Winter is finally here, and with it the the overcast weather and incessant drizzle. It has been much warmer and dryer so far than last year, but i think the rains are finally here. Work has been slow lately as well, partly because its winter time and there are no tourists, and partly because all the projects that the park is working on are large scale project i cant really help with. Its great news for the park, and the projects are going to be great for the area, but other than translating and occasional project proposal page, it doesn't give me much to do. I'm now waiting for spring when things pick up again and I can resume my bird migration project.
The good news is that Christmas is just around the corner, and it will be a nice break from things here in malko turnovo. This week I'm going to a Christmas work party in another town and we will have a huge banquet all night long. should be a good time. after that, i get my Christmas break, and I'm off to see my host family for a bit before heading out to the mountains for a few days of snowboarding (weather pending). I'm really looking forward to this because i have been staying quite here in malko turnovo for the last month trying to save up some money and i need to get out of town for a bit. during the summer malko turnovo is nice, with lots of hiking, good weather and all that, but during winter there is absolutely nothing to do.
Funny story though, yesterday i had just finished making myself a bomb dinner of chicken fajitas with cheddar cheese, Spanish rice, chips with dip, and a classic margarita (all hard to get items out here in Eastern Europe), and i had just sat down to enjoy my meal when there was a ring at my door. i got up and found my next door neighbor out in the hall asking me for help. My neighbor is an old lady that often comes over so i can open up cans and jars for her, but this time she wanted something else. i went over to her place, helped her move a bit of furniture around and then, after a bit of mistranslation, i realized that she wanted me to go around her apartment and dust off all of her light bulbs. why, at 7:30 at night, she needed her light bulbs free of dust i will never know, but there i was, wiping down ceiling fixtures all the while thinking of my awesome dinner slowly going cold just down the hall. oh Bulgaria.
Other than that, there is not much news to tell. i will post again soon. peace
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Middle East
Well, I just returned home yesterday after my big trip in the Middle East with Kristen. It was a fantastic two weeks exploring and adventuring around Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Israel, checking out cool sites and soaking in the local culture. I have discovered that I really enjoy the middle east and, haggling with cab drivers aside, had a great time there. It was really cool to see so many of these famous places that I had always heard about as a kid, and in person they are no less incredible. It was also very interesting because some of these places, especially Israel, are places that you read about in the news all the time and seeing them first hand really puts the issues going on there in perspective. Of course, any attempt to fully explain the experience of such a trip through a simple travelogue is doomed to failure, but I will attempt to at least give a basic summary of where I have been, and what I have seen.
We started the trip off in good fashion by spending a day in one of my favorite cities, Istanbul. Since we had both been there before and seen the sites, it was a calm day. We spent most of the morning wandering around the markets and hitting up a few of Mosques, and then spent the afternoon relaxing over a cup of Turkish tea and smoking hookah while playing some backgammon. That night we met up with a Turkish friend of ours and had a dinner of fresh mussels from a street side vendor before heading off to see the nightlife. Then it was off to the airport to catch our night flight in to Egypt.
The first advice that I will give you about traveling in the Middle East is never, for any reason, try to spend the night in Cairo International Airport. Without going in to detail, let me just say that it sucks, and you should avoid it if at all possible. Moving on, Cairo is a very interesting city, although It wasn't quite what I expected it to be. The city has a vibe all its own, and feels very different than anywhere that I had been to before, but I enjoyed my time there and learned a lot. We were fortunate enough to meet up with some other friends that were traveling around the region, so there were four of us when we took Cairo by storm.
The first night we were in town we got invited to the wedding reception party of the hostel owners brother. They insisted that we come, and I could not think of a better way to experience Egyptian culture first hand than to check out a wedding party. After a 40 minute drive across Cairo (the city is HUGE) we came to this large pavilion set up in the middle of the road. Our group, as far as I could tell, was the only group with foreigners at the reception, and we got treated like VIPs. They set up some tables right in front of the stage for us and then started bringing out food and drinks. There was a live band, dancing on chairs and games. Everyone was really nice and we had a great time.
The next day we went out and toured around the city, saw Saqqara, Giza, and the citadel and markets in the Islamic part of town. We even stopped in a small shop and watched them making paper out of papyrus. It was a good day, but there wasn't enough time to see everything that I wanted to. I still want to go back to Egypt and see Luxor, Alexandria and some other more out of the way spots. There is just so much to see and do there that it would take at least a month to do it justice.
That being said, it is also kind of exhausting being in Egypt, especially the big cities like Cairo. I don't mean to generalize when I say this, just give a bit of an impression of what it felt like, but it seemed that most people in Cairo are either very friendly, or out to scam you. Since most appear to be the latter, you tend too be overly cautious of the former. It gets tiring not being able to trust anyone, or ask people for help. There are still people that will go out of their way to help you (and they are a big relief to find) but for the most part they are trying to benefit from you in some way. Finding a bus is perhaps one of the hardest things to do in Cairo, because if you ask anyone they will tell you that it doesn't run, or its broken, or its a holiday, or some excuse, then offer to drive you for an exuberant amount of money. You could try asking some one else, but they will say the same thing. Unless you happen to already know where the bus is, or got directions from your hostel/hotel, then best to just take the cab. Needless to say, it gets old after a while. However, I think that is probably my only issue with Egypt.
From Cairo we headed out to Dahab, a coastal city on the Sinai Peninsula. We stayed there for a few days for some diving in the Red Sea and relaxation before catching a bus up to the border to head into Jordan.
Our first day in Jordan we took a cab (again, same problems finding transport) up to Wadi Musa, the town just outside of Petra. Petra a city about 2,000 years old that is almost entirely carved out of rock, and some of the buildings there are just magnificent. Erosion and earthquakes have damaged many of the buildings, but even after all this time some of the structures still look almost perfect. I would have to say that Petra is one of the most spectacular places that I have ever been to. The entrance to the city is a long winding canyon, impressive enough by itself, that leads right into the Treasury, the most impressive building in the city. We spent the entire day wandering around in amazement before heading back to Wadi Musa.
The next day we got up early and caught a 6:30 bus to Wadi Rum and met our Bedouin guide. Wadi Rum is amazing, towering desert cliffs and endless stretches of sand. The vistas there are almost unreal, and it is very humbling to walk around out there. We toured a bit of the place with a 4x4 but once we got away from the main tourist area we switched up and got camels. I have never ridden a camel before, but I have to admit that its probably the best way to travel in the desert. Its very relaxing and enables you to enjoy the silence without the roar of a jeep engine or anything. You get to move around at a steady pace and enjoy the scenery.
We spent the rest of the day riding the camels before arriving at our Bedouin camp, a set of three large tents sheltered underneath a rocky outcropping in one of the valleys. After watching the sun set and eating a traditional Bedouin dinner, we spent the night chilling around the campfire sharing stories and listening to one of the locals play the lute. Later that night, once the moon went down over the horizon, I got out of bed and went out to watch the stars. Being so far out from any city and having the air be so dry, the stars were brilliant, thousands of tiny diamonds set against an inky black backdrop.
After Jordan we had a day long trip out to Tel Aviv, the first city in our Israel adventure. After a bit of a mishap, we were fortunate enough to be able to meet up with some Israeli friends of Kristen and stay at their place for the duration of our time in Israel. They were a great couple and they even spent two of the days going on road trip to different places with us. It was great, because they were able to explain things to us and takes us to places that we wouldn't have been able to go to on our own. We spent a few days in Jerusalem, made a trip out to the Dead Sea, and spent a few more days checking out other sites. After that it was time for me to head back to Bulgaria, and time for Kristen to go back to the States.
Overall I really enjoyed my time in the Middle East. I haven't been back now for two days and I already miss the food. But, its back to work now, catching up on whats been going on while I have been gone. I do have three new folders of pictures up though for those of you interested, they even have captions this time. Check them out. http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge
We started the trip off in good fashion by spending a day in one of my favorite cities, Istanbul. Since we had both been there before and seen the sites, it was a calm day. We spent most of the morning wandering around the markets and hitting up a few of Mosques, and then spent the afternoon relaxing over a cup of Turkish tea and smoking hookah while playing some backgammon. That night we met up with a Turkish friend of ours and had a dinner of fresh mussels from a street side vendor before heading off to see the nightlife. Then it was off to the airport to catch our night flight in to Egypt.
The first advice that I will give you about traveling in the Middle East is never, for any reason, try to spend the night in Cairo International Airport. Without going in to detail, let me just say that it sucks, and you should avoid it if at all possible. Moving on, Cairo is a very interesting city, although It wasn't quite what I expected it to be. The city has a vibe all its own, and feels very different than anywhere that I had been to before, but I enjoyed my time there and learned a lot. We were fortunate enough to meet up with some other friends that were traveling around the region, so there were four of us when we took Cairo by storm.
The first night we were in town we got invited to the wedding reception party of the hostel owners brother. They insisted that we come, and I could not think of a better way to experience Egyptian culture first hand than to check out a wedding party. After a 40 minute drive across Cairo (the city is HUGE) we came to this large pavilion set up in the middle of the road. Our group, as far as I could tell, was the only group with foreigners at the reception, and we got treated like VIPs. They set up some tables right in front of the stage for us and then started bringing out food and drinks. There was a live band, dancing on chairs and games. Everyone was really nice and we had a great time.
The next day we went out and toured around the city, saw Saqqara, Giza, and the citadel and markets in the Islamic part of town. We even stopped in a small shop and watched them making paper out of papyrus. It was a good day, but there wasn't enough time to see everything that I wanted to. I still want to go back to Egypt and see Luxor, Alexandria and some other more out of the way spots. There is just so much to see and do there that it would take at least a month to do it justice.
That being said, it is also kind of exhausting being in Egypt, especially the big cities like Cairo. I don't mean to generalize when I say this, just give a bit of an impression of what it felt like, but it seemed that most people in Cairo are either very friendly, or out to scam you. Since most appear to be the latter, you tend too be overly cautious of the former. It gets tiring not being able to trust anyone, or ask people for help. There are still people that will go out of their way to help you (and they are a big relief to find) but for the most part they are trying to benefit from you in some way. Finding a bus is perhaps one of the hardest things to do in Cairo, because if you ask anyone they will tell you that it doesn't run, or its broken, or its a holiday, or some excuse, then offer to drive you for an exuberant amount of money. You could try asking some one else, but they will say the same thing. Unless you happen to already know where the bus is, or got directions from your hostel/hotel, then best to just take the cab. Needless to say, it gets old after a while. However, I think that is probably my only issue with Egypt.
From Cairo we headed out to Dahab, a coastal city on the Sinai Peninsula. We stayed there for a few days for some diving in the Red Sea and relaxation before catching a bus up to the border to head into Jordan.
Our first day in Jordan we took a cab (again, same problems finding transport) up to Wadi Musa, the town just outside of Petra. Petra a city about 2,000 years old that is almost entirely carved out of rock, and some of the buildings there are just magnificent. Erosion and earthquakes have damaged many of the buildings, but even after all this time some of the structures still look almost perfect. I would have to say that Petra is one of the most spectacular places that I have ever been to. The entrance to the city is a long winding canyon, impressive enough by itself, that leads right into the Treasury, the most impressive building in the city. We spent the entire day wandering around in amazement before heading back to Wadi Musa.
The next day we got up early and caught a 6:30 bus to Wadi Rum and met our Bedouin guide. Wadi Rum is amazing, towering desert cliffs and endless stretches of sand. The vistas there are almost unreal, and it is very humbling to walk around out there. We toured a bit of the place with a 4x4 but once we got away from the main tourist area we switched up and got camels. I have never ridden a camel before, but I have to admit that its probably the best way to travel in the desert. Its very relaxing and enables you to enjoy the silence without the roar of a jeep engine or anything. You get to move around at a steady pace and enjoy the scenery.
We spent the rest of the day riding the camels before arriving at our Bedouin camp, a set of three large tents sheltered underneath a rocky outcropping in one of the valleys. After watching the sun set and eating a traditional Bedouin dinner, we spent the night chilling around the campfire sharing stories and listening to one of the locals play the lute. Later that night, once the moon went down over the horizon, I got out of bed and went out to watch the stars. Being so far out from any city and having the air be so dry, the stars were brilliant, thousands of tiny diamonds set against an inky black backdrop.
After Jordan we had a day long trip out to Tel Aviv, the first city in our Israel adventure. After a bit of a mishap, we were fortunate enough to be able to meet up with some Israeli friends of Kristen and stay at their place for the duration of our time in Israel. They were a great couple and they even spent two of the days going on road trip to different places with us. It was great, because they were able to explain things to us and takes us to places that we wouldn't have been able to go to on our own. We spent a few days in Jerusalem, made a trip out to the Dead Sea, and spent a few more days checking out other sites. After that it was time for me to head back to Bulgaria, and time for Kristen to go back to the States.
