not only to Istanbul, but also deeper into Turkey, a beautiful place at once Middle Eastern and European, and serving as the perfect blend of both.

Until next time…

Hey all… It’s been a little while since my last post, but it’s also been a little while since I’ve been home to even write one. I just returned from an epic vacation that I’m still kind of reeling from. This was my longest break yet, and well deserved if I might say so myself.

My final day in Preslav was spent running a talent show and game night for the children of the town in which I, once again, was somehow coaxed into dressing up as Diado Koleda/Santa Claus. Early the next morning I was off to the mountains far far away from my site. It took an overnight train and then an additional 5 hour bus ride, and then another 30 minute cab ride to reach the place, but the journey was worth it. We got in at night, so we couldn’t really see how beautiful the place was until we woke up the next morning. However, the amazing food that kept coming was as good a sight as any. Plus the company was fantastic. We basically relaxed by the fire, played games, watched movies, and sang songs the whole time. Basically a very laid back time, which was just what I needed.

This is the view I was greeted with out the window next to my bed when I woke up...

Delchevo is a small village high up in the mountains near the Greek border, looking down upon the regional center of Gotse Delchev. The place has been preserved as an ethnographic site, sealing its appearance as it might have looked 100 years ago. Cars cannot access most areas of the town, and all the houses are located along tiny cobblestone roads and old goat paths. In fact, goats freely wander the town, and old ladies with wispy beards talk about them to you as you wander.

The town seems to be in an interesting state of transition as many of the old houses are converted into fully renovated guesthouses and apartments. We stayed in one of these guesthouses, and it felt nicer than a lot of hotels I’ve stayed in. Right next door was a ramshackle barn that could have been over a hundred years old.

The main attraction, however, was Christmas dinner, made by none other than 2 of my fellow group members. A gigantic spread of every starch imaginable was presented to us, and it was amazing – baked ziti, cheesy potatoes with sausage, broccoli and rice, not to mention the dozens of desserts contributed by everyone. White elephant gift exchange was played, like last year, and I ended up with an amazing book, which I was pretty happy about and have been working on over the past couple weeks.

Alas, there was no snow, but there was no complaining from this Florida boy. The whole couple of days seemed Christmasy enough for me, spending time with good friends in a great place. But the vacation was not over just yet – I headed back to my site, only to turn back again a day later on an even longer trip down to Istanbul, which was a trip that I will not soon forget… and the topic of the next blog post…

SO recently the local newspaper did a feature on none other than yours truly. The following is a translation of the article in its entirety (and no I didn't just make up the translation). The article is pretty positive I think, if not a bit random. But hey, I'm glad that they think I'm newsworthy haha...

Gregory Herb: Now Veliki Preslav is like my home

Greg Herb is the volunteer from the Peace Corps in Veliki Preslav since last October. Greg is from the State of Florida. He has been in Bulgaria since July of 2008 and now can speak Bulgarian very well.

In school he studied Psychology and Child Develoment at a university in the States. His mother is a teacher, and his grandfather is a college professor. Maybe from there he got his interest in education and working with children. He says that his interest is working with at-risk children - orphans, minorities, the Roma people ("gypsies"). In Bulgaria there is an opportunity to work with these children he says. Because of this, a part of his work in Preslav is at the local Home for Children. He helps with math, English, and reading. There is competition in sports, and participation in art. They learn life skills which are very important for them in his opinion. He works in small groups of about 5-10 children. He tries to get every child to participate in at least one group every week. In his opinion, the children are not very aware of of the dangers of the use of narcotics, of human trafficking, of prevention of HIV/AIDS, of alcohol and nicotine addictions.

"The orphanages in America are different from the local kinds," describes Greg. "The children are placed in smaller houses and more volunteers work with them. The children are placed with foster parents more, and they are more comparable to these SOS Villages in Bulgaria. In America, only children who do not have parents or who have parents but that absolutely cannot care for them can stay in orphanages. There are many organizations that work with these children and make many things possible for them, such as finding a new home, because this is very important for them" says Greg.

Other than the orphanage, he works also with the children at the preschool. He teaches them how to begin to speak words, to know the different colors, and different skills such as washing hands for example.

"Now Preslav is like my home. I have many friends here," says Gregory. He says that sometimes it is hard to be far from home but that his loved ones know that his work is here, and that they support him.

One of the many skills of Greg is cooking. He cooks alone in his apartment, and cooks soups, moussaka, and other Bulgarian cuisine. "Here there are great fresh vegetables. In America, there are more preservatives and less fresh food," says the volunteer. On the topic of Bulgarian television, Greg says he follows "Survivor" and "Dancing Stars" but does not like the soap operas.

For Christmas, the American plans to meet in the mountains with his other colleagues. He hopes there will be snow, so that there will be a good holiday feeling...

--------------------

I'm not sure why they put in the part about me cooking and watching Bulgarian TV. I think it's because Bulgarians are not accustomed to seeing people my age living by themselves, much less supporting themselves alone. Anyway, that's the impression people have of me here apparently...

In the same newspaper, a project that I am helping with is described, and I will get to that in the next blog post...

It’s been a little while since my last post, which I feel kind of bad about since much has happened in between then and now, and especially since I left the last post with a kind of negative note. I figured I’d get back into the swing of things by showing a bit of what I’ve been doing in my work to provide a kind of contrast to the rote memorization/copy method that I think is doing damage here.

A girl doing chetichki (Note that the characters in the bottom right corner of the book are NOT actually letters)

As I’ve said before, I have a number of groups focused on developing basic skills for the children at the orphanage. I focus most on math and literacy (a fact recently covered in the local newspaper, but I will get to that another time). In these groups I have tried to provide a different method of learning from which the kids are normally exposed. In this way, my goal has been to get illiterate kids up to speed as quickly as possible so that they don’t fall further behind in their classes. In a couple of my groups, this has meant starting by teaching the alphabet to children who are as far as 5th grade. I have since moved on with these kids to associate sounds with letters, and to string these sounds into words. That most basic of reading groups is now able to understand somewhat complicated words, and we are currently working on constructing our own words.

The key here, rather than to have the kids write letters over and over again, to have the children make associations with the letters and how they fit into the grand scheme of things. Copying the alphabet may create amazing penmanship, but it does little to show the children how to use those letters practically. Likewise, memorizing the alphabet and being able to recite it upon command (while a vital skill) does little to show how those letters can be arranged in different ways to create words.

With my special needs kids, I have been emphasizing the sounds of the letters as well, and in some instances the kids can begin picking up on words that start with the same sounds. It’s not much right now but it’s a start, especially considering that their conversational skills are still not their strong point…

Recently I have noticed that a tutor has been reinforcing the sounds of the letters rather than having the kids copy the letters over and over, and is giving many of the kids one on one attention. While this may seem pretty basic to those of us who were lucky enough to have gone through a child-focused educational system, this has been a breath of fresh air for me here. It shows that there is at least a desire to have the kids learn how to practically apply the lessons they learn rather than just have it make it look like they can.

I have heard from some coworkers that there are now some after-school groups for reading and other basic topics that are open for the kids. This blew my mind when I first heard it. I was so excited to see that the kids are being given attention in smaller groups like they need and deserve. I was even more excited to see that the teachers are actually willing to spend the extra time with the kids (something that I have rarely seen in my year and a half here). Education is not simply a 9-5 profession but a desire and a need to ensure the success of the next generation. This isn't a scientific observation, but I'm willing to wager that the success of a class is directly proportional to the amount of support given by its teachers. I know that there is a huge potential here amongst the kids in Bulgaria that's just now starting to be tapped. It's exciting to me that the child care professionals in this country are realizing this. And I’m so glad I can be a part (however small) of that ever-important realization…

Until next time…

This is an article from today's Novinite (national Bulgarian news) that I thought tied in very well with my last blog post.

50% of Bulgaria High School Graduates Said to Be ‘Illiterate’

Some 50% of Bulgarian high school graduates are illiterate in the sense that they don’t know basic spelling and grammar rules.

This is according to Evelina Gecheva, a manager of “Akademika”, a Bulgarian online education portal.

Gecheva bases her claims on information from professors grading university entrance exams, and other sources. In her words, it is unclear how many of the young people in Bulgaria are illiterate since there are no formal criteria for “literacy”. She believes this collapse in Bulgarian education would require the aid of the state and the whole society to be overcome.

In the fall of 2009, Akademika started an initiative entitled “Be Literate”. As part of it, a number of university and high school experts have made it clear the high school programs in Bulgarian language and literature must be restructured, and new Bulgarian language textbooks need to drafted as they are filled with foreign and incomprehensible words.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=110264

This blog post has taken me about a year to gather into anything worth writing, mostly because I’ve been trying to understand the reasoning behind it for approximately that long. I’m still not too sure I understand it fully, and this post might come off as sounding very critical and/or negative. However, I feel like it’s something very important – maybe one of the most important aspects of the education system here in Bulgaria – and I think it says a lot about my work here.

When I arrived here in Preslav, I had no idea what I would be doing and only a vague sense of who I would be working with. I had some ideas, but didn’t really know how to implement them. In fact, I spent a good part of my first 6 months just feeling out the situation here and trying to understand what was happening around me. I had started some groups, mostly revolving around English, since that’s all I could really do at the time, and a math group. I had some art and sports going as well. However, there was something odd happening and I couldn’t really put my finger on it. Most of my kids were way behind in classes, yet could pretend like they were working perfectly. They would fill pages and pages of notebooks with homework that didn’t mean anything. A typical homework help session would involve me walking around the room as several children copied words from a textbook, or pretended to write notes, roughly looking like this: “alguprRDH dahduDHNNn. ..dhgaBBkd, LHDabfnk.” As you might imagine, this was somewhat alarming to me.

But it wasn’t the fact that they weren’t writing anything meaningful that was alarming to me. It wasn’t the fact that they didn’t know how to read, and it wasn’t the fact that the children didn’t know anything was wrong. Only now do I realize what was causing the sick feeling in my stomach. The supervisors, the tutors, the teachers… all of the child care workers were actively encouraging it. I slowly realized the system was not to teach children how to write, just how to make it look like they were writing.

I would ask the children what it was they were writing, and some would shrug their shoulders, some kids pointed to a random work in the textbook, and some would just flat out lie and say they were writing something that wasn’t even remotely related to anything. One child had filled a page up with nothing but his name, beautifully written in perfect cursive script, all the instances of his name blurring together and connected as if it were one long, flowing penmanship exercise.

And now I know that basically, it was.

This year, I have a somewhat deeper understanding of the situation, since I have observed the youngest kids start first grade at the beginning of the year, and have been tracking what they are up to. What I found just flat out astounded me. I had known for some time that the children here don’t learn how to read or write until they reach first grade. It had been frustrating to me to be told that I couldn’t teach the kids at the preschool some basic reading skills because of “the system” in place (I have since gone ahead and done it anyway). It wouldn’t have been as big a deal if I didn’t know the method.

In the first grade, starting about the 3rd week or so, the children start a process called “Chetichki,” roughly translated to “little readings” or something of the sort. Chetichki consist of different patterns of lines and circles, mostly meaningless, that the children are to copy over and over again until they have perfectly recreated the original pattern. The theory behind this method is to prepare the children to learn how to write actual letters and to write in nice cursive script almost immediately. I have 6 first graders that I work with in the orphanage, and all of them spent most of their homework time painstakingly copying these chetichki. If one was wrong or out of place, they would have to start over and do the pattern again. Mostly, the patterns looked very little like letters. Why the children don't skip this altogether and start by learning how to write the actual letters has just recently become clear to me. The system has been created based on appearance instead of substance.

