Анкета

Анкета [anketa] means survey in Bulgarian. I will probably never forget this work. I had to ask tons of people if they wanted to take my survey in Shumen (NE Bulgaria) this past weekend. The respondents were not super excited. Luckily, Laura helped out. She knew a lot of the students in the town and made them help me.

BH with some surveys

Laura making a student do a survey

One older man couldn't read without his reading glasses, so I had to read it out loud to him. I did write this survey, but some other people had helped me with corrections and I hadn't really read the final draft. So I fumbled with my Bulgarian, but helped him finish the survey.
We needed to mix fun with play, though. So we decided to climb the monument to 1300 years of Bulgarian history. There were 1400 steps to get to the top of the monument. Built in 1981, it is this huge concrete mass. Not necessarily beautiful, but worth the 1400 steps.

Radiating communism

We also saw the Tombul mosque, which is the largest mosque in Bulgaria. We couldn't get in, but the exterior was lovely.

The evening was spent trying to get more surveys done. We finished about 60. That was a lot better than our try in Haskovo. However, all the respondents were ethnic Bulgarians. I need to find Turks! We tried to go to a smaller Turkish village the next day, but no buses on Sunday. Hopefully I'll have better luck in other villages.

Belgrade

Sofia has two trains a day to Belgrade. We had Easter break. Why not?

The train took forever! We left at noon and were told it would be just six hours, but we didn't arrive till 9 pm. Stupid stupid stupid. However, the countryside was very beautiful (especially for the first half of the ride).

 

We arrived really late, but BH's friends were really kind, and waited for us at the hostel. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then headed to a house party. Well, we thought it was going to be a house party. More like five friends hanging out. It ended up being really fun though.

The next morning we toured the castle in Belgrade. It was right on the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. Pretty nice. Plus, the weather, as you can see, was perfect. 

 

 Lunch was at a restaurant named "?". Apparently, it had some sort of religious name, and the religious authorities did not like it. So the owner of the restaurant just put up a huge question mark. The restaurant was pretty famous, which may be the reason why the food wasn't the greatest. Serbian food tasted pretty similar to Bulgarian food. Not bad, not amazing.  Their house beer was pretty good though. And H looks great in this picture.

 

Turkish coffee is the coffee of choice in Serbia. I like to annoy the waiters and turn the cup upside down so we can read our fortunes. BH read Hillary's future. She will become a queen but she will be a little chubby. So will her husband. Eventually, they will take a spaceship to reconcile their marriage. Oh, and her husband is a faun. 

 

We had to wait here in the center to meet our friends Saturday night and ended up just goofing around. One of the best parts of Belgrade was people watching. Everyone looked so interesting and there were a lot of foreigners. Very different from Sofia. 

 

The Hotel Moscow. This is one of the most recognizable buildings in Serbia, and an important architectural building in Belgrade. Apparently, they have really good pastries. We didn't try them. :-(

Belgrade has really good nightlife (or so I had read). After wandering around for an hour or two on Saturday night, we went to the Anderground Club. Not cool. Afterward, however, we found this awesome techno Club right on the Danube. I have no idea what it was called. The music was CRAZY loud, but since H has been studying some sign language, we were still able to communicate in the club. One of the bennies of ASL. Of course, this meant that people were staring at us, but that was fine because we were staring back. 

 On Sunday morning, we headed to the "Montmarte" of Belgrade. It was not as cool as the Bohemian neighborhood in France, but it was still really pleasant. There were musicians everywhere. Since it was Easter, I think we had a pretty unique experience, and we spent a couple hours people watching and teaching H some more ASL.

Since it was Easter, all the museums were closed. We decided to go to the Botanical garden, which was interesting. Half of it was pretty and half of it was way run down. The greenhouse was definitely haunted. I liked this tree growing out of a trash barrel. Super natural.

Like Sofia, there was a lot of graffiti in Belgrade. Sunday afternoon was spent just wandering around, doing some more people watching, and scavenging for food. Since it was Sunday, a lot of restaurants were closed. We really wanted Chinese food, but no dice. Sunday night, we headed back to the train station, got on the sleeper, and came back to Sofia this morning. I love weekends away.

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.