Overall I really enjoyed my time in the Middle East. I haven't been back now for two days and I already miss the food. But, its back to work now, catching up on whats been going on while I have been gone. I do have three new folders of pictures up though for those of you interested, they even have captions this time. Check them out. http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Life with my Brother
This October has been an exciting month! After a bit of frustration on when/where/how or if he would arrive, my brother finally showed up in Burgas on the 7th. He had just barley been able to convince his travel arrangers to get him a connecting flight to Burgas instead of terminating in Sofia (7 hours away) but in the process almost got tickets to Borgus, Spain, instead. Worked out in the end though and fortunately I was in Burgas (the Bulgarian one) at the time getting my new identity card and I was able to pick him up from the airport. We had two full weeks to hang out, see a bit of the country, catch up on news and he just left to go back to Kuwait this morning.
Kristen just finished her service on the 10th, and after that came out here to hang out with Braden and I. We went down to my place in Malko Turnovo for one big night with some other friends as sort of a farewell party for my buddy Tye who is heading off on a world tour. It was a good time, but Braden decided that he really doesn't like where I live that much. Way to boring for him. Shortly after he peaced out and headed back up to Burgas, where the action is (side note: my town is not that bad, it just has nothing to do in the evenings. Honestly though, if it did, I probably couldn't afford to do anything anyway, so it works out well this way) .
Last weekend the three of us took a short trip up to see the town of Velinko Turnovo, the old capital of Bulgaria. I had been there once before when I was in training, but it had only been for a day and there was still a lot of stuff that I wanted to see there. We had a good time and came back with some crazy stories. I got some pictures up as well.
http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge
Since the trip though I have been back here working at site and relaxing. I have less than a week now before my big trip to the Middle East comes up and I still have a lot to do. I'm both really excited for the trip, and also bummed because once its over, Kristen moves back to the States. I am not looking forward to that part at all.
As far as work goes, its slower now than I would like. I have found it increasingly difficult to try and start projects on my own, and my counterpart doesn't seem to be a huge help. Right now he is looking into conducting another bat study for the winter, but other than that there is not a whole lot going on. I still go bird monitoring everyday to collect data on the importance of the local marsh for the bird migration, but I am ready for a bigger project that will have some sort of tangible outcome. I have a feeling though that if I haven't started such a project yet, its not going to happen in the middle of winter either. My problem is my organization I think (as far as working with Eco-projects and such). The good news is that my organization is so well run and funded that it gets lots of stuff done already and is working with several huge projects. The bad news, for me at least, is that because of this everything that I have come up with as a good idea has already been thought of, and many times started already. I have the feeling that I will be the last PC volunteer here in my town because of this reason. But, I suppose that's a good thing because the region is better off with a well run Park without a volunteer than a poorly run one with a volunteer.
Anyway, I still have till next week to see whats up with projects and then I take off for my tour of Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Israel. I will post some sweet pics when I return. Peace
Kristen just finished her service on the 10th, and after that came out here to hang out with Braden and I. We went down to my place in Malko Turnovo for one big night with some other friends as sort of a farewell party for my buddy Tye who is heading off on a world tour. It was a good time, but Braden decided that he really doesn't like where I live that much. Way to boring for him. Shortly after he peaced out and headed back up to Burgas, where the action is (side note: my town is not that bad, it just has nothing to do in the evenings. Honestly though, if it did, I probably couldn't afford to do anything anyway, so it works out well this way) .
Last weekend the three of us took a short trip up to see the town of Velinko Turnovo, the old capital of Bulgaria. I had been there once before when I was in training, but it had only been for a day and there was still a lot of stuff that I wanted to see there. We had a good time and came back with some crazy stories. I got some pictures up as well.
http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge
Since the trip though I have been back here working at site and relaxing. I have less than a week now before my big trip to the Middle East comes up and I still have a lot to do. I'm both really excited for the trip, and also bummed because once its over, Kristen moves back to the States. I am not looking forward to that part at all.
As far as work goes, its slower now than I would like. I have found it increasingly difficult to try and start projects on my own, and my counterpart doesn't seem to be a huge help. Right now he is looking into conducting another bat study for the winter, but other than that there is not a whole lot going on. I still go bird monitoring everyday to collect data on the importance of the local marsh for the bird migration, but I am ready for a bigger project that will have some sort of tangible outcome. I have a feeling though that if I haven't started such a project yet, its not going to happen in the middle of winter either. My problem is my organization I think (as far as working with Eco-projects and such). The good news is that my organization is so well run and funded that it gets lots of stuff done already and is working with several huge projects. The bad news, for me at least, is that because of this everything that I have come up with as a good idea has already been thought of, and many times started already. I have the feeling that I will be the last PC volunteer here in my town because of this reason. But, I suppose that's a good thing because the region is better off with a well run Park without a volunteer than a poorly run one with a volunteer.
Anyway, I still have till next week to see whats up with projects and then I take off for my tour of Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Israel. I will post some sweet pics when I return. Peace
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
traveling around
Hey guys, long time no see! Apparently I'm not doing all that well at putting up several blogs a month, but I have been very busy the last several weeks and haven't had any time. I will do my best here to catch you all up with what I've been up to. Summer is officially gone now, replaced way too suddenly by winter. The warm weather just vanished one day (right after I left my town for two weeks with a pack full of shorts and t-shirts actually) and was followed by a solid week of cold, dreary rain across the whole country. Its finally sunny out again, but its only a matter of time before the featureless gray clouds eventually settle in for the whole of winter. ugh.
I did get to head out to the beach once at the end of august for a big birthday party though with a bunch of friends. We went up to a place called 'Sunny Beach,' which is basically a way over-developed city for foreign tourists, a complete blight on the environment with over priced drinks, but I didn't organized the event, I was just invited. There was a good group of people there though and I ended up having a great time. Its been difficult sometimes to meet up with people from my volunteer group (I'm the 'Bulgaria 22' group, or B22) since I live in the complete corner of the country. Most of the people from the beach party were all from my group though and I was a good chance to reconnect with people and catch up with what everyone has been up to.
On September 10th I set out for Sofia for two and a half weeks of traveling around for work related stuff. I had to go to Sofia for my regular dental and medical check up, but it was a good time because a bunch of my friends that were heading back to the states soon were in town. We got to hang out and say goodbyes because, unfortunately, most of the people that were there I will probably never see again. It seems weird that all these people are all finished with their service here and get to head home, while I'm only half way done.
After Sofia I had a couple of seminars teaching the new group of trainees that just recently got to country. They seem like a good group, but none of them will be living anywhere near me. I honestly think that once my buddy Tye leaves Burgas, that I will be the most remote volunteer in this whole country. Lucky me I guess. Anyway, the training sessions went well and afterward I got to spend a decent amount of time hanging out with Kristen, cooking good food and just chillin (we actually made 100% from scratch egg rolls one night. We had to hand make the batter for the shells, fry them individually, make the filling, roll them, then fry them up one at a time. took way to long to do, but they turned out fantastic).
For those of you who know him, Wyatt Stebbins (a good buddy of mine from college), ended up coming out here to Bulgaria from Ecuador to attend his brothers wedding, and he gave Kristen and I an invitation. Its the most random thing ever, and I was quite surprised when he first emailed me to say he would be out here. It was great to see him again though, and it also gave me the chance to see a traditional Bulgarian wedding, which is vastly different than a traditional American wedding. Wyatts brother was marrying a Bulgarian, and other than the immediate family, Kristen and I were the only Americans in attendance. It was an interesting ceremony, held in an Orthodox church, and afterward there was a big reception at a local restaurant. We got to meet tons of new people and became good friends with the brides family. The reception had started at 6 pm, and we ended up being one of the last groups to leave at around 4:30 in the morning! It was a great time though, with good food, drink, and dancing around the restaurant all night long.
The next morning we met up with the wedding party in the hotel lobby for 3 hours of chatting over coffee, and turns out some of the Bulgarians there were from Omaha! They had come in just to see the wedding and then were going to head back to the states. One of the ladies was super excited when she learned that I am from there, and that my parents still live in Nebraska. She made me promise to give her contact information to my mom so she could invite her over and make her some traditional Bulgarian food. Small world indeed.
After a while Kristen and I had to head out in order to catch the last bus out to her town, but the married couple invited us out to the brides village to celebrate again with her extended family, and they wouldn't take no for an answer. They even offered up their apartment that night if we needed a place to stay! The next day was a holiday and we wouldnt have work anyway, so we ended up going along, and everyone piled in to cars for the 30 minute trip out to the mountain village. We ended up arriving at the little town of around 500 people, and the towns main (and probably only) restaurant had been reserved for us. We sat down and pretty much continued the banquet that had gone on for almost 11 hours the night before. Big salads and drinks were already on the tables when we arrived, and the main course for the day was whole roasted lamb. We didn't get back to town until 10 or so that night. It was a great time, and I am now invited back to the brides parents house anytime that I am in the region.
That next week I had my Mid-Service Conference, a big gathering of all the B22s to go over peace corps policy stuff, talk about projects, and prepare for the second year. Sessions were very boring, and they had decided to hold this conference in this remote hotel way up in the mountains, next to nothing at all. I felt like I was in the Shining, even more so since it rained non-stop the entire time we were there. Again, it was real good to hang out with the group, but after 4 days of being couped up in one hotel with 40 people, I was ready to get out of there. I had one last stop to make at my host families house before I would start the 14 hour trip back to site.
My host family is still doing good, and they were very excited to see me, but disappointed that I was only staying for one day. I would have loved to stay longer, but I had been gone too long already and I had work to get back to in Malko Turnovo. It was a great time and I even got to go out to the vineyard with them and help finish harvesting the grapes. I It was a good year for grapes, and my family will have 2000 liters of wine this winter!!! I'm not even sure its possible to drink that much wine, but my host father wants to see if he can mail some of it to me once its finished. We'll see about that one.
Now I'm back in site, catching up with stuff and staying very busy. I'm still doing well though and I'm looking forward to this weekend so I can finally take a break and relax.
I did get to head out to the beach once at the end of august for a big birthday party though with a bunch of friends. We went up to a place called 'Sunny Beach,' which is basically a way over-developed city for foreign tourists, a complete blight on the environment with over priced drinks, but I didn't organized the event, I was just invited. There was a good group of people there though and I ended up having a great time. Its been difficult sometimes to meet up with people from my volunteer group (I'm the 'Bulgaria 22' group, or B22) since I live in the complete corner of the country. Most of the people from the beach party were all from my group though and I was a good chance to reconnect with people and catch up with what everyone has been up to.
On September 10th I set out for Sofia for two and a half weeks of traveling around for work related stuff. I had to go to Sofia for my regular dental and medical check up, but it was a good time because a bunch of my friends that were heading back to the states soon were in town. We got to hang out and say goodbyes because, unfortunately, most of the people that were there I will probably never see again. It seems weird that all these people are all finished with their service here and get to head home, while I'm only half way done.
After Sofia I had a couple of seminars teaching the new group of trainees that just recently got to country. They seem like a good group, but none of them will be living anywhere near me. I honestly think that once my buddy Tye leaves Burgas, that I will be the most remote volunteer in this whole country. Lucky me I guess. Anyway, the training sessions went well and afterward I got to spend a decent amount of time hanging out with Kristen, cooking good food and just chillin (we actually made 100% from scratch egg rolls one night. We had to hand make the batter for the shells, fry them individually, make the filling, roll them, then fry them up one at a time. took way to long to do, but they turned out fantastic).
For those of you who know him, Wyatt Stebbins (a good buddy of mine from college), ended up coming out here to Bulgaria from Ecuador to attend his brothers wedding, and he gave Kristen and I an invitation. Its the most random thing ever, and I was quite surprised when he first emailed me to say he would be out here. It was great to see him again though, and it also gave me the chance to see a traditional Bulgarian wedding, which is vastly different than a traditional American wedding. Wyatts brother was marrying a Bulgarian, and other than the immediate family, Kristen and I were the only Americans in attendance. It was an interesting ceremony, held in an Orthodox church, and afterward there was a big reception at a local restaurant. We got to meet tons of new people and became good friends with the brides family. The reception had started at 6 pm, and we ended up being one of the last groups to leave at around 4:30 in the morning! It was a great time though, with good food, drink, and dancing around the restaurant all night long.
The next morning we met up with the wedding party in the hotel lobby for 3 hours of chatting over coffee, and turns out some of the Bulgarians there were from Omaha! They had come in just to see the wedding and then were going to head back to the states. One of the ladies was super excited when she learned that I am from there, and that my parents still live in Nebraska. She made me promise to give her contact information to my mom so she could invite her over and make her some traditional Bulgarian food. Small world indeed.
After a while Kristen and I had to head out in order to catch the last bus out to her town, but the married couple invited us out to the brides village to celebrate again with her extended family, and they wouldn't take no for an answer. They even offered up their apartment that night if we needed a place to stay! The next day was a holiday and we wouldnt have work anyway, so we ended up going along, and everyone piled in to cars for the 30 minute trip out to the mountain village. We ended up arriving at the little town of around 500 people, and the towns main (and probably only) restaurant had been reserved for us. We sat down and pretty much continued the banquet that had gone on for almost 11 hours the night before. Big salads and drinks were already on the tables when we arrived, and the main course for the day was whole roasted lamb. We didn't get back to town until 10 or so that night. It was a great time, and I am now invited back to the brides parents house anytime that I am in the region.