Eventually, the children do start learning the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. However, the method stays the same. The children are assigned pages and pages of perfect Cyrillic writing, and in the end they have something that you could hang on a wall, but nothing that has actually gotten into their minds. No development has taken place, just copying. When I ask the children what letter they have written, or what sound it makes, they mostly cannot give the correct answer.

There is a huge illiteracy problem in the orphanage. I have spent the better part of my time there teaching several children how to read their own language. In the beginning I discarded all pretentions of teaching little kids English, or catching them up in literature, or even helping as a tutor. Mostly, I have been teaching the very basics of reading and math. And what is amazing to me is that in almost every circumstance, every kid in these groups has been able to write perfectly. If this was a penmanship competition, I’m sure that one of my kids would take first place. Unfortunately it isn’t, and having perfect handwriting doesn’t mean anything if you can’t understand what it says. It seems that the best way to become literate through this system is to either pick it up the very first time before the teacher moves on to the next lesson or to have constant parental reinforcement outside of school to supplement the lessons. Often, the children at the orphanage are not afforded either opportunity. The children who do actually learn how to write are discouraged from doing so freely and creatively because they might make a mistake. Great work might be rejected because it doesn't look good.

Yet this method is perfect for the schools here. It allows them to grant very high grades to children for little work or little absorption. It allows schools to keep the same number of children in each grade so that they are granted the same amount of funding. It’s why there are 5th graders who can’t read the word “Az” (me), or who can’t identify the letter H (Cyrillic n). It’s why kids can copy pages of math tables and not be able to count to 5 properly. It’s why the achievement gap in Bulgaria is as huge as it is. Because in many instances the objective is to make it look like the kids are achieving rather than actually making sure they are.

Overall, during my time here I have realized that the real challenges in this country lie in where its leaders have placed its priorities. There’s no lack of resources, but they are going to the wrong places. There’s no lack of teaching methods, it’s that the methods aren’t working. The children leave school with the appearance of a vast library of knowledge, but no practical way to apply it. There is no shortage of teachers, but there is a shortage of passion to teach. It’s why when I ask my kids what they dream of being when they grow up, nobody says the President of Bulgaria. Almost everyone answers a taxi driver or a waitress.

It sounds dumb, but everything starts in the beginning. If the priority is to teach and have the children absorb and develop, the child will be successful. Literacy and passion for learning emerge and flourish at a young age. If the priority is to make it look like the child is working - the emphasis on appearance rather than achievement - the system has failed before it even gets off the ground.

Until next time…

In case you haven't heard, the whole world is ducking under cover from the swine flu. Schools everywhere are closing, and people all over are, in general, losing their minds. In Bulgaria, as always, things are the same but different. Schools everywhere are closing, people are freaking out, but instead of complaining about the lack of vaccines (or whether vaccines should be administered, don't even get me started), people here deal with it in a bit of a different way. Almost everyone I know has holed themselves up in their house or little cement block room, refusing to come out until the threat has passed. The usual way the flu (or "grip" in Bulgarian... awesome) is dealt with is a good dose of isolation and by hurling jokes at it. In fact one tv station just called it "pianski grip" (drunken flu). That'll get 'em!

Meanwhile, the sheer numbers of people coming down with flu is staggering. The ministry of health has declared several regions within the amount needed to declare an epidemic. The others are under a "wide circulation of the virus" (and God knows what that means). As a result, many schools (including the ones in Preslav) have been shut down, including the preschool I work at, under the amazing title of "swine flu vacation." These closures are due to a rule that states schools have to close if 30% of the students don't show up. In addition, hospitals are turning away cases because they can't handle them all. At the orphanage, special rules have been put in place: can't have large gatherings of kids in one space, children should be confined to their rooms, staff is recommended to wear paper masks. This has put a little bit of a dent in the range of activities that I can do there, but we're still hanging in there. Tomorrow we'll be rebooting the life skills classes for the older kids, and since the kids can't do much else, we should actually have a good turnout (gotta look on the bright side).

Speaking of the bright side (and getting away from the grip), Halloween this year was a huuuge success... well at least in comparison to last year's, which involved bobbing for apples and costume wearing, neither of which quite went as planned. This year, the kids learned to say the phrase trick or treat in exchange for candy, and instead of costumes we did scary faces and masks. What came after was the true success though I think. After coming in possession of quite a few toothbrushes and toothpaste, I thought a bit of an educational activity could be thrown in there. The kids learned the proper way to brush their teeth, when and how, and they were actually into it! This was fantastic since the hygeine situation at the dom is for the most part appalling. It was one of those moments that made me feel really happy about what I'm doing right now. The kids are even saving the brushes!

Another high spot was the annual Halloween party in Veliko Turnovo. I went as Flo Rida, the much celebrated rapper from my much celebrated home state. I even had my own bling made from cardboard and tinfoil, which didn't quite come across, but still... Other highlights included the entire Ghostbusters squad, David the Gnome, and the cast of Mad Men. Needless to say it was a memorable time, and, to make things better, allowed many of us to avoid the grip explosion in our towns (not a big deal in Turnovo).

For now, I'll be doing what many others are doing - hiding out when I can, and trying to avoid coming down with this ridiculous virus. On the plus side, in my recollection I have never had the flu before, and I'm not planning on getting it now...

Until next time...

SO I was hanging out at a cafe the other day with a Bulgarian friend, who just happens to be the awesome guitarist in the Chernoriztsite - a local rock band. He likes to practice speaking English whenever he can, and we somehow got on the topic of how he actually learned English. The story was one of the coolest things I have ever heard...

Back in the days of Communism, listening to heavy metal was forbidden. Music had to be from within the country and approved by the government. Most Western rock (including metal) was not on the list. However there was an underground system of passing around Western music, and cassettes containing hard rock songs were the choice of the times in the 80s. However, if you got caught listening to them, the consequences were not good. Understandably, lyrics were not readily available, and almost nobody spoke English. So groups of people would get together and listen to the songs over and over again and imitate the sounds of the words in the songs. He went on to say that listening to the songs now, they were horribly off base, but back then it was as if they had found the Holy Grail.

Eventually, through context and other sources, words started getting translated. For example, one of the popular bands someone found out that Venom (the name of one of the bands) meant "vitrova" or poison. Then a cassette came out featuring songs from the band Poison, and they asked each other "what is the difference between this Venom and Poison?" (they are the same word in Bulgarian). Eventually they gathered that venom comes from an animal, and posion comes from somewhere else. He went on to say that heavy metal was responsible for the basis of his (very good) English abilities, and that he went on to attend an all-English speaking university. Aside from his spot in the rock band, he works in the local government and is currently creating an NGO to help local underserved farmers gain access to grants, small business loans, and other resources.

And who said rock and roll isn't good for anything?

In other news, I am now officially the only American in Preslav. My amazing sitemate of a year left yesterday (as her 2 years of service are officially up), and is off to the States for a short spell before turning around and signing up for another stint in the Peace Corps. Her ultimate goal is to serve in every continent... What a life! As for me, I've made enough friends here in town to keep occupied through the year, which will be great especially through the winter. It's already a lot colder than it was last year... Still it's going to be a much different place with her gone and I wish her the best of luck wherever she ends up next.

(This is the point at which all the other volunteers laugh because I have now become a regular volunteer without a sitemate. Yes... most other vols have been putting up with this for a year now haha)

Until next time...

Located about 15 minutes away from Preslav is one of Bulgaria’s most iconic symbols, and consequently one of the country’s most important sites. Standing high above the small, unassuming village of Madara is the Madara Horseman – a relief in the cliffs dating back to around the year 700. The sculpture includes rider mounted atop a horse, spearing a lion below and followed by a dog, apparently symbolic of victory. If the fact that creating something like this back then wasn’t hard enough, the entire thing is located about 50 feet off of the ground on a sheer rock face.

Of course, it’s not as if some guy back in the day saw a cliff and thought it would be a good idea to carve a sculpture into it. The entire area is said to have a certain spiritual energy – so much so that one of the founding fathers of Bulgaria, Han Asperux, built a fortress here to tap into the mystical forces held within. You can climb up from the site of the rider to the top of the mountain using a huge path of stairs winding through rocks on the side of the mountain. Nearby Pliska, Bulgaria’s first capital, was purposely built within close proximity to this place in order to both protect the mountain, and for the mountain to supply the capital with strength.

When you explore the nearby caves, it’s easy to see how the ancient Bulgarians thought this was a special place. There is a set of ruins located under a giant half dome in the side of the mountain. Overlooking this site is a giant rock about 100 feet tall, delicately held up by a collection of smaller rocks underneath. A small chapel was then built into those rocks, making for a beautiful little cave sanctuary.

While I was there, a small group of religious pilgrims from elsewhere in Bulgaria was worshipping at the chapel, still tapping into the “spiritual vibrations” that the rocks gave off, just as the first Bulgarians did. I had a fascinating (if somewhat odd) conversation with one of the pilgrims, who told me that if I stood a certain way while touching the rocks, my third eye would be opened. They also told me that Madara was one of 4 places in Bulgaria with special magical powers (the other being Belogradchik, the Trigrad Gorge, and a place in the southeast that I wasn’t familiar with). Unfortunately, I didn’t really sense that myself, but everyone else seemed really into it.

Taken as a whole, the area was a great day trip. With so much to see and experience in such a small area, it’s understandable to see that the whole place was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. This year the village is celebrating 30 years of having the Horseman on this distinguished list. Even more impressive, in my opinion, is the fact that the place is relatively untouched and uncrowded.

The Rider is also celebrated as the “Global Symbol of Bulgaria.” I know this because a giant sign at the entrance to the site proclaimed it as such. But it is indeed a powerful symbol and a great source of national pride. The image is inscribed on the reverse of most of the stotinki (coins) here. Recently, the Bulgarian people also voted to have the Horseman inscribed on their own Euro coins when they switch over from the lev in the coming years.

This shows that the site is still as important in the minds of the people here as it was so long ago. And with a good reason… The day spent there was one of my most fulfilling in all my travels around Bulgaria.

Until next time…

Last week the B24s had our Mid-Service Conference, marking the halfway point of our service as volunteers in country. We’ve been in country for a bit longer than that (actually 3 months longer), but we’ve been at site for a whole year now. We celebrated the milestone in true Peace Corps fashion… going to a conference filled with service-related games, discussions about sustainability, and countless post-it notes. It was actually helpful to refocus my goals and to get some new ideas for the coming second year, and especially nice to hang out with the rest of my group, some of whom I haven’t seen in a while.

Before that, I survived my first ever experience with Bulgarian dentistry, having had a cleaning in Sofia. We as volunteers get to go to one of the best people around (as evidenced by the cards and pictures of ambassadors and other politicians lining the walls). After a thorough polishing with what seemed to be a sandblaster (the dentist made me wear protective goggles and close my eyes), my teeth have never felt cleaner. On top of that, no cavities! And on that note, I don’t have TB either! Woohoo! On the other end of MSC (after all the sessions), I got to go to Plovdiv (one of my favorite places in Bulgaria) to hang out with some good friends, see a movie, and just have a good time.

