Tourism is strange

Thought it was time to post some more photos. It was nice at the beginning of the week so I spent some time walking around outside and snapping photos of parts of the city I don't think I have captured yet. It was quite warm even after the sun went down, and I was very happy, but that warmth was shortlived, for a fog rolled in and brought real November weather back to us.


Can't say much has happened in the last week. I did get to sing Irish pub songs with some English guy along to a Bulgarian singer in a place called the Melon Bar. I was sort of tempted to go back to Spain with the guy and his buddy, as they are movers and drove here to transport furniture for someone who is moving here. It would have been fun to drive across Europe. But I stayed here, of course, here in Mother Bulgaria.


Every time I think of "Mother Bulgaria" (seen here in the photo), the words "Mother Bulgaria jumped the gun" come into my head from The Beatles' Happiness is a Warm Gun. I can't help it; it just happens.


Anyway, you can see the fortress in the distance. The fortress is actually fake, though it is the city's biggest tourist attraction. In the 70s the Soviets decided to build some walls on top of the old fortress site, not bothering to consult historians or research how the old fortress actually was. There are a few things that are genuine, but they're all in ruins. The church that sits atop the hill was reconstructed in 1981 and painted in 1985. I am one of the few people who likes the paintings, I think. The same scenes you will find in any old Bulgarian church (St. George slaying the dragon, St. Dimitrius slaying the villian, St. Lazarus rising from the dead) have been painted on the walls but in a modern style. I took some photos awhile ago but they're on my other memory card


Here's a "tourist attraction," but I can't figure out why. They say it is a good example of architecture from the post-Ottoman renaissance period but really I think they're just amused by the fact it has a statue of a monkey on it. Indeed, they call it "The House with the Monkey." But the city is weird like that. All tourism is weird like that, really. I mean, the city has built this whole fake renaissance street, complete with copper makers and other nineteenth century artisans. It's like a Turnovo Disneyland or something, you know, It's a Small World, blah blah blah. Thousands of tiny trinkets and junk no one needs is there for tourist dollars, euros, pounds, and leva. There is a tourist restaurant up there I've been tempted to go into for some fish and chips, but I imagine they charge tourist prices, too. We have these kinds of things all over the U.S. - pioneer towns and colonial towns and the like, so it's not like this is a unique thing, and it does get to show you what things were like back in the day.

Anyway, here are some photos of the tourist village. The monkey's in there, too.

Du du du du

Du du du du. Du du du du. Du du du du. The sound of the train echoes through the tunnel as it appears from beneath the stacks of buildings and passes over the Yantra River. It is distant enough not to be loud, but loud enough to put a smile on my face. I love that sound. It is the music of travel, a symphony of comings and goings, a mystery. Where are the people heading to? Are they in search of new adventures, or are they going home after a long journey? Are they going to visit friends of family, or are they lonely travelers desperate for companionship? Are they on business? Going to a wedding? A funeral? The birth of a new life? Du du du du. Du du du du. Du du du du. The rumbling has a sort of mechanical beauty to it, manufactured but not false.

There's nothing like a train. I wish America would fall in love with railroads. As it is now, they are ridiculously priced, take twice as long as by car, and don't stop many places. When I came back from Turkey, I had to change trains in a town called Stara Zagora. I bought a ticket for a trip through the Shipka Pass over the Stara Planina (Central Balkan Mountains) - a three hour journey back to Veliko Turnovo.

It cost $2.50

I love trains. Du du du du. Du du du du. Du du du du.

On Neighbors

There are some things about Veliko Turnovo I'll never forget - the kind of "have to be there to appreciate" moments. Next to the hostel lives an older couple - perhaps in their late fifties or early sixties - and their friend, Donia, who lives on the second floor (first floor if you're European). They don't much like living next to a hostel with all the different people coming and going, and we have our suspicions that they sometimes bang on metal pans just to make noise.

I've never actually seen any of them, or if I have, I don't recognize them, but I have certainly heard them. The noise always begins around 6am when the man leaves the house for the day. Sometimes I hear them talking outside the window, but if I don't, I always have the car to wake up to.

The car is an ancient white piece of junk that somehow still runs, though not very well, and is a typical Eastern European car left over from the commie days when there were waiting lists for the crappiest cars ever manufactured in the whole history of the universe. You literally had to put your name on a list and hope you got your car within a couple of years. Of course, Communist Party members always got their cars first, and the common folk often got nothing, you know, because in a communist society everyone is "equal." Some are just more equal than others.