That next week I had my Mid-Service Conference, a big gathering of all the B22s to go over peace corps policy stuff, talk about projects, and prepare for the second year. Sessions were very boring, and they had decided to hold this conference in this remote hotel way up in the mountains, next to nothing at all. I felt like I was in the Shining, even more so since it rained non-stop the entire time we were there. Again, it was real good to hang out with the group, but after 4 days of being couped up in one hotel with 40 people, I was ready to get out of there. I had one last stop to make at my host families house before I would start the 14 hour trip back to site.
My host family is still doing good, and they were very excited to see me, but disappointed that I was only staying for one day. I would have loved to stay longer, but I had been gone too long already and I had work to get back to in Malko Turnovo. It was a great time and I even got to go out to the vineyard with them and help finish harvesting the grapes. I It was a good year for grapes, and my family will have 2000 liters of wine this winter!!! I'm not even sure its possible to drink that much wine, but my host father wants to see if he can mail some of it to me once its finished. We'll see about that one.
Now I'm back in site, catching up with stuff and staying very busy. I'm still doing well though and I'm looking forward to this weekend so I can finally take a break and relax.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
summertime
Summer up to now has been going great, and I have been keeping nice and busy. The week after my big dive trip I got to play guide and translator for a Dutch tourist that was backpacking across Strandja park. We were gone for six days, and for the first three days we had expert guides to lead the way, but on the last few days it was just me and the tourist, so it was just me in charge of trail finding, locating camp, and translating everything for him. I was actually kind of impressed with how well it went, and it gave me some quality time out in the park. The Dutch guy was pretty cool, but it was kind of a pain to translate for him sometimes since he was always changing his mind on what he wanted and would make some rather picky demands (compared to what I'm used to I guess). Overall it was a great time though and hiking in the mountains beats working in an office any day.
The next week after hiking I went up to Burgas and my friends took me out for dinner and drinks to celebrate my 24th birthday. It was pretty low key, but I had a great time, and the next day we went down to a town called Sinemorets and met a big group of volunteers for some quality time on Bulgaria's southern beaches. The beaches down along the southern coast are nice since they are much less developed and not as crowded as the beaches by the cities, and we spent the days lounging around in the sun. It was a good time, and a nice way to spend my birthday weekend.
After that it was back to the office for a bit, then off to the far side of Bulgaria to help with a training session for the brand new group of Trainees that just recently arrived in country. I only had to do a short seminar with them, but it gave me an opportunity to head out to that side of the country for more than just a two day weekend and see people. The new group seems cool, and I'm glad because most of the people that I'm good friends with here now are from the group that will be getting replaced. Hopefully some of these new trainees are place close to my sight so I will still have people to hang out with every now and then. Either way, life is going to be much different for me after the older groups leaves this October.
Anyway, until that happens, things will continue on as usual. Last weekend was the 'Spirit of Burgas' concert, the first of what will hopefully become one of the biggest annual music festivals in all of Europe (www.spiritofburgas.com). The concert lasted three nights, from 6pm to 6am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and had music spread across 6 stages all night long. I have to admit that I wasn't familiar with any of the bands going into this thing, but turns out that a lot of them are really good, and very popular in Eastern and Western Europe. The concert totally rocked, and during one of the headline shows Friday night there was even a partial lunar eclipse. With the success of this years concert I'm hoping that next years will be even better!
Now its back to the office again for the next few weeks. I had been planning a short weekend trip up to Romania to see Bucharest and Brasov, but it kinda fell through so now I think I will be sticking around here for a while. Which is ok by me, since the beach is only an hour away and there seems to be something going on in Burgas almost every weekend. Also, now that its late summer all the fruits and veggies are in season so everything is uber cheap and delicious. I gotta get my fill before winter comes and the only thing I can find is potatoes and onions.
The next week after hiking I went up to Burgas and my friends took me out for dinner and drinks to celebrate my 24th birthday. It was pretty low key, but I had a great time, and the next day we went down to a town called Sinemorets and met a big group of volunteers for some quality time on Bulgaria's southern beaches. The beaches down along the southern coast are nice since they are much less developed and not as crowded as the beaches by the cities, and we spent the days lounging around in the sun. It was a good time, and a nice way to spend my birthday weekend.
After that it was back to the office for a bit, then off to the far side of Bulgaria to help with a training session for the brand new group of Trainees that just recently arrived in country. I only had to do a short seminar with them, but it gave me an opportunity to head out to that side of the country for more than just a two day weekend and see people. The new group seems cool, and I'm glad because most of the people that I'm good friends with here now are from the group that will be getting replaced. Hopefully some of these new trainees are place close to my sight so I will still have people to hang out with every now and then. Either way, life is going to be much different for me after the older groups leaves this October.
Anyway, until that happens, things will continue on as usual. Last weekend was the 'Spirit of Burgas' concert, the first of what will hopefully become one of the biggest annual music festivals in all of Europe (www.spiritofburgas.com). The concert lasted three nights, from 6pm to 6am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and had music spread across 6 stages all night long. I have to admit that I wasn't familiar with any of the bands going into this thing, but turns out that a lot of them are really good, and very popular in Eastern and Western Europe. The concert totally rocked, and during one of the headline shows Friday night there was even a partial lunar eclipse. With the success of this years concert I'm hoping that next years will be even better!
Now its back to the office again for the next few weeks. I had been planning a short weekend trip up to Romania to see Bucharest and Brasov, but it kinda fell through so now I think I will be sticking around here for a while. Which is ok by me, since the beach is only an hour away and there seems to be something going on in Burgas almost every weekend. Also, now that its late summer all the fruits and veggies are in season so everything is uber cheap and delicious. I gotta get my fill before winter comes and the only thing I can find is potatoes and onions.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
One sweet weekend
It has been one of my goals while I am out here in Bulgaria to go SCUBA diving sometime in the Black Sea, and I finally set my mind to it last week. I did some searching online and after a bit of comparing prices, locations and companies, I booked a reservation for this last weekend through a place out of Sozopol, just 30 minutes south of Burgas. For 60 Euro I would get 2 boat dives in the Black Sea, a guide (since I don't have a dive buddy here) and all my equipment. It's a huge chunk of my living allowance, and I will be eating nothing but sandwiches and pasta for the next month, but its still a pretty good deal.
Friday night I stayed in Burgas with Tye and had a chill night, shooting pool and hanging out with friends. Saturday morning though, I got up super early and caught a bus down to Sozopol and met up with the other divers. Besides me, there was the dive master, a Bulgarian that seemed to be a friend of the dive master, a Bulgarian lawyer from Sofia, and an Irish guy from Moscow. Everyone was nice, and after I got sized for gear, we all started loading up the boat to head out to sea. Our plan was to do two dives to a shipwreck not too far off the coast called Mopang. Mopang was an old American cargo steamship from 1920 that sank when it was either torpedoed, or rammed a sea mine, I'm not sure which. It now sits in 66 to 96 feet of water, and is flipped over on one of its sides.
The weather was great as headed out to the dive spot, which ended up being just a random spot out on the sea, impossible to locate with out the help of a GPS unit or something similar. We suited up and got ready to hop in. The water temp at the surface was nice and warm, perfect for a day at the beach, but the dive master said that once you hit the thermo cline there is a pretty sharp drop in temperature so I was suited up pretty good, including a full wetsuit with a hooded shorty over top and gloves.
We dropped in the water over the side of the boat doing the half back flip move (not sure what it's really called) and it was actually the first time I have entered the water like that. I have always done the giant stride entry, where you just take a big step off the boat. This way makes you feel cooler though, for reasons I haven't figured out yet.
Anyway, once we got in we began to descend along our anchor line to the wreck. Visibility was pretty good, about 30 feet or so and the water had an interesting green tint to it. We hit the thermo cline about half way down, and I couldn't believe how severe it was. The water temperature dropped about 20 degrees Fahrenheit within five feet! You could even see the heat transfer in the water, it had the same look as when you look down a street when its super hot outside and you can see the heat radiating off the cement. The water had this appearance and made everything blurry as we transferred down to the colder water.
Once we were through though it cleared up instantly and we descended even deeper, entering a giant school of jellyfish. I was now very glad that I was covered head to foot in 6mm of neoprene, since I was (relatively) warm and safe from jellyfish attacks. They looked really cool though, and the water was full of the semi luminescent - transparent jellyfish sediment that just hung in the water like it was in suspended animation. The jellyfish stretched out as far as I could see in every direction, and we didn't leave them until we passed the thermo cline again on our way back up.
We reached the sea floor and headed out to the right a few meters before, out of no where, a huge dark walled loomed in front of me, filling my entire field of view. The wall was the bottom of the ship hull, and I couldn't believe its size. We swam up and over it to the other side (top of the ship). All the cargo holds were open, and we were able to swim inside it. It was actually very eerie looking, with most of the interior super dark with faint green light filtering down from holes in the ship above us, illuminating beams and support structures all around. We explored a bit in the ship and around the side before we had to go back to the anchor line and head up.
After a short break on shore to get new tanks and let our nitrogen levels drop, we headed back out to the ship to do a second dive. We got to see a bit more of the main hull and mechanical rooms, and I set my new record of deepest dive at 96 feet!
Back up on the boat after the dive (and all the time between dives), I was talking with the Bulgarian lawyer about all sorts of stuff, ranging from politics (Bulgaria was recently declared the most corrupt country in the EU), the environment, my work in the Peace Corps and diving. He was a super cool guy and seemed excited about me working with the environment. Anyway, to make a long story short, he asked me if I was planning on diving again the next day and I said I couldn't, since the two dives I had just done had tapped out my bank account. He told me there was another wreck that he had come out three different times to dive, and every time he couldn't do it, either due to rough water, or lack of an experienced group. The dive master wouldn't take him alone, and since the wreck was technically an advanced deep dive (I 'm an advanced open water diver), there wasn't a group that would go with him. He said that he was planning on paying a group rate for himself just so he could go, and told me that he wanted me to come too. I politely declined, not wanting someone else to pay my way for a dive, but he insisted and when the dive master came over to ask if I would be diving on Sunday, he told him I would, and pretty much settled the matter right there. I would now be diving for free on Sunday so that he could see his wreck. Sweet!
After sharing a pint with the dive group, I headed back to Burgas for a big burger cookout with a few other volunteers from out of town, and then went out to our local pub to celebrate the birthday of the pub owner. Good times were shared by all, but I had to leave a bit early (2am) so that I could get some sleep and be 100% for my dive the next day.
The ship we were diving was called the Rodina, and was a Bulgarian cargo ship that actually has a pretty funny story of why it sunk. During WWII there used to be a training mine field in the bay of Sozopol, filled with dummy mines they used to train their navy. The captain of the Rodina, not wanting to waste time navigating a dummy mine field, decided instead to plow straight through it. Unfortunately, the Bulgarian navy decided to replace the dummy mines with live ones with out letting all its ships know about the change, and Rodina ended up plowing right through a live mine field and promptly sank to the sea floor.
I was nervous about this dive though, because it sits considerably deeper and in more exposed water than the Mopang does. Recreational diving is limited to 120 feet, and recommended to only 100 feet. Anything deeper requires either long decompression stops with separate tanks, or tri-mix (an advanced blend of air comprised of mostly helium requiring special gear and training). My dive to the Rodina went to 111 feet, a record I most likely will not break any time soon. I felt confident though, and knew that I would be able to handle the dive, and it turned out great. The Rodina is huge (300 feet long!) and it made for an amazing dive. The light had the same strange green tint, and combined with the sheer size of the wreck made it an interesting experience. Unfortunately, we only got 7 minutes to explore before we had to head back up to the surface, but I loved it.
Back at shore after the dive, caught another break when the Bulgarian guy that just covered my day of diving offered to drop me off in Burgas on his way through to Sofia, so I ended the day cruising along the coast in his convertible BMW. Turned out to be a great end to a great weekend, and I have now accomplished my goal of diving in Bulgaria.
http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge/20080720DiveTrip
Thursday, July 17, 2008
a busy few weeks
Well, its already been about a month since my last post and I have to admit, that this is really the first time in a while that I have had the time to just sit down and write about all the things that I have been up to lately. Things are going really good for me now and I have been keeping super busy. The weather has been really nice lately, warm days but still getting nice and cool at night. I have a feeling next month will start to get super hot, but I just recently bought a fan in preparation for the hot temps (it so far has proved to be a totally worthwhile investment).
Anyway, after getting back from my grand European tour I spent some time catching up with stuff at the office. Now that summer is here there are a lot more tourist groups coming down to the park and I have been helping leading trips on some of the trails and that sort of stuff. I spent just over a week back in Malko Turnovo before I had to pack up some stuff and head out to Plovdiv to help another volunteer with a minority youth camp that she was running.
I headed out there a few days early so that I could spend the weekend hanging out in town with Kristen, who was also helping with the camp. It was a good time, chilling, hanging out at the pool and watching the final game of the Euro Cup (a game equal in stature to the super bowl, but much cooler since it pits countries against each other and not states).
