A "quick" recap of the first month here

The flight from NY to London sucked. You know how Southwest Airlines makes you feel like a cow being herded from place to place? Well, they can take herding lessons from Virgin Atlantic. First of all, it was packed with people for a red-eye, and there had to have been at least 3 screaming babies on the flight. The seats were small and uncomfortable, and anyone with even moderately long legs (like myself) sat with their knees in the back of the seat in front of them. They were supposed to serve us dinner and breakfast, but breakfast never came. Sleeping was damn near impossible for two reasons, 1. the noise on the plane, and 2. the seats barely reclined, but since they were so close anyways, when the person in front of you reclined, they were in your lap. I’m not joking about this either. When the guy in front of me reclined, I could no longer touch my toes...even when I tried lifting my legs. Which really sucked when I dropped my chapstick, and realized that I was never going to get it back until the end of the flight. Amanda had an aisle seat and had to lean into the aisle to get something out of her bag at her feet, but nearly had her head taken off when the flight attendant came by with the cart. Oh, and the flight attendants could not have been more rude. Thank god we got in an hour early. And, once we got to London, things were pretty cool.

Amanda and I took the Tube (subway) into Picadilly Square, saw the end of the changing of the guard, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abby, Big Ben, and the Eye (an absolutely massive ferris wheel that takes a half-hour to go all the way around), although we didn’t have time to go on it. We also had a spot o’ lunch and a pint in a pub. All around, a good time. We were there for about 7 hours before boarding our plane to Bulgaria and leaving behind the English-speaking world. I think it was about this point were the months of level-head confidence in my ability to cope and adapt to any situation began to be put to the test. There truly is something quite scary about leaving behind everything you know and heading to a place that is completely foreign in every sense of the word. I know that Bulgaria is in Europe, and there are quite a few similarities between Europe and the US...even Eastern Europe; but it wasn't as if we were going for a vacation. We were going to live there. In Bulgaria. Did you read the article from my last post? I'm glad I didn't until I got here.

When we landed in Bulgaria, the school sent two vans to pick us and our luggage up. This was very smart on their end, as 9 of us came over on that flight alone; all with a retinue of baggage (Amanda and I had 9 pieces by ourselves). The president of the College told us not to judge Sofia by the first 20 mins of the drive from the airport, and it’s a good thing he had said this. The area around the airport is not pretty. And, sadly for some of the teachers, the ones who live off-campus, they live near the not-so-pretty parts (I have since been told that the area they live in is actually quite nice, and it's my bad for not getting out to find the charm of the neighborhood. Point well taken - I need to get out more). Fortunately for us, we live on a very nice campus (almost New England-like), and all of the returning teachers were here to great us with wine and beer when we got here. It was a very warm welcome, and everyone has been very friendly and supportive since we’ve arrived.

In order to get to know each other better, and not be so overwhelmed with the move, the school organized a 3-day trip to some really nice places in Bulgaria. Not only did we get to bond as a staff of new international teachers, but we got to see that Bulgaria is actually quite beautiful once you get out of Sofia. Actually, Sofia is even quite nice once you get out of Mladost (the neighborhood where we live). Our first stop was the Rila Monastery, which is breathtakingly beautiful and about 700 years old. It’s nestled up in the Rila Mountains, and is like a Jerusalem of the Eastern Orthodox church.

(The first picture is from a small restaurant on the way up to Rila)

(These are some of Rila in all of it's glory, on a beautiful day)

Rila in actually still a working monastery that you can stay at. You can rent humble lodgings for the night - a cot, a small share of the monks food, and some water - but they do lock you in at night. Maybe next year.

Next we went to the town of Melnik were Winston Churchill used to like to get his wine from when he was Prime Minister of England.The wine there is supposed to be something of a national treasure, but coming from California, and drinking wines from Napa/Sonoma, Amanda and I really found them to be not nearly as good. I found the rakiya to be a better drink. Rakiya is the national drink that is usually had with salad at the beginning of the meal. It’s a bit like mellow tequila, so you don’t want to drink too much of it. And while most people didn’t like it, I thought it was pretty good. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make up for the lack of good beer here.