Now that I’ve been here a year, that means renewing all the documents required to stay here for another year. Last year’s process to obtain a lichna karta (Bulgarian ID card) was a huge, bureaucratic process that involved multiple trips over the police station in Shumen and the filling out of several forms. One would think that renewing it would be a much easier process, since all the paperwork is all on file. Instead, in true Bulgarian fashion, this time around it’s actually proving to be harder, with a whole mess of new paperwork to be filled out and signed by people all around town. I’m already up to two trips to Shumen and getting turned back around for various reasons… We’ll see if I can finally decipher this whole process.

The halfway point also means that fall is in full swing, just as it was when I got to site last year. I have to say, this time of year is my favorite of all – being not too hot or too cold. Good sweater weather. All the grapes are ripening and being plucked from over the sidewalks in town. Everyone’s getting in their last bit of work before the cold hits, creating a sense of liveliness around town that is a great thing to see around here. The kids are all getting in their last kicks outside, which has meant hiking or taking walks together and setting up speakers outside the orphanage and dancing. It seems everyone wants to enjoy the fall before holing up inside for a few months.

All in all it’s a strange feeling sitting here at the halfway point, looking forward at another year here in town and looking back at all the things that have happened this past year… How much has changed for me personally, and the successes achieved at the orphanage. Things here don’t seem so strange or scary to me anymore, and things that I considered major challenges to me last year I now embrace and invite. I feel that even if I left here tomorrow I’ll never be the same person I was before I stepped onto that plane to DC over a year ago, and this town will never be the same place it was before I stepped off the late bus for the first time almost exactly a year ago. And I have to say, that’s a great feeling to have.

Until next time…

Yesterday I went over to Shumen to tackle something I’ve wanted to do ever since I got to this area. Now, going to Shumen is something I do all the time, being the major hub city near me. I feel like I’ve done much of what the city has to offer, including walking the long pedestrian stretch, visiting the Tombul Mosque (biggest mosque in the Balkans), eating at both Chinese food movies and all duner stands, and hitting up the Kaufland countless times. However, there’s one thing I’ve never done in the year I’ve been here… until now.

Standing high above the city is one of the most ridiculous, Communistastic, gigantic monuments in existence. This hulking amalgamation of concrete is the Creators of the Bulgarian State Monument, also known as the Monument to 1300 Years of Bulgaria. As both names suggest, the monument honors the founders of Bulgaria by commemorating a big milestone in the country’s history. Pretty innocent enough until you get to this fun little nugget of info: The monument is the only one in the world to depict the entire history of a country... something so pretentious, so over the top that it actually becomes awesome.

They accomplish this feat by putting together several different factors. Firstly, there is a huge set of stairs leading up to the monument itself from the center of town. There are (supposedly) 1300 stairs in all leading up the mountain, one for each year of Bulgaria’s history. I didn’t take the time to count each individual stair, but I think it’s safe to say that the figure is at least close to that mark…

This picture was taken close to halfway up...

When you reach the top of the stairs, you are greeted by some of the most bizarre sculptures I have ever seen. Many of the volunteers affectionately refer to them as “the Transformers.” These robotic-looking piles of concrete set into the bigger hunk of concrete are supposed to be representations of some of Bulgaria’s greatest heroes. The dream team is all there: Tsar Simeon (king of Preslav), Omurtag, Isperix… all made to look tough and powerful. Another wall is completely covered in mosaics depicting great moments in Bulgarian history, such as important battles, people building famous landmarks… there’s probably a few hammer-and-sickles and something about the Turks in there as well.

The entire monument is crowned with a gigantic concrete lion, the symbol of Bulgaria, watching over the city and (of course) guarding the entire country. From this spot, on a clear day, one can theoretically see 3 very important Bulgarian places: Pliska (first capital of Bulgaria), Veliki Preslav (second capital), and Madara (home to one of Bulgaria’s most iconic symbols, the rock relief of the Madara horseman – a UNESCO world heritage site and depicted on all Bulgarian coins). The of the monument is also significant in that, according to legend, the first king of Bulgaria climbed to the spot, looked around at the valley below and declared for the first time that this land would be Bulgaria. I don’t know if there’s any way to verify that legend, but it does actually make for some pretty powerful views at the top.

So that’s another one off my list, and another vital part of Bulgarian experiences. It’s also the cause of my extreme soreness today, but I think it was all worth it, if not for the entertainment value alone.

Until next time…

My landlord came over yesterday to collect this month's rent. Pretty standard routine, until he wrote down the date on the receipt: 9/9/09. He looked down at the page for a second and started laughing. As I awkwardly stood there, money in hand, trying to figure out what was going on, he attempted to tell me.

September 9th, apparently, was at one point the National Day of the Communist Party. This was a day on which every town in Bulgaria had a big festival celebrating the Party and it's accomplishments and contributions to the nation, very much like a makeshift national holiday. The date was significant in that September 9th was the day a group of Communists won the Parliament (or so I think I understood), marking the biggest change in the country's history since Bulgaria was released from the Ottoman Empire. The last time this was celebrated was 20 years ago to the day.

My landlord went on to tell me how there was a big parade through Preslav, with a lot of flag waving and music. I expected him to start extolling the virtues of "the communism," something I've grown accustomed to hearing from the older generation here. However, his assessment was a bit different. He continued by saying it was a very impressive event, but also a sort of facade. A happy day only for people who were in the Party. The rest were just sort of obliged to play along. The day was sort of indicative of communism as a whole - some were, of course, more equal than others. Sure everyone got the same paycheck every month, but party members were entitled to a whole range of different benefits: bigger houses, better vacations, access to higher education etc.

He went on to say that. yes, there were a lot of good things back then - a lot of good memories, work for everyone, a stronger sense of national pride - he doesn't know exactly which is better. He likes the fact that people can say things without fear of being punished for it, but doesn't like the lack of respect for people this brings. Like so many other Bulgarians, he likes that people don't have to be supervised 24/7, but at the same time doesn't like the lack of discipline this has created. He loves the fact we can travel anywhere in the world and the fact that there are international brands and actual diversity in the markets. but he went on to say that even the people who are better off financially in Bulgaria still don't have much money to spend on luxuries like that. "Ima Criza" (There is a crisis) after all...

He told me a story about how there was no real incentive to work back in the days of the Party. How, since everyone got the same amount of money, people would just show up to their jobs and sit around for a while. The only motivation was basically bribery... The doctor would put a stethoscope to your chest and say "oh you're fine" until you whipped out a bottle of whiskey for the guy, after which we would pull out the required paperwork from a desk, claiming he had previously forgotten about them, and perform the proper check-up. He told me about the vast underground economy that existed, probably as a result.

He told me all this with a wistful smile, almost as if he missed it. After a short pause, he took my money, gave me my rent receipt, and shook my hand. "Those days are over now" he told me, and walked away.

Hail to the Party of Lenin, our (not so) eternal vanguard.

Until next time...

SO we get out of Buchurest in the morning so we wouldn’t lose a lot of time traveling. The train trip itself was beautiful, passing through the Carpathian mountains as we made our way into Transylvania. The scene was exactly what might come to mind when you think “Transylvania.” Little wooden villages nestled in between gigantic, dark, craggy mountains. It seemed Sinaia was the most like this, and it’s understandable to think of how the medieval residents of these areas could have imagined legends such as Dracula and the like.

Brasov itself is located in between those same mountains and a smaller hill on the edge of a broad valley. The whole place has more of a German kind of feel than a Eastern European one, as the old town (where we stayed) is located inside an old walled city complete with a gigantic Gothic cathedral, tiny cobbled streets lined with old buildings, and tons of spires and clock towers scattered around. A lot of the town has been pedestrianized and most of the roads are lined with cafes and restaurants, some of them leading into historic basements or bordering some building that looks like it should be in Fantasy Land.

The second day we took a day trip out to see some of the castles in the surrounding area. First was Bran Castle, which (legend has it) was Dracula’s castle. Unfortunately Dracula is a fictional story and the historical society of Bran has plenty of disclaimers around that this was not, in fact, Dracula’s castle. That hasn’t stopped countless people from trying to cash in on the connection. The beautiful castle guarding a pass between the regions of Transylvania and Wallachia is completely surrounded, not by a moat, but by hundreds of t-shirt stands and souvenir shops, mostly Dracula themed. There was Dracula’s bakery, Dracula’s 3D (5D?) movie experience, and even Dracula’s money exchange. The whole thing took quite a bit away from the experience of walking around in and exploring a very real and interesting castle in the mountains.

Bran Castle without all the crap cluttering it up (I didn't take this)

Much better, in my opinion, was the second castle we went to – Rasnov. Located roughly halfway between Brasov and Bran, Rasnov was a much more stereotypically eastern European town, and the gray weather made it even moreso. The Citadel of Rasnov sits at the edge of a gigantic cliff overlooking the town. Despite the giant sign right in front of it, the castle is much less touristic, very imposing, and gives a good feel of an actual medieval town. After a good climb by foot up to the castle, it’s another climb to the top of the place, where you can see the entire town and valley below. We stayed up there for a bit, watching storm clouds roll in over the mountains towards the bigger town of Brasov (another very Transylvania moment), until we had to walk back down in the rain. Good thing there are some cafes around in the town as well…

On our last day in Brasov we went up the mountain directly bordering the town, awesomely named Mt. Tampa. Tampa is topped by a “Hollywood-style” sign, to which you can walk and from which you can enjoy a good view of the town below, which we did. It’s pretty spectacular…

Looking up at Mt. Tampa from the center

And looking down at Brasov from Mt. Tampa (I didn't take this)

All in all Brasov really impressed me, and it’s definitely a place to which I wouldn’t mind returning, as well as the incredible mountains around town. But for now it’s back to work – back to the orphanage and Yasli, and I think I have some good ideas for both this coming school year (Starting Sept. 15). We’ll see what happens…

Until next time…

We arrived in Bucharest in the afternoon, but we started walking around just before evening, just in time to see the city light up, simultaneously hiding its ugly concrete blocks, and highlighting it’s beautiful (if extremely over the top) Gothic architecture. It has a very cool Gotham vibe to it, very nice but you know there’s something shady going on at all times. It’s as if you're having a good time, but in the back of your mind you know that, at this very moment, somewhere a politician is being corrupted or some art is being heisted.

The centerpiece of the city is the ridiculous Palace of Parliament, the second largest building in the world (after the Pentagon). It’s monstrous, pretentious, and ugly as hell, but still fascinating. Nicholae Ceacescu, Romania’s Communist ruler for so many years, spent all the country’s money and razed an entire historical quarter of the town to build it. The building is still apparently 10% unfinished. Leading up to the palace is a huge center filled with fountains and lined with restaurants and giant obnoxious flashing advertisements. It felt very much like a more spread out Times Square. It’s a cool place with a lot to do and see, but knowing what they did to the city to create it kind of takes away a bit of the fun.

Much nicer (and more to scale), was the city’s old town area, which still seemed somewhat new actually. It’s an area of old cobblestone streets that the city is currently restoring. Lined with cafes, bars, and restaurants, the area is close to a university and has very much of a student kind of feeling to it. It’s easy to get lost in the tiny back alleys in there, but also really fun to explore and stumble upon a hidden square with a gigantic, beautiful building just kind of sitting there as if it was nothing at all. While walking around in there, we also stumbled upon an active movie set and met the director in between takes. Apparently Romania is becoming a big place for filmmaking, not only because it is cheap and relatively well connected but also because the places in it are like ready-made sets. Everything in the town seems like it was made to be filmed or photographed.