The trip was mostly uneventful except for one nasty run-in with some bugs. We were planning on staying with one of the volunteers that lived in Plovdiv that had just gotten back from a week of Peace Corps conferences, but as soon as we all stepped in to her apartment I discovered that while she was gone it had become infested with fleas. And when I say infested, I mean like in the most horrible way that you have only seen out of a Hollywood movie. I was wearing sandals and as soon as I stepped on the carpet my foot slowly started to turn black from all the fleas that started to cover it. Needless to say that my eyes got wide and I started to hop around the room like a crazy guy (I have a slight allergic reaction to flea bites) and had to run out of the apartment. Worst fleas I have ever seen in my life. We all had to get our stuff and grab a cab across town to stay with a different volunteer (fortunately for us Plovdiv has two volunteers).
The youth camp started on Tuesday and ended up being quite the experience for me. I don't work with youth at all here, and I never really worked with youth before in the states so it was a learning experience for me, but I will tell you right now that working with Bulgarian youth and American youth are two completely different things. The idea of the camp was to take around 20 minority youth (mostly Turkish Roma, or Gypsies) from a local school and head up in the mountains for three days and conduct seminars on stereotypes, teamwork, and cultural differences. There were a few teacher and then four PC volunteers, and we had a remote mountain lodge pretty much to ourselves.
Nothing ended up working like planned however. Turns out that all but one of the teachers had just signed up to get a free trip to a mountain lodge and spent most of the time sleeping and hanging out playing sports. The kids also felt like this was the reason why they had signed up, and we spent most of the time cajoling them to quit their games of football (thats soccer for you Americans) and join the group discussions, activities and team building games. If they didn't like an activity that we were working on, they would just leave and go do whatever else it was that they felt like. If we got at least one discussion and a team building game done in a whole day, then it was considered a success. It drove me crazy with frustration.
I always remembered when I did youth camps, or summer camps or whatever, that when there was an activity, you did it. Didn't matter if you didn't want to, or that you would rather play football, or sleep or whatever. The discussions and activities were always intrinsic to the camp and you did them with out asking, and leaving halfway through because your bored was never an option. Now, I want to point out that I think the kids are all good kids, but their whole cultural and education environment is completely different than I am used to. The fault is not so much with them as with the whole attitude toward these kinds of events. If the teachers got bored they would just quit, and go grab a beer or a nap, or worse, convince the kids to quit to so they would have someone else to play football with. The kids emulate this behaviour and are never corrected, so that when a youth camp such as ours is conducted, it falls apart into chaos.
The whole thing was a mess, but business as usual according to everyone that had worked a youth camp before. (aside: I think I am done working with Bulgarian youth camps unless the kids are younger than middle school)
After the camp finished up, Kristen and I headed out to Burgas to attend a small 4th of July party with a few other volunteers, some Bulgarians and a Dutch guy. We spent the day hanging out at the beach before going back to the apartment to cook a huge Mexican feast (there were hot dogs also for the more traditional, but who can say no to a huge plate of green chili enchiladas?). We even got a hold of some bottle rockets and artillery shells. We then proceeded to 'spread American culture' that night by launching a few artillery shells off of the roof of the apartment in downtown Burgas and chanting 'GO USA!'. The neighbors loved us, no doubt. It was a good time and actually ended up being pretty chill.
Kristen still had a few unused vacation days left over and the week after our 4th of July party she headed down to Malko Turnovo with me. I started off as a great week, hanging out, cooking good food and enjoying life until we both got sick. I'm still not sure why, but I suspect we ate some bad chicken (meat here is very questionable, and I now eat it on average of only once a week). Fortunately we were only sick for about a day, but it wasn't fun. The day after that I headed in to work and my office told me that it was a slow day, and that I should just go on a bike ride with Kristen down to the river and have fun. So we borrowed two old bikes from work and set off.
Turns out though, that the river is over ten miles away through mountainous terrain and one of the bikes doesn't have fully functioning breaks. plus, after we finally got to the river the chain on the other bike twisted, and I had to twist it back with two rusty nails before it would work again. By the time we got back we were completely exhausted, but it was still a good time. The weather was real nice for us and the forest was all green and pretty.
The next day was one of my coworkers birthdays (who happened to be the mayors wife) so everyone took the day off and we went out for a relaxing day at the river (we drove this time, thankfully). We went to a site that already had a table, outdoor sink and everything else that we would need, right along the river bank and began preparing for a huge feast. We had more food than we could possibly eat and sat around for about 2 hours just eating, talking and relaxing. Then we christened the new boat that the park just got for one of its projects, and spent the rest of the day paddling around in the river and swimming. Not a bad day at work.
This last weekend we headed back up to Burgas because Kristen had to head back to her site. On Sunday though, I got to spend another day hanging out at the beach before coming back to Malko Turnovo. Work this week has been real busy, I have been going out in the forest almost every day scouting out spots to put in a new hiking trail between two of the towns in the park. Its fun work, but I think that my idea of an established trail and the Bulgarian idea are a bit different. I'm not sure if i don't understand what they are doing sometimes, or if i understand and it just doesn't make sense. When I envision a tourist hiking trail, it should be easy to navigate, have clear markers, a sign indicating the start and end, and follow some sort of natural terrain past areas of interest. This trail that we have been scouting out seems to not follow any particular path, is marked only by axe marks in trees at random intervals, has no start/end signs, and meanders randomly through the forest, at times leading up steep banks and through thorn thickets. Its strange. If its just a start and we need to go out and widen, mark and clean up the trail then I understand, but I have a feeling that its finished how it is. I guess I will find out. (Also, while out on the trail trying to find out where we parked the jeep, me and my counterpart narrowly avoided getting mauled by a huge wild boar. Those things are big!)
Well, that's about it so far. I will try to post the next one sooner. Peace
Anyway, after getting back from my grand European tour I spent some time catching up with stuff at the office. Now that summer is here there are a lot more tourist groups coming down to the park and I have been helping leading trips on some of the trails and that sort of stuff. I spent just over a week back in Malko Turnovo before I had to pack up some stuff and head out to Plovdiv to help another volunteer with a minority youth camp that she was running.
I headed out there a few days early so that I could spend the weekend hanging out in town with Kristen, who was also helping with the camp. It was a good time, chilling, hanging out at the pool and watching the final game of the Euro Cup (a game equal in stature to the super bowl, but much cooler since it pits countries against each other and not states).
The trip was mostly uneventful except for one nasty run-in with some bugs. We were planning on staying with one of the volunteers that lived in Plovdiv that had just gotten back from a week of Peace Corps conferences, but as soon as we all stepped in to her apartment I discovered that while she was gone it had become infested with fleas. And when I say infested, I mean like in the most horrible way that you have only seen out of a Hollywood movie. I was wearing sandals and as soon as I stepped on the carpet my foot slowly started to turn black from all the fleas that started to cover it. Needless to say that my eyes got wide and I started to hop around the room like a crazy guy (I have a slight allergic reaction to flea bites) and had to run out of the apartment. Worst fleas I have ever seen in my life. We all had to get our stuff and grab a cab across town to stay with a different volunteer (fortunately for us Plovdiv has two volunteers).
The youth camp started on Tuesday and ended up being quite the experience for me. I don't work with youth at all here, and I never really worked with youth before in the states so it was a learning experience for me, but I will tell you right now that working with Bulgarian youth and American youth are two completely different things. The idea of the camp was to take around 20 minority youth (mostly Turkish Roma, or Gypsies) from a local school and head up in the mountains for three days and conduct seminars on stereotypes, teamwork, and cultural differences. There were a few teacher and then four PC volunteers, and we had a remote mountain lodge pretty much to ourselves.
Nothing ended up working like planned however. Turns out that all but one of the teachers had just signed up to get a free trip to a mountain lodge and spent most of the time sleeping and hanging out playing sports. The kids also felt like this was the reason why they had signed up, and we spent most of the time cajoling them to quit their games of football (thats soccer for you Americans) and join the group discussions, activities and team building games. If they didn't like an activity that we were working on, they would just leave and go do whatever else it was that they felt like. If we got at least one discussion and a team building game done in a whole day, then it was considered a success. It drove me crazy with frustration.
I always remembered when I did youth camps, or summer camps or whatever, that when there was an activity, you did it. Didn't matter if you didn't want to, or that you would rather play football, or sleep or whatever. The discussions and activities were always intrinsic to the camp and you did them with out asking, and leaving halfway through because your bored was never an option. Now, I want to point out that I think the kids are all good kids, but their whole cultural and education environment is completely different than I am used to. The fault is not so much with them as with the whole attitude toward these kinds of events. If the teachers got bored they would just quit, and go grab a beer or a nap, or worse, convince the kids to quit to so they would have someone else to play football with. The kids emulate this behaviour and are never corrected, so that when a youth camp such as ours is conducted, it falls apart into chaos.
The whole thing was a mess, but business as usual according to everyone that had worked a youth camp before. (aside: I think I am done working with Bulgarian youth camps unless the kids are younger than middle school)
After the camp finished up, Kristen and I headed out to Burgas to attend a small 4th of July party with a few other volunteers, some Bulgarians and a Dutch guy. We spent the day hanging out at the beach before going back to the apartment to cook a huge Mexican feast (there were hot dogs also for the more traditional, but who can say no to a huge plate of green chili enchiladas?). We even got a hold of some bottle rockets and artillery shells. We then proceeded to 'spread American culture' that night by launching a few artillery shells off of the roof of the apartment in downtown Burgas and chanting 'GO USA!'. The neighbors loved us, no doubt. It was a good time and actually ended up being pretty chill.
Kristen still had a few unused vacation days left over and the week after our 4th of July party she headed down to Malko Turnovo with me. I started off as a great week, hanging out, cooking good food and enjoying life until we both got sick. I'm still not sure why, but I suspect we ate some bad chicken (meat here is very questionable, and I now eat it on average of only once a week). Fortunately we were only sick for about a day, but it wasn't fun. The day after that I headed in to work and my office told me that it was a slow day, and that I should just go on a bike ride with Kristen down to the river and have fun. So we borrowed two old bikes from work and set off.
Turns out though, that the river is over ten miles away through mountainous terrain and one of the bikes doesn't have fully functioning breaks. plus, after we finally got to the river the chain on the other bike twisted, and I had to twist it back with two rusty nails before it would work again. By the time we got back we were completely exhausted, but it was still a good time. The weather was real nice for us and the forest was all green and pretty.
The next day was one of my coworkers birthdays (who happened to be the mayors wife) so everyone took the day off and we went out for a relaxing day at the river (we drove this time, thankfully). We went to a site that already had a table, outdoor sink and everything else that we would need, right along the river bank and began preparing for a huge feast. We had more food than we could possibly eat and sat around for about 2 hours just eating, talking and relaxing. Then we christened the new boat that the park just got for one of its projects, and spent the rest of the day paddling around in the river and swimming. Not a bad day at work.
This last weekend we headed back up to Burgas because Kristen had to head back to her site. On Sunday though, I got to spend another day hanging out at the beach before coming back to Malko Turnovo. Work this week has been real busy, I have been going out in the forest almost every day scouting out spots to put in a new hiking trail between two of the towns in the park. Its fun work, but I think that my idea of an established trail and the Bulgarian idea are a bit different. I'm not sure if i don't understand what they are doing sometimes, or if i understand and it just doesn't make sense. When I envision a tourist hiking trail, it should be easy to navigate, have clear markers, a sign indicating the start and end, and follow some sort of natural terrain past areas of interest. This trail that we have been scouting out seems to not follow any particular path, is marked only by axe marks in trees at random intervals, has no start/end signs, and meanders randomly through the forest, at times leading up steep banks and through thorn thickets. Its strange. If its just a start and we need to go out and widen, mark and clean up the trail then I understand, but I have a feeling that its finished how it is. I guess I will find out. (Also, while out on the trail trying to find out where we parked the jeep, me and my counterpart narrowly avoided getting mauled by a huge wild boar. Those things are big!)
Well, that's about it so far. I will try to post the next one sooner. Peace
Monday, June 23, 2008
The Balkan Adventure
So, I just got back from my big adventure around Eastern Europe last week, and I had a fantastic time. There is so much about it I would love to tell, but to be honest I could never give the experience true justice writing about it on a blog. This wont surprise most of you, but I think so much of what made it such an awesome trip was all the little things that cant be explained to others. 'Had to be there,' kind of thing. That being said, I will try to explain where I went, and what I did as best I can - sort of a travelogue I guess.
I began the whole adventure with a night in Sofia with Kristen (capital of Bulgaria); going out to dinner for real American burgers (first time in 10 months!) and a movie at the theater. Then took care of some passport issues I was having (our friends at homeland security attacked my personal passport with a hole punch and now I need a new one) and boarded a bus for our first destination, Skopje, Macedonia. The bus ride was pleasant enough, but the weather outside was drenching rain. weather was not the best to us on this trip. Fortunately, by the time we arrived in Skopje it has stopped raining an warmed up. We couch surfed with some Peace Corps volunteers that lived in Skopje and they took us around the center and to some cool, hard to find, local bars. It was here in Macedonia that I decided I wanted to go on a Balkan beer tour, and try every local beer from every country that we visited (a manageable task given that these countries only have around 2 to 4 different beers in each of them, and we were gone two full weeks).