After Melnik, we went to another monastery - Rozhen - that is about 300 year old (actually it’s more like 1200, but it has burned down a few times, and was destroyed by the Turks when they conquered Bulgaria, so the most recent incarnation is only about 300 years old). It wasn’t quite at awe-inspiring as Rila, but it was impressive nonetheless.

We only spent about an half-hour there before heading to a place called Kovachevitsa. Kovachevitsa is a small mountain town way up in the Rhodope Mountains, that is so far up that when the Turks invaded they decided not to bother taking over the town, and just left the people to be Bulgarian. Subsequently, it became sort of a stronghold of Bulgarian culture for 500 years while the Turks were here. We had a fun over-night trip there hiking, swimming, reading, drinking and just getting to know one another.

After that, we spent the next few weeks getting adjusted, lesson planning, and attending meetings (fun!). I’m at a particular handicap because I’ve been hired to teach International Baccalaureate history, or IB History. The problem is that I don’t even know what IB is. I’ve spent most of my time learning what is expected of the teachers and students for this program, and the training doesn’t start until mid-October (actually, it's been postponed indefinitely), so I’m flying blind a little bit. All of my free time is consumed with learning how to teach these kids, especially the 12^th graders, since they have to take the IB test this year. We’ve also had to get the lay of the land, figure out how to shop for groceries, decorate our home, get teaching supplies, as well as figure out how to get someone to fix a problem that our apartment building is having with our pipes. It smells like something covered in feces and mold has died in our piping, and the smell is emanating from the bathroom. As we’ve looked into it, the problem seems to stem from the fact that European showers are not enclosed in a tub/shower, they use the whole bathroom. It’s one of the more interesting differences between the US and Europe. In most Euro showers, the shower head is in the wall, but there are no doors/shower walls to contain the water, it just sprays onto the floor of the bathroom where there is a drain. I find this to be slightly humorous, but Amanda really doesn’t like it because it does mean that everything in the bathroom gets wet; including, oftentimes, the toilet paper (when there is toilet paper. Another interesting fact about Bulgaria is that public restrooms usually don’t have toilet paper, so you have to carry a pack of tissues with you where ever you go. And some toilets are Turkish-style – just a hole in the ground). Anyways, the problem with our bathroom is that it seems our bathroom was originally built in the European style, then a Western-style shower was installed. The deal with plumbing (in America as well) is that all plumbing is connected, and requires water to be consistently running through it to build up a reservoir that prevents smells coming back up the pipes. However, since no water goes down our floor drain, the smells keep coming back up. We’ve trying pouring water down it ourselves, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe they didn’t bother installing the reservoir piece since we would be using the Western-style shower. We are desperately hoping they fix this soon, as the smell has become quite nauseating.

On the whole though, things have been good. Classes started three weeks ago, and the first two were 3-day weeks with a 4-day week sandwiched in between, which, of course, required a trip to Greece. But that is a topic for another blog; as is the tragic event that occurred yesterday that has significantly impacted our school. But given chronology, and bedtime, I will write about this at a time that gives it its due respect.

Two last things of note: I will be posting pics to my picasa account, where I will be able to upload a number of photos that I have taken as soon as I can find the time so that you have more to look at and less to read (yes, I understand this blog is of an opus level). And, while I'm excited to see a number of hits to the site, and followers (just click the "follow" box, and you will get an email when I update the blog), I am saddened that no one has yet to comment. So, in an effort to encourage a more interactive site, we will be taking requests of a sort. I know for a fact that very few of you have been to Eastern Europe, much less Bulgaria, so we would love to share our expertise. Send us questions in the form of Comments, and we will make sure to answer them and deepen everyone's knowledge of this tiny world we live in.

Until next time, nazdrave!