Ciao Bulgaria

The time has come. Ten months have gone by. Some of these months were super exciting. Some of them were pretty boring. I have learned a lot, but am definitely ready to move on. We met some really cool friends, but, with the help of technology and cheaper and cheaper airline flights, this won't be the end. I hope all of them can visit us in Korea and, if not, I'm sure we'll see each other stateside.
One of the most important things that happened while in Bulgaria was my disillusionment with politics. I always looked at politicians skeptically, but felt that there were some white knights out there who actually were out there to act as the voice of people. Living in Bulgaria, it is quite easy to see the motivation of politicians: money, power and influence. This insight helped me look at US politics with a more discerning eye. Although Bulgaria is not as democratized as the US, I would not say the US is a shining example of political enlightenment. I don't even know what that would look like.
This has helped shape my next steps. I was originally planning on getting my Masters degree in public policy, but I think it will more likely be in International Development or Economics. Diplomacy has lost its appeal for me. For now, I'm going to go back to Korea, teach English, and try to become fluent in Korean. I don't know how many years that will take!
From June 29th to July 28th, BH and I, along with our friend Katy, will be traveling from Venice down the Aegean Coast through northern Greece and making our way to Istanbul. It should be pretty epic, and I'll try to post some pictures and thoughts while we are traveling.
Чао България!

Gay Pride Sofia

Gay pride Sofia was bigger than I expected. It was BH's second pride and my third. I went to MN pride back in 2009, which was huge and a blast, and then BH and I went to Seoul pride in 2010. While I was just an observer in Minnesota, in Bulgaria the parade is more of a demonstration march. We met up at Lover's Bridge (an apt place to start a pride parade) and marched through downtown Sofia ending up near Sofia University.
GLBT rights in Bulgaria are comparable to Korea. That's not a good thing. Gay sex is legal here, but public displays of affection are dangerous and the status of GLBT individuals is nowhere near the level in Western Europe. There are some public gay figures in Bulgaria, but I can think of only one at the moment. Azis is a Bulgarian chalga singer and 'married' to his partner. His music videos are ridiculous, and very homoerotic, and Perez Hilton has a crush on him:
Perez's links to Azis
Unfortunately, we did not meet up with Azis during the parade. There were a couple of politicians at the parade and one of the UN Human Rights Commissioners. A group of us got together and joined the parade. The weather was great, the atmosphere was lovely, and there was loud music playing the entire time. People on the street stared, some waved, and some looked openly disgusted. The only negative of the parade happened at 8pm. Apparently, as the crowd was dissipating, some 'hooligans' attacked a five of the marchers. Nobody was seriously injured, but it definitely reflects the homophobic and conservative elements of Bulgarian society. These attacks were not considered hate crimes because, under Bulgarian law, sexual minorities are not given equal protection as other minorities. Thank God none of us were hurt.

Hillary with our watermelon + mastika

That's pride!

Sophia with our new friend Whitney and a GLBT activist that lives in Greece

Love how they painted this monument

Playing flip-cup back at the apartment with our new friends

Back to Sofia

BH and I had originally wanted to also see Varna, but after six days on the beach we were a little broke and pretty tired.

Goodbye Lozana!

 So we headed back to Burgas and bought our tickets to get back to Sofia (18 leva).
For lunch, we ended up in this Turkish restaurant. I think it was called Nan. They had delicious fresh-baked bread and Turkish pizza (lachmacun).

Yum... where can I find this in Sofia for just two leva?

 

The train ride back to Sofia was slow and, of course, delayed. However, it did take us through some beautiful mountains. You gotta take the good with the bad, huh?

Sunny Beach

Our last full day on the Black Sea was spent on the most popular beach on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Sunny Beach (Слънче бряг) is about a mile north of Nesebar. Even though Nesebar is the UNESCO Site, all of the signs lead you to Sunny Beach.

We are lucky we came here in June. Although the weather wasn’t the best, we were still able to swim and lay out in the sun. The beach wasn’t too crowded, but there were still plenty of people enjoying the sun. 

BH on the beach with an old scary man walking toward him

Afterward, we went to the center and just wandered around. This is the first place I’ve been in Bulgaria that really doesn’t feel anything like Bulgaria. The crowd was very mixed, and there were definitely a lot more foreigners than Bulgarians. Also, there were so many nice looking hotels and they were all new. 