Right near our hostel was this interesting little monument:

It’s not really on a main square or near interesting things, but it is a site of huge importance. This is the spot at which the public captured the Communist dictator and executed him. On the spot, they’ve built something vaguely resembling an olive on a toothpick (kind of a weird way to commemorate it), but it’s a cool place nonetheless. The area sums up Bucharest in one little block. The streets around it contain architecture from the 1800s, the time of Communism, and modern times. It’s a place of huge significance, but dwarfed by its completely out of scale surroundings, and memorialized by something so ugly and confusing you can’t help but feel amazed.

However, once you peel back the layers, something really special lies underneath this place to which I'm sure I'll return.

About a week after the Archaeology Camp I helped supervise the kids’ annual trip to the beach. This year we went to the town of Balchik, a town located underneath a shelf of cliffs near the town in which I saw the Rockfest a couple of months ago. The town itself is beautiful, being the location of a vast system of botanical gardens. Back in the 1800s, this region was owned by Romania, and Balchik was the summer home of the queen. She built the botanical gardens and castle there as a way to reconnect with nature and to develop her own spirituality. After Bulgaria gained control of the area, they preserved it and turned it into a sort of national park.

Throughout the gardens, religious symbolism abounds, especially in the grand centerpiece of the gardens – a perfectly kept tree-lined stream, and leading over one of the cliffs into a waterfall that leads into the sea. In fact, a major theme around the gardens is the flow of water, symbolizing the passage of time and our journey through life, not to mention its life giving properties. The garden was also home to a giant collection of cactii from around the world, a winery, and a ton of great examples of Bulgarian revival architecture. When viewed together there was a great feeling of being somewhere in the Mediterranean, perhaps on a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea...

The kids spent each morning on the tiny beach in Balchik (more a set of stairs leading into the water due to the rocky coastline, though at low tide there was a small strip of sand). They were given free access to their monthly stipend every day, which they promptly spent on ice cream, corn, chips, temporary tattoos, and a whole host of other things, within the first couple of days (they stayed for 10 days). This is actually pretty common for many of the younger kids at the orphanage. The children receive 30 leva every month. As soon as the money hits their pockets, they head out on a spending rampage, often spending most of the cash within a day on anything they can find and afford. Sometimes, the kids will fill a grocery basket with as much stuff as possible, and then have the store clerk remove anything they can’t afford. The theory behind this behavior is that anything not consumed within a day will be stolen from them.

Anyway, I think my time in Balchik was really energizing and gave me a good opportunity to hang out with the kids and also to get to know the staff a bit better. The kids had a blast swimming in the sea, exploring town, and playing games (not to mention being away from town for a bit). The botanical gardens has made my list of favorite places in Bulgaria (even if the road up to it is cluttered in useless souvenir stands). The place is so well preserved and well kept, and the beach area reminded me a bit of Bayshore Boulevard back in Tampa – a long stretch of sidewalk along a picturesque bay. The beach was lined with pleasant, little cafes and restaurants, and there was just an overall laid back vibe around the town that is hard to find on the Black Sea. I hope to make it back there sometime.

Balchik also served as a convenient starting point for my trip to Romania with friends, my first time out of the country, and my longest period of vacation yet (a week). More on that later.

Until next time...

Last week, another volunteer and I coordinated a camp involving kids from each of our orphanages. The plan was to have 10 kids from her orphanage in Dren, and 10 from mine here in Preslav staying together in the Preslav orphanage and doing archaeologically themed activities at the ruins and museum in town. With the help of about 7 other awesome volunteers, we spent the week going to the museum, playing lots of games, and exploring the area. It was about a half a year in the making and underwent countless last minute revisions due to schedule conflicts and general confusion, but we finally pulled it together.

The days leading up to the camp involved a lot of running around and coordinating different organizations to help out with the activities we had planned. At the same time, the camp was being changed from 5 days to 7 days to 4 days, back to 7 days, and then to 5 days again, before we finally settled on 4 days of activities and then a sort of free day. This system worked out pretty well, not only because the kids from Dren would be able to get back easier, but because it would allow us to plan fuller days of activities.

Day 1: Museum Day and the Scavenger Hunt – We got all the kids together for the first time outside of the orphanage and played some games like the human knot and duck-duck-goose. We then walked up to the museum where we got a talk from one of the archeologists in residence there, as well as a tour of all the exhibits (including one housed in a vault behind a foot thick metal door). After looking around a bit, we started the day’s main activity, the museum scavenger hunt, in which the kids were to look through the exhibits for certain things and the team with the highest amount of points wins. The kids got really into it, and we actually went over our planned allotted time. The museum actually asked to have copies of the scavenger hunt for future visitors, so I would say it was an all around success. While we were sitting around counting points at the end, everyone was kind of bummed that nobody found one of the clues on the list – a pony. Just as everyone was almost done counting, guess what pulls up… that’s right a pony and mother horse pulling a cart together. Everyone went crazy, and it was the perfect cap to a hugely successful activity. After that, the kids had a picnic in the park and we spent the rest of the day playing sports and doing arts and crafts and things with the other kids.

Day 2: Ruins and the dig site – We walked to the ruins of the citadel of Preslav just outside of town where there was a huge team of archaeologists digging for artifacts. The archaeology major in our group (the volunteer who coordinated the camp with me) was freaking out because of the haphazard digging methods at the site. One of the methods was to throw a whole bunch of dirt from the site into a pile and run a metal detector over it. Another involved chipping away fragile wall-looking areas with a pick axe. Good job, guys… Anyway, the kids were able to ask the archaeologists questions, and we even got the head professor to come out and talk to the kids about what was going on at the site. From there we walked up to another section of ruins where they actually let people climb up into a reconstructed area of the old fortress. The kids really got a kick out of that and played around for a bit. We then reached the last part of the ruins, the golden church of Tsar Simeon, where we rested for a bit and played some good old American football.

Day 3: The hike to Patleyna…. Sort of – We had planned to have everyone in the camp come hiking with us up to Patleyna (which I wrote about in a previous entry). However, several of the older children and the 2 supervisors refused to come with us because they thought it was too long. So we left without them. Apparently the activity the orphanage people thought up for them was to clean the building, so the people who went on the hike were pretty happy. The kids seemed to really enjoy the old 10th century monastery up there, and we even got to poke around at the newer monastery, where we found a bit of old Communist propaganda (“The party of Lenin is our vanguard!”). The kids that came with us also had a great time at the miniature zoo they have up there which featured doves and peacocks. I think some of the kids were actually kind of scared of the peacock since they hadn’t really seen anything like it before. Tired after a couple of hours walking round-trip, we finished out the day with some group games, baseball and volleyball. Baseball was especially interesting, as the kids were really getting into the home-run derby setup we started. After a couple hours of playing, the man who runs the stadium comes in shouting at us and telling us we have to leave. Confused, since we were being very good, and the kids were having a great time, we asked him why we had to leave. His answer was that we were making holes in the ground with the bats. Bewildered, we decided not to argue and left…

Day 4: Capture the flag and Time Capsule – We started off the day by going up to the stadium to play some relay games. We played a game featuring spoons and ping pong balls (which they weren’t that into) and did the dizzy-bat relay (which they were into, but we ended a bit prematurely as a lot of kids were falling all over the place). We then went to the park and introduced capture the flag, a game that the kids had never heard of before. They really enjoyed it, and the kids were actually filling their roles on the team quite well (i.e. prison guards acting like actual prison guards). It seemed that the game had reached a standstill, when one of the teams tried for a huge push and ended up getting a lot of their team captured, allowing the other to go in and take the flag pretty easily after about 10 minutes. I think this game was one of the most successful things we did and definitely one of the highlights. The kids from my orphanage are already asking when we’re going to play it again. During the afternoon, we made a time capsule, in which the kids wrote down their favorite memories from the camp and what they envision for themselves 20 years in the future. We then took pictures in front of the monument in the center of town, effectively putting a cap on the main portion of the camp.

Most of the volunteers left on Friday morning, but the supervisors took all the kids out to the fortress in Shumen to continue the archaeology theme. I saw the kids from the other place as they were leaving and may had made new friends and didn’t want to leave. So all in all, after all the hard work and stress, the camp was pretty successful, and we’re planning on doing something similar again next year. The supervisor from Dren actually invited our kids out there for next year, so we’ll see what we can get together. I know I learned a lot about how to run a successful camp, what works, and what fails miserably. I think that next time we’ll skew for a bit of a younger group as well. All in all, it was a great time, and while I’m glad it’s over, I’m also glad we were able to put together a successful camp (without many resources) that created new friendships for the kids and gave them some great experiences.

Until next time…

PS... Andrea took these pictures. My camera is once again out of commission... Thanks~

Nessebur is a town caught in between two conflicting paths of development.

On one hand, Nessebur is a beautiful museum town – an ancient city built by Romans on an island in the Black Sea. UNESCO declared the old town on the island a World Heritage Site, or a masterpiece of human accomplishment vital to the history and cultural fabric of Bulgaria.

Connected to the mainland by a small strip of sand and a road, Nessebur seems like it would have been the ideal location in which to place a town, taking into consideration its natural strategic advantages. Due to its great natural defensive capabilities, the town is home to several amazingly well preserved churches (some dating back to the 10th century), as well as a good amount of Bulgarian revival architecture from the 1800s.

On the other hand, Nessebur is a big and gaudy beach town sharing the same strip of sand as Sunny Beach (at times blending into, or being absorbed by, its neighbor). The road into the old town is lined with water parks and casinos, and the distinction between historical areas and modern development is becoming increasingly ambiguous. Indeed, scattered amongst the ruins of Roman fortifications and the historical buildings are located giant neon signs advertising English breakfasts. The old cobblestone streets are now lined with tacky souvenir stands selling everything from shock-factor t-shirts to plastic beach toys.

At some points it’s somewhat difficult to tell what heritage exactly UNESCO is preserving here. The buildings are being preserved, but the meaning is left behind, the actual culture being lost in the shuffle. At the same time, it’s hard to tell if one thing is possible without the other – if the authentic structures would still be in tact without the support from the artificial. It is often the same case for any place of historical or cultural significance. And so, just like any other place one has to dig to find a bit of true meaning of the place and to capture at least a piece of the character that made it so great to begin with.

Just like the rest of Bulgaria, it will be the beautiful things that I choose to bring with me, not the junk that is currently covering it up.

Until next time...

I’m sitting on a queen sized bed in a room on the top floor of a hotel in what is easily one of the most Western, upscale places in Bulgaria, and all I can think about is that the cable TV in the room doesn’t work.

Sunny Beach has a strange effect on people.

Looking out of my balcony, I see a stretch of miles of pure white sand and luxury hotels. This is a scene more likely found in Florida or California – a small strip of America cut away, airlifted, and tossed down haphazardly at the edge of Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. The streets are clean, the buildings are all new (and actually completed). Sunny Beach offers, at first glance, a vision of Bulgaria’s potential as a tourist destination.

Yet scratch a bit beneath the surface, and you can come to find small bits of the Bulgaria I’ve come to love. Directly below the balcony, hidden away from the main road and in the middle of two swimming pools was a garden in which an old baba picking tomatoes, just as she probably has in that same spot her whole life. Yet soon, this place too will be uprooted and the land subdivided and cleared for another hotel – its ground floor serving English breakfasts to German tourists.

