Cart before the horse

As a history teacher you would expect that I would do well with dates. For instance, knowing that the Greeks came before the Romans; that World War I came before World War II; or that Thanksgiving come before Christmas. Ok, I can honestly say that I know all of these things, however, it does not excuse the fact that I have posted about Christmas before posting about Thanksgiving (sort of).
Thanksgiving actually came in two parts last year - the campus celebration, and the trip to Istanbul. As I'm sure you know, the Istanbul trip has been posted, but the campus celebration is truly blog worthy as well!

Questions: How many international teachers does it take to prepare a Thanksgiving feast for 150+ Bulgarians? And how many turkeys should be prepared?

Answer: About 20, if you include the bartenders and DJ. And at least 25!

That's right, in the American College of Sofia's effort to bring a little bit of American culture to Bulgaria, a former president thought it would be a great idea to introduce Thanksgiving to the Bulgarian staff by having the international staff cook for them and their families. The only problem this year? No one on staff had actually prepared a full Thanksgiving meal before - including the turkeys. But we're a creative, resourceful, and adventurous group that is not going to let a little thing like ignorance stop us from having a successful party!

On the ambitious menu:
-25 turkeys
-braised carrots
-homemade potato biscuits
-mashed potatoes
-garlic-rosemary roasted potatoes, made by yours truly (thank you Gretchen for the recipe)
-homemade apple pie
-homemade pumpkin pie, made from real pumpkins we split ourselves!
-two types of stuffing
-sweet potatoes
-gravy
-wine
-beer
-rakia (Nikolai's homemade goodness!)
-a few other things that I can't remember at the moment, but hopefully will be added in the comment section below

Let me start by saying "hats off" to Will Heron, our resident Econ/Math teacher who took on the challenge of prepping and making 25 turkeys that came out DELICIOUS!!! Well done, Will! In fact, for having little-to-no experience with most of these dishes, everything came out really good. The hit of the meal, however, was those tasty garlic-rosemary potatoes. No, seriously, they got a lot of compliments. I know this sounds rather conceited, but they were very popular. Perhaps someone who was there can post a comment about them so I don't seem too egotistical.

Regardless, the meal was an enormous undertaking involving two days worth of prep by the staff, strong coordination (thank you, Derek), a lot of beer drinking, and a hefty bill covered by the College. And on top of all this good food, we had handmade decorations (nicely done Jaime and crew), dancing, and open bar, a great DJ (DJ B-Ranch) who also created a trivia game, and 150+ Bulgarian who thanked us for days after the party.

Here are just few pictures of the event so you can get an idea of the undertaking. As always click on any of the captions to bring you to the Picasa page to see more.

Abby making sweet-taters

Amanda heating things up!

Enough turkey to feed a Bulgarian army

You want turkey? We got turkey.

Nobody panic!  We're professionals.

Jamie making fresh dough with the ACS rolling pin

More butter than you can shake a carrot at

Potato biscuits for everybody!

DJ B mixin' it up on the 1s and the 2s

Culture successfully shared!

Nazdrave.

Our first Bulgarian Christmas

In our first year abroad, we have tried to be smart travelers. And as they say in Bulgaria, "sometime win, sometime loon." (Yes, this is quite a popular phrase; it was originated by the Bulgarian national superstar soccer player Hristo Stoichkov, the player-turned-coach who led them to fourth place in the World Cup in 1994, and whose English is only slightly better than my Bulgarian [check out the video here]; Bulgarians take their soccer seriously). And while we have had our share of "loons", one of our wins was definitely the choice to take a few days to ourselves before traveling for Christmas. And we seemed to be some of the few that made this decision. Our co-worker Jess White, and her brother who braved the elements and came from America, were the only others with this ingenious plan.

I find Christmas travel is always a gamble. When I was younger, we would open presents at our home in the morning, then head to my grandmother's house about an hour away for dinner and family-time. For a number of years I failed to notice the traffic on the freeway from everybody who, I assume, was doing the same thing. As I got older, not only did I notice the traffic, but I began traveling longer distances to see people; and the most important thing that I learned was the following: airport traveling at Christmas is comparable to having a root canal done by a epileptic dentist. And this last year, I hear it was worse. Many of our co-workers decided to go home to the states to visit family, and all of their stories were remarkably similar. Remember the storm that dumped on the East Coast last Christmas? You know, the one that shut down airports, train travel, roads, and public transit? Yeah well, our great win of the season was NOT putting ourselves on a 24-hour intercontinental flight, infested with cranky air-travelers, to fly through the century's worst blizzard. To those of our friends who did, our hats are off to you! You are seemingly more brave than we are. But would you choose to do it again? Yeah, I didn't think so. And what is it about the holiday season that puts everybody in a bad mood? You would think that at the time of "tidings of comfort and joy" that people would be more relaxed, friendly, and supportive. Not travelers.

So to continue with the "win" portion of the story, we decided to stay home, nearly alone on the campus, spend some quality time together, light fires in our fireplace, and dog-sit Jack, our friend Sarah's newly-adopted puppy.