The fact that many people in Bulgaria - especially in somewhat prosperous Veliko Turnovo - still drive these ancient pieces of junk puzzles me. How do they still run? I often see them broken down, and I've even seen people use sledgehammers to start them! In a town where pretty much everything is in walking distance if you're not lazy or elderly, why go through the trouble of these cars? Was it the triumph of getting these cars that makes one keep it? Or is it because car ownership is so valued? And how did they get these cars in the first place? Were they members of the Communist Party? (Oh, I remember the days of broken down cars and would rather not have a car than constantly repair it!)

I'm not sure of the answers, and maybe I wouldn't notice so much if I didn't have to put up with one on a regular basis. I can tell you the emissions pouring out of these cars can make your lungs feel black. The urban air of Bulgaria is filthy - I'm sure half the cars would fail U.S. emissions tests. Imagine, though, waking up to the stench of burning gasoline at 6am from an engine that revs for a solid five minutes - more if it is cold. That's what happens when the neighbor is able to park his car in front of his house instead of down the hill. It isn't just that - the car is so loud (heard of mufflers?) that half the street doesn't need an alarm clock!

The neighborly experience doesn't stop there. Apparently the stairs in the house are too much for the woman, because rather than going up to knock on Donia's door, the woman comes outside and cries, "Donia! Donia!" several times a day, regardless of the hour and often right when we're falling back to sleep after the car.

Someone said he thought the woman had been calling a troublesome dog or a bratty child for awhile. I thought she was just crazy. Now we laugh every time we hear it - even at 6am! (Well, sometimes, anyway.)

Stuff that is kind of funny - I won't forget it!

Happy Thanksgiving

I didn't get to go to the monastery I wanted to go to yesterday, so I'm still in Veliko Turnovo trying to figure out a new plan. Seems some of the monasteries don't have accomodation in winter and some were damaged in the massive flooding the country has experienced in the last week, so what to do now...

Sweaters and stuff

Ahh, the rain. The cold dampness descends with a vengeance on a warm body. November in Bulgaria. November in Europe.

When I studied in Luxembourg, I used to write short stories parodying university life there, barely changing the names of the students so everyone would know who they were in the stories. Each one usually began with "It was a cold, rainy day in Fluxembourg." I added an adjective with each new story until it read something like "It was a cold, dreary, depressing, soaking, rainy day in Fluxembourg." Today is such a day in Veliko Turnovo. So was yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that one, too. Makes it difficult to feel anything but lethargy.

This is the kind of day when you can walk five minutes outside but it takes twenty minutes inside to lose the chill. Of course, this makes you want to stay inside, which leads to the lethargy, which leads to a sort of restlessness, which sends you out to do something, which makes you cold again, which makes you want to stay inside...it's all a vicious, wintry cycle, and it's not all that pleasant, especially when you're looking at a calendar and you realize you only have about five weeks left and you are thinking about all of the stuff you need to cram into those five weeks even if it means walking outside in the cold, damp air across the puddles sitting atop the cobblestone streets. It's not as if you have a choice. You either stay inside and do nothing except waste your precious time away or you fight the lethargic comfort and go out anyway. After all, didn't you just walk 12 km to see a monastery in subfreezing temperatures? And didn't you just suffer the Marmara winds to visit Istanbul?

I seem to have deluded myself into thinking it will get warm again, as if I'm in denial that winter is really approaching. Some people go to Florida for winter - I go to a country that has more snow than Ohio. I blame Washington. I mean, I've been living in a city that has just been reclassified as a southern climate. (Thank you, global warming.) (That was sarcasm, mind you.) DC is far enough South, i.e. warm enough, that drivers slow to a grinding halt when a single snow flurry makes its decent from the winter's sky. Maybe I've simply forgotten what real winter is like.

I still haven't forgotten how to dress for winter - don't worry about that. (Grandma, I brought two pairs of longjohns.) I have my bright red Washington Nationals skull cap, a scarf, and a nice warm pair of fleece gloves. I have a warm Eddie Bauer fleece designed for the cold outdoors that is reversible, giving me an "extra" thing to wear, though I'm sure by now people have caught on that it's the same shirt! What a practical article of clothing. The fabric is such that it dries quickly, a necessity in all of this wetness.

And so I've blabbered on about the weather, something people talk about when there's nothing else to talk about. But I am stuck inside with nothing else to talk about. As one Bulgarian said today, "In winter in Bulgaria, we kill the pigs and drink wine because it's the only thing to do!"

