snowboarding!

So I had a fantastic time this last weekend. I got invited to go snowboarding with three other people in a town called dobernishte, which is a good ten hour trip from borgas. I arrived in borgas from where i had spent the week working in tsarevo and went out with some friends for pizza and pool (see how much my life has changed). early the next day we took a train out across the country to a mountain town called razgrad, where we stayed with one of the other volunteers that boarded with us. razgrad sits in this little valley right between three of the largest mountain ranges in bulgaria, and the view was awesome. unfortunatly i neglected to bring a camera so you all will have to take my work on that one.
rentals and lift tickets at the slope combined only cost us 25 leva (around $15) a day, and food and drink on the mountain was another 3 leva ($2). not too bad at all. the place we boarded at was pretty small, but for the price im not complaining. the weather was great and it was good to get back on the mountain. i was really missing my snowboard, so this was just what i needed. if the mountain gets more snow i might head back out again in febuary for one more weekend of riding before my season ends, but not sure yet. the trip back to malko turnovo was probibly the only bad part of the trip. we left razgrad on a 6 pm bus to sofia, where we arrived just in time to catch the 10:15 night train to borgas. unfortunatly all the sleeping cars were full so we had to get regular seats, and happened to sit in the car with a broken heater. the train arrived at 6 in the morning and i walked across town to the bus station to take the 8:00 bus home. went straight from the bus station in malko turnovo to the office to start my day. a small sacrifice for a great weekend though.

The Black Sea coast

so, im writing this update from the town of tsarevo, on the southern black sea coast where I have been working this last week. I arrived monday morning and have spent the last couple of days seeing the towns in the region and the two park protected areas along the coast. Most of the shoreline is small rocky cliffs punctuated by occasional sand beaches, and the water is a clear dark blue. the weather has been a bit cold, but today is nice and sunny. this place is beautiful, where forest and mountains meet the sea, but recently foreign real estate investment has turned a lot of these small towns into cities of huge hotels, scarring the landscape. none of these hotels will be filled, and they are putting them up as fast as possible. A lot of these investments are an easy way to launder money, so they dont care about the environmental impacts or whether they are financially viable in the long run. But now because there is so much money flowing in to the area the local municipality is squared off against the nature park and is trying to develop as much land as possible. Now there is a case in court that would seek to remove all the land on the coast from under strandja nature park control south of tsarevo so it can be developed into even more hotels.
it seems sometimes that the majority of people here are either uninformed about the importance of the environment, or want the money more. i know thats not always true, but its frustrating none the less. another thing that is kind of disturbing is the sewage system. along the coast there are random tubes that dump untreated waste from the hotels and buildings into the water. these spots are, more often than not, located nearby tsarevos famous beaches, and they are disaster for the marine species here. the waste kills off all the shell fish and there are literal dunes of fine shell bits that have washed up on shore from the dead animals.
i mean not to paint the picture too bad, but it is depressing sometimes. however, there are a lot of environmental NGO's that are working hard to convince the government to increase protection and do something about it. and the two protected areas along the Black Sea do cover a good amount of coastline, so thats good news. anyway, today is my last day here and tomorrow I head out for more adventures, so i will keep you all posted.

new years party!

This year i spent new years in Plovdiv, the second largest city and my favorite to date. there were about 20 people in our group, making it one crazy party when we were all together, but for the most time we just roved around in smaller groups. i arrived the day before and spent two days sightseeing around the city. there are several old roman ruins, including a large ampatheatre close to where our hostel was. we stayed in the old part of town that still had old cobble stone roads and old style architecture built on stone walls from times past. it is a very interesting city and despite being farily upscale still does well at preserving its history and atmosphere.
for new years eve a few of us had an early dinner at a very good arabic resturant before heading down town to the bars to relax till midnight. before too long all of us where there and the energy was awesome. just before midnight we went down the town center where they had a stage set up and watched them do the countdown. when the new year arrived they shot off fireworks and everyone in the crowd started dancing the horo. we all joined in and stayed out there dancing and singing with everyone for almost two hours. there was even some light snow falling on and off for most of the night, which made it even better. i ended up heading to bed around 3 because i had an early train to catch the next day, but i still had a great time. i always love spending new years in a new city, especially with good friends. i posted a few pics from new years and christmas up, so feel free to take a look. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbOGLZo3cMXXg

well, thats about it, talk to you all later

a very bulgarian christmas

So i have now celebrated my first bulgarian christmas, and let me tell you it was quite the experience. i spent the weekend before christmas hanging out with some of my other american friends, which was nice because it was the first time that i had seen them since i had moved to malko turnovo. Then, the day before Christmas eve i took the bus down to my host families house in Simitli where we had a huge home cooked meal of musaka and talked about what we had all been up to for the last few months. they were all doing well, and i got a chance to tell them about how i had been doing in Malko Turnovo. We had a big dinner only a few hours after the late lunch, and that pretty much started the pattern of non-stop eating that occured pretty much the whole time I was there. My host father Nikolai brough out a carafe of the merlot that we had made before I left in october, and that wine was delicious! we had actually made three types of wine, one white wine and two types of red; a merlot and a second that i didnt recognize the name. all three were good but the merlot was awesome.
anyway, that night me and my host brother Sashi went out to the center to look at the christmas lights and decorations. there was a huge tree in the center of town and the municipal building and several others were adorned with lights. town was pretty quiet though because it was kind of cold and everyone was at home with their families. the next day i woke up and found that there were gifts for me under the christmas tree from "father Christmas." i got a new pair of jeans and some winter socks (much needed) and a bag of random fruit and candy. I was pretty excited and gave out the gifts that I had gotten for all of them. Apparently some bulgarian families exchange all their gifts the morning of christmas eve, and to be honest, christmas eve felt more like christmas day to me then the actual day did. I spent the day walking around Simitli and meeting up with other people that I hadnt seen for a while.
that night we had a huge traditional dinner. the whole family was there including the grandparents and we sat around a huge spread of fantastic food. Christmas eve dinner is all vegetarian, and you are not allowed to eat meat until christmas day. we started off with a potato salad, pickles and rikia as we waited for everyone to get to the table. then we lit a candle and stuck it in the big loaf of bread. i asked my sister what it meant but she didnt know, so i asked the grandpa. he didnt know either, but its tradition so flaming bread it is.
when everyone had finally arrived at the table the grandpa lit some incense and placed it in a special cup. the we we walked to every room in the house with it to rid the place of the evil spirits so that we would have good luck for christmas and the new year.
once we were all seated again we had a toast to good health and then the grandpa broke the bread. the first several pieces that were broken off were set aside to honor the good luck for Christ, Mother Maria, the new year, and good luck for the family. then the remaining pieces were handed out to the family from oldest to youngest. when the bread was cooked, a coin had been placed in side and whoever found the coin in their piece was supposed to get good luck for the next year. i was lucky enough to find the coin in my piece of bread, but unfortunatly i forgot it at the house when i left (hopefully i dont get bad luck for that move). the rest of the food and wine we had that night was great, and i ended up eating so much that my stomach hurt.
the next day Nikolai, Sashi and I went to a nearby town to visit some of their family and partake in the christmas killing of the pig. now i have never actually been part of a pig killing before, but let me just say that it is a graphic event that involves a shotgun, a blowtorch, lots of knives and a pig twice the size of me. i will spare you all the details but it was sure interesting. we had a small grill that we used to cook some of the organs up as they were taken out of the pig but i dont eat pork so i wasnt to excited about that part. i did try some though. carving up the pig took most of the morning and afternoon, and that night we just relaxed and played cards.
all in all it was a very interesting experience and im glad i got to spend it with my host family.