During my visit to Sunny Beach, I felt (for the first time) like a visitor to the country in which I now live. I felt it was a place in which Bulgaria was being pushed out, hidden away, and erased, the only useful thing salvaged being the obligatory Shopska Salad on every menu. Sunny Beach felt to me like a bus stop to which tourists flock for cheap booze and (relatively) more lenient laws. It felt like the Cancun of Europe. The Daytona of the Balkans. I’m reminded of a Monty Python sketch from the Meaning of Life in which a waiter asks a couple of American tourists, “Have you ever wondered just why you’re here?” Their response is that of the stereotypical tourist: “Well we went to Miami last year, and Philadelphia the year before that, and this seemed like a nice enough place to go.” A trip to Sunny Beach is just that – another place to go without having to confront the bigger issues present around it.

It occurred to me as I watched the hordes of people milling around the center that Sunny Beach is really just one spot of debauchery on the beach that exploits the country’s status as a developing nation – a place that provides the perfect combination of lax laws and lower prices. Just like its Mexican counterpart (Cancun) Sunny Beach doesn’t try to entice visitors inland (or if they do, on packaged tours) or encourage them to contribute in any way to the local population.

For example, just a couple of kilometers away from Sunny Beach are some typical Bulgarian villages, just scraping to get by, its youth inevitably leaving for the promise that a job in Sunny Beach provides. By bypassing the country’s challenges on their beeline trek to the beach, the people who come here also miss out on the real Bulgaria. Sure, they don’t have to see the poverty, or confront the corruption. The biggest problem they face is which novelty t-shirt to buy at the souvenir store. But the downside is that they don’t get to see anything uniquely Bulgarian. Worse, they don’t even support the country to which they have come, their money going instead to English and German developers who skip town during the low season, leaving the locals scrounging for cash during the brutal winter.

Driving down here from Preslav, we must have passed through 20 little villages. We passed through winding mountain roads that opened up into fields of sunflowers. We stopped at a lake lined with beautiful rock formations. Our driver pointed out to us the house in which her grandmother was born. The two hour drive to Sunny Beach held more character and liveliness than the entire two day stay in Sunny Beach itself. The change in scenery alone was enough to make a person forget all about life in the rest of Bulgaria.

I hope I never do.

Kirkovo to Osmar

The village of Kirkovo, only 2 kilometers distant from Preslav is separated from town by another vast sunflower field and very little else, giving the impression that the field actually serves to somehow both connect and separate the two places. If it weren’t for this field, I am sure that the towns would run together, and in fact residents of Preslav refer to the village as “kvartal Kirkovo,” suggesting that they regard Kirkovo as a part of Preslav, despite the fact that they have little in common (other than the apparent proximity).

It’s a quiet little place with little of interest, save for an exceptionally picturesque church in the center. I sat by for a bit, just enjoying watching the laid back life in the village, disturbed only by the occasional clatter of donkey hooves or a tractor revving its engine somewhere in the distance. It was easy to appreciate the seemingly total change of pace evident in a town that lies so close to my own before heading on to tackle the greater part of my journey that day, which would eventually top 20 kilometers (or roughly half a marathon).

5 kilometers later, past another wide sunflower field and a small patch of forest that opened into a valley filled with wildflowers, I reached the train tracks that mark the boundary of the village of Kochovo. I had passed through Kochovo several times, as it lies on the bus route between Shumen and Veliki Preslav, but I had never really given any thought to the place while passing through. Walking slowly in the streets of the village I was able to notice many things I had never seen before – notably the center, which lies outside of the main bus route but contains a nice clock tower and monuments to fallen soldiers or past wars.

The most striking characteristic of Kochovo to me, however, was the complete lack of activity. Often when I go to a village there are people milling around getting things done, but during my time in Kochovo, I saw almost no people. Stopping in a small shop off the center for water, I asked the shopkeeper if there was a café or restaurant in town. The surprising response was that she didn’t know. I was alarmed by the response because it is a small and pretty compact town, but I later realized that this is the case in many places in a country such as Bulgaria, in which the small towns are getting smaller every day. This leaves the people who stay behind saddled with more work and fewer options to think about much else.

Not having found a place to get something to eat, I pressed on 5 more kilometers to the village of Osmar, which despite being similar in size to Kochovo seemed infinitely more alive. I ate a short lunch of Shopska Salat and kyuftes at the one restaurant in town in the center before heading away from town, following a sign I noticed that pointed the way to “Rock Monasteries,” something I never knew existed in this area. 3 kilometers into the hills outside of the village (Shumen lies on the other side of the same hills), I reached a sheer rock face. At the top of the cliffs were some holes leading into the mountain, and these were only accessible by a wooden ladder. Climbing the ladder into the holes revealed a complex of tiny rooms in the rocks, carved several meters into the mountains, and containing everything a religious hermit could ever need to live his life in peace. A small altar, candle stands, several icons, and places set aside for meditation were scattered around in the cave.

However, the real treasure was found by looking out from the monastery, revealing an amazing panorama over the hills onto the valley beyond. From this point I could see not only Osmar, but also Preslav, Kirkovo and the sunflower fields, all ringed by a chain of mountains in the distance. It is understandable that people would have sought this place out for meditation and reflection, and I couldn’t help but feeling relaxed myself during my time up there, looking down at the world, and having uncovered my own hidden treasure in the hills.

Patleyna and the Sunflower Fields

These beautiful and long summer days have left me with the itch to get outdoors and just enjoy the warm weather and the great scenery around my town. The past few weekends, I’ve been able to get out of town and do some exploring in the many villages that comprise the Preslav municipality and that lie within walking distance.

One of the great things about the villages in Bulgaria is that, even though they lie within mere kilometers of each other, each offers something unique. When I first arrived here, I was amazed at the sense of isolation apparent in villages that are seemingly so close. In America, these places might be considered suburbs of another bigger city. Here, the villages enjoy a certain independence from each other and all have their own identity and traditions, completely separated from nearby towns, even though they are often within easy walking distance from each other.

My first such excursion was to nearby Patleyna, a place in the hills outside of Preslav, actually visible from many spots here in town. After a short 5 kilometer walk past the familiar ruins and up into the hills, I was greeted by a quirky inn and an old man tending to his horses in a nearby stable, somewhat confused as to what I was doing there. The quietness was incredible, and even separated by a mere 5 kilometers from my town, the difference was noticeable – the air a bit cooler, the area covered by more greenery, the pace of life a bit slower.

After walking around a bit, I would a set of stairs leading up into the forest and somewhat overgrown by nearby trees and decided to investigate. After a couple of minutes of climbing, I came upon the ruins of an old monastery from the 10th century, incredibly more intact than the bigger and more famous ruins in Preslav. Apparently it was at this monastery that one of the national treasures of Bulgaria was found – the ceramic icon of St. Theodore, currently housed in the national museum in Sofia.

Walking further up the hill, the stairs led to an old abandoned building (a more recent monastery, built in the last century but now apparently closed) with an amazing view of the valley below and of Veliki Preslav.

Having seen a significant amount, I turned back for the day, taking a different road back into town and taking the opportunity to pass by vast stretches of sunflower fields. The past month, the countryside of Bulgaria has blossomed with entire fields all across the nation erupting into a vibrant yellow. I had seen pictures of Bulgaria’s sunflowers, being one of the things that the country uses to promote tourism, and seen in several books (including the language book I purchased before coming out here), but passing by these endless landscapes is an entirely different experience.

There are small patches nestled in between hills and mixed in with different crops, creating little picturesque farms in little unexpected places. There are vast valleys covered as far as the eye can see blanketed with sunflowers, stretching on and on, hill over rolling hill, until the hills blend together into the distance, creating the impression that the entire expanse is composed of just one giant hill, impossibly covered in zigzagging patterns from top to bottom. I could sit for hours just enjoying the view and just walking by offers a peaceful feeling unparalleled so far in this country.

The beginning of July brought with it my first actual vacation and the opportunity to rock out with several of the 80s’ best washed-up rock stars in the beach town of Kavarna, a 2 hour bus ride away in the northeastern corner of Bulgaria on the Black Sea.

My days were spent relaxing on the surprisingly respectable stretch of sand just outside of town, working on transforming my skin to any color other than pure, pasty white. I eventually succeeded in getting a nice layer of freckles, but it was during the nights in Kavarna that the real excitement came. Walking the road to the local stadium was a journey into a completely different world – a world covered in leather and long, greasy hair, a world in which the blast of motorcycle engines continuously interrupted any attempt for conversation, and where the food pyramid is completely comprised of sausage and French fries.

Inside the stadium, the crowds gathered for three nights of pure, unadulterated rock. The first night brought us the sweet serenades of Vince Neil and his Motley Crue singing such unforgettable classics as “Girls Girls Girls” and “Dr. Feelgood” (and didn’t they do that one song “Shout at the Devil?” Oh yeah there it goes…). It also brought us a drunk Tommy Lee attempting to tell the entire population of Bulgaria that he loves them, with hilarious consequences. The self-titled “Saints of Los Angeles” cranked up the volume right from the start and didn’t let up, save for one lighter-raising (cellphone raising?) power ballad. Nice Job.

The second night brought legendary group The Scorpions, whose concert, I must say, has entered my pantheon of favorite ever. Even though I had previously only known one of their songs (the incredible “Rock You Like a Hurricane”), the sheer energy present in the crowd made it worth it. This was one of those times in which the adage “They’re huge in Europe” is certainly true. Bulgarian flags waved, people chanted and sang along to songs we Americans had never heard, and we were informed by the band that they singlehandedly ended the Cold War with one of their songs (“Winds of Change”). This is to say nothing about the opening band, Blind Guardian, whose songs recounted epic Viking battles and the fight for Middle Earth. The whole experience added up to a night I will never forget.

Dream Theater – incredibly pretentious but nonetheless talented prog-rockers – brought in the 4th of July weekend with a bang. Even though it was a pretty rainy day, we were able to enjoy some appropriately American KFC and Subway, a homemade cherry pie, and a cake in the shape of an American flag. The presence of good food and good friends came together perfectly (as they so often do) to cap a weekend that will live on in my memory as one of the best and most memorable (if not at times incredibly bizarre) experiences of my time here in Bulgaria.

Until next time...

It was after my second outing to the beautiful city of Vratsa that I experienced baseball in Bulgaria for the first time.

In the thick of the election campaign for the Bulgarian Parliament, some volunteers and I had a free night in Vratsa, with which we took the rare opportunity to eat some delicious Chinese food. After that, we happened upon an outdoor concert being thrown by GERB (The Bulgarian Party for European Integration) including all the finalists of this year’s Music Idol (the Bulgarian equivalent of American Idol). It is fascinating for me to witness the many political parties in Bulgaria (it is said that there are hundreds) fight for votes using any means necessary. GERB’s campaign was particularly blatant in its vote-fishing, using its resources and star power to throw extravagant concerts, between whose acts politicians came out and yelled things such as, “Like what you hear? Vote GERB!” There are billboards around everywhere with not so subtle reminders. “Remember who built the new children’s complex for you?” says one... “Vote for us.” Still another, for ATAKA, simply reads, “The people love him,” and showing the party’s leader accepting a kiss on the hand from an old baba.

Anyway, the next day I headed out to the tiny village of Dren to help out another volunteer teach kids baseball at her orphanage for a couple of days. We started right away on the first afternoon, pitching and catching, and the kids picked it up really quickly. Even after several hours, the kids were clamoring for more. The next day we introduced batting and even attempted to play a little game. The kids seemed to do great and had a good time. Our final game got rained out, but I think the weekend was a success and a good foundation on which to build a team. Besides, it was a good excuse to cook up some Mexican food – a very rare treat, as it is extremely difficult to find in Bulgaria.