Constantinope (Not Istanbul)

After visiting the palace, I headed over to the archaeological museum to take in some of Constantinople. Aside from the myriads of broken and glued back together plain red clay pots, it was interesting. So much of Constantinople has ended up in other parts of the world that museums in Britain, France, and Italy have more artifacts than this one, but Istanbul is full of archaeological excavation sites that will yield troves of treasures. The "church" pictured here - Hagia Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) - used to be the largest building in the world and the seat of the Byzantine Patriarch. It was converted into a mosque when the Turks conquered Constantinople but is now a museum, thanks to Kemal Ataturk. Yeah, it's old - finished in 537.

Across the world, countries are demanding their artifacts be returned to their countries. The Greeks have been passing out flyers with a picture of a headless horse asking "Where's my head? It's in London!" and are building a new archaeological museum where they will have empty spaces with signs saying such and such an artifact is "temporarily on display in London." Good to see they have some humor about it.

Anyway, back to Istanbul, as there isn't much of Constantinople left these days. Here is a mosque. I know, I know, shocking, isn't it? I mean, a mosque in Istanbul? What will they think of next? I liked this one's ornate exterior. It was once a church. Very plain inside compared to a lot of them we visited. As you can see, it was an absolutely beautiful day - couldn't have been more perfect for walking miles as we did. It'd probably be better to actually write the name of the mosque here, but as we saw so many of them, I can't really remember it, and since it was the very first thing we saw that morning, aside from our bread/egg/tomato/cucumber/grape/olive breakfast, by the time I went to write everything down, the name had slipped from my memory like the melting real butter on my bread. Had it been toasted. But at least it was butter and not this nasty margarine stuff the Bulgarians have left over from the Soviet days. (My theory, anyway.)

Sometimes - or most times, in my opinion - the best things you see are things you weren't looking for, like the stunning view of the entire city from atop an old wall a few miles from the city center. We scaled the wall like we were climbing a mountain, though we did have a few ancient steps to help us up. This isn't a city, it's a billion cities expanding further than the eye can see. I've poorly put together a sort of panorama to try to show the scope of the massiveness. They actually go in order, though I've mistakenly left some gaps. Kind of difficult to take a 360 degree photo! This is definitely the best view in the city - and the only thing it cost was some energy from the climb!

(Click to make larger, but mind the gaps and the seams.)

Istanbul (Still Not Constantinople)

If you haven't seen part one of my trip to Istanbul, it is here.

The Imperial Palace - known as Topkapi - was an interesting mix of centuries. Some of it was quite old; much of it was constructed during the 19th century. I don't consider anything built after the creation of the United States as old, so at times I did not really feel I was staring at anything other than the remains of a dictatorship. In many ways the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century was backwards. Suits of chainmail and ruby encrusted swords were on display, created during a time when war was fought with guns and trenches. The Ottomans of the 19th century concerned themselves with gems and fancy dishes while the rest of the modern world had moved into the Industrial Age. It's no wonder the empire fell.

I found it curious that the Sultans were glorified, not just by the Turks, but also by the tourists who visited the palace. People marveled at the precious treasures of the Sultans instead of thinking about how these things were stolen or plundered during warfare. Indeed, one woman exclaimed, "Oh. My. God. Nuh-uh. That is not real." as she looked upon an 84 karat diamond with a sort of drooling, gaping mouth. It's a freaking rock! It's a shiny piece of the Earth that people died for. The whole lot of those gems were nothing more than rocks found in the ground. Think about it - isn't it amazing that people have fought wars to obtain shiny rocks that serve no practical purpose? And Sultans are glorified for their collections of shiny rocks? Sultans are nothing more than dictators with a fancy name. They taxed their citizens heavily - especially those who weren't Muslim - and enslaved whomever they wanted. They forced women to become their concubines if they fancied them. While much of their empire was poor, they ate great feasts every night. No cost was too great for their hedonism, not even the cost of human life. Yet they are still glorified. Us common folk look at their palaces and riches in awe despite the fact that had we lived back then, we would have been their slaves, our precious items to be taken on a whim if a Sultan or a high official desired them.

Look at this massive kitchen. Another row of smokestacks sits beside the visible one. I cannot fathom the heat generated in this place, especially in the sweltering summers when humidity from the sea wreaked its havoc upon the city. Imagine the hundreds of people who had to work in these conditions, probably for 16 hours a day. I sweat at the thought of it! I'd rather sit in a cubicle staring at a computer screen for eight hours a day, five days a week, looking for the weekend. The Sultans were a bunch of lardasses whose gluttony rivaled that of a Texan rancher or Rosy O'Donnell. All they did was sit around on a lot of ornate pillows in their gaudy jewelry and their hideous robes eating, drinking, and fornicating with the concubines in their harems. At taxpayers expense, of course.

