Weekend in Blagoevgrad

This past weekend, I went to Blagoevgrad for the weekend. This is a city two hours south of Sofia, and is the location of the American University of Bulgaria. I went for two reasons: the largest English library in the Balkans and my friend Anthony's birthday party.
The first goal was a flop. I was really excited to see this library and get working on my research. I searched through their resources online and was a little worried. There were no books on Bulgarian politics. AT ALL! So, I went into the library, and a nice, quiet Bulgarian woman tried to help. But she couldn't find anything either. I couldn't understand, since this university has MANY classes on Balkan and Eastern Europe politics. The librarian continued by searching for online journals, and the one she came up with was one of the articles I used for my undergrad thesis... I really need to start looking for Bulgarian sources. This means I need to learn more Bulgarian!
The second goal was great. Anthony and I met in 2007 in the Czech Republic when we were both studying in Prague. We weren't the closest of friends, but we have a lot of mutual friends and whenever we hung out in Prague it was fun. I met up with him and met A LOT of his friends in Blagoevgrad. It was this huge oasis, with people from all the world using English as the lingua-franca. A lot of his friends were very interested in meeting me. I read in my guidebook that the male-to-female ratio for university students is something like 7:1. Yep...
On Friday evening, Anthony invited me to a party for his University's newspaper: De Facto. It was a little awkward for me at first, but then they whipped out a game of Twister. This game is probably the best way for two strangers to get to know each other quite intimately... Afterward, we all went out to a place called 'The Underground'. It was a very nice venue, but amazingly crowded. We couldn't really move for two hours. However, beer was only 2 leva a bottle (about a dollar fifty) and they occasionally played decent songs.
Saturday was kind of a run-around day for Anthony and me. We had to buy supplies for the party, find a cake, and run around the dorm to refrigerate various bottles of beer. Of course, I also wanted to walk around the city a bit. Like Sofia, the city had very wide boulevards, as well as some nice buildings. It was a lot cleaner than Sofia, but they didn't have iced coffees anywhere. C'est la vie.

We had a nice dinner 'downtown' at an Italian restaurant. It is pretty much the go-to food if you don't want a Bulgarian meal. I ordered a Hawaiian pizza and made the mistake of giving a slice to an orphan begging for money on the street; before I knew it, I was surrounded by little kids demanding a slice of their own. The orphans are allowed to run around free on the streets here, and many of them smoke and drink at a very young age. Anthony was even telling me that some ten-year-old kids were recently caught having sex.
After dinner we went back to the dorm and got ready for Anthony's party. He really knows how to throw a party, and maybe around fifty people showed up. He had a DJ, and copious amounts of drinks. Anthony's the guy on the right.

There is a Fulbrighter in Blagoevgrad, Conor, who also went to Boston College. I had never met him before, but he came to the party and, hopefully, made some new friends. I also chatted with a bunch of people, and hopefully they come visit me in Sofia. Here I'm with Dessy, from Bulgaria, and Natya, from Georgia- the country, not the state.

I think it would be quite easy to have a bunch of English-speaking friends in Blagoevgrad, but I guess that has positive and negative aspects. I need to meet Bulgarians so I can practice Bulgarian, but I do admit, my apartment is pretty lonely at times.
On Sunday morning I headed back to Sofia. I just missed the bus, so I bought a ticket for the next one, maybe two hours later. However, the train station was connected to the bus station and I noticed the next train left in fifteen minutes. I bought a ticket, and went back to the bus station to see if I could get a refund. The bus lady was remarkably angry. Another reasons why Bulgaria would not get an A in customer service.

