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
Thursday, October 23, 2008
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
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