Cute, isn't he? And while might have been a little rambunctious, he was so cute that we had a great time with him. That's right, no fighting with lines, being stranded by a delayed/canceled flight, risking life and limb aboard an airplane headed into the worst weather on the planet; just a lovely time enjoying a Christmas morning together, eating out, and watching movies.

And then once things calmed down, we flew to Prague for New Years. But that story is for another post.

Nazdrave!

The First Snow

Winter was not your normal winter this year. Supposedly, it wasn't as cold as it was the year before, although the people who are telling me that are also the ones who had to suffer through the heat being shut off by Russia at the height of the cold last year. Regardless, it was cold enough for this Southern California boy who has never lived an entire winter in a place that snows.

How did I survive? Quite well, actually. I wore thermal underwear everyday, we built fires in our fireplace, and I often found the snow to be particularly beautiful. Here are just a few pics of the first snowfall of the year.  Technically, it was the second, as the first occurred the night of Halloween, (and yes, we had an American-style Halloween party, but I've been asked not to post the pictures) but it didn't stick, and I was unable to get pictures of it at the time.

Roamin', Roman, Rome-an(d)...Istanbul!

Trivia time:  How many months will pass before I will finally post something about an event in November?
Answer:  9 months.  That's right, 9 months...the time it takes to carry a child to term; the length of an entire school year; three-fourths of the entire time we've been in Bulgaria so far.  You know, when I say it like that, it actually makes me feel worse.

To make this post a little more interesting though, I'm going to try to do something even more impressive just to win you all back.  No long, rambling text citing place and experience with links urging you to see my photo page (you really should though, I've at least managed to do a better job of keeping that up to date).  Instead, I'm going to attempt to insert a movie that tries to capture the excitement and adventure of an event that is more than 9 months old, and I promise the only children in it are the ones who are old enough to have them, but are still acting like them.

But before I begin, a short recap:  in the lovely month of November, the plague hit Bulgaria.  And by plague I mean Swine Flu.  You remember the swine flu, don't you?  No?  That's because it's been 9 months since this actually happened, so please just play along!  After more then 30% of our student body stopped showing up to school (30% was the magic number for the Ministry of Ed to cancel classes), we were informed that ACS would be shutting its doors for a week until the epidemic had passed.  Naturally, it then occurred to us that the best thing to do during a world-wide epidemic was to get in a tightly-sealed steel-tube, with recirculated air and travel!  So to Rome, Italy we flew.

The first half of this video is from our trip to Rome.  However, in order to save time and space, and because we got another vacation less than two weeks later for Thanksgiving, I've included in the second half of the video our trip with the illustrious Jeff and Shannon to Istanbul, Turkey for Turkey-day.  That's right, folks, get it here first - two for one trip videos!  Have we piqued your interest?  Good!  Now, without further adieu, the November trips to Rome and Istanbul...

A couple of closing comments about Rome and Istanbul - first Rome:  Rome is beautiful.  If you have any interest in history and culture, Rome is a great place.  I was told by a few that Rome was dirty and crowded and full of tourists - well, not in November (having the foresight of nine months before posting, I can honestly say that Central Italy is HOT in the summer - mid- to upper-90's).  While there will still a few people, Rome was every bit as enchanting as you might think it is.  The drawbacks, Rome is also EXPENSIVE.  Not only is it on the Euro, but prices are inflated for the many people that do come to visit, and I'm sure it's worse in the summer.  We spent 4 days there, and aside from the magnificent churches and frescos, Roman and Renaissance art around every corner, and entertaining piazzas, Rome managed to drain our accounts pretty fast.  The lev never looked better.

Istanbul:  In comparison to Rome, it wasn't nearly as enchanting, but was definitely as exciting.  The mosques are very cool to see (the ones you can go into), the Bosphorous is beautiful to sail up and down, history abounds, and the Grand Bazaar is definitely an adventure.  The Turkish Lira is also much more affordable (comparable to the lev), and if you like haggling, you can get some really good deals on some beautiful goods.  Oh, and Topkapi Palace is magnificent!  The one drawback that I had with Istanbul was that since it is a city that thrives on tourism and trade, I found the vendors to be EXTREMELY aggressive!  To even stop outside of a shop was to invite a salesperson to attempt to pressure you into buying something.  And putting them off didn't seem to work either.  It turns out that when you tell a merchant you may come back, they will be looking for you to do just that - and will call you out on it if they see you in the street again.  However, if you don't mind a little high pressure sales tactic, Istanbul is quite lovely and exciting, and many people there are very friendly.

Ok, so maybe this wasn't the "short" post I had hoped, but I hope you appreciate the effort, and in return for you renewed confidence, I will attempt to fill you all in on the many wonders of our year before the end of the summer - that's right, multiple posts per week.  I hope we've whet you whistle...

Nazdrave!