The Fulbrighters in Sofia

Last Thursday I finally met some other Americans in Sofia. Apparently there are four other Fulbrighters in Sofia; three of us are doing research and the other is an English Teacher Assistant (ETA). We met up downtown after I struggled through trying to watch a Bulgarian film without subtitles. The first girl I met, Katie, is here studying the Orthodox church. Her fiance is here as well, and they have a lot of travel plans. We talked about not really knowing exactly what we are supposed to be doing here and the difficulties of getting our research projects together. It is very helpful to know that I'm not the only one in this boat. Afterward, we met up with Kristin, Ellen, and Kate. Kristin majored in Psychology at Ohio State and is studying victims of sex slavery. Very intense subject. Ellen is the ETA in Sofia, and seems like a very pleasant and intelligent girl. Kate is living in the south. She is an ETA as well.
After a quick bite, we headed to a very fun bar called the Apartment. It pretty much was a huge apartment converted into a lounge/drinking area. Very unpretentious, very chill. It was a little hipstery, but in a fun way. I think it would make for a great bar idea in the states, but then again there are all those zoning issues in the good old USA that Bulgaria, for the most part, doesn't seem to care about.
We had a great conversation over some homemade wine, and I realized how much I need to work on my sign language. When Byeong-Hun gets here, I want to be able to translate what other speaking people are saying. Unfortunately, these new friends speak at a very collegiate level. I was trying to think how I would translate their conversation, and there were many instances where I knew it would take way too long to explain what they were saying. Katie and her boyfriend, Keith, expressed interest in learning sign language, so maybe I won't have to worry about being a translator. However, I'm sure to see all of the Fulbrighters throughout the year, so I need to brush up on my sign language hardcore, as well as continue studying Bulgarian.
I also finally ran into some Deaf people in Sofia. I was walking home, and noticed two older women using signs from afar. I approached and asked if they were Deaf and we had a very basic conversation. They were using Bulgarian sign language, and I can only slightly finger spell in BSL. However, we were able to communicate enough to be able to express where we lived, and what I was doing in Sofia. It amazes me the level of intercultural communication that Deaf communities have at their disposal, while, faced in a situation with a group of hearing people without a common language it would be very hard to communicate anything. Maybe this could be my next research project.

Subway Friends

Laura and I decided to go out after a lil' drinking game on Saturday night involving the card game rummy. Our plan was to meet my friends either at Mojito or Alcohol Club (very one-track mind with these club names...) After our taxi tried to overcharge us, we decided to walk.
We ran into two girls and a guy who decided to help us find the clubs. The guy spoke English, but the two girls didn't. They all were university students and worked at Subway. When they asked what I did, I mentioned I was studying the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. The guy did not like this. His politics were definitely quite different than mine, but I really didn't want to discuss it. It was Saturday night!
When we finally arrived at the club, there was a cover, so we decided to just go out with our new Subway friends. They brought us to a little pizza parlor where we struggled to communicate, mixing Bulgarian, English, and French.
The next morning, Laura and I decided to visit them at Subway. She really wanted turkey, and as luck would have it, Subways around the world are the same. Except for corn...

Who wants corn on their sub? Then again, who wants corn on their pizza? Bulgarians do love their corn...
After a stop at Subway and Starbucks, I brought Laura to the bus-stop, had a long Skype date with Byeong-Hun and then went for a long walk around the city. I managed to get lost, which was nice, but then right at the moment I asked for help, I saw the tall building near my apartment. It was a gorgeous night for a walk on Sunday. In fact, the weather here has been great. Take that rainy Korea.
Back to my Subway friends. Yesterday, I went to meet them in the evening at 8 pm. I must have got the time wrong, because they weren't finished till 9 pm. At 9, one of the girls and I had a jilted Englarian conversation about my life in Sofia, and pretty much how I don't really have very many friends yet. After about an hour, she had to run off to her boyfriend and I was left without plans.
I feel like I'm being too earnest about making friends. I've been meeting people, and then kind of being a little persistent about seeing each other quickly again. I think maybe it is a good idea to back off and slow it down... I'll have friends eventually. Right?

Много хубава църква!