The camp also gave me an opportunity to try out some methods for teaching baseball at my own orphanage here in Preslav. Similarly, we started out just pitching and catching (even though we don’t have many gloves). Once again, the kids picked it up almost immediately, and they even started practicing catching fly balls by bouncing balls off the high concrete walls of the gigantic block building.

We’ve started batting, and progress has been a bit slower on that, but there are already a couple of superstars in the making who continually get hits. Currently, the kids aren’t quite getting the concept of a catcher, but we’re getting there. At the end of the day, the kids don’t want to stop playing, and that’s a great feeling. My sitemate is getting in on the action as well, so it’s a good time for all in town. We were even in the regional newspaper, as baseball is apparently a significantly novel activity for the locals. We constantly get curious passers-by wondering what the heck is going on and asking questions.

Hopefully at some point we can get a full team together and working soon so we can get in on the amazing volunteer league, in which kids from several towns in this region play, all coached by Peace Corps members. However, for now the kids are still just working on the basics, little by little. Many of the kids are still waiting and trying eagerly for their first hit…

Until next time...

After finishing up a short training session in Vratsa (way out on the other side of the country), I was invited up to a fellow volunteer’s town to see and help photograph one of Bulgaria’s great landmarks, the Belogradchik Rocks.

Eons ago, the Balkan Peninsula was actually covered under a vast ocean, and the evidence of this has been left in a region covering northwestern Bulgaria and eastern Serbia in the form of some amazingly unique rock formations. Just outside of town, there are countless numbers of them, each named after something they resemble, and many of them with their own mythology regarding their formation. These include Adam and Eve, the Madonna, the Whirling Dervish, the Bear, the schoolgirl, the mushrooms, the rebel Valko… the list goes on as far as the rocks stretch across the valley.

The main cluster of formations

Looking across a small ravine in the rocks...

The Rebel, "Valko"

The Horseman across the valley

Beyond the rocks

Built into the main cluster of the rocks stands Kaleto, a complex of fortresses dating back to the Romans, and added to throughout history up until the rule of the Ottomans. While the Romans used the place primarily as a guard post due to the area’s natural towers affording a great view over the whole region, the Turks fortified it heavily with walls built by local experts. The legend goes that they then proceeded to kill those experts in order to make sure nobody could ever steal the blueprints. As a result of this long history, the complex is huge and imposing, while also deep and complicated – a labyrinth that uses the natural strength and observation range of the rocks. It is fascinating to walk deeper and higher through the fortress, peeling back the layers of history. There is an absolutely breathtaking view from the top, where one can see across the entire surrounding valley (also covered in rock formations), and into neighboring Serbia, just beyond a nearby mountain range.

The fort at sunset.

Looking down into the Ottoman part of the fort

Down into the fortress from the top,the Roman gate in the center.

The Ottoman gate below, the Roman gate within...

Later, we headed to a small village about 20 minutes away to tour the Magura Cave. This cave not only contains some beautiful cave formations, but more importantly hosts a gallery of cave paintings dating back to as old as 12000BC. The paintings, made from the copious amounts of bat guano available in the cave and preserved by the cool and constant atmosphere in the cave, depict ancient tribes hunting and carrying out mating rituals, as well as features of the surrounding region. An interesting aspect of the drawings is the large and powerful female forms depicted in the scenes (as opposed to the smaller, more submissive male forms), revealing that apparently the society in the region was led by the women.

Unfortunately there was also some recent graffiti evident in the cave, causing the city to take the measure of closing off the gallery of cave drawings from the public. Only because the local volunteer works closely with the mayor were we able to access the chamber in which they are present. However, steps are being taken to hold preserve not only the Magura Cave paintings but also the Belogradchik Rocks and Kaleto Fortress within. Both sites have been placed on the tentative list to become listed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – in other words a site significant enough to earn international protection. The Belogradchik Rocks have also been included in the process to select the New 7 Wonders of the Natural World. The Rocks are currently 3rd in the category of geological features, a category that includes places such as the Grand Canyon (which currently is not the top in its category.

The future of these places is looking pretty good, and I hope that others will be able to experience the awe I felt during my visit to this truly unique corner of the country.

Until next time...

Hey everyone!

It’s been a while since my last real update due to some unexpected computer problems. Basically the screen would just randomly start going blank, forcing a restart. Eventually, when I turned it on one time about 2 months ago, I was greeted with a screen full of white lines rather than the friendly Windows logo. After a couple of minutes of trying to figure out what was going on, the computer started randomly turning on and off and on by itself. It was at this point that I know this wasn’t going to be a simple process.

That can't be good...Luckily the machine is still under warranty, but the service is only available in the States. So my laptop was packed up and entrusted to the Bulgarian postal service under the disguise of a package of Bibles being delivered to a church… the church of my mom’s house. (I still declared the computer on the customs form, but drew crosses all over the box).

Eventually it got there and a technician basically gutted the whole thing, replacing the motherboard, video card and a cooling fan. So yes, basically the problem was pretty major after all, but completely fixable. The process of picking it up when it got back here to Bulgaria, however, was not quite as easy…

I got the usual notice in my mailbox alerting me that a package arrived. However, when I arrived at the post office, I was informed that I would have to pick it up in Shumen (the regional center) where it was being held in a customs office. Note to anyone sending anything to Bulgaria: Never declare that something you send has commercial value. The following process will ensue:

I arrived at the customs office in Shumen, where I was informed that I would have to pay a customs fee. Pretty standard procedure I thought, but then Bulgaria stepped in and wiped that thought right away. It wasn’t as simple as handing the customs officer the tax and him giving me the package. Instead, I had to go to a third process who would process the customs form, because strangely, the customs office doesn’t do it. After sitting for an hour in an office with another gentleman who processed the forms while talking to himself about bureaucracy and to me about Russia (“No people, no problems” he told me, a quote he attributed to Stalin), I took the form back down to the customs officers, who told me that I would have to pay the customs fee. I should have been more surprised when they told me the customs office doesn’t accept money from people. Instead, I had to go to the bank, where they would take the money and wire a notice back to the customs office that the fee had been paid. But not just any bank… there’s apparently one bank in the whole city that can do this. It’s on the complete other side of town. I took a cab to this bank on the edge of town, where I was greeted by a friendly clerk who processed the fee. The bank’s motto was hilariously “Blizo do Vas!” ironically translated to “Close to you!” I laughed to myself the entire cab ride back to the customs office, where the officers told me that everything was in order. I expected to receive my package, but was then informed that the package was not there, but back at the post office. On my way back to the post office (4 hours after I first arrived at customs), I wondered what exactly the customs officers do - they don’t process the customs forms, take the money, or handle the packages – other than make a simple exchange ridiculously difficult.

Anyway, the computer is back in my care, good as new, and I’m back on the grid (at least for the time being) just in time for some pretty exciting business. I’ve also had some pretty amazing experiences while the computer was out hurtling around the world. I’ll be getting around to posting about each of these, and hopefully including some nice photos and video (I have about 450 photos from the past couple months). I’ve seen ancient cave paintings and rock formations, trained some new volunteers, taught kids America’s pastime, hiked around in endless sunflower fields, and been rocked like a hurricane. So enjoy!

Until next time…

Hey everyone,

Lately I've had some major computer problems and so I sent it back to the States to get repaired. In the meantime, I'm using the local internet cafe, which doesn't really afford me much of a possibility to write blog posts. That's not to say that interesting things aren't happening - I've been helping out with the training of the new group of volunteers (the b25s), and I traveled to the town of Belogradchik to see the famous rock formations (one of the candidates to be one of the new 7 natural wonders of the world) and cave paintings from between 12000-6000 BC. When I get the whole computer situation sorted out I'll be sure to get into more details about these and some other things with pics and videos and all the good stuff that I've put up in the past. Until then, shoot me an email and I'll try to get back to you when I can (which is to say when this 8 year old computer I'm using decides to get back to you).

Until next time...

Sunday was a big day in my town and around Bulgaria - the Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius, creators of the Cyrillic Alphabet. Born in Thessaloniki, Cyril and Methodius came to Bulgaria as missionaries and created the alphabet as a way to introduce Christianity to the Slavic people. To do this they needed a written language that reflected the different sounds of the Slavic languages of the time. Using some Greek letters, and also inventing some new letters they came up with the Glagolitic alphabet, which eventually transformed into the Cyrillic that so many countries use today.

When Preslav was the capital of Bulgaria during its Golden Age, there was a great literary school that contributed much of the great historical literature of the country. Without Cyril and Methodius, much of the expansion that Bulgaria experienced probably never would have happened. Since this alphabet directly contributed so much to the development of Veliki Preslav (and to Bulgaria for that matter), the town celebrates it as its town holiday.

Today, the festival is somewhat removed from celebrating the contributions of Cyril and Methodius, and more an excuse to have a carnival come into town. The day kicked off in the center with a short presentation by the mayor, and a wreath-laying at the statue of Czar Simeon (the king of Bulgaria when Preslav was the capital and throughout its Golden Age). After that various groups put on singing and dancing presentations for about another hour.

When the presentation was over, it was off to the carnival, conveniently set up next to the pazar up the street. This was one of the most ridiculous, yet fun times I’ve had in town so far. Firstly, the weekly pazar (outdoor market) was expanded and included merchants from all around the region, and even some from some other cities selling everything you could imagine from clothes, to random gadgets, to chalga. Next to the market, crammed into a tiny square, were several rides that can only be described as deathtraps, some rip-off games, and several ponichki stands.

A word about ponichki: I think the nearest approximation would be little donuts, but to call them just "little donuts" would be a crime. These Bulgarian versions are fried not only in hot oil, but also a mixture of dreams, puppy kisses, and children's laughter, then served directly to you fresh and hot in a little basket with a tiny fork and drizzled in chocolate sauce. Pretty much the best and worst food ever created…

A little ways further up the road towards the school and the orphanage was located a giant inflatable slide and a dirt buggy track. Actually "track" is probably a bit of an exaggeration – more like a tiny circle of anti-fun and dust, but the allure of it brought the kids in anyway (and almost snared me as well).

To my surprise, the children from the orphanage were allowed free rides on many of the attractions present, which made for a great weekend for them. As for me, I just had a good time hanging out and watching the people pass by on what was undoubtedly the most crowded I have ever seen my town. It seemed that most of the people from town were there, and for the first time I can remember the town actually felt as big as people tell me it is.

Until next time…

I have to say, Bulgarian graduation celebrations ("Abiturenski") are pretty awesome.

Today, at random intervals, groups of kids would start chanting numbers - "First, second, third..." all the way up to twelve at which point they go crazy and yell really loud. This is for each grade they've passed. Now that they're graduating they have the authority to go the whole distance. This makes it kind of awkward for people who aren't there yet (or who didn't graduate), since they have to drop out of the chant at the grade that they are at or that they made it to. This is a good incentive to stay in school... No one wants to be that guy guy who has to drop out at 10. Well maybe some kids.

At the same time, there are cars passing by at like 2mph covered in balloons and honking constantly. Some of them at their windshield wipers on and the washer fluid running, getting people on the sidewalks wet as they drove by. I've seen this before after weddings, but it's a whole different story when there are several multiple cars all doing it at the same time.

