February was a great and busy month. I've learned here that busy is a good thing. If I'm not busy, I get bored and start to feel, well, lonely. Staying active and having things to do keeps me sane, even if that's something as simple as playing with my Smokey.
This month started out with the new term, meaning our school now goes in the morning (7:30-1:15) instead of the afternoon (1:15-7:30). While I hate it whenever my alarm goes off, I actually do enjoy the new schedule because it's more in-line with what I did in Las Vegas. It's also easier to schedule Speech/Debate practices after school than before school like I had to do last semester. My schedule did not change much, except for I'm now teaching 11th grade literature with a different teacher. I was nervous about the uncertainty of that, but then I remembered how everything was uncertain last semester. So it's all in perspective now.
Trigrad Gorge
The former tenant of my apartment and German teacher at EG, Alexander Schleich, came into town earlier this month. He stopped by the apartment, met Smokey (who is not a huge fan of strangers), and we *sort of* figured out how to make the oven work. There's still no way to determine the temperature but at least the oven, well, emits a small level of heat. That's a good start.
Given that he has a car, he wanted to take me and the current German equivalent of me (as in, a program similar to Fulbright through Germany) on a trip to somewhere not easily accessible by the oh-so reliable Bulgarian bus/train system. We headed down to the Trigrad Gorge which is in the Rhodopes, a mountain range stretching across the south of Bulgaria. Blagoevgrad is located at the intersection of the Rila and Pirin mountains, so it was great to see some different landscapes. On the way to the gorge, we went through several "Pomak" villages. I'm not sure if the term "pomak" is politically correct, but it's used to describe several villages in the Rhodopes that are predominately Muslim. It was quite different than the rest of Bulgaria that I have seen.
The drive was long, windy, and rainy (and single-lane), so I'm glad I was not the driver. Once we arrived at the gorge, we were halted by a Bollywood film being shot in a tunnel that we needed to get through. So we had to wait around for a while. We never did figure out what the film would be called, but I did learn that a lot of movies are actually shot in Bulgaria. Go figure.
At the gorge (which was "gorgeous" - shout out to Ithaca and Cornell), we took a tour of the "Devil's Throat Cave" which has a bit of a haunting background myth and an equally comforting name. Luckily (?) the tour was in Bulgarian, so I didn't learn all of the background. It has something to do with Orpheus and Hades. The bottom of the cave is like a huge hall (The Hall of Thunder), big enough to fit the Nevski Cathedral from Sofia within it. There's a river flowing down through the cave, and it's notable because no one really knows where the river goes to. A pair of scuba divers in 1970 attempted to track the path of the river but never returned. So I kept my feet dry.
Another interesting fact, during the winter it's known to have the largest colony of bats in the Balkans. So that was all-the-more comforting.
Luckily, we made it out alive and back to Blagoevgrad in time to eat at a lovely Korean restaurant on the outskirts of town.
Papa Bransford comes to visit
I was much better prepared for my dad's visit to Bulgaria than I was for my mom's in October, which has more to do with time than anything. I've learned more of the language, the struggle of getting around (*ahem* Rila!), and things to do and see.
He arrived in Sofia and recuperated from jet lag and went on a walking tour. After school on Thursday, I went straight to the bus station to meet him in Sofia. He was staying right in the center, so we were in easy striking distance of seeing some of the cooler places in Sofia. Because he had seen most of it the day before, we left fairly early to Blagoevgrad the next day after exploring a predominately Middle Eastern area of Sofia (where I got my hair cut last year!).
Because it was Friday, we got the chance to stop into school, although the math/science school was in session, not the language school. I was still glad that he got to see the school...and the squat toilets.
He also got a chance to meet some of the team leaders from Speech/Debate as well as see two novice debate teams practice. I also dragged him into helping judge a creative writing contest at the American University here.