We spent the next day walking around the old town, seeing the old fortress ruins and having a traditional lunch at a small cafe in the center of town. Skopje is a real pretty town with lots of cool shops, but not all that many big things to see. It was nice and relaxing though, and we had plenty of time to see everything that we wanted to. We made it out to the bus station just as the weather turned nasty again, and boarded our night bus out to Tirana, Albania. I did discovered that Bulgarian is actually a very useful language all over the Balkans. It is very similar to both Macedonian and Serbian, and got us through most of the countries that we saw. It also enabled us to read the bus schedule that was written only in Cyrillic. This trip would be a bit more difficult for someone that couldn't read it.
Turns out though, that our night bus stopped first in Durres, that town that we were actually trying to get to. Unfortunately, it stopped there around 4 in the morning, when nothing was open. We were saved though when one of the other women on the bus offered to help us find our hotel (which we couldn't stay at until it opened anyway) and so we caught a cab and drove around town in vain searching for this place (We found out later that it had closed down). We then picked a different hotel and they dropped us off and she even offered to pay for our cab, since we still hadn't found an ATM yet. People in Albania are super nice. We ended up finding a cafe open where we could sit and wait till the sun came up and the town came alive.
Durres is an interesting town with nice beaches, old roman ruins, and fantastic food. We spent the day just wandering around seeing some of the old sites; ancient fortified walls, a roman amphitheater, the town center, ect. We also got to try some fresh Albanian sea food, which was delicious. The weather was nice for walking around town, but not quite warm enough for us to go swimming at the beaches.
From Durres we took a train out the capital, Tirana. Tirana is not really the prettiest city, and running through the traffic that passes through the town square might have been the most dangerous thing that i have ever done. It was downright scary. But the food is good, and the people friendly and I enjoyed my time there. We walked around the town and got a feel for where everything was and saw some sites the first day we got in, and on the second day we did a day trip out to a small mountain town called Kruje.
Kruje is a beautiful little town set on the side of a mountain not to far from Tirana, and is the site where the Albanian hero Skanderbeg lead the Albanians to fight back the Ottoman empire to retain their independence. There is a really cool museum now that is built to look like a fortified keep in the ruins of the old original castle, and the view from the area is amazing. Of all the towns that we visited in Albania, Kruje was by far the coolest and most interesting.
Finished with our sightseeing in Kruje, Kristen and I headed back to Tirana and met up with our friends Tyler and Emma, who had just flown in from Bulgaria and would travel the rest of the way with us. Once our traveling group was complete, we headed out to dinner at the 'sky resturant', a nice restaurant located on the terrace of one of the tallest buildings in the city. We had awesome service with a head waiter and assistant waiters, and had a real nice Italian dinner. I had brushetta for an appetizer, cheese tortellini as a main and a cold drink to wash it all down, and my whole meal, including tax and tip, came to about 8 dollars. That's right, full service fancy dinner on the roof of the tallest building for only 8 bucks. Gotta love countries with a low cost of living.
The next day we met up with another American and an Australian that were headed the same was as us and split a mini bus to help save some money. We traveled out of Tirana and up to Kotor, Montenegro, stopping on the way at Skroder, Albania for a bit, and along the main road along the coast of Montenegro to take some pictures and see the view. We arrived in Kotor in the late afternoon and quickly found decent lodging with a local woman for dirt cheap. I was able to carry on conversation fairly well with her, despite the fact that I was speaking Bulgarian and she was speaking Serbian. It was cool to be able to talk to the locals though, and once they realized that we can kind of speak their language, they warm up real quickly and are very friendly people. I think that one of the things that I enjoy most about traveling is meeting the people and getting a chance to hear their story. And I got plenty such opportunities to do so while in Montenegro.
I have to say here that Montenegro is by far the most beautiful country that I have ever been too. It is full of steep green mountains dropping right in to the clear water of the Adriatic, picturesque little towns and castles, and and some majestic views. The city of Kotor is no different, located on the edge of the deepest fjord in all of Eastern Europe. It is an old fortified town, complete with a moat, cobble stone alley ways, and an old castle that looms over the town from the cliff above. We spent most of our time there just wandering around the streets looking at the architecture and the mountains, chilling at cafes, and hiking up to the top of the castle to see the view of the whole fjord.
After our stay in Kotor we boarded a bus and headed North again to Dubrovnik, Croatia, another fortified maritime city, but this time much larger and much more touristy. I have to admit Dubrovnik is super impressive, but it also felt like it was overrun with foreigners. I don't know if that was just my impression after coming from countries that hardly anyone ever goes too (Macedonia, Albania, ect) or if this place really was flooded. All I know is that it didn't have that quaint small town feel that Kotor did, and most of the food and drinks were so high prices that we were forced to go out of the old town before we could afford anything for dinner. But overall I really enjoyed my time there and it is a beautiful place. I also hear it has some great beaches, but we spent all our time wandering around the town and never really got to go swimming. Actually, turns out that through this whole trip along the Adriatic, we never once got a chance to go swimming. Kind of a bummer, but since I live so close to the Black Sea, I wasn't too worried.
From Dubrovnik we headed East in to Bosnia & Herzegovina, to the town of Mostar. Mostar is probably most famous for an old Turkish bridge that crosses the main river in town and connects the Muslim and Christian sides of the city. The bridge was destroyed by Serbian attacks during the Bosnian war in the early 1990's, but recently was rebuilt exactly the same as a sign of progress and peace. In fact, scattered all over Mostar and Sarajevo are numerous reminders of the bloody conflict that took place there less than 15 years ago. Bombed out Buildings, bullet holes, and craters in the ground from artillery can be found all over that either haven't been fixed up yet, or were left as reminders. The weather there was less than perfect as well, which added to the "recovering war zone" feeling. That being said, Mostar is a rather nice town, and tons of cool little souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes have sprung up along the main boulevard by the reconstructed bridge. It was a very interesting city to visit, and unlike any other that I had been too.
After spending some time in Mostar we continued deeper into Bosnia and Herzegovina to the city of Sarajevo. Sarajevo is a cool town with tons of history. Franz Ferdinand was assassinated there in 1914, igniting World War I, it was host of the 1984 winter Olympics, and from 1992 to 1996 was under the longest siege in modern military history. It is also a very religiously diverse city, filled with catholic and Orthodox churches, mosques, and synagogues. We spent a lot of time wandering around the town seeing old buildings, churches and all that good old stuff. Our second day there we took a tour around the city and went to see the old Sarajevo tunnel that was dug during the siege to bring in food and guns and other supplies to keep the city alive during the 3 years. We also go to go through the Republic of Srpska (Bosnia & Herzegovina is split into 2 separate entities, the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina, and the Republic of Srpska). It was weird though because everything changes when you cross in to Srpska. They have their own gov, police, and although they speak the same language, everything changes from being written in Latin to being written in Cyrillic. Talk about a divided country.
Side note; we also found a Mexican restaurant while wandering around Sarajevo that was actually pretty good, although not at all spicy or very Mexican. But I can now say that i have had Bosnian Mexican food, which is about as random as it gets.
After a couple of days in Sarajevo we boarded another night bus to head back to Croatia, but this time to the town of Split, where we had to catch our flight back to Bulgaria from. Unfortunately, since we spent so much time in Sarajevo, we weren't able to really do much more than wander around the old town of Split in the dawn hours before having to catch a bus out to the airport. Still, it ended up being enough time to see most of the buildings and sights and eat breakfast before we left.
Our flight took us up to Austria, where we had to catch a connecting flight back down to Sofia (not really that many direct flights from Croatia to Bulgaria) but the good news was that our 6 hour layover gave us plenty of time to catch a train in to Vienna to see the town and grab some lunch. Our time there was understandably rushed, but I did get to see the St. Stephens Cathedral, house of Mozart, grand opera house, and have a Viennese Bratwurst and wheat beer from a street vendor. Victory was mine. All too quickly our time was out and we headed back to Sofia to end our Eastern European vacation (since we technically didn't leave Bosnia until around 3 or 4 in the morning, I was in 4 different countries this day!).
It was a good time though and everything worked out surprisingly well. I also did the whole trip under my expected budget and spent no more than 400 Euros. Not bad for two weeks. Anyway, check out the pics and I will talk to you all later. Peace. http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge
I began the whole adventure with a night in Sofia with Kristen (capital of Bulgaria); going out to dinner for real American burgers (first time in 10 months!) and a movie at the theater. Then took care of some passport issues I was having (our friends at homeland security attacked my personal passport with a hole punch and now I need a new one) and boarded a bus for our first destination, Skopje, Macedonia. The bus ride was pleasant enough, but the weather outside was drenching rain. weather was not the best to us on this trip. Fortunately, by the time we arrived in Skopje it has stopped raining an warmed up. We couch surfed with some Peace Corps volunteers that lived in Skopje and they took us around the center and to some cool, hard to find, local bars. It was here in Macedonia that I decided I wanted to go on a Balkan beer tour, and try every local beer from every country that we visited (a manageable task given that these countries only have around 2 to 4 different beers in each of them, and we were gone two full weeks).
We spent the next day walking around the old town, seeing the old fortress ruins and having a traditional lunch at a small cafe in the center of town. Skopje is a real pretty town with lots of cool shops, but not all that many big things to see. It was nice and relaxing though, and we had plenty of time to see everything that we wanted to. We made it out to the bus station just as the weather turned nasty again, and boarded our night bus out to Tirana, Albania. I did discovered that Bulgarian is actually a very useful language all over the Balkans. It is very similar to both Macedonian and Serbian, and got us through most of the countries that we saw. It also enabled us to read the bus schedule that was written only in Cyrillic. This trip would be a bit more difficult for someone that couldn't read it.
Turns out though, that our night bus stopped first in Durres, that town that we were actually trying to get to. Unfortunately, it stopped there around 4 in the morning, when nothing was open. We were saved though when one of the other women on the bus offered to help us find our hotel (which we couldn't stay at until it opened anyway) and so we caught a cab and drove around town in vain searching for this place (We found out later that it had closed down). We then picked a different hotel and they dropped us off and she even offered to pay for our cab, since we still hadn't found an ATM yet. People in Albania are super nice. We ended up finding a cafe open where we could sit and wait till the sun came up and the town came alive.
Durres is an interesting town with nice beaches, old roman ruins, and fantastic food. We spent the day just wandering around seeing some of the old sites; ancient fortified walls, a roman amphitheater, the town center, ect. We also got to try some fresh Albanian sea food, which was delicious. The weather was nice for walking around town, but not quite warm enough for us to go swimming at the beaches.
From Durres we took a train out the capital, Tirana. Tirana is not really the prettiest city, and running through the traffic that passes through the town square might have been the most dangerous thing that i have ever done. It was downright scary. But the food is good, and the people friendly and I enjoyed my time there. We walked around the town and got a feel for where everything was and saw some sites the first day we got in, and on the second day we did a day trip out to a small mountain town called Kruje.
Kruje is a beautiful little town set on the side of a mountain not to far from Tirana, and is the site where the Albanian hero Skanderbeg lead the Albanians to fight back the Ottoman empire to retain their independence. There is a really cool museum now that is built to look like a fortified keep in the ruins of the old original castle, and the view from the area is amazing. Of all the towns that we visited in Albania, Kruje was by far the coolest and most interesting.
Finished with our sightseeing in Kruje, Kristen and I headed back to Tirana and met up with our friends Tyler and Emma, who had just flown in from Bulgaria and would travel the rest of the way with us. Once our traveling group was complete, we headed out to dinner at the 'sky resturant', a nice restaurant located on the terrace of one of the tallest buildings in the city. We had awesome service with a head waiter and assistant waiters, and had a real nice Italian dinner. I had brushetta for an appetizer, cheese tortellini as a main and a cold drink to wash it all down, and my whole meal, including tax and tip, came to about 8 dollars. That's right, full service fancy dinner on the roof of the tallest building for only 8 bucks. Gotta love countries with a low cost of living.
The next day we met up with another American and an Australian that were headed the same was as us and split a mini bus to help save some money. We traveled out of Tirana and up to Kotor, Montenegro, stopping on the way at Skroder, Albania for a bit, and along the main road along the coast of Montenegro to take some pictures and see the view. We arrived in Kotor in the late afternoon and quickly found decent lodging with a local woman for dirt cheap. I was able to carry on conversation fairly well with her, despite the fact that I was speaking Bulgarian and she was speaking Serbian. It was cool to be able to talk to the locals though, and once they realized that we can kind of speak their language, they warm up real quickly and are very friendly people. I think that one of the things that I enjoy most about traveling is meeting the people and getting a chance to hear their story. And I got plenty such opportunities to do so while in Montenegro.
I have to say here that Montenegro is by far the most beautiful country that I have ever been too. It is full of steep green mountains dropping right in to the clear water of the Adriatic, picturesque little towns and castles, and and some majestic views. The city of Kotor is no different, located on the edge of the deepest fjord in all of Eastern Europe. It is an old fortified town, complete with a moat, cobble stone alley ways, and an old castle that looms over the town from the cliff above. We spent most of our time there just wandering around the streets looking at the architecture and the mountains, chilling at cafes, and hiking up to the top of the castle to see the view of the whole fjord.