Saturday was a very pleasant day. Laura and I walked around the town looking at license plates and finding the Starbucks. Laura is obsessed with license plates, and maybe got me hooked on the hobby. I will report back if I can find all of the countries in Europe while living in Sofia... wish me luck!
The coffee was great at Starbucks. I do love an iced Americano. However, here in Bulgaria they usually drink little shots of espresso. This is also fine with me, and saves a decent amount of money. 75 cents for your morning cup of coffee?
We wandered around through a park, and saw some old men playing chess. Their game was really intriguing, and they would make their next move so quickly! I can't even beat my computer. Then again, I think that whenever I'm on my computer Steve Jobs is out there somewhere battling it out... Anyways, their game was great, but then the guy on the left started to talk to us about something. We obviously couldn't follow very much of what he had to say, but it could probably be summarized into "Oh, you kids these days."

We continued our walk to the most remarkable building in Sofia: the Alexander Nevski memorial church. It honors the 200,000 Russian soldiers who died during the War of Liberation from 1877-1878. The exterior is gorgeous, with huge domes and half-domes, four of which are plated with gold.

The inside is also gorgeous, with huge frescoes and beautiful chandeliers. It was dark when we entered, so we didn't get to see much. Only near the end did of the service did the lighting increase enough for a picture to show up.

But the best part was certainly the service. We were lucky enough to walk in during a service with a full choir. It was so peaceful to just sit inside and listen, and watch all that was going on. This video's quality isn't the best, but the sound is glorious.

After our long walk, we went out for a nice Bulgarian dinner. I enjoyed a shopska salata with fried cheese. You need to mix the good with the bad.

A taste of Asia

A friend from Boston College, Laura, who is also on a Fulbright, came to visit me in Sofia over the weekend. We were wandering around, trying to find a place to eat, and noticed a sign for Chinese food. Since neither of us had eaten Chinese in a while, we went in. Lemon chicken and cashew chicken. Delicious.

While we were eating, there was someone in the basement playing Fur Elise relentlessly, maybe around ten times while we were eating. Although our server was Bulgarian, with, I must say, remarkable English, I had this image of the poor Chinese boy downstairs. Whenever customers came in to eat, his parents would force him to practice, show off his skills and set a nice atmosphere for the guests upstairs. And he still had a lot of homework to finish. :-(
The food was decent. It tasted like American-Chinese food. Except the cashew chicken was WAY too salty. Bulgarians do love their salt. C'est la vie. It made for good leftover stir-fried rice the next morning.

Obama and Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov are Twins?

I thought this news article was hilarious: (From Novinite News)

Bulgarian Prime Minister Borisov and US President Obama shared a laugh as they appeared to be wearing the same outfits at a UN meeting. Photo by Council of Ministers

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov had a funny encounter with US President Barack Obama at a UN meeting in New York as they turned out to be wearing the very similar clothes.

“We look absolutely the same, it was kind-of funny – a black suit, a blue tie, and a white shirt. We even share a laugh when we stood next to each other,” Borisov told journalists in NYC.

His “twin” meeting with American President Obama took place during the official dinner after the opening of the 65^th session of the UN General Assembly.

“The happy news is that Obama knows Bulgaria very well. He believes that we are a reliable strategic partner. We just had a friendly conversation,” the Bulgarian Prime Minister explained.

It is unclear if the fact that he wore the same clothes as Obama was a pure coincidence but both state leaders changed their ties for the next UN reception in the evening.

A perk to living in a small country

The other night, I went out with my friend Azer. I randomly met this guy two years ago at Harvard when Stanishev was still the Prime Minister of Bulgaria. Who knew we'd meet again in Sofia? Anyways, we went out to a local club because there was some sort of Wednesday night party.
Azer is a pretty good connection. He knows a lot of people in Bulgaria, and apparently a lot of important people. He introduced me to a lot of new folks, and afterward would mention what they did. I met maybe seven famous Bulgarians in under two hours at one club.
Can you imagine that every happening in the states? Its way too big. The celebrities would be all over the country, and in various clubs.  And they probably wouldn't be that interested in meeting a visiting scholar.
My favorite person was introduced as Maria. We got our picture taken later.

Apparently she is one of the most famous Bulgarian pop-singers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj60q163Fyc
Pretty friendly for a pop-star. How come I never met any K-pop artists?