They did this while pretending to be good Muslims. It's kind of like all of those American evangelicals who are getting caught for child pornography or soliciting sex in airport bathrooms. Is it that they who scream "God!" the loudest are actually the most immoral of all? I've often wondered that. Seems to me that "God" should be a very private thing. You kind of think about these things when you are surrounded by a religion other than the one predominant where you grew up. It's easier to look at things from the outside, and well, now that I've had several experiences in the Muslim world, I can see that religions have more than just God in common. They also have hypocrisy.

There was some interesting architecture around the palace. Lots of domes and arches. There wasn't much that struck me as amazing, however, as I think European architecture created during the Ottoman times is much more interesting. Not even the tiled rooms really impressed me. They seemed kind of tacky to me - it was like having a room full of plates on your walls. Indeed, the Ottoman tiles were inspired by those blue and white Chinese porcelain plates that the Turks were so fond of. There is a whole collection of them in part of the kitchen. The funny thing is that these plates, once thought to be so precious, are now mass produced in China.

Just to clarify - I didn't hate everything about the palace. I just thought about things in a different way than the myriads of tourists around me. The thing is that we haven't really done away with empires - we just go about them in a different way. The United States is definitely a sort of empire. Our citizens are dominated by corporations with ties to government, and our taxes (aside from the real taxes we pay) are the things we keep buying to keep the corporations in power. We still send our soldiers to war for riches from the ground - now in the form of oil instead of gems. History is not a linear thing - it is a circle, and we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. When you think of it this way, you have to wonder if we'll ever get it right, and if we can't, maybe the fact that we're destroying the planet is a good thing?

No, no, of course it isn't. We have to keep trying. We have made progress. I look at the European Union as perhaps the greatest human advancement in history. I mean, here is a continent that has known nothing but war throughout its existence, but a few incredible men who were sick of war came up with a plan that would ensure that if one country went to war with another, that warring country would also be destroyed. This is done by linking economies together, no small feat. I give credit to the European people for accepting such an arrangement. If they would only accept Turkey, then perhaps it would be a start to ending religious war, too? One can dream, right? Right?

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Istanbul, Constantinople, the crossroads of the old world, a place I had always wanted to visit but had seemed so far away. It was such a whirlwind I can hardly believe I was there. I should start at the beginning - an overnight 11 hour ride on a bus with no toilet, archaic border controls, and a station in "Istanbul" ten kilometers from the city center.

We had decided to go to Istanbul about an hour before the bus left, so we shoved our stuff into our bags and headed to the station in Veliko Turnovo.

The bus ride pretty much went like this: we were afraid to drink beer on the bus for lack of a toilet but did it anyway, had to get out and run around a corner at one of the stops along the way because of it, bought a bottle of wine at a truck stop that looked like any American truck stop - including the truckers, had anxiety about Bulgarian customs taking our passports because they won't just stamp them in front of you like the rest of Europe, had to get out at the Turkish border, run across a billion lanes of traffic to buy visas, run down half a mile to find the bathroom, and hope that the bus didn't leave, got back on the bus to go a few miles then stop again, walked around the overpriced shops they stop us at while they washed the bus - this was at 4am, mind you, saw orange juice! and bought it, stood around until they had finished washing the bus, bought some more beers because there was nothing else to do, got back on the bus and noticed the trucks stopped on the side of the road to sleep just like in the U.S., saw there were properly paved four lane highways in Turkey and thought we had reentered civilization, dozed for about a half hour until it was light out and I just had to see Turkey, caught a stunning glimpse of the Sea of Mamara at sunrise, was dropped off at the bus station where I had to find a WC but it cost to enter and I had no Turkish money, got a lira from a cab driver to pay for it, took a cab into the city, stopped so Tom could get some lira from an ATM, neither of us knowing the exchange rate, got out of the cab in the hostel district, ran over to a travel agency to find out the exchange rate and how much a cab should cost from the bus station - 25 to 30 lira, told the cab driver we would not pay more than 30 lira and he agreed, handed 40 to the cab driver, who proceeded to hop into his cab and give no change. It was not the first time we would be ripped off.

When we arrived, it looked to be a beautiful day. A warm breeze was coming off the sea, and the sun shone down like a diamond the Ottomans had pillaged in their warmongering. Having had no sleep, I planned on seeing some of the city and napping later on. The hostel gave us some breakfast since it was 8am when we arrived, a "Turkish" breakfast consisting of a hardboiled egg, a ton of bread, some grapes, olives, half a tomato, some cucumbers (I will probably not eat a cucumber for a year after this trip), and a host of spreads for the bread. This photo is a view of what I saw as I ate my breakfast.