After our stay in Kotor we boarded a bus and headed North again to Dubrovnik, Croatia, another fortified maritime city, but this time much larger and much more touristy. I have to admit Dubrovnik is super impressive, but it also felt like it was overrun with foreigners. I don't know if that was just my impression after coming from countries that hardly anyone ever goes too (Macedonia, Albania, ect) or if this place really was flooded. All I know is that it didn't have that quaint small town feel that Kotor did, and most of the food and drinks were so high prices that we were forced to go out of the old town before we could afford anything for dinner. But overall I really enjoyed my time there and it is a beautiful place. I also hear it has some great beaches, but we spent all our time wandering around the town and never really got to go swimming. Actually, turns out that through this whole trip along the Adriatic, we never once got a chance to go swimming. Kind of a bummer, but since I live so close to the Black Sea, I wasn't too worried.
From Dubrovnik we headed East in to Bosnia & Herzegovina, to the town of Mostar. Mostar is probably most famous for an old Turkish bridge that crosses the main river in town and connects the Muslim and Christian sides of the city. The bridge was destroyed by Serbian attacks during the Bosnian war in the early 1990's, but recently was rebuilt exactly the same as a sign of progress and peace. In fact, scattered all over Mostar and Sarajevo are numerous reminders of the bloody conflict that took place there less than 15 years ago. Bombed out Buildings, bullet holes, and craters in the ground from artillery can be found all over that either haven't been fixed up yet, or were left as reminders. The weather there was less than perfect as well, which added to the "recovering war zone" feeling. That being said, Mostar is a rather nice town, and tons of cool little souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes have sprung up along the main boulevard by the reconstructed bridge. It was a very interesting city to visit, and unlike any other that I had been too.
After spending some time in Mostar we continued deeper into Bosnia and Herzegovina to the city of Sarajevo. Sarajevo is a cool town with tons of history. Franz Ferdinand was assassinated there in 1914, igniting World War I, it was host of the 1984 winter Olympics, and from 1992 to 1996 was under the longest siege in modern military history. It is also a very religiously diverse city, filled with catholic and Orthodox churches, mosques, and synagogues. We spent a lot of time wandering around the town seeing old buildings, churches and all that good old stuff. Our second day there we took a tour around the city and went to see the old Sarajevo tunnel that was dug during the siege to bring in food and guns and other supplies to keep the city alive during the 3 years. We also go to go through the Republic of Srpska (Bosnia & Herzegovina is split into 2 separate entities, the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina, and the Republic of Srpska). It was weird though because everything changes when you cross in to Srpska. They have their own gov, police, and although they speak the same language, everything changes from being written in Latin to being written in Cyrillic. Talk about a divided country.
Side note; we also found a Mexican restaurant while wandering around Sarajevo that was actually pretty good, although not at all spicy or very Mexican. But I can now say that i have had Bosnian Mexican food, which is about as random as it gets.
After a couple of days in Sarajevo we boarded another night bus to head back to Croatia, but this time to the town of Split, where we had to catch our flight back to Bulgaria from. Unfortunately, since we spent so much time in Sarajevo, we weren't able to really do much more than wander around the old town of Split in the dawn hours before having to catch a bus out to the airport. Still, it ended up being enough time to see most of the buildings and sights and eat breakfast before we left.
Our flight took us up to Austria, where we had to catch a connecting flight back down to Sofia (not really that many direct flights from Croatia to Bulgaria) but the good news was that our 6 hour layover gave us plenty of time to catch a train in to Vienna to see the town and grab some lunch. Our time there was understandably rushed, but I did get to see the St. Stephens Cathedral, house of Mozart, grand opera house, and have a Viennese Bratwurst and wheat beer from a street vendor. Victory was mine. All too quickly our time was out and we headed back to Sofia to end our Eastern European vacation (since we technically didn't leave Bosnia until around 3 or 4 in the morning, I was in 4 different countries this day!).
It was a good time though and everything worked out surprisingly well. I also did the whole trip under my expected budget and spent no more than 400 Euros. Not bad for two weeks. Anyway, check out the pics and I will talk to you all later. Peace. http://picasawe
Monday, June 2, 2008
My {offices} new camera
So one of the guys I work with gave me this sweet Canon EOS 400D digital camera to take some pics for him and I still have the camera in my office. So I have been taking it out with me on my hikes and stuff to see what I can do with it, so I thought I would post some of them up. None of the pics are spectacular, but im still learning how to use all the different settings on the camera. I will try to update this album as I take new pics as well.
http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge/MalkoTurnovo
http://picasawe
Thursday, May 22, 2008
my first bulgarian climb
Hey guys,
So finally after months of searching, questioning the locals, climbing my apartment walls and occasionally crying myself to sleep, I got a chance to climb on real rock. I couldn't believe it! Furthermore, this opportunity came when I least expected it and turned out to be a most peculiar story. For all of you non-climbers, some of this might not makes sense, but please bear with me.
It all started this beautiful Thursday afternoon, when I was in my office diligently translating my parks web page from Bulgarian to English. Out of nowhere a guy I occasionally work with on bat related projects rushes into my office and said, "Justin, what are you doing right now?"
"Um, working," is my tentative response.
"Forget about that now, go grab you climbing gear and meet me at the Tourist Information Center in 5 minutes. I found a climbing site," he fires back. I decided two things right then; one, I really wanted to go out climbing; two, that this translating wasn't really that important after all. Five minutes later I was geared up and we were on our way out to the crag.
Now, I have lived out here for over seven months and I have never seen a spot that was climbable, so I was understandably curious as to where we were going to climb. Before too long we pulled out on to an old deserted road, parked the car and hiked about 10 minutes to the base of our climb which was located in the middle of an old abandoned marble quarry.
I have climbed my fare share of different types of rock; granite, limestone, sandstone, even the occasional brick building, but I have to admit that this is the first time I have ever climbed on marble. It makes for some interesting climbing, mostly due to the fact that the sections that weren't polished smooth as a counter top were as chossy as it gets, like big, pull huge hand holds off the route every two moves type of chossy.
Anyway, we came to a section that looked do-able and fun, and had enough variation that we could climb it a few times without setting up our rope more than once. We tossed our gear down and hiked around to the top of the climb so that we could set up a top rope. Now, I knew he didn't have all the gear we would need to lead up the route, which was a moot point given the sheer chossy-ness of the route, but when I dumped his gear bag out on the ground to see what I had to build an anchor with, my mouth dropped a fraction of an inch.
It made me realize just how spoiled I had been when I used to build anchors out double sets of hexes, double sets of nuts, and double - triple sets of cams. However, this time I found myself with the following: 2 old dirty 10.4mm caving ropes used for sketchy underground repels, 1 locking carabineer, 4 petzl quick draws, 7 pieces of assorted webbing and one ratty bungee cord used to secure things to a car carrier. That was it. There was nothing else.
I'm not going to go into much detail about how I finally got the anchor working for fear of bringing back painful memories, but needless to say it wasn't equalized, didn't have 3 main points and didn't have backups. I can say that, being totally honest, I have probably made better looking anchors. Good news thought was that neither of us ever fell on the anchor, and I held every time we were lowered. So I did my job well.
As for the routes themselves, I think my overwhelming excitement to finally be on real rock again made what was otherwise boring routes in to sweet projects. Plus, it was like a guessing game since approximately half of the available holds wouldn't support my weight. I like to keep it interesting. Due to such unfavorable climbing conditions though, I think I may have well been the first person to ever attempt the routes that we went up, which means I finally got the coveted 'first ascent.' Good work, Justin!
It was a good time though and none of the routes were too difficult, which to be honest is probably a good thing since I have been on hiatus for so long, most averaging around a 5.ghetto or so.
So, my first Bulgarian climbing trip turned out to be a rather unorthodox one, but now I can add marble to my list of rock types climbed and quarry to my list of locales. All in all it was a good trip.
So finally after months of searching, questioning the locals, climbing my apartment walls and occasionally crying myself to sleep, I got a chance to climb on real rock. I couldn't believe it! Furthermore, this opportunity came when I least expected it and turned out to be a most peculiar story. For all of you non-climbers, some of this might not makes sense, but please bear with me.
It all started this beautiful Thursday afternoon, when I was in my office diligently translating my parks web page from Bulgarian to English. Out of nowhere a guy I occasionally work with on bat related projects rushes into my office and said, "Justin, what are you doing right now?"
"Um, working," is my tentative response.
"Forget about that now, go grab you climbing gear and meet me at the Tourist Information Center in 5 minutes. I found a climbing site," he fires back. I decided two things right then; one, I really wanted to go out climbing; two, that this translating wasn't really that important after all. Five minutes later I was geared up and we were on our way out to the crag.
Now, I have lived out here for over seven months and I have never seen a spot that was climbable, so I was understandably curious as to where we were going to climb. Before too long we pulled out on to an old deserted road, parked the car and hiked about 10 minutes to the base of our climb which was located in the middle of an old abandoned marble quarry.
I have climbed my fare share of different types of rock; granite, limestone, sandstone, even the occasional brick building, but I have to admit that this is the first time I have ever climbed on marble. It makes for some interesting climbing, mostly due to the fact that the sections that weren't polished smooth as a counter top were as chossy as it gets, like big, pull huge hand holds off the route every two moves type of chossy.
Anyway, we came to a section that looked do-able and fun, and had enough variation that we could climb it a few times without setting up our rope more than once. We tossed our gear down and hiked around to the top of the climb so that we could set up a top rope. Now, I knew he didn't have all the gear we would need to lead up the route, which was a moot point given the sheer chossy-ness of the route, but when I dumped his gear bag out on the ground to see what I had to build an anchor with, my mouth dropped a fraction of an inch.
It made me realize just how spoiled I had been when I used to build anchors out double sets of hexes, double sets of nuts, and double - triple sets of cams. However, this time I found myself with the following: 2 old dirty 10.4mm caving ropes used for sketchy underground repels, 1 locking carabineer, 4 petzl quick draws, 7 pieces of assorted webbing and one ratty bungee cord used to secure things to a car carrier. That was it. There was nothing else.
I'm not going to go into much detail about how I finally got the anchor working for fear of bringing back painful memories, but needless to say it wasn't equalized, didn't have 3 main points and didn't have backups. I can say that, being totally honest, I have probably made better looking anchors. Good news thought was that neither of us ever fell on the anchor, and I held every time we were lowered. So I did my job well.
As for the routes themselves, I think my overwhelming excitement to finally be on real rock again made what was otherwise boring routes in to sweet projects. Plus, it was like a guessing game since approximately half of the available holds wouldn't support my weight. I like to keep it interesting. Due to such unfavorable climbing conditions though, I think I may have well been the first person to ever attempt the routes that we went up, which means I finally got the coveted 'first ascent.' Good work, Justin!
It was a good time though and none of the routes were too difficult, which to be honest is probably a good thing since I have been on hiatus for so long, most averaging around a 5.ghetto or so.
So, my first Bulgarian climbing trip turned out to be a rather unorthodox one, but now I can add marble to my list of rock types climbed and quarry to my list of locales. All in all it was a good trip.