We had a small party at the orphanage with cookies and bezalkoholno (soda - lit. "without alcohol"), and the kids were all decked out in their new suits and dresses. There are 5 graduates from the orphanage this year, and they are all awesome kids who will definitely move on to do great things. I'm going to miss them too, since I've kind of leaned on them (especially in the beginning) to establish myself there.

After the graduation ceremony, the kids will be shouting all night long, the horns will be blazing, and at least for one night, the graduates will run the town. The festivities will continue until morning comes, when the tradition is to walk up to your school one last time and watch the sunrise together as a class. Then everyone goes their separate ways. This is a tradition that is definitely better than its American counterpart, and shows a great amount of solidarity with classmates and friends. It's a special end to a night that means so much more here in Bulgaria than I feel graduation night means in America, since graduating high school is a significantly more rare occurrence here. In America it's usually just something that's expected. Maybe that's why the parties didn't seem as cool.

Until next time...

So I’ve been to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, several times now, but I’ve realizes that I had never really written about it. This particular visit was due to a meeting of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons committee, of which I am now Co-Chair. This is exciting for me, because I deal with this issue in my work since my kids are prime targets, and also something that is important to me on a personal level. I’m so glad to have the chance to help lead this committee and to help lead this committee to spread awareness of this huge - yet still unfortunately overlooked - issue.

Anyway, Sofia is a big city (the biggest in Bulgaria), but even as it holds such an important place in the country and in the region, it is an often misunderstood place. I often start my day at the Central Bus Station, a monstrous glass-faced building, and head either for the Peace Corps office or the center. Since the PC office is in the middle of nowhere with practically nothing interesting around, other than rows of residential block apartments, I try to hang around the center as much as possible. Here, most of the interesting things in town are located with a radius of a couple of kilometers or less.

In the direct center of town is located a square called “The Largo” (currently being totally redone), in which is located Parliament, the President’s office, and the Ministry of Justice (interestingly located in the building that once housed the former headquarters of the Bulgarian Communist Party).

Watching over this square is the gold-covered statue of Sofia, the personification of Wisdom. The statue stands in the place of a statue of Lenin, toppled during the fall of Communism (along with tons of other similar things).

A short walk away from the center is the impressive Alexander Nevski Cathedral, the largest in Bulgaria, and large enough to occupy its own square. The domes are a brilliant gold that can be seen from many places around town, and the interior is covered in impressive frescoes and sculptures.

Right next to Alexander Nevski is the Church of Saint Sofia (Hram Sveta Sofia), dating back to the 6th century, and also the city’s namesake. Arguably more impressive than Nevski due to its age and significance to the city, the brick building also houses an eternal flame for fallen Bulgarian soldiers. Heading the other way from the Largo, we reach Boulevard Vitosha, the city’s (and pretty much the country’s) main shopping street. The street starts at the Church of Sveta Nedelya, another famous and beautiful church and heads towards Mount Vitosha, a still snow-capped mountain just outside of town. The Boulevard runs formore than a kilometer and includes tons of international high-fashion (and expensive) stores.

At the end of Vitosha is located the National Palace of Culture (NDK for short), a gigantic complex of theaters, meeting halls, and even TV studios (BTV, one of the big Bulgarian channels, calls this home). It is also here that my group officially swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers. Pretty much anything with national cultural significance happens here. It’s also located in a huge park, which is a nice place to hang out when the weather is good.

There are plenty of other interesting things to check out in Sofia as well and I can spend (and have spent) a good bit of time just wandering around. And the food! Mmm… It’s one of the only places in Bulgaria where you can find good international food. Anyways, I hope this was a good introduction for all you people outside of Bulgaria. And for the people in Bulgaria, you probably know all this already. But maybe you liked the pictures… or something…

Until next time…

I just got back from my first trip to a Bulgarian play. Man that was an experience. I don't even know how to put it into words, but I have to try. The name of the play was "Zavrushtene" which I still don't know the translation to. I think it means something like "The Arriving" or something like that. The plot went something like this:

Act 1: An older man, Georgi, gets a visit from a lady named Milka who tells him that she's in love with him even though he's married. He tells her that he's not interested, to which the Milka responds by exploding emotionally and yelling at him that he'll be sorry and never have a love like her's. The man's wife, Gergana, comes in and wonders what's going on, and Georgi tells her. The couple's son, Svilen, comes home from out of town, now grown and engaged. He has brought his fiance, Eva and they are madly in love. Eva tells the parents that she has no family except for her mother who lives alone. The parents find out that Eva's mother is Milka and proceed to freak out because they have been avoiding her. End of Act 1.

Act 2: The audience learns that the fiance is actually the child of the Georgi and Milka from before he was married to Gergana. This is where the audience started to get into it. Milka comes by the house while everyone is there, and the whole thing is revealed. Of course, Svilen and Eva are shocked at the discovery that they are actually siblings, and a good 10 minutes of crying from everyone ensues. Suddenly, Eva tells everyone to stop, breaks the 4th wall and asks the audience and the family, "But what will happen to my BABY?!" At this point the audience just goes crazy and starts yelling and clapping. End of Act 2.

Act 3. The audience is still going crazy and talking to each other about what has happened. Eva tells Svilen that she isn't actually pregnant and just told that to everyone to see what her mother's reaction would be. The audience lets out a "Awwww..." and calms down. Svilen tells Georgi that she's not pregnant and he goes to tell Gergana. While he is out, Svilen tells Eva that they can still be in love, but not in the same way (in a strange sequence with dimmed lights, sappy music, and a swirling spotlight effect). Milka comes in crying, and no one reveals to her that she isn't pregnant. She leaves for good, and Eva leaves too, but says she'll be back. Gergana threatens to leave everyone too because this was such a traumatic experience, but then decides to stay, saying, "This is Love." She and Georgi down a couple of shots and dance horo. The end.

I have to say, that even though the plot might have been on par with a Spanish soap opera's, I was totally entertained. Can't wait for my next one... And now that the Chitalishte (community center) is finally open, I'm sure there will be plenty more opportunities.

Until next time...

By far one of the most frequent questions I hear from people around town when the conversation inevitably shifts to working with children in any capacity is “Do the children listen?” Ever since I have arrived here at site I have heard this question at least once a week, and I wince a little every time I hear it. For a while I never understood why it got to me so much, but after a while I realized that this question (to me) epitomizes everything I find wrong with the system and methods of child care in this country.

Now I’m not saying that there’s nothing good about child care in this country. Truth be told, I have met several great teachers and child care providers during my time here who are having a positive influence on the children they work for. However, when I hear Bulgarians every week telling me about how the school system is failing and how children have no interest in learning, it makes me think a little about why. The question reveals a lot about the education system here.

The first problem is that the question addresses the concerns of the child care worker rather than the needs or even the problems of the child. This is reflected in the fact that often, the system of child care here is more concerned with itself or with its employees than with the children it works with. I cannot tell you how many times I have wondered exactly how many people here are working with children because they have to, or because they want to. Thus the question transforms a potential shortcoming of the worker into the fault of the child. I have heard stories of when children are dancing on tables in class ending in, “Ne slushat” – “They are not listening.” OK… what have you done, or what are you going to do to address this? Are the children unruly in class because they aren’t listeners, or because your classroom management skills are lacking? What is the punishment? More often than not, there isn’t one.

The second problem is that the question is really meaningless. It doesn’t address anything. Or rather, it addresses so many different things that it loses its meaning. I have heard the question used to ask: “Are the children well-behaved?”, “Do they pay attention to you?”, and even, “Turkish and Roma kids can do things?” When can you tell if the children are “listening” if the question itself isn't even consistent? Many times, the question doesn’t refer to discipline, but also the overall behavior of the child. For example, you may hear in response to a child at the Yasli who won’t stop crying, “Ne slusha” – “He/she is not listening.” Is this a case of a 2 year old refusing to pay attention to you, or is it a common reaction to being away from parents?

Sometimes the question even refers to the abilities of the children. At the orphanage I hear stories about kids who are slacking off in class ending in, “ne slushat” (They don’t listen). Though this should be the topic of another post, it is this situation that is perhaps most frustrating for me. I hear the question posed like this all too often in reference to the kids at the orphanage, many of which have been moved through the system without learning how to count or read. Are they not interested in class, or are they not participating because they can't understand what you're teaching and don't have a way to catch up? Or is it because they can't afford the textbooks you're using in class? Or is it because most of the people in town have given up on them and treat them as criminals or menally handicapped? Perhaps simply saying they aren’t listening is easier than acknowledging the shortcomings of the system.

My answer to the question has usually attempted either some clarification, or just “Yes, they listen.” This often prompts some surprise on the part of the asker, either because they aren’t used to have a question directed back at them in response, or because the expected answer is always “no.” When I proudly tell people around town that my kids are great - the children at the orphanage who can’t read or have had behavior problems, the little boy at the Yasli who cries for hours because he misses his mommy, the group of kids I pass by every day who hang out and pretend to build houses out of sticks – I get looks of bewilderment, or the look that says, “Yeah, right.”

Sometimes I just want to say to them… “The kids are listening. Are you?”

Until next time…

This weekend I went out to Turgovishte, a town pretty close to me, to go help a volunteer from another group with a fundraising project she has going. The idea was to have a Volunteer vs. Bulgarians volleyball match. Sounded fun, and in the end it actually was a lot of fun. However (just as many seemingly normal things here in BG turn out) the whole deal was an adventure.

I got into town at about 2pm and met the other players from the volunteer team. We were going to get together to play a bit and practice before the match. After buying possibly the greatest prize of all time (a plastic sword) to give to the winners of the match, we eventually made our way to the school where the game was going to go down.

As we waited for the doors to become unlocked, we watched a boys vs. girls dodgeball game going on outside the school. The girls were vicious, and the boys resorted to cheating (i.e. not leaving when they got hit, bringing in 2 people when they caught the balls). I have to say, between that game, and the little boy climbing nearby buildings, the time before the game was pretty entertaining.

Finally we get inside and start hitting the ball around, and get a quick practice game together. Only one person on the team had ever played on a volleyball team before, and the rest of us hadn’t played in a while, if at all. However, for not having any experience, we came together to field some sort of semi-respectable, rag tag team as the opposing team of Bulgarians walked into the gym.

After giving our strongest “USA!” cheer in a huddle we yielded the court so that they could get some practice in. This is when it became apparent that we were going to die. Previously unbeknownst to us, the team has recently won the regional championship. As we sat there watching as the other team practiced serving some of the hardest, most Olympic worthy serves I had ever seen, I got visions of the most mismatched events in sports history It was like the 1992 Basketball Dream Team against the scrubs of the rest of the world. The 0-14 1976 Buccaneers vs. the Steel Curtain…

A good crowd showed up, and the game got underway. We got our butts handed to us, unsurprisingly, but we actually got some good volleys in, and didn’t go scoreless which was nice. I sparked up a conversation with one of the Bulgarian players in between games, and he said,” So, I thought Americans were really good at volleyball,” referring to the dominating performance of the US team at this year’s Olympics. As I laughed to myself, told him it depended on the region. Volleyball is serious business here in Bulgaria, and is very much a “man’s game.” Whereas in schools in America, girls usually play volleyball while the boys play basketball, it is interestingly exactly the opposite here.