Burger King, Chinese restaurants, o my goodness

 This is where all of Bulgaria’s money is! Sunny Beach also had a lot of international restaurants. Not only did it have the ubiquitous Chinese restaurants found in most Bulgarian cities, it also had Mexican, Italian, Indian, and British restaurants. Crazy! People were inviting us into their stores and restaurants in the same way that they do it in Istanbul. There were also English-speaking foreigners working as club and restaurant promoters.

All of this development also meant more expensive price tags. BH and I didn’t really feel like spending 20 leva on a meal, so we headed back to Aheloy, ate some mackerel, and then went back to our little UFOs on the beach where we met a very interesting guy named Ivan (typical Bulgarian name). He worked as a priest back in Sofia, and was on vacation with his daughter. We chatted away and he invited me to go fishing with him the next day. He was drinking wine, and before I knew it he was really drunk. At about midnight, he wanted to head out to the clubs, but BH and I declined. It was a Monday night! Orthodox priests can have so much fun; they can get married and drink. Hilarious. 

Heading North to Aheloy and Nesebar

Sunday morning was a slow start. We checked out, got some pizza (we’ve been eating a lot of pizza on the Black Sea) and then took a bus to Burgas. Once we got there, we changed to a different bus to go up north near Nesebar. If you are ever traveling in southern Bulgaria on the Black Sea, use the buses. They are cheap, run pretty often, and stop where you need to stop! We got to Aheloy and went to Complex Lozena: Camping Aheloy. I would definitely recommend this camp spot. It is right on the water and they have these sweet bungalows. For ten leva a person, you can stay in these pods that come in all sorts of colors and fall asleep to the sound of the Black Sea. Чудесно.

Sleeping in UFOs

We spent the evening in the old city of Nesebar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built on a peninsula in the Black Sea, Nesebar has been inhabited since antiquity. At the entrance to Nesebar, you see this giant windmill:

 

Nesebar is known for the 19^th century wooden houses as well as the large number of churches built under the Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Ottoman rule. Nowadays, it is a little overrun with tourists, but it was great to just walk around the small streets and people watch. 

Church of Christ Pantocator

Detail of one of the churches

Wooden houses of Nesebar

For dinner, we had beer and цаца (tsatsa), which in English maybe translates to skad. We also had something that they translated into English as wolfish. This is what Wikipedia says a wolfish is:

Scary

And this is what we ate:

Less scary

So I’m not sure what we actually ate, but it was fine. The цаца were particularly delicious. After dinner, we headed back to our Bungalows and spent a nice night in comfortable beds.

Back to Sozopol

BH and I originally planned to visit Sozopol on Thursday because the Deaf festival was in Primorsko. It turns out, however, that people are just staying in Primorsko, but the festivities were in Sozopol. Our friends drove us to Sozopol and we spent a couple of hours watching different performances.

One of the groups, I think from Serbia, did some sort of play about a woman that was stolen by an Arab. Her husband then goes off to find her. Maybe it was an important story for the actors, but it was not only boring, it also was verging on racism. 

Saving the girl from the Arab

Now she needs to become a nun? WTF

A lot of people translated songs. These were usually really boring­—not just for me, but for the Deaf people as well. In order to be interesting, you have to put some of yourself into the song. Or interpret it in an interesting way. That's why I like this guy: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5E59rk3_y0

My favorite performance was by the Macedonian actors. Their play was about a group of Deaf people who go to a café and throughout the skit all of the actors would freeze save one, who would then talk about her dreams.

Our friend Radmila acting as a model

 The rest of the evening was spent at the hotel; we danced Bulgarian folk dances, drank Bulgarian beer, and swam in the hotel's swimming pool.

The Macedonians all went for a swim so we joined them!

Finishing the night at Tekila Club

Deaf Festival Primorsko

Every other year they have a deaf festival in Primorsko, which is about 20 kilometers south of Sozopol. Without a car, we had some trouble getting there. Apparently, there aren’t any buses from Sozopol to Primorsko until July. What should have taken us twenty minutes ended up taking longer than an hour. We first had to take the bus back to Burgas and then switch to a маршутка (mini-bus). The drive was quite pleasant though. I expected us to stay along the coast, but we went through the countryside. In one of the smaller villages, every telephone pole had a crane nest. Beautiful. 