Monday, May 19, 2008
forest festival
so for the last few weeks my office has been in a frenzy getting ready for their big annual forest festival. every year for about the last six years they host this event over the course of two days, and for the last week it has been crunch time to make sure that everything is ready to go. i have been real busy working out in the forest gettting the individual sites ready and helping my colleagues with the last minute details. on friday i had my buddy tye come in from burgas and we hung out that night in malko turnovo so that we would be ready to help set up the festival early the next morning.
monday started way to early, and by 7:30 we were all on our way out to the main festival site at this place called petrova niva. its an old monunment symolizing bulgarian resistance to turkish occupation, and it sits on a very spectacular vista over the forested mountains. the place was all ready to go by 10 and then busses of people from around the region began showing up. there was traditional singing and dancing, and they had booths for all sorts of stuff, like traditional tea tasting, rakia tasting, food tasting, local activities, shopping vendors and donkey cart rides. the whole thing was pretty relaxing, and i spend a fair amount of time at they 'high adventure' booth, where they set up a small zip-line and a slack line. i was soo excited to finally have a slack line, and i probibly spent more time on it than anyone else (i was also pretty much the only one that could do it though).
after lunch we set off on a nice/jeep safari. the hike took us down the mountain and to a refreshing river crossing, then back up the other side to where there was a whole bunch of jeeps and soviet transports waiting to take us to the campsite for the night. i was lucky enough to get a spot in the old soviet van, which i can most accuratly describe as a cross between and old VW bus, and an armored troop transport. this thing was a beast.
there ended up being around 40-50 people that stayed the night for the campfire and festivites, and it was a blast. there was a huge campfire roaring all night, and they had a giant all-you-can-eat banquet set up for us as well. soon after that (or before, depending on who you ask) the moonshine rakia and beer started flowing and everyone started singing and dancing the horo (traditional bulgarian dance) around the fire. it was a pretty cool experience, sitting out there under the start listening to the band play and watching all the people dancing and having a good time. this ended up going on until well after midnight, when everyone began heading off to bed to rest for the next day.
sunday was less eventful, and i was pretty exhaused after the last two nights. we drove to another site in the park for a guided hike, and eventually made our way out to the coast, where they had a big lunch banquet set up. by that time i was pretty much ready to go home, show and do nothing that required energy, but turns out that one of my coworkers wanted me to go out with him that night and help set up some bat catching nets to that we could try to catch a specific bat. we eneded up staying out until just after 11, but we had no luck catching anything. thats how it goes sometimes i guess. now its back to work, although this week should be much more laid back. i will try to get some pictures of the festival, but i had forgotten my camera so i will have to get them from somewhere else, so no promises. anyway, catch you all later
monday started way to early, and by 7:30 we were all on our way out to the main festival site at this place called petrova niva. its an old monunment symolizing bulgarian resistance to turkish occupation, and it sits on a very spectacular vista over the forested mountains. the place was all ready to go by 10 and then busses of people from around the region began showing up. there was traditional singing and dancing, and they had booths for all sorts of stuff, like traditional tea tasting, rakia tasting, food tasting, local activities, shopping vendors and donkey cart rides. the whole thing was pretty relaxing, and i spend a fair amount of time at they 'high adventure' booth, where they set up a small zip-line and a slack line. i was soo excited to finally have a slack line, and i probibly spent more time on it than anyone else (i was also pretty much the only one that could do it though).
after lunch we set off on a nice/jeep safari. the hike took us down the mountain and to a refreshing river crossing, then back up the other side to where there was a whole bunch of jeeps and soviet transports waiting to take us to the campsite for the night. i was lucky enough to get a spot in the old soviet van, which i can most accuratly describe as a cross between and old VW bus, and an armored troop transport. this thing was a beast.
there ended up being around 40-50 people that stayed the night for the campfire and festivites, and it was a blast. there was a huge campfire roaring all night, and they had a giant all-you-can-eat banquet set up for us as well. soon after that (or before, depending on who you ask) the moonshine rakia and beer started flowing and everyone started singing and dancing the horo (traditional bulgarian dance) around the fire. it was a pretty cool experience, sitting out there under the start listening to the band play and watching all the people dancing and having a good time. this ended up going on until well after midnight, when everyone began heading off to bed to rest for the next day.
sunday was less eventful, and i was pretty exhaused after the last two nights. we drove to another site in the park for a guided hike, and eventually made our way out to the coast, where they had a big lunch banquet set up. by that time i was pretty much ready to go home, show and do nothing that required energy, but turns out that one of my coworkers wanted me to go out with him that night and help set up some bat catching nets to that we could try to catch a specific bat. we eneded up staying out until just after 11, but we had no luck catching anything. thats how it goes sometimes i guess. now its back to work, although this week should be much more laid back. i will try to get some pictures of the festival, but i had forgotten my camera so i will have to get them from somewhere else, so no promises. anyway, catch you all later
Friday, May 9, 2008
pics and stuff
i finally got a chance to post up some pics from my spring break trip. i had to get it done tonight (friday night) because i just found out today that i have to go in to work tomorrow. apparently there is a group of school kids coming to the park tomorrow and i have to help run the zip-line for them. hopefully the weather is nice, because today was rainy.
also, i have to say that currently me and my computer are not on good terms. this thing is like my only link to the world outside of malko turnovo, and by virtue bulgaria, and it has been running just painfully slow. i have no idea what the heck is wrong with this thing, but it is interesting because it shows just how dependent on technology i have become in the last year. one year ago i didnt have cable, tv, internet or a computer capable of running internet and i was just fine. now if i lose my internet, i dont know what i will do. ugh, i hope that day never comes.
anyway, enough about the trials of living in the remote corners of europe, i hope you all enjoy the pics. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbOGLZo3cMXgw
also, i have to say that currently me and my computer are not on good terms. this thing is like my only link to the world outside of malko turnovo, and by virtue bulgaria, and it has been running just painfully slow. i have no idea what the heck is wrong with this thing, but it is interesting because it shows just how dependent on technology i have become in the last year. one year ago i didnt have cable, tv, internet or a computer capable of running internet and i was just fine. now if i lose my internet, i dont know what i will do. ugh, i hope that day never comes.
anyway, enough about the trials of living in the remote corners of europe, i hope you all enjoy the pics. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbOGLZo3cMXgw
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Spring break
Things are still going really well. work has been very busy lately because my counterpart had a big project he was working on. some german researchers came in to malko turnovo a few weeks ago to do a bat monitoring project and i got to help out. we went out every night around 7 pm and set up mist nets outside of a different cave entrance every night and captured bats. we then identified them, measured and weighed them, and a few of them we tagged before releasing them. i really enjoyed it and i learned a ton. the first two night we caught over 70 bats each!
they were long days though, and i usually didnt get home until 3 or 4 in the morning. now i have to help write a presentation for my counterpart to present at a bat symposium in romania in august. however, it hasnt just been hard work for me.
I just returned to malko turnovo and started work again yesterday after a short 'spring break' and easter holiday. orthodox easter was on april 27th this year and we had the monday following off (same as in the states). i was fortunate enough to spent a traditional easter with a bulgarian family this year, which was pretty cool. i was in razlog, a beautiful mountain town on the far side of bulgaria visiting my girlfriend Kristen for the weekend and we were invited out to celebrate in traditional festivities.
on saturday night at midnight (technically sunday morning) the entire town went out to the orthodox church and lit small candles from a large candle that the head priest was holding (the head priest in bulgarian orthodox churches is called the 'pope', very confusing at first. my host brother once told me 'look, theres the pope', and i got excited only to find thats not what he meant). however, lighting these candles is harder than it seems. since there is only one church in the whole town, everyone and there mom shows up for this lighting ceremony and all try to rush in through the main doors of the church to get these bad-boys lit. it was by far the most aggressive group of people i have ever seen try to enter a church to celebrate jesus. i was getting elbowed and passed by old hunchback grandmas 2 feet shorter than i was! plus half the people had fire. fortunately it didnt spiral down to chaos and there was no bon-fire that night.
once you get the candle lit and the midnight bells ring, then we had to try and get our candles all the way home without letting them go out. this is a rather difficult task when we had to walk across town with a breeze. i didnt do so hot at that one.
the next day we went over for the big easter feast and spent the day just talking and eating way too much good food. there were painted easter eggs and the egg contest, where everyone takes a hard boiled egg and taps them on each other to see whos egg is the strongest. its supposed to bring good luck for the whole year to the winner. our host even made an american desert for us, strawberry cheese cake. awesome. it was a fun time and interesting to see how similar some of our traditions are.
after easter it was a two day work week before the national spring break. technically its only tow holidays, one on thrusday and one on the preceding tuesday, but they just take off all the days in between and call it good. i sure didnt mind. i did a bit of traveling and visited plovdiv, and ended up in burgas, my usual hangout spot. i met up with friends and went out every night for pints and pool, not a bad way to spent vacation. i even got a day trip up to this town called nessebar, which is out on the coast (the old part of town which i visited is actually on an island 200 meters from shore) and used to be an old byzantine fortress. its a beautiful small island with old fortified walls, quaint little roads between two story original architecture houses and more 5th through 17th century churches than i have ever seen. one out of every like 10 buildings was an old Church. it was a good time though and im glad i got out there early in the season because i heard during summer the place is just a tourist death trap.
anyway, now its back to work and getting ready for summer. hope you all are doing well and i will write you later
they were long days though, and i usually didnt get home until 3 or 4 in the morning. now i have to help write a presentation for my counterpart to present at a bat symposium in romania in august. however, it hasnt just been hard work for me.
I just returned to malko turnovo and started work again yesterday after a short 'spring break' and easter holiday. orthodox easter was on april 27th this year and we had the monday following off (same as in the states). i was fortunate enough to spent a traditional easter with a bulgarian family this year, which was pretty cool. i was in razlog, a beautiful mountain town on the far side of bulgaria visiting my girlfriend Kristen for the weekend and we were invited out to celebrate in traditional festivities.
on saturday night at midnight (technically sunday morning) the entire town went out to the orthodox church and lit small candles from a large candle that the head priest was holding (the head priest in bulgarian orthodox churches is called the 'pope', very confusing at first. my host brother once told me 'look, theres the pope', and i got excited only to find thats not what he meant). however, lighting these candles is harder than it seems. since there is only one church in the whole town, everyone and there mom shows up for this lighting ceremony and all try to rush in through the main doors of the church to get these bad-boys lit. it was by far the most aggressive group of people i have ever seen try to enter a church to celebrate jesus. i was getting elbowed and passed by old hunchback grandmas 2 feet shorter than i was! plus half the people had fire. fortunately it didnt spiral down to chaos and there was no bon-fire that night.
once you get the candle lit and the midnight bells ring, then we had to try and get our candles all the way home without letting them go out. this is a rather difficult task when we had to walk across town with a breeze. i didnt do so hot at that one.
the next day we went over for the big easter feast and spent the day just talking and eating way too much good food. there were painted easter eggs and the egg contest, where everyone takes a hard boiled egg and taps them on each other to see whos egg is the strongest. its supposed to bring good luck for the whole year to the winner. our host even made an american desert for us, strawberry cheese cake. awesome. it was a fun time and interesting to see how similar some of our traditions are.
after easter it was a two day work week before the national spring break. technically its only tow holidays, one on thrusday and one on the preceding tuesday, but they just take off all the days in between and call it good. i sure didnt mind. i did a bit of traveling and visited plovdiv, and ended up in burgas, my usual hangout spot. i met up with friends and went out every night for pints and pool, not a bad way to spent vacation. i even got a day trip up to this town called nessebar, which is out on the coast (the old part of town which i visited is actually on an island 200 meters from shore) and used to be an old byzantine fortress. its a beautiful small island with old fortified walls, quaint little roads between two story original architecture houses and more 5th through 17th century churches than i have ever seen. one out of every like 10 buildings was an old Church. it was a good time though and im glad i got out there early in the season because i heard during summer the place is just a tourist death trap.
anyway, now its back to work and getting ready for summer. hope you all are doing well and i will write you later
Friday, April 18, 2008
spring is here!
hey guys. sorry its been a while since my last post, but i have found that while its fairly easy for me to write about sweet travel stories, it is rather difficult for me to update you on my day to day life when not much really goes on. the longer that i am here the less strange things seem to me and the less likely i am to write about them, even if they are about events that would seem rather odd to people that have not been to bulgaria before.
that being said, life here is still going good. i threw a rockin st patties day party right after my return from turkey, complete with an all you can eat mexican buffet (not very irish, i know, but if we are going to cook a huge feast, i would rather have tacos than Sheppard's pie, because mexican food is a rarity here). after the party, i was fairly busy at work helping my counterpart with a winter bat monitoring project he got funded. it was pretty cool, and consisted of going out to caves in the park and doing bat counts. none of the caves here are too big, but to get into many of them required a bit of subterranean climbing and squeezing through some tight spaces. good thing im still skinny.
since the caving project though, things here at work have slowed down a bit. i go bird monitoring everyday at this local marsh to collect data on the migration, which is fun, but doesnt occupy too much time. my park office is gearing up for a big spring festival in may though, and that should be interesting. starting next month though i think i will be getting busy again. with the nice weather coming tourism should increase to the area, so i will be helping with tour and research groups, in addition to park projects and such.
today also officially marks my first 6 months of service here in malko turnovo. the good news is that i have a feeling that the summer will pass by much faster than the winter did. its finally warm enough outside to go hiking again, and in a month or two all the beaches will open up and i can go hangout on the coast on the weekends.
on another note though, i have been getting much better at cooking things for myself with limited ingredients. i can make a bit of mexican food (i even got out some enchiladas once) and other interesting italian and american dishes. the tough part is that some of the key thing i need to make these dishes are rather hard to come by. like brown sugar. i have been trying to make chocolate chip cookies (ordinary easy thing to cook one would think) only to be thwarted by having no market in my town sell brown sugar. apparently chocolate chip cookies are not that popular here. my solution? sugar cookies with chocolate chips. hey, im doing the best i can here.
well, thats enough culinary rambling for now. take care and i will catch you all later. peace
that being said, life here is still going good. i threw a rockin st patties day party right after my return from turkey, complete with an all you can eat mexican buffet (not very irish, i know, but if we are going to cook a huge feast, i would rather have tacos than Sheppard's pie, because mexican food is a rarity here). after the party, i was fairly busy at work helping my counterpart with a winter bat monitoring project he got funded. it was pretty cool, and consisted of going out to caves in the park and doing bat counts. none of the caves here are too big, but to get into many of them required a bit of subterranean climbing and squeezing through some tight spaces. good thing im still skinny.
since the caving project though, things here at work have slowed down a bit. i go bird monitoring everyday at this local marsh to collect data on the migration, which is fun, but doesnt occupy too much time. my park office is gearing up for a big spring festival in may though, and that should be interesting. starting next month though i think i will be getting busy again. with the nice weather coming tourism should increase to the area, so i will be helping with tour and research groups, in addition to park projects and such.
