Sofia... transitions

I am in Sofia, staying at Ellen's apartment (which is getting increasingly more full every day!). Two other Fulbrighters are staying until they find an apartment and another girl, Sarah, from the program arrived today. Hillary is coming tomorrow so there will be a grand total of six adults in a two-bedroom apartment. But I'm loving it. It's so nice to have people to talk to and explore the city with. We're all still adjusting to the pace of things here so of course it's great to share some of that culture shock/ random observations with each other.

I am going to Pleven on Sunday to begin apartment hunting. More on that later because I have no clue how it's going to go. It's only about two hours outside of Sofia, though, so I imagine I'll be back here pretty often to visit. The internet at Ellen's isn't set up yet so right now we're sitting at a cafe in the park nearby that has free WiFi.

The Black Sea was a fabulous trip and I hope to go back there soon. (PS- The restaurant we ended up going to had Chinese food, which was pretty weird but OK).

Sozopol

I arrived in Sozopol (on the southern Black Sea Coast) on Sunday morning with two fellow ETAs. We have been having a great time here. The town has a very typically Mediterranean feel, with windy cobblestone streets, red-tile roofs and a stone wall fortress surrounding the Old Town. It also has a small harbor with colorfully painted fishing boats and small restaurants serving up fresh-caught fish, plenty of bars and cafes, several craft markets and more than a few kebab stands.

Our hotel is on the north side of Old Town, above steep cliffs overlooking the central beach and another peninsula where the "new town" is. We walked over there yesterday to go to South Beach, which is the other public beach within city limits. South Beach is where most of the night clubs in town are, most of them right on the beach and pumping techno music all day long. We spent about four hours lounging there and wading in the warm water. Today we checked out the central beach but it was much hotter so we didn't stay nearly as long. I've been good about sunscreen (yay!) so haven't been burned much and I'm slowly acquiring a freckly tan.

Sozopol was originally a Greek settlement called Appolonia, after which its summer arts festival is named. The festival starts next week so we're going to miss it, but there are already some booths set up and the amphitheater's been roped off. This town definitely has an "artsy" feel, with lots of craft vendors lining the streets (selling more than just the typical touristy souvenirs, though they have all of that too) and a couple of little pop-up shops filled with homemade jewelry, clothes and paintings that are oddly reminiscent of Anthropologie in the States. Tonight we're planning on getting dinner at a Greek place on the water. I'm so excited to eat something other than "traditional Bulgarian food." Not that I don't love Bulgarian food, because I do. It's just that after two weeks of the same repeating menu at the hotel it's nice to change it up a bit. After that we're hopefully going to check out some of the beach clubs or something like that. Tomorrow Ellen and I are going back to Sofia and Hillary is going to Haskovo, the town where she will be teaching. It's sad to say goodbye to everyone I've been living with for the past two weeks but we're all going to meet up on trips and visit each others' towns. At the end of September we have a four day weekend when a bunch of us are planning to go to Istanbul, which isn't very far away. It's exciting being here in Bulgaria because it's not really far from a lot of places I want to go. That being said I am very much looking forward to go to Pleven this weekend and finally getting settled at home. That's all for now and I'll definitely post something from Sofia later on this week!

Goodbye, Bansko... Hello, Sozopol!

The famous Bulgarian roses!

 Okay, so it's been a while since my last post... the conference ended up being a pretty busy couple of weeks, surprisingly enough. It was mostly full of social stuff but hey, that's why I went. I got to know a lot of the other Americans here in Bulgaria for the year pretty well and made some Bulgarian friends as well, all of whom I hope to meet up with throughout the year. We even met the US Ambassador to Bulgaria at our farewell dinner. Right now I am at a hotel in Sozopol on the Black Sea coast, which is FABULOUS.

But back to Bansko, I really enjoyed the conference, only actually took one course the last week (Bulgarian Culture, Art and Music) and had a great time. The second weekend we were there everyone went on a daytrip to Blagoevgrad, a nearby town where the American University is, and a smaller village to hear some traditional folk music and participate in a mock-wedding ceremony. That part was really hilarious because our two volunteers had to dress up in folk costumes, dance around with the singing babas (literally: old grannies) and drink homemade rakiya. 

The setting for the folk singing/ wedding ceremony was in a beautiful rose garden at a medieval church, which was covered in restored frescoes of Bulgarian Orthodox saints. The church, located in Dobarsko in the Pirin region of Bulgaria, is famous for a few of its icons which have irregular angular shapes depicting heavenly light. One of the strange shapes around the figure of Jesus has been likened to a rocket ship.

The next day our group took a bus into the Pirin Mountains just behind the town of Bansko and hiked to a few glacial lakes nearby. And while the program described a 'walk' to one of these lakes, whichever path our group ended up taking was definitely not the easiest hike. But it was well worth it and the views were amazing. Going up there definitely made me want to try skiing and I imagine it would be relatively inexpensive to try it here. Two of the girls (also ETAs) and I decided to take a mini-vacation to the Black Sea resort town of Sozopol following the conference, and that's where we arrived this morning after taking a night bus from Sofia. We didn't realize that the night bus would only take 6 hours, however, so we ended up waiting near our hotel for a couple of hours before it opened at 8AM. But Sozopol is absolutely stunning, with cliffs and sandy beaches on either side of the peninsula and an extremely walkable and enjoyable old town center. We walked around a fair amount today and plan on staying here for two more nights. Then I'm headed back to Sofia to spend the weekend with Ellen (who is teaching English at a high school there) and off to Pleven on Sunday!