When we got to Primorsko, our friends hadn’t arrived yet so we went to the southern beach and tanned for a while. The beach wasn’t very crowded, and I would assume most of the people on the beach were Bulgarian. Near the entrance of the beach two women were tanning topless. This wouldn’t normally surprise me, but these women must have been chalga singers. They were very young, very thin, and had gigantic breasts. Plastic surgery sized breasts. Nearby, two very old men were staring at the young women. Not obviously, but not hiding it either.

I think they look so Bulgarian

 Clouds came in and we decided to find a campsite or a hotel. We were just wandering around when we ran into a group of deaf people. They brought us to a big hotel that had rooms for just ten leva per person per night. That was about the same price as our camping. After sleeping for two days on the hard ground, getting into a hotel bed with clean sheets was fantastic. I can imagine that the hotels have to compete a lot for guests. Practically every building in Primorsko was a hotel, and the few houses also had rooms for let. It was not a pretty city. 

View from the hotel

 Later in the evening, we met up with our Bulgarian friends. A couple of our friends from Macedonia was also there, which was fantastic. We went to a bar, had some margaritas, and chatted for hours. There were so many Deaf people in Primorsko! I had never seen anything like it before; you’d walk ten paces and there’d be another group of people signing. We hardly ever run into Deaf people in Sofia, so it was great to meet some other Deaf Bulgarians.

Созопол

Sozopol! What a charming little town. I had come here before back in 2008 after a language seminar in Veliko Turnovo. This time, however, BH and I were keen to explore the old town, which I had neglected the first time around.

Sozopol is one of the oldest settlements in Bulgaria and was originally inhabited by the ancient Thracians. It has since then been ruled by the Byzantine and Ottoman Empire and was given to the Bulgarians in the 19^th century. After the first Balkan War, almost all of the Greeks were exchanged with Bulgarians that had been living in Eastern Thrace.

After our tour of the old town, we went down to the beach for some sun. I’ve been trying to teach BH how to be a good swimmer, so we practiced treading water and the elementary backstroke. All was great until a huge sand cloud blew from the trees at the edge of the beach; within minutes, all of the people on the beach ran to the safety of their hotels. There wasn’t a huge storm, but the wind was super strong- look what it did to our tent!

For dinner, we bought some canned tuna, bread, and processed cheese. It doesn’t sound the best, but after our hours of traipsing through Sozopol and swimming at our campsite, it was a delicious and filling meal.

Къмпинг Градина

Wednesday morning BH and I headed out to the Black Sea for a weeklong vacation. There are a handful of trains from Sofia to Burgas everyday, so we took the train at 10:30 and got into Burgas around six. The train was supposed to arrive at 4:30, but this is Bulgaria. One of the most important travel words in Bulgarian is закъснение (delay). How can Bulgaria get away with their trains always being late?

We had originally planned to look around Burgas before heading on to a coastal town, but the sun was on its decline. There are tons of buses running from Burgas to Chernomorets/Sozopol; we grabbed one, paid three leva, and got stuck in traffic. For an hour. It was only a twenty-kilometer trip, but it ended up taking an hour and half.

Once we got to Chernomorets we walked some three kilometers downhill to our campsite. This was our first time camping in Bulgaria, but it was pretty ideal. We were just meters from the beach and since we are traveling in June, it was not overcrowded. Our Wal-Mart tent is decent, though a bit small, and will hopefully stay together for the entire summer. 

BH with Бургаско- the Burgas Beer

Camping Gradina is apparently one of the more famous campsites. I found it on this blog-
Balkan Travellers

While settling in to our tent with the sounds of waves breaking on the shore I can see why this campsite is popular. What a great getaway from Sofia! 