today also officially marks my first 6 months of service here in malko turnovo. the good news is that i have a feeling that the summer will pass by much faster than the winter did. its finally warm enough outside to go hiking again, and in a month or two all the beaches will open up and i can go hangout on the coast on the weekends.
on another note though, i have been getting much better at cooking things for myself with limited ingredients. i can make a bit of mexican food (i even got out some enchiladas once) and other interesting italian and american dishes. the tough part is that some of the key thing i need to make these dishes are rather hard to come by. like brown sugar. i have been trying to make chocolate chip cookies (ordinary easy thing to cook one would think) only to be thwarted by having no market in my town sell brown sugar. apparently chocolate chip cookies are not that popular here. my solution? sugar cookies with chocolate chips. hey, im doing the best i can here.
well, thats enough culinary rambling for now. take care and i will catch you all later. peace
Monday, March 17, 2008
istanbul and back
Well, just got back from my first trip outside of Bulgaria since i got here, and i had a blast. me and my friend Tyler went down to Istanbul for 5 days of sightseeing and soaking in the local culture and let me tell you that Istanbul is a kick-ass city. its actually the 4th largest city in the world, and is a very modern and liberal city when compared with both the rest of turkey and bulgaria. istanbul (the only city that i know of that spans across into two continents) is an interesting mix of everything European and middle-eastern; the food, music, architecture, culture, etc. not to mention that istanbul (byzantium/augusta antonina/constantanople) has more historical places and history than most other cities anywhere in the world.
we took an overnight bus into istanbul on sunday and arrived at around 6 a.m. in the main bus terminal in the city, which size-wise resembles more of an airport than a bus terminal. from there we took the metro into the main part of town and spent the morning just walking around town getting a feel for the sights, sounds, and layout of the city. the main part of istanbul is relatively easy to navigate, and mass transit is surprisingly convenient, with light rails, metros and ferries servicing all the major tourist and shopping areas.
around noon we visited our first sight, the topkapi palace. this immense complex used to be the residence and main adminastrative center of the sultans, and is a very lavishly decorated place. it also holds some very impressive collections of china, armor, and jewels (including one piece that is inlaid with the worlds 4th largest cut diamond surrounded by 22 other large diamonds). the palace was interesting to me because of the middle eastern style of architecture and art that decorated it.
after a late lunch of turkish kabob, we went to the blue mosque, one of Istanbul's most prominent landmarks. this 400 year old structure is massive, with a large dome 140 high, supported by 16 ft thick stone columns. it is adorned with intricate paintings and stained glass windows that rival that of the notre dame. we had to wait until after prayer time to enter (there are 5 prayer times a day in islam) to see the mosque, but it is a most impressive building.
prayer time itself was interesting as well, since most of the large mosques (there are more mosques than you can count in istanbul) broadcast the daily prayers from large speakers mounted on the minarets. the prayers are sung though, and from in front of the blue mosque you can hear the prayers go back and and forth between buildings.
we eventually made our way across the city to where we were staying with a couch surfer. he was a super cool guy and and most nights we ended up going out with him for dinner and to see the town. it was also cool to get advice on where to go and have conversations with him about various things such as religion (turkey is like 90 percent muslim) and turkish accention into the EU.
on our second day we spent the morning browsing around the egyptian spice market and the grand bazaar. the grand bazaar is immense, comprised of over 4,000 shops, cafes, restaurants selling pretty much anything you could need to buy. the center of the bazaar is all covered, and you could get lost wandering around all the little paths packed with shops and shop keepers telling you that they have just what you are looking for. i did my fare share of price negotiating when was there, and i have to admit that it was a lot of fun.
after a quick dooner for lunch we went and visited the basilica cisterns, a huge underground aqueduct fed water storage chamber built in the 6th century. the room has all arched ceilings supported by rows and rows of columns, and raised walkways span over the fish filled water that is still covers the base of the cistern. in one corner of the room are two columns carved with Medusa's head. from there we went across the street to the hagia sofia. built over 1,500 years ago, the hagia sofia was the largest cathedral in the world for about 1,000 years and was converted into a mosque after the the fall of Constantinople. the size of the room is amazing, and makes even the blue mosque seem small in comparison. we walked around the building for almost an hour before heading off to visit other sites around the city.
on our third day we visited the dolmabanche palace, which is the new palace that was built for the sultans and is a curious mix of european and asian architecture. it is just as impressive as the tokapi palace, but more modern amenities added to it through the years. that evening we took a ferry across the bosphorus to asia to a traditional turkish bath that our host had recommended to us. the turkish bath was quite the experience, let me tell you. first off, the place we went to, while very popular with locals, was not a huge tourist spot so none of the staff spoke english. there was a lot of confusion on our part of what the heck we were doing, but they were nice and helped us out. we got the whole package deal, which included relaxing in the main sauna room, then a full scrub down and rough massage by a large mustachioed turk. normally i dont go for this kinda thing, but it was an interesting cultural experience and i have to admit that afterward i felt a lot better.
the last day we just spent wandering around seeing little things here and there. overall i had a fantastic time on our trip, and aside from visiting huge tourist spots, i had a great time eating the food (they have a pizza hut all you can eat buffet, first real pizza i have had since july!) talking with our turkish host, and just sitting around cafes smoking hookah and playing backgammon. i got back to bulgaria just in time to throw a st patties day party, and now im ready to start planning my next trip. hmm, where to?
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbOGLZo3cMXfA
we took an overnight bus into istanbul on sunday and arrived at around 6 a.m. in the main bus terminal in the city, which size-wise resembles more of an airport than a bus terminal. from there we took the metro into the main part of town and spent the morning just walking around town getting a feel for the sights, sounds, and layout of the city. the main part of istanbul is relatively easy to navigate, and mass transit is surprisingly convenient, with light rails, metros and ferries servicing all the major tourist and shopping areas.
around noon we visited our first sight, the topkapi palace. this immense complex used to be the residence and main adminastrative center of the sultans, and is a very lavishly decorated place. it also holds some very impressive collections of china, armor, and jewels (including one piece that is inlaid with the worlds 4th largest cut diamond surrounded by 22 other large diamonds). the palace was interesting to me because of the middle eastern style of architecture and art that decorated it.
after a late lunch of turkish kabob, we went to the blue mosque, one of Istanbul's most prominent landmarks. this 400 year old structure is massive, with a large dome 140 high, supported by 16 ft thick stone columns. it is adorned with intricate paintings and stained glass windows that rival that of the notre dame. we had to wait until after prayer time to enter (there are 5 prayer times a day in islam) to see the mosque, but it is a most impressive building.
prayer time itself was interesting as well, since most of the large mosques (there are more mosques than you can count in istanbul) broadcast the daily prayers from large speakers mounted on the minarets. the prayers are sung though, and from in front of the blue mosque you can hear the prayers go back and and forth between buildings.
we eventually made our way across the city to where we were staying with a couch surfer. he was a super cool guy and and most nights we ended up going out with him for dinner and to see the town. it was also cool to get advice on where to go and have conversations with him about various things such as religion (turkey is like 90 percent muslim) and turkish accention into the EU.
on our second day we spent the morning browsing around the egyptian spice market and the grand bazaar. the grand bazaar is immense, comprised of over 4,000 shops, cafes, restaurants selling pretty much anything you could need to buy. the center of the bazaar is all covered, and you could get lost wandering around all the little paths packed with shops and shop keepers telling you that they have just what you are looking for. i did my fare share of price negotiating when was there, and i have to admit that it was a lot of fun.
after a quick dooner for lunch we went and visited the basilica cisterns, a huge underground aqueduct fed water storage chamber built in the 6th century. the room has all arched ceilings supported by rows and rows of columns, and raised walkways span over the fish filled water that is still covers the base of the cistern. in one corner of the room are two columns carved with Medusa's head. from there we went across the street to the hagia sofia. built over 1,500 years ago, the hagia sofia was the largest cathedral in the world for about 1,000 years and was converted into a mosque after the the fall of Constantinople. the size of the room is amazing, and makes even the blue mosque seem small in comparison. we walked around the building for almost an hour before heading off to visit other sites around the city.
on our third day we visited the dolmabanche palace, which is the new palace that was built for the sultans and is a curious mix of european and asian architecture. it is just as impressive as the tokapi palace, but more modern amenities added to it through the years. that evening we took a ferry across the bosphorus to asia to a traditional turkish bath that our host had recommended to us. the turkish bath was quite the experience, let me tell you. first off, the place we went to, while very popular with locals, was not a huge tourist spot so none of the staff spoke english. there was a lot of confusion on our part of what the heck we were doing, but they were nice and helped us out. we got the whole package deal, which included relaxing in the main sauna room, then a full scrub down and rough massage by a large mustachioed turk. normally i dont go for this kinda thing, but it was an interesting cultural experience and i have to admit that afterward i felt a lot better.
the last day we just spent wandering around seeing little things here and there. overall i had a fantastic time on our trip, and aside from visiting huge tourist spots, i had a great time eating the food (they have a pizza hut all you can eat buffet, first real pizza i have had since july!) talking with our turkish host, and just sitting around cafes smoking hookah and playing backgammon. i got back to bulgaria just in time to throw a st patties day party, and now im ready to start planning my next trip. hmm, where to?
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbOGLZo3cMXfA
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Baba mart
yesterday was the first of march, and while not quite a holiday, it is still kinda celebrated as such. for the two weeks or so leading up to it, vendors crowd the side of the pedestrian streets selling martinitsi, red and white braided bracelets. everyone buys tons of these martinitsi (or many make their own from yarn) and on the first of may you hand them out to all your friends and say chestit Baba Mart (happy grandma march). i even got one from the billiards bar that we go to pretty often.
anyway, i am supposed to keep these bracelets on until i see either a stork, or the first buds of spring, afterwhich i am to tie them on to a young tree for good luck. i imagine i may see a stork first, as i have been going bird watching about every day for work lately, but we will see.
overall i think it is a pretty cool tradition, and kinda reminded me of valentines day in elementry school because then everyone gets tons of cards. my bulgarian friend that is a teacher here in burgas says he has enough of these things to fill up one arm (although he only wears like 5).
monday though is actually a real holiday. its national liberation day, marking the time when bulgaria was liberated from control of the ottoman empire, ending about 500 years of turkish rule. bulgarians still get pissed when they talk about 'living under the turkish yolk' and this is undoubtedly a big holiday for them. however, i dont think there is any specific tradition that they do for it, just get out of work and spend time with the families. should be fun though
anyway, i am supposed to keep these bracelets on until i see either a stork, or the first buds of spring, afterwhich i am to tie them on to a young tree for good luck. i imagine i may see a stork first, as i have been going bird watching about every day for work lately, but we will see.
overall i think it is a pretty cool tradition, and kinda reminded me of valentines day in elementry school because then everyone gets tons of cards. my bulgarian friend that is a teacher here in burgas says he has enough of these things to fill up one arm (although he only wears like 5).
monday though is actually a real holiday. its national liberation day, marking the time when bulgaria was liberated from control of the ottoman empire, ending about 500 years of turkish rule. bulgarians still get pissed when they talk about 'living under the turkish yolk' and this is undoubtedly a big holiday for them. however, i dont think there is any specific tradition that they do for it, just get out of work and spend time with the families. should be fun though
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
A week of workshops and travel
Just got back from another week and a half of traveling around the country. two weekends ago i set out to bourgas and stara zagora to see some friends before heading to our In Service Training and Project Design Managment workshops out in Hissar, Bulgaria. Hissar is an old resort town located out in central bulgaria, famous for its mineral water and hot springs. it also has the remains of an impressive old stone fortified wall surrounding the center of town. we stayed at a nice three star hotel from sunday til friday, complete with an indoor pool and water slide! the meetings were informative, but the most beneficial was getting to work on project ideas with my colleague. hopefully this will lead to some new exciting projects getting implimented and better cooperation between me and my office. The other good part about the meetings was getting to hangout with all the other volunteers in the evenings and catch up on whats been going on. some of the people there i hadnt seen since i first came to malko turnovo. after the workshops ended on friday morning, i traveled down to plovdiv to meet more people and see some more sights. the weather was much better this time around than it was over new years, and i got a good view of the city from one of the overlooking hills. it was a pretty lazy weekend of sleeping in and eating tons of good food. i even made it out to my favorite arabic resturant and filled myself up on humus, baba gnoush, nan, greek salads, and falil dunors. fantastic. anyway, headed up to the mountains for a day after that (sadly, snowboarding season is over for me) before heading out to the main office in sofia to get some stuff done. boarded the train there to bourgas, and finally got back home around lunch time today. Everyone in the office is gone traveling for various reasons, but that at least gives me some time to get caught up on work and get ready for tomorrow. I just submitted my first project proposal that i am hoping will get accepted, and i have ideas for a few more. hopefully it will be a busy couple of weeks getting things taken care of. i also heard that my real counterpart finally got back in town from germany, so that should be nice as well. other than that, im just waiting for spring to come so that i can start getting outdoors again and out of my apartment. I also finally posted more pics, including my time on the coast in tsarevo, and my adventrues around hissar, plovdiv and up in the mountains. enjoy. http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbOGLZo3cMXbQ
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
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
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