Playing catch-up

Blogging is a habit; a habit that I really need to work on. The plan was, of course, to give periodic updates on how Amanda and I are spending out time in Europe, the challenges and adventures we're having, and have some way of connecting with those we love. Going over our last post, it occurred to me that so much has happened that we have not blogged about. So much so that it's actually a little intimidating to write about all we have done. Date of our last blog: Jan 2 - I promised that I would write more and post more pictures. I have done little in that regard as evidenced by the date of the blog before that - Nov. 10.

Things that have happened since then: flu-vacation trip to Rome, Thanksgiving feast cooked for 150 Bulgarian teachers and family by an international staff of 20, Thanksgiving/Eid trip to Istanbul, the first snowstorm of the season, Christmas, the long awaited trip to Prague for New Years, the first ski trip, Valentine's Day, and my birthday trip to Munich to see Dave Matthews (and let's not forget the daily obligations of work - teaching, lesson planning, grading, assessing...)! For your benefit and mine, I will not recount all of these events in one post, but I thought I might get the ball rolling by talking about none of those things, and instead going back even further to the first week here in Bulgaria, and show you a little bit of Sofia.

It had been expressed to me by a fellow colleague, "Sofia is a great place to begin seeing European capitals." This is absolutely true. Sofia is definitely worth seeing on a European tour. It has quite a few historical sites to see, some lovely museums, and casinos aplenty! And if you like dogs, Sofia is the place to see them in their semi-natural habitat - living the pack life, roaming the streets. Attached are some pictures with links to my Picasa page showing some of the more interesting sites you can find in Sofia.

Sofia's most well known landmark - Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Simply stunning both inside and out.

Church of St. George - Built by the Romans in the 4th century. Welcome to real history.

National Theater...very theatrical.

And don't forget the obligatory communist statue.












The few shots that I was able to take this day only begins to scratch the surface of the rapidly growing hub of commerce, travel, pollution, excitement, crazy drivers, and adventure that is Sofia. A little rough around the edges, sure. Diamonds in the rough to discover, yep. And once the snow melts, and the weather heats up again, I'll try to dig a little deeper.

Nazdrave!

Something old (pics), something new (resolutions)

I'm not one to really make New Year's Resolutions. I find them to not very effective, nor do I find any particular reason that January 1st should be held separately from any other day in the year when you really are committed to improving something about yourself. As of the date of this post, it is January 2nd, which seems as good a day as any to begin making some improvements...about blogging. There will be more. That is all.

So, in my attempt to resolutely begin this resolution, here are some long overdue pics and words:

I took these pictures some time ago with the intent of giving everyone a peek at the campus, but haven't had the time to organize the pictures and post them. But, for those that are curious or care, here is a few snippets of shots that I took around the campus, as well as a link to more shots (there are too many to put on the page). Follow the link to my Picasa page for a brief caption for each photo, then feel free to search around my Public Album. You can even add me as a favorite (in the upper right had corner), letting you get an email when I upload new photos. All of these were taken in the Fall, and include the pics of the first snow! It didn't last long, and we had unseasonably warm weather, but it was beautiful while it was here, and yes, the cold temps and snow finally arrived in the middle of December.

Nazdrave!

When in Sofia...

Question:  What do you do when the Bulgarian Ministry of Education shuts your school down because you have too many sick kids, forcing you to take 5 consecutive days off?

Answer:  Go Rome-ing, of course!

Faced with the prospect of having to spend 5 work-free days in Mladost (the not-so-pretty neighborhood around the campus), Amanda and I decided that since flu-days aren't very common, we should take advantage of every one of them.  Certainly, we did not ask for these days off, and disturbingly, if given the choice, we would rather just have ridden out the time until Thanksgiving so that we didn't have to rearrange our lesson plans, testing schedules, and all of the other bureaucratic junk that comes with teaching in Bulgaria.  But, since we have no choice, let us not dwell on the past - let's go make some memories instead!

The question became where to make them?  Having lived in Sofia for more than two months now, I can't actually say that I know the city very well, nor have we been to the second biggest city in Bulgaria - Plovdiv, which we both hear is great for a day-trip.  So, that became our plan.  Go into and explore Sofia for a few days, then head out to Plovdiv for a nice getaway.

That was until one of our colleagues brought up the idea of going to Italy!  Did I mention that Monday was Amanda and my 3rd anniversary?  And while I'm sure that there have been a few people who have written love sonnets and epic romance stories about Sofia and Plovdiv, I can't admit to reading any.  But Rome!  Now were talking romance, passion, great food, rich history, and an emergency vacation well spent!  And in about 6 hours, Amanda and I will be spending the beginning of our 3rd year together in a little town that became the seat of the world's greatest empire.

I should be able to get some wi-fi internet on my phone while we're there, so if you have any ideas about where to go or what to see, send it along, we'd be happy to take any suggestions.  Otherwise, be sure to check back next week to see how the trip went and catch some pics (if there's actually anything to take pictures of...maybe one or two things).

City #8 on the list - check.

Arrivederci and Nazdrave!