Violence in Sofia

Last week, members of the nationalist party, Ataka, disrupted the prayer outside the mosque in downtown Sofia. Their demonstration turned violent when some of the members took prayer rugs and burned them. Fighting broke out. I missed it, because I was in Turkey.
This week, however, I made it to Friday prayer. It didn't look like Ataka was there, and everyone was praying peacefully. I stayed for the whole thing, and afterward, I saw a couple of older Bulgarians speaking about how Bulgaria was for Bulgarians- meaning Christians. The camera approached me and I may be on the news tonight on Channel 7. Speaking poor Bulgarian. I hopefully conveyed that I thought multiculturalism is good and a healthy part of society, but I was quite awkward.
The whole situation really makes me sick of Bulgarian politics. I don't know who can take Ataka and their leader, Siderov, seriously. Yet they get around 8% of the votes during elections. The party I study, the MRF, and Ataka seem to live off of each other. The MRF argues that their presence in Bulgaria keeps ethnic minorities safe. Ataka argues that without their presence, the Turks would take over the country. These are two of the smaller parties, but are needed to make coalition governments.
I've been waiting for the response from parliament about this ridiculous and racist incident. They finally made a statement:
"The Members of Parliament condemn decisively Ataka's aggression on May 20 2011 against the prayers in downtown Sofia. What is most outrageous is that the attack took place on Friday, which is holy for the Muslims, during their Friday prayer...The party's behavior is completely untypical for the Bulgarian nation, for its religious and ethnic tolerance...With its aggressive attempt against the ethnic peace, jeopardizing Bulgaria's national security, Ataka has become dangerous for the Bulgarian rule."
Hopefully this means the demise of Ataka and any other party that bases its platform on hatred and racism. 

Making our way to Turkey

The rents, Anna, BH and I headed out on Tuesday morning to Plovdiv in a car we rented for a mere 20 Euros a day. Excitedly, I jumped into the driver's seat and we set off along A1 after fueling up and stocking up on snacks and drinks. Good weather. Nice people. All seemed good until we went through a tunnel and were waved at by a little stick with an 'x' on it. Police had set up a little traffic trap. Apparently, the speed limit is 80 in all tunnels across Bulgaria. I panicked, but since we didn't really understand the cop's traffic sign, my mom told me to just slow down and drive in the right lane. Big mistake. A couple of minutes later, the cop caught up to us and pulled us over. He was furious. He made us drive back to the speed trap through a long and windy route; I kept telling my parents we could probably bribe him with twenty dollars, but I was slowly becoming more and more anxious.
When we finally got back to the little police hut outside the tunnel, he brought me into his office and started berating me in Bulgarian. I was apparently going thirty over the speed limit and since I didn't stop right away, I would be charged a ridiculous amount. I was freaking out, and, although I understood what he was saying, demanded to call the embassy (scare tactic). I didn't have the number, though, so I called one of the coordinators in Sofia. She talked to the policeman and explained the situation to me in English. I did understand everything correctly. I filled out some paperwork and was told I would be billed.
It was a freaky situation. They confiscated my license, but then, after telling my sister and mother to leave the room, asked me how much I wanted the license. I told them that I didn't really need it and the cop asked me again how much I wanted my license. It was obvious that he wanted me to slip him some money so he would hand me back my license, but I wasn't going to play along. When I told him for the second time I didn't have any sort of strong desire to get my documents back he just handed my license back and told me that my mom should be the one driving. I was scared of cops for the rest of the trip.
We did eventually make it to Plovdiv and then met Hilary at her place in Haskovo. Stressful day, but great to drive around the country.

Souvenir shopping in Plovdiv

Cute!

Lamb sache with potatoes, mint, and a lot of cheese. Delicious

This old woman spies on Hilary all the time. Hilarious

Family in Sofia

My mom, little sister, and step-dad flew into Sofia the third week of May. We spent a couple of days in the capital. Our first stop? Starbucks. Where am I now? A week later? Starbucks. I do feel a little bad that I come to this mini-America once a week, but I have tried plenty of other coffee places in Bulgaria and this is the only place that makes a good iced americano. It is also one of the only places I'll randomly run into English speakers and can hear languages besides Bulgarian.
Anyways, we had our coffees and then we wandered around the 'must see' of Sofia: Alexander Nevski Cathedral, the Russian Church, the National Palace of Culture, Ivan Vazov National Theater, and a couple of other things. I had talked down Sofia a little, so my family was pleasantly surprised. I must admit that there are some architectural beauties in this city.

