Lakes and Lessons

What a short but long week it has been!

Last weekend was an actual long weekend, with Monday and Tuesday off. Many of my Fulbright peers shipped off to other countries, but I knew I wanted to stay close in to Blagoevgrad to really settle into my new home (or at least try to). I went out to dinner last Wednesday night with Tracy from AUBG (American University in Bulgaria - a prestigious American-style university located approximately 400 meters from my apartment). She asked me if I wanted to go to the 7 Lakes region of the Rila Mountains with her on Saturday.

Instant plans made!

The 7 Rila Lakes are glacial lakes not far at all from Blagoevgrad, at least how the bird flies. The actual trip there (and back) was a true adventure. I wouldn't have made it without Tracy and her Bulgarian skills. Our trip to the mountain involved jumping onto an AUBG van on its way to Sofia with conference attendees from all over the world, haggling prices with a cab driver to take us to the lift from Dupnitsa, and finally a gondola to the trailhead. There the actual hiking began...I struggled at the beginning but eventually got my hiking legs back under me. The result was a phenomenal view and surprisingly cool weather (yet perfectly sunny, which I read and hear is not usual for the lakes).

Tracy overlooking her lakes 

The ride back was where the real fun began. We rode the gondola/ski lift back down then walked around until Tracy managed to find us a ride with a couple from Plovdiv, after he refused once then changed his mind. Their Mercedes was not a bad way at all to get down the mountain. They dropped us off in the middle of some unknown town because they were headed in a different direction than Dupnitsa at that point. We wandered down the main road and then found a bus stop. We jumped on a bus that looked straight out of 1950 and barreled our way down to Dupnitsa. At the bus station, we learned that there were no more buses to Blagoevgrad from there, so we bought train tickets and hopped on an hour later. 

Excited for my first Bulgarian train ride 

The rest of the weekend was somewhat frustrating, as I had to wait until the following Wednesday for Vivacom to bring my router. There are only so many times I could walk over to AUBG, act like a student, and get me some Wifi. It's amazing how reliant we become on technology, and we often don't realize that until we're separated from it. 

So I spent some time making the apartment more "mine": 

Shout out to my favorite mountain 

Natalia and Jennifer made me promise to put up their drawings. 

It always helps to remember my students back in Vegas 

This week only involved two days of teaching, but I think those two days alone reduced my "What in the world is going on?" percentage by about 50%. I knew that I was going to be teaching mostly 8th graders, so I was thrilled to finally meet them on Wednesday. They are just as sassy and unpredictable as my 8th graders were back in the States. 

The difference in ability level between students is really pushing me as a teacher, though. I knew I needed differentiation (buzzword alert) in Vegas, but this is a whole 'nother level. My students at EГ come from many different villages and schools with wildly different English levels. 8th grade is the first year of high school here, so these students are totally new and absolutely not on the same page. And I now know so well what they feel like: you feel dumb. I feel dumb walking into a store and wanting to say "Olives please?" but instead I have to fumble around with my words. It's not that I don't know what olives are; it's that I don't know the Bulgarian word for them (маслини, I now know). So I really sympathize with those students. I have a lot of work to do to be able to reach students at such different levels, but I'll get it done. 

With all of the changes and all of the uncertainty and "I can't do this" milling about in my head, I made a decision this weekend to focus on the little victories. It may be something as small as getting a load of laundry done correctly (the machine is in German and doesn't like to do what I tell it to), making a pseudo storage area out of cut-up boxes, or successfully asking for a check at a restaurant, with my speech/debate students filming it because "No foreigners ever speak Bulgarian." This is the first time I've lived alone and it's in Bulgaria. I can't expect to immediately feel at ease and at home, but I'm getting there one small victory at a time. 

In the meantime, I decided to go full Bulgarian and make myself a shopska salad. I'm thoroughly pleased with the results. Happy early weekend, Fulbrighters!