Beautiful Bansko

Bansko is a very charming little town. It's become something of a world-class ski resort recently and with the festival in town there's obviously a big draw for tourism. I think that most people who come here are from Bulgaria but I've overheard some conversations in English and other languages while walking around the cobblestone streets. The hotel I'm staying in is really nice and I actually have my own room because my roommate hasn't shown up yet. Yesterday one of the professors scheduled to lecture finally arrived (he was delayed in Pakistan due to flooding) so I've been attending another course on peace and conflict resolution. I'm enjoying taking classes, although it means waking up early after staying out late at night.

We've already established a couple of bars we go to regularly, and most nights there's a big group of us Americans and usually some Bulgarians that go out in a huge group. It's a lot of fun getting to know everyone here and I hope I can keep in touch with them after the conference is over.We had a big meeting with all of the Fulbright researchers, scholars and teachers in the country earlier tonight. It was cool to see what other people are doing here. Hopefully I can make it into Sofia often to go to some of the events the Fulbright Commission and the US Embassy organize throughout the year.

Today in our Bulgarian culture class we learned about ethnic minorities and social exclusion, specifically focusing on the Roma minority here. Bulgaria is not only one of the poorest countries in the EU but it also has one of the largest populations of Roma, or gypsies, apart from Romania. The socioeconomic status of minority groups has gotten worse after 1989 and now with the financial crisis. All of the statistics we read about unemployment, crime, access to services and other problems were shocking and difficult to accept as the reality here. It's an issue that I hope to educate myself on more, especially because the marginalization of Roma in the educational system is extreme. The professor suggested that we as foreign teachers might try to integrate multiculturalism into our lesson plans. I definitely plan on working on that as well as learning more about Roma culture and history.

I had a little incident with my camera and had to buy a new one so I will belatedly put up some photos on Picasa/Facebook soon. The store I went to was sort of like a Best Buy, and they actually had a lot of different cameras that all had displays in English, though the descriptions were all in Bulgarian. Me speaking  the language would have helped, again! But I got everything figured out and the camera wasn't too expensive. Definitely an upgrade from my old AA battery-operated one. I'm excited to get to take pictures of things here again. This weekend there are two organized trips we're taking: one to Blagoevgrad and another small village and one to a mountain lake near here. I want to try and explore some of the mountains and natural scenery available while I'm here. My town isn't too far from the mountains (also Romania!) so that will be good. I can't wait to go to the Black Sea the week after next. We still need to get tickets but everything I've heard about Sozopol sounds amazing.

Pictures and more stuff coming soon! 

Zdravei!

I am sitting in my room at the Orphey Hotel in Bansko. Bansko is a little skiing town at the base of the Pirin mountains, which are strikingly beautiful and loom over everything. Right now it's the off-season, but there are still lots of tourists here for the Bansko Jazz Festival, going on this week. It just so happened to coincide with the Fulbright International Summer Institute here at the hotel so we've all been enjoying going out on the plaza at night to listen to music and people-watch in the crowds.

I only arrived in Sofia last Thursday but it feels like I've been here much longer than that. I spent one night there, meeting two other Fulbrighters and attempting to set up my cell phone, then we got on a bus to come here for the conference. There are 11 English Teaching Assistants in Bulgaria this year, including me. We're all scattered across the country in different towns and villages. Only 8 of us are here along with a couple of researchers who will be based in Sofia for the whole year. It's been great getting to know everyone. I think we all have similar interests and are very excited to be here.

I found out why they increased the number of ETAs this year (last year there were only 2). The America for Bulgaria Foundation, which is fairly new, donated the funds to send 10 Americans to Bulgaria to teach English at local language schools. It's part of their program to develop higher education standards for high school students so they can be more competitive in their university applications. I've learned a lot about the Bulgarian educational system in the past few days, and it seems that educational reform is a really hot topic here. A lot of people want the universities to promote higher standards for their students but the tests to get into university, especially the University of Sofia, are outdated and mainly based on repetition of facts rather than critical thinking. It's interesting getting to know more about the issue but it is very controversial right now.

In Bansko there are a lot of restaurants, mostly mehanas, which are taverns that serve traditional Bulgarian cuisine. I've eaten almost all of my meals at the hotel restaurant (because it's free!) and the food here has been really delicious. There are some Mediterranean and Turkish influences, with a lot of salads, potatoes, grilled meats and my favorite: sausages. The cheese and yogurt are great here, too. For breakfast they serve a goat cheese that is just like feta, and usually for dinner there are fried cheese balls. Needless to say, I'm definitely not going to have a problem getting used to the food here. In town we've gone out to a couple of bars and the drinks are surprisingly less expensive than I'd imagined. Usually you can get a half liter of beer for about $2, and that's expensive for smaller towns in Bulgaria. The boxed wine they serve at the hotel is great, too.

Last night was the welcome dinner for the Summer Institute and it was served in a "traditional setting," in a hall downstairs with wooden beams and lots of folk dancing and music. It was definitely entertaining, although parts of it were a little strange because I'm not familiar with the meaning of the songs. It would be really great if I understood Bulgarian, although most of the other Americans here don't speak it, either. I'm going to try and get better at some basic conversational stuff before I leave Bansko.


FISI is the only Fulbright summer program of its kind in Europe. This year there are about 100 participants from all over the world, mostly a lot of students my age from the US, Bulgaria and around Southeast Europe. I'm taking a Bulgarian Culture course, which is the only required one for us, and so far it's been a history of archaeology in the country, which is really interesting. I didn't know that civilization in Bulgaria went as far back as many millennia as it has; the oldest gold objects were found here and they're over 5,000 years old. It's definitely a complex history, with a lot of different cultures intermixing, so I'm excited to learn more about in the the next two weeks.