Mom and John

Little sis...

It was fun to see my family's own perception of the city. Anna and mom were fascinated with all the old women with badly dyed red hair. John was just excited to not be working. They all tried to use some sign language as well, which was nice. We finished the day with a mehana (tavern) and ate some delicious Bulgarian salads and some not so delicious chicken.

Dreaming about Bulgarian Identity

Last night I had a very curious dream. There was a Fulbright conference in Sofia, and all the Bulgarian Fulbrighters showed up. One of the presenters showed us three statues. The first was ivory, and the presenter said it represented ethnic Bulgarians The second was a brownish marble, and represented ethnic Turks in Bulgaria. The last statue was ebony, and apparently represented the Roma population. The presenter then said, "If only God had provided us with a paintbrush so we could paint all of the statues white." All of us Fulbrighters were surprised, and one of them, D, spoke up. "Wouldn't it be better if God had provided us with a scalpel so we could change the way the majority thinks?"
Obviously, this dream stems from things that have been happening in my life lately. We just had a conference in Sofia about social and cultural integration in the EU. Some of the presentations focused on integration within Bulgaria. It argued that if we were able to provide the Roma with a good education, they could be integrated into Bulgarian society.
The Roma 'problem' can't just be painted over. It is a systemic problem. Regardless of the education level of an individual, Bulgarians perceive the Roma as different, dirty, and not fit for work. Yes, it is important that all Bulgarian citizens are provided with equal opportunities in education. But we also have to look at how ethnic Romas are treated in the streets and in school. If ethnic Bulgarians cannot accept Roma as part of the country, the Roma will not have the ability or the desire to integrate. We can't just paint all of the statues white.

Fingerprinting Bureaucracy

I had to get my fingerprints done for a job in Korea. I figured this would be a pretty painless procedure. Go to a police station, ink my fingers, and voila. Unfortunately, this is Bulgaria.
One of my friends here in Sofia also needed to get this done, so we left together on Thursday morning. The Institute of Criminology (НИКК) was impossible to find. We found some sort of police academy, and they didn't understand what we were doing there. They told us we needed an escort or something to go to the НИИК. Nobody wanted to escort us. So, we just went off and wandered around and finally found the building.
This building did not look like a formal institution. It looked more like a Communist government building turned crack house. It was, however, functioning, and we entered with slight trepidation. We finally found the right woman who questioned our intentions and asked us why we didn't have Bulgarian ID cards. Finally, she told us that we had to come back the next day at 9 AM in order to see the director.
So we did. Arriving at around 9:30, the lady greeted us and made us write, in Bulgarian, letters to the director explaining why we were here. She wrote out a sample letter and made us copy out the same thing. Then, she criticized the way we wrote our names in the Cyrillic alphabet. After an hour waiting with the dragon lady, we finally were allowed to go get our prints done.
The tension immediately dissipated. The guys that actually did the printing were nice and curious about what we were doing in Bulgaria and why we needed the fingerprinting. We chatted for a bit, did the fingerprinting in 20 minutes, and then headed out.
The whole time I was thinking about how easy this process would be in the states. One of the joys of living in a foreign country.

Final Exam and Presentation

I finished up my Bulgarian class on Friday. It went by pretty quickly. Three weeks, five days a week, five hours a day. 60 course hours.
I started the class really unsure and awkward. I'm still unsure and awkward. But hopefully less so. And I definitely met some nice people. Like me, they want to learn Bulgarian, so outside of class we mostly spoke Bulgarian. I still have a LOT of vocabulary to learn if I want to be able to have decent conversations. It will be weird to finish this class. March was the first time I was actually busy this year. It was a nice change.
I also had to give a presentation in Bulgarian. I decided to talk about the political party I'm studying in Sofia, and what research I plan on doing in the future. This may sound difficult, but, luckily, a lot of the political words are very similar to their English counterparts. I showed the survey that I am working on as well, and they gave me some much needed feedback. April, here I come!