Anyway, after a couple of games in which we Americans lost by huge lopsided margins, we mixed up the teams and played some mixed games, which yielded the most fun times of the tournament, and made up in part for the loss of confidence I had in my athletic skills. All in all it was an awesome time, and a huge success. The event brought in more money than was expected, and everyone had fun, despite the stinging red marks on our forearms…

Until next time…

After painting eggs, I was reminded by my coworkers to go to the center for the big Velikden (Easter - literally "Great Day") midnight mass, and that this was something I shouldn’t miss. Not wanting to pass up a good look at another tradition, I said I’d be there. At about 11pm my sitemate and I headed down to the center where the big church in town is. People were slowly congregating in and around the church, and others were just hanging out at the café nearby. Seemed just like a normal night, maybe with just a few more people.

At 11:30, the church bells started ringing as a call that the service was about to start. Everyone filed into the little church, and the priest started singing his prayers. Incense was lit while the curtain hiding the altar was moved away. At that moment, a small path was made through the middle of the church. In Bulgarian churches there are often no chairs, and so there were a ton of people in there. The priest then made his way down this makeshift aisle with a giant bundle of candles. I recognized this tradition as being similar to the tradition of the Paschal candle in Western liturgy. This orthodox one was a bit different: 3 candles bundled together, creating one large flame at the top - a powerful symbol for sure. The deacon also carried a large single red candle as he led the procession.

As the priest made his way down the aisle, people from all around started reaching over to light their own candles from the paschal candle. Since I was on the aisle I reached out and lit a candle as the priest sang something in Old Bulgarian. As the priest reached the door, the aisle that had formed quickly collapsed and people made their way outside. There, it seemed as though the entire town had gathered around the church, and everyone had a candle and was lighting it from the original. After about 10 minutes, the entire center was glowing with candlelight.

The priest carried on his liturgy, as old babas responded by singing “Gospodin pomilo” and “Amin” (I think “Lord merciful” and “amen” respectively). Then the singing stopped and the priest shouted to the crowd “Isus Izkresus” (Jesus is risen) to the clanging of the church bells. I don’t know if it was the hundreds of candles around or what, but there was something very magical in that moment. For a couple of minutes at least, it seemed that everyone in town was content. Even the stern, usually unsmiling babas had a look of joy. It was one of those moments that I will never forget.

The priests wrapping up the service outside:

Ring the bells - it's officially Velikden:

But this wasn’t the end, as it would have been after a service back in the States. In Bulgaria it seems as though there’s always something during each holiday that will grant you health and luck for the year and absolve you of your sins. In this case, the gathered crowd had to make 3 laps around the outside of the church while keeping their candles lit. If successful, you will be washed of your sins and have a healthy year. Some people even had strategies to prevent their candle from going out in the night breeze. I saw a lot of yogurt containers being made into makeshift shields to block out the wind. This was serious business.

As for me, I took my regular little candle and just made the laps bez extra protection. When a breeze picked up I moved my hand over the flame and that seemed to work just fine. I made my way around the church three times along with the rest of the crowd (seemed as though most people were successful). Everyone then placed what was left of their candles in the gardens around the church to burn out.

I think a pretty large group went to the discotek right after - a fitting activity to do with one's newly renewed sanctity. As for myself, I returned home and fell asleep pretty quickly. The next day I woke up and ate my first taste of Kozunak. This is pretty much a giant muffin filled with jelly that is traditional to eat on Easter, along with the eggs. I got two of them - one from the awesome Yasli staff and another from my baba next door. Needless to say, it was delicious and prepared me for a week full of more Easter festivities.

Until next time...

The Easter season is here, and the people around town have been reminding me that it might be the biggest holiday in Bulgaria. I don’t deny that – there is a ton of stuff going on around Preslav, and will continue for a while after this. Today we kicked off the festivities by painting Easter eggs at the orphanage.

Painting eggs is pretty popular in the States. Here in Bulgaria the tradition of using eggs as an Easter symbol is taken to a whole new level. Starting on Easter and continuing for a week after, I am told that there will be “egg wars” in which two boiled and painted eggs are knocked together, and the winner is the egg that doesn’t break. I love this country.

Before....

So there's a tradition here in Bulgaria during the egg painting. After the first red egg is done, someone takes it and draws a cross on everyone's forehead with the red paint. I can now check "Have a hot egg dragged across my forehead" off the list of things I have to do in my life.

The kids were pretty into it. (Also, note the shirt that says "Police American Football" on it... It's the little things here that I love the most).

One of my awesome coworkers getting into the mix:

Out to dry...

So now I am officially ready for egg wars... Tonight there is a sort of midnight mass at the Church in town , and a big traditional celebration there. Tomorrow I’ll let you know how that goes…

Well faithful readers, we’ve hit a big milestone. This is my 50th post here on Greg in Bulgaria. There’s been some interesting moments and a lot of good times, but it’s not nearly over yet. The updates will keep on coming until there’s nothing left to say. Luckily, there’s a whole lot left, so stay tuned!

This weekend I headed out to the nearby city of Shumen on a mission. I needed a new camera. As you may know, my old one broke during the Kukeri trip and so it has been in the shop for the rest of March. Well, I got it back, and they were able to fix some of the things. However, most of the buttons remained out of service (including the zoom in/out button, review button and menu button). They informed me that to make over the whole camera back to fully working condition would cost more than a new camera. So I went to the TechnoMarket in Shumen (the EU version of Best Buy) and picked up a good little Samsung. I’m able to share photos again, and just in time for some interesting things around town too… Lucky you!

The kids are all out for Spring Break here in Bulgaria, which is awesome for them, but means more work for me… yay! Actually, it’s a lot of fun hanging out with the kids on break. Plus, we have fewer children in the orphanage during vacations. Here in Bulgaria, some families can send their children to live at an orphanage if they cannot afford them, with the option of taking them back during vacation times. This leaves the children who actually don’t have parents at the orphanage during these times. A little over half of the children stay, which lets me spend more time with them, and also relieves some of the stress of working with 80 children at a time.

Spring Break seemed to come at the absolute perfect time. Trees and flowers are in bloom. The Sunday market lasts longer. Cafes have started putting tables outside. People are actually walking around and act like they’re happy to be outside. Lovely. It’s consistently warm here now, allowing us to start some sports and outdoor activities at the nearby basketball court and the local stadium. Every day, it’s been above 60 degrees – ideal for running around with the kids.

I’ve been running by myself, too. The Athens Marathon is slated for November 8th, and I’m planning on being there. Now that the weather has warmed up I have started training, and have fallen into a pretty good routine, upping the distance every once and a while. There’s some shorter distance races near me in the coming months, so that will help out as well.

Even though I won’t be getting a good chance at a long break for a while (probably not until summer), I’m really looking forward to the coming weeks and months, and am feeling very motivated. I have plenty of interesting activities to hold me over, and a lot of plans I’m getting ready to start following through on. Even so, I really can’t wait to get out and explore the areas around Bulgaria. A few other volunteers have already taken excursions into Turkey, Greece, and Romania. There’s plenty of time left to see it all though… definitely enough to carry a good 50 more posts!

Until next time…

I don’t think any description of Bulgarian life is complete without the inclusion of Chalga.

Known also by the more euphemistic term “pop-folk,” chalga is a style of music that, as far as I know, is unique to Bulgaria. Usually you’ll find it while flipping through the channels (somewhere between CityTV, the Voice, and MTV Europe) to find a half naked girl that only goes by one name dancing provocatively to a strange mix of techno and an array of Bulgarian, Turkish, and Roma folk instruments. Despite the inclusion of folk instruments, the connection to actual folk is weak at best, and I’m pretty sure it’s referred to as pop folk just to give it some sort of artistic credibility, which it rarely ever receives anyway. Lyrics almost invariably include at least one mention of “Tvoito tialo” (your body) and “Surtseto mi” (my heart), and either “Iskam teb” or “Iskash li?” (“I want you” and “Do you want?” respectively).

During my time here in Bulgaria, I’ve developed somewhat of a love-hate relationship with chalga in all its forms. While it could possibly be the most annoying and vacuous of all music forms, it’s something uniquely Bulgarian and a big part of life here. The children here love it (just as children in the States grew up with similarly horrible pop), but strangely the love for chalga knows no age. Sometimes while eating dinner or going na gosti, your hosts will leave a tv on looping chalga videos. This includes babas. It’s hard to say if it’s better to let them know that you don’t like it or that it’s destroying any and all culture in this country, or to give in and embrace the horribleness.

In most situations, I’ve gone with the latter.

Since I’ve touched down in Bulgaria, I’ve attended a chalga concert in a broken down stadium in Dupnitsa, danced kyuchek with coworkers at a Christmas party and on New Years, bought a chalga CD from what I have dubbed the “chalga salesman” at the pazar, and (since moving to Preslav) woken up to a steady stream of chalga hits blasted through my wall every morning. I have dedicated a chunk of my time at the orphanage every week to dance to some awesomely bad chalga songs with the kids in the tv room.

Since seeing is believing, I’ll share some of my favorites from my time here so far. Click the titles to check out the video:

Djena – “Shte Te Spechelya.” Translated to “I will win you,” this is your typical break-up song, only with the inclusion of an electric form of some sort of folk instrument (could be a horn, gaida, fiddle... who knows). The video is amazing for a few reasons: When her butler informs her with a handwritten note “He now is with her!” Djena begins a transformation to win her boyfriend back. From what I can gather, these changes include giving up smoking (because the other girl smokes), giving up lipstick (because the other girl wears lipstick) and giving up her car in an attempt to get the other girl away from her boyfriend (I think). You’ll just have to watch for yourself, but beware the “twist” at the end.

Preslava – “Novata Ti.” (“The New You”) This very well might be my kids’ current favorite song, evidenced by the fact that they scream it at the top of their lungs whenever it comes on. The song features what actually sounds like a catchy mandolin riff, but that’s nullified by the pop beat under it and throaty singing. I’m sure something happens in the video, but for the most part it’s just a vehicle for Preslava to pose provocatively in a nice hotel. I think she’s stealing some other girl’s man?

Nelina – “Nyama Nashi, Nyama Vashi.” (“Not Ours, Not Yours”) This singer is a real folk crossover, and I know this only because I watch the Planeta Folk channel (all Bulgarian folk, all the time) every day and saw her singing folk songs. Therefore this song might actually qualify to be called "pop-folk" as it has an actual tinge of Bulgarian folk music to it, and is sung by a folk singer. As for the video, I'm still just trying to figure out what is going on. I think a few girls are fighting over a guy. But then there are some guys checking out some girls. A soccer ball gets involved. Then I think everyone dumps each other and they all start a dance party. That smile sure is enchanting though...

Ustata – “Male Male.” (“Male” is an expression here in Bulgarian used to express disbelief, sort of like “Oh my god”) This is the rap side of chalga. As a matter of fact, it might not even be considered chalga, but this guy does collaborate with chalga stars very often. I place this song in the category, however, for its use of a Balkan Brass band, its ridiculous lyrics, over the top video, and performer with just one name.

And of course no description of chalga would be complete without mentioning AZIS. Azis is somewhat of an anomaly in the world of Bulgarian culture - a large, cross-dressing, Roma (what English speakers typically call "gypsy") singer. Somehow the unlikely combination of all these factors combined with a wildly flamboyant personality has turned him into one of the most famous people in all of Bulgaria. I believe he has his own tv shown now as well... Michael Palin did an interview with him on his travel show not too long ago. If you'd like to check it out, as well as get a glimpse into his music, click here.

Regardless of what you might think of chalga, it’s an inescapable force that’s here to stay. For now, I’m off to dance to some kyuchek…

Until next time…