Byeong Hun's Fucking Fantastic Pasta

Last night, BH told me he was going to make Italian food for dinner. So I thought it was going to just be a typical spaghetti with tomato sauce or something like that. This was Korean style Italian though... one of the best fusion dishes I've ever had in my life. It was so good that I made BH write down EXACTLY how he made it. So, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
2 cups of water
1/4 cup of soy sauce (preferably Korean soy sauce, but I guess Kikkoman will be fine)
4 dried Thai peppers (optional... but recommended)
1/2 package of whole wheat spaghetti
3 cloves of garlic minced
1 onion
4 small chili peppers (again optional, but again recommended)
1/2 of a carrot
1/2 of a leek
1/2 a cup of broccoli
Tablespoon olive oil
Tablespoon hoisin sauce
Oregano
Basil
1/4 cup of shredded white cheddar cheese

Procedure:
1) Mix together the water and the soy sauce.
2) Pour half of the mixture into a dutch oven over medium heat. Set aside the other half.

3) Add the dried Thai peppers to the dutch oven.
4) Chop up your garlic, carrot, leek, chili peppers, and onion. I just hack away at them, but BH always does a great job and cuts them on the bias.

We used green beans, but they don't really fit the dish...

 
5) When the soy/water mixture comes to a boil, add the spaghetti. There is not much liquid, so you may have to break the noodles.
6) About halfway through the cooking process of the noodles, throw the vegetables, olive oil, hoisin sauce, and herbs into the dutch oven.
7) While all of this is cooking, the mixture will dry out. Every once in a while, add some of the reserve soy/water mixture. The whole time, continue stirring to make sure the noodles do not burn.

8) When the noodles are pretty close to al dente, add the shredded cheddar cheese. Make sure it melts evenly.

ENJOY!

I guess it would be possible to cook the spaghetti separately, but BH's method helps the noodles absorb a lot of flavor. This dish is amazing... Simply amazing.

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.

Highlights of Eastern Macedonia

Our last day in Macedonia was relaxing. We woke up rather late, and then our Macedonian friends gave us a tour. While Western Macedonia has Ohrid and some beautiful mountains, Eastern Macedonia is more farmland and country. This doesn't mean that it wasn't beautiful. We took pictures by the lake, went to a fish restaurant, and saw the centers of the nearby 'cities'. One thing we noticed is Macedonia's obsession with frappes. They drink them all the time. 11 PM? Why not go to a cafe for a frappe? We also stopped by another friend's house whose entire family is Deaf. It was great to meet some people that have been immersed in Deaf culture since birth. The all have GREAT sign language.

DONKEY!

BH can fly!

NOTE: If you ever travel from Strumica to Sofia, know that not having a bus on Sunday at 3 AM really means that there is no bus on Monday at 3 AM. We found this out the hard way, and had to go first to Skopje and then on to Sofia. Rough.

Deaf Festival in SE Macedonia

Saturday morning’s breakfast was delicious. French toast with an eggplanty – peppery spread. And it was spicy. It was similar to the red pepper sauce called lutinica in Bulgaria. I asked our friends’ mother how to make it and she gave me the recipe. However, this was for like 20 kilograms of sauce (I’m assuming to jar and use all year long). I’ll try to figure out a simpler recipe. 

Similar sauces at a grocery store in Macedonia

 The first part of the Deaf Festival was a soccer game in a town close to Bogdanica. It was an indoor match, which was slightly a shame, because the weather was amazing. I think the original plan was much larger than the actual turnout, but there were three teams from Macedonia and one from Greece. Better than nothing. 

Super Fans!

We watched the games for a while, but after a bit, we headed back to the house and our friend, Z, gave us both haircuts. I don’t think BH was especially happy with his, but I really enjoy my new cut. And it was only 3 dollars. Wonderful. I also walked around Bogdanica for a bit. Eastern Macedonia is not really a tourist destination. It was great, however, to just get away from the bigness and grossness of Sofia and enjoy the calm country life. 

Saturday night was the actual festival. I thought it was going to be a big celebration with dancing, but it was a little disappointing. It was pretty formal, and the social interaction at our table was a little awkward at first. Or maybe I was just awkward. There was a lottery at the end, but I didn’t win. Shame.

A big group of us went to the one dance club in the city afterward at the casino. Since Bogdanci is close to the border with Greece, there were a bunch of casinos. In one of them, there was a pretty good dance club. Sipping uzo (Greek anise-flavored alcohol) and chatting with the younger Deaf people was a great end to the day and the festival.