Bulgarian Class

I've started language class this month. It is good, but intense. Monday through Friday, from 9:30 - 12:30. That is a lot of language lesson. I somehow tested into the high intermediate level, and I am struggling. I am definitely the worst student in the class of three. My vocabulary is so limited! The class has been focusing on grammar, but I really need to practice listening and speaking. We'll see how it turns out.
Following our class on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we have a Bulgarian history lesson. It is conducted in Bulgarian, so I have been attending to practice my listening skills. I had a Bulgarian history class in English a couple years ago in Veliko Turnovo, and the teacher's lecture was so full of nationalism and anti-Turkism that I stopped attending. This time, the teacher has been pretty balanced, but I'll keep my ears open to make sure she keeps this balance.
The first lesson was just about ancient Bulgaria. The original inhabitants were the Thracians. In the sixth century, the Slavs spread out from central Europe and some of them settled in the Danubian plain. There was also a tribe (the Bulgars) that came from Asia, either the Altaic Plain or the Hindu Kush, and settled in the Caucasus and around the Volga in the 2nd century. These three peoples are the ancestors of modern day Bulgarians. The one thing that I found a little suspect was her mentioning that the Thracians may have had an influence on Egyptian hieroglyphics. I had previously learned that the Thracians had no written language, but apparently some runes or scraps have been found that bear resemblance to Egyptian hieroglyphics. A Bulgarian American scholar has proposed that the Thracians language was adopted by the Egyptians. I've tried to find some more information, but for now, no luck.

Fun with iPhoto

When Katy visited, we created some silly videos on iPhoto. Synced with a crappy Bulgarian pop song, it actually is kind of fun.

Promo for the FB

The Fulbright asked us to make movies to show to Bulgarians who are interested in the program. I thought I'd do it in Bulgarian. The commission was very happy.
My reading and writing in Bulgarian is decent, but speaking and listening are still a huge struggle. Well, have a look:

I talk about how the Fulbright program has been enriching both professionally and personally. Really not that interesting, but good practice.
This week in general has been very busy. I visited parliament, finalized my primary research, and attended a press conference given by the US Ambassador on the youth section of the MRF. Finally getting somewhere with my research!

Back to Rila

My second time to Rila Monastery was more rewarding. With a group of people, I noticed things I would have not noticed before. The first time, I just noted the nice colors of the murals, and didn't really inspect them with any sort of close scrutiny. Connor pointed out the graphic details of the murals, and the huge amount of devils and imps. How could I have been so blind the first time?

Killing this older man, and holding a baby man in his hand

Tendrils coming out of this dudes mouth

A hand coming out of the cows mouth?

All the little people

This devil is having a bowel movement into this guys meal

Angels shooting water onto the earth and a dragon spitting out frogs

Boyana

Whenever a friend comes to Sofia, we give the obligatory tour of the sites of Sofia. Which is not very time-consuming. So, when our friend from Korea visited this past week for four days, we couldn't just stay downtown the whole time.
Our original plan was to go to Veliko Tarnovo for a day trip. BH and I are horrible at getting up early, however, so this morphed into a shorter day trip to the Boyana church out by the Vitosha mountains. Close enough that you can take a cheap taxi, but away from the pollution of the center. Perfect.
Normally, a ticket would cost ten leva, but BH and Myoae were given the free ticket for deaf individuals, and I got the cheap two leva student rate.
The church is from the 10th century. Really old. The outside is not that impressive, but I'll post a picture regardless:

The church is home to frescoes painted in the 13th century, and is now a UNESCO world heritage site. Because of their age, we were not allowed to take pictures, or even stay in the church longer than ten minutes. A Bulgarian scholar gave us a tour, and explained the meanings of the frescoes and naming all of the saints depicted. I was surprised that this wasn't an orthodox church, because it was built before the schism. Of course, those who attended the church after the schism probably belonged to the Bulgarian orthodox church, but I think this is the first pre-schism church I've seen.
The frescoes were beautifully painted, and the best example of Easter Renaissance art. So close to my apartment, and such a perfect day trip. However, the end of the tour gave me a slightly sour taste in my mouth. The guide asked us our religions, and I said I grew up Lutheran, BH Buddhist, and our friend said she was atheist. The guide said that this was ridiculous. That there is no such thing. She went off on this lecture about the importance of religion, and I had to translate to my friends. How is this any of her business?