Romania, Reunions, and Rescued Kittens

Sometimes alliteration just works out like that, without even trying.

I haven't posted in several weeks, which is the exact opposite of what I need to be doing. When there are so many things going on here, it's hard to remember to pause and write about it (to whomever may care to read this, but more for my own future reading's sake).

Because so many things here are disorganized and chaotic (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), I want to keep this post super-organized, so humor me.

1. Halloween Trip to Romania with Fulbright friends 

This was a trip that I'd badly needed. Before I came to Bulgaria, I had dreams of traveling around on the weekends and taking exotic and cheap vacations to nearby cities and countries. The reality is that my weekends are filled with speech & debate practices (which I love, don't get me wrong). But I was ready to finally break the seal on the traveling aspect of my time here. Romania with friends was a perfect way to do that. 

We all met in Sofia late at night and took an overnight bus to Bucharest. This bus was packed. It was the first time I've ever had to actually sit in the "място" that shows up on the ticket. And of course there was an angry old man in front of me who was intent on reclining his seat the entire way. My legs were already tucked up at an odd angle just to fit in the seat. At first I tried to use force to keep his seat from reclining; strong legs come in handy sometimes. He started wildly thrashing about on his seat to get it to recline, forcing me to come up with some Bulgarian: "I am the tallest person on this bus, and there is no room. We can change seats." I'm sure it sounded less grammatically correct than that, but the message was received. And he got off the bus in Ruse anyway. 

Crossing the Danube near Ruse with Bulgaria on the right and Romania on the left

We arrived in Bucharest around 7 in the morning and realized we had no money (Romanian lei). The Bucharest bus station is far less well-developed than the new Sofia bus station, so there was no ATM in sight. We finally found a man who directed us (in Russian, thanks Colby) to an ATM where we played the "Whose card will work?" game. Thanks, Charles Schwab. 

Bucharest felt like a busier version of Sofia. We stayed at an airbnb apartment which downstairs had a kitten cafe/meditation room. It was just like I'd imagined Romania to be...

We walked around and made our way to an incredible museum where Romanian architecture from different centuries has been recreated. You can actually feel like you are walking through an old Romanian village (if that's your thing). 

Finally, we went out to dinner in the Old Town part of Bucharest (think: cobblestone and narrow streets with important looking buildings and hole in the wall restaurants). 

After Bucharest, we made our way north to Transylvania and Sighisoara. Sighisoara (spelling is hard) is a small Romanian town with a sort-of citadel medieval village atop the city. Our hostel was in the medieval part of town. We had to drive through the old gates to get to it. (Side note: shout out to Moriah for driving in Romania, through the winding roads, at night, with a stick shift. You're the best). 

Sighisoara was nice and compact. Bucharest felt overwhelming in its size, but this small town was entirely walkable. My favorite part was the old arts and crafts store in the basement of a cafe where I got my mom her birthday present: an old Romanian spoon with symbols of motherhood on it. The lady was so excited that someone wasn't asking for another Dracula-themed spoon. 

The next day we headed to Bran with a pit stop at an interesting and cheap medieval castle plopped on the side of the highway. Bran was, as Ryan put it, like "game day." It was packed with people. Bran is the site of the commonly-known-as "Dracula's castle" where Halloween festivities would be. 

The most interesting part of the night was not the tour of Dracula's castle, but rather Moriah and I's search for our hotel, which was far more out of town than we'd imagined. And of course we didn't have cell phone service to type it into Google Maps. In desperation, we pulled up next to a hotel, logged onto their Wifi from the rental car, and mapped directions to our hotel. Unfortunately, Google maps told us our hotel was in the middle of a barren field on the side of a mountain. Thanks, Google! We eventually found our way to the hotel though, and a fun (but cold) evening was had by all. 

At least we had a pretty view while searching for the hotel. 

On the next day, we drove back to Bucharest and tried to catch up on our sleep in Bucharest's Starbucks (the comforts of home...). Our bus back to Sofia was also an over-nighter. Luckily, this one was entirely empty. I had the back row to myself (6 seats!). We were all upset when we opened our eyes and realized that we were back in Sofia. We wanted to nap for a bit longer...The worst part was it was approximately 3am and the first buses back to our respective cities weren't until around 8 or so. So we got to hang out in Sofia's central bus station for longer than anyone should be required to do. 

All in all, Romania was a great time and a much-needed break. 

2. Reunion with Mom 

I could not be happier that my mom came to visit me. I think that the further I get from home (DC...Las Vegas...Bulgaria...), the more I realize how much I adore my family and the time I get to spend with them. 

I think my mom was understandably overwhelmed with Bulgaria, especially not knowing the language or the Cyrillic alphabet. But damn, she was a trooper. She even made it to the Rila Monastery on her own (I was at work). 

My favorite 3 parts of her visit were 1) her getting to see the speech/debate students rehearse, 2) her actually getting to see me teach a class, and 3) watching Netflix each night with her (a true "Netflix and chill"). 

We went to the Blagoevgrad museum (after confidently walking into the entirely wrong building), hiked through Bachinovo and tried out some strange exercise machines, and ate at far too many restaurants. It's just too tempting to eat out when you realize that this nice meal costs around 4 dollars when converted from the Bulgarian currency. 

She also went "full mom" on me when I gave her a set of apartment keys while I was at work. I would come home and find a new toaster oven, fresh laundry hanging out to dry, and a cleaned kitchen. I think that she misses getting to be "mom" sometimes, and I am certainly not one to complain about that. 

The final thing she left me with was...

3. Rescued Kitten 

There is a group of around 5 black kittens that hangs around a dumpster around the corner from my apartment. One of the cats (as identified by not being entirely black - he has some grey on his sides and belly) has walked with me to my apartment before, while the others skittered away. He'd even gotten on top of the lean-to which looks into my apartment. So it was inevitable that when my mom and I were walking home and the little котка came walking with us, that we would take it in. Our initial plan was to just see how it would do in a house. 

I think the kitten was purring before we reached the couch. 

It's amazing how fast he's been domesticated. He uses the litter box (and tries to use the plants, but I cut that out), let us give him a bath without whining, allowed us to trim his claws without making a sound, and sleeps purring all night long beside me. When I left all day for work, he didn't eat all of the food I left him, which I'd assumed a formerly feral cat would do, as they don't know when their next meal will come. 

It almost started to seem like this must have been a stray and not feral cat, but he truly was feral. He's no more than 8 weeks old and shows no signs of having been domesticated before (siblings outside, distended belly, having seem him at the dumpster for weeks on end, etc.). I think I just got an amazing kitten. 

He loves to play with his new mouse toys and sleep on me when I'm trying to do work. Right now he's lying in my lap and intermittently paws at my hand to send me a cease and desist letter for typing this blog post. 

Oh, and his name is Smokey (after much deliberation and contributions from my Bulgarian friends). The name fits perfectly: 1) Smokey was my childhood cat's name (like way, way into childhood); 2) His skin color is a smokey black and grey; and 3) The air outside was exceedingly smokey when we took him in - many people in Blagoevgrad still use wood-burning heaters, so there is a layer of smoke around every night. 

I'm off this weekend to Stara Zagora for our first Speech & Debate tournament (thanks to all the donations!) and have found Smokey a pet-sitter, a professor from AUBG, to check up on him once a day, although he seems pretty independent. I plan on taking him to the vet to be checked out and neutered, once I return from Stara Zagora next week. 

I'm sure that will be an entirely new adventure...Don't hate me, Smokey!