Our big "to do" thing was to see the Rila Monastery. I fully admit that I was negligent in sending my mom off to Rila last October, not realizing it wasn't quite as smooth as having a chartered bus from Sofia with Fulbright...The route up was not too difficult. We took a small bus from Blagoevgrad to the town of Rila and, not wanting to wait too long in the rain for a bus to the monastery, took a cheap cab up to the monastery with a cab driver who drove way too fast for the weather/curving roads/mountainous drop-offs. But I'm learning that that's standard.
We explored the monastery and it was beautiful, as usual. There was a ton of mist/fog around the monastery which gave it a creepy, haunting feeling but it also blocked the view of the snowy Rila mountains surrounding the monastery.
We walked through the other side of the monastery down to the group of streams and river that flow beside the monastery. I think both of us enjoyed this almost more than the monastery because we had it all to ourselves. The sound really is incredible. In fact, my dad recorded the sound to use as a white machine sound for an app on his phone. Unlike when we visited last September though, it was far too cold to walk across the rocks in the river. Maybe next time.
The trek back down was a bit more challenging. The scheduled bus was nowhere in sight, so I went up to a group of guys who seemed to be in charge of calling taxis. They told me it would be 30 leva. This was where I was glad to know a bit more of Bulgarian because I told them, in more words, "Hell no, we paid half that amount on the way up."
So off we went looking for another ride down the mountain. From somewhere deep within me came the courage to knock on the door of a minivan and ask the driver (all in Bulgarian!) if he could take us down the mountain. He was leading a group of Italians back to Sofia but the town of Rila is on the way there. So we agreed to a much lower price and hopped on. We got back to Rila just before the bus to Blagoevgrad left.
Now I know how and why my mom had so many problems getting to and from the monastery. For being perhaps Bulgaria's most famous tourist destination, it's shockingly difficult to access, especially if you don't have access to the not-so-reliable bus schedules and aren't able to talk to cab drivers/hitchhike.
Dad had to get back to the states for work, so his visit was much shorter than my mom's, but we still had a great time. I think that he really liked Bulgaria because it's not touristy. He called it "Memphis versus Orlando" meaning Orlando is a tourist trap, but Memphis is a "real" city. He flies to a ton of touristy cities around the world, so I think he was glad to feel like he was visiting an authentic place. And it doesn't get much more authentic than Bulgaria.
Random Things
The first of March is a big holiday in Bulgaria (Баба Марта, literally "Grandmother March") with yet another long legend behind it. It is meant to celebrate the arrival of spring. The tradition is to give and receive martenitsi, red and white decorations. You wear these until you see a stork or trees blossoming (not sure about all the intricacies of the holiday). From then, people hang them on blossoming trees. I didn't know much about the holiday before the 1st. I walked out of my apartment, still dark outside, and a very elderly lady came up to me quickly speaking so fast I didn't understand a word. She wrapped a martenitsa around my hand and patted my back. I was a bit confused, but once I got to school, I figured out what was happening. My students, especially the 8th graders, gave me a ridiculous amount of bracelets. I felt way too special.
Unfortunately, Smokey thought that the martenitsii were a a play thing for him. I was no longer capable of petting him and ended up with way too many scratches. So I took all but one off and hid the others far away from his curious claws. I also tried to put one around his neck like a collar (another part of the tradition) but within two minutes it was off. He's a clever thing.
As mentioned at the beginning, this weekend is the next Speech & Debate tournament. We're taking a grand total of 42 students + 5 chaperones/judges. Luckily, we'll be able to take the train because the tournament is in Pernik, meaning there is a direct line there (and no mountain ranges in between). After that, there is the U.S. Qualifying Tournament here in Blagoevgrad and finally the national tournament in Plovdiv. It's a lot of work, but the students put in so, so much work in doing something that I would have found, frankly, horrifying in high school. Public speaking in high school? No thanks. And in a foreign language? Don't sign me up. So I'm always impressed by what they do, whether we win or lose this weekend. Wish us luck!