A kid from Northwestern University who is studying Byzantine history in Greece was visiting Istanbul for a few days - Jacob was his name - and he sat with us. I was half asleep but somehow Tom and he had decided to see some sights together, so we finished our breakfast and set off for some stuff I was too tired to remember the names. Jacob was one of those who had particular destinations and stared more at a guidebook than what was around him, at least on the first two days. I am a person who is more content to wander around and try to get to know the city a bit, but we made a beeline for a mosque that had once been a church.

By the time we arrived after taking a couple of wrong turns, I decided I just wasn't up for sightseeing, so I set out for the hostel to sleep for a few hours, leaving them to the guidebook.

But as I walked back in a sort of zombie daze, I passed a street that showed me the water, and well, I just couldn't pass it up.

The sky was turning ominous, and I noticed dozens of freighters in the distance that were anchored - a sign that the waters were too treacherous to travel. The waves were capped with white foam and sprayed the shoreline as they pounded it. Wind blew off the Sea of Marmara while a few scattered fishermen thought they'd try their luck with the impending storms. I walked along the water tired, content, and telling myself over and over again, "This is Istanbul," unconcerned by the weather blowing in. But then the harassment started. A guy came up to me wanting to sell me something or wanting me to come to his shop or something. I'd heard about the Turks, but I was not prepared for their incessant chatter. Where you from? Can I talk to you for a minute? You are English? American? Spanish? Can I ask you a question? Do you like rugs? Just one minute, one minute of your time. Excuse me, excuse me, can I say something?

I don't know what the guy was selling, but I left the water, returned to the hostel, and proceeded to sleep for a good four or five hours, except when a woman came in and vacuumed the room. I had no idea where Tom or Jacob were, so I thought I'd do some of that wandering I had wanted to do in the morning. And I did. I just walked and walked and walked some more, looking at every crack and crevice, listening to every nonsensical word, sucking in every breath of smoke-free air (get a clue, Bulgaria!) It was pretty chilly, but not unpleasant. I walked down to the Bosphorus and thought about early school days when for some reason the Bosphorus-Sea of Marmara-Dardanelles passage way was burned into my mind. The strait was lined with fisherman and people selling fresh seafood. Oh, how my mouth longed for the taste of that glorious fruit of the sea! Alas, it was not to be, as it was Friday, and all the banks were closed, and I only had cash to exchange, and well, you kind of need banks for that, and I had no lira, so, you know, no seafood for me! So I strolled across the Galata Bridge, which I mistakenly thought was the bridge to Asia.

After I didn't walk to Asia and back, I was caught in a massive downpour. I think the entire sea had been sucked up to the sky and was being spit back down on us. I could do nothing, as I was already soaked, so I continued walking, but this time with the destination of the hostel. I thought perhaps Tom had come back and he could lend me some lira so we could go eat dinner. Me and my shortcuts. I've always had a pretty good sense of direction and thought I'd take a "shorter" way to the hostel. I didn't know I'd hit a wall - literally a 500 year old wall of the old Ottoman palace. And it was a long wall. And I'd hit the wrong end of it. And the rain came down harder. I ended up finding a gate to the palace after a much longer walk than I had wanted and somehow still held the delusion that I could find a short cut. I was walking in the right direction when I went through a gate and suddenly happened upon some metal detectors and security. I just wanted to get out of the fortress but they wouldn't let me go through. I didn't realize that this was the entrance to the imperial palace and it was closed for the day - I just wanted to get out of the rain.

I finally did make my way back to the hostel just before Tom arrived, as equally drenched. We hung our wet clothes across the room and that night, it was so hot and humid in there from the heat and our wet clothes, I thought it was going to rain inside!

The next day was much better weatherwise, though it wasn't without rain. Tom, Jacob, and I spent the day at the palace, which was full of interesting and not interesting things. I was still in awe of just being in Istanbul and stared out at the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Golden Horn as if they were mythical waters come to life. I tried to imagine when the city of Constantinople/Istanbul had been the most important city in the world.

For some reason, though, I thought it'd be warmer, perhaps like the Mediterranean countries. I wore a hat and gloves.

Outside the palace gate is one of the oldest churches in Turkey, which unfortunately is not open to the public. Inside the palace walls, which costs about $10 to enter, is the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, once masters to the Bulgarians and what seemed like half the world at the time. I had many thoughts run through my head as I stared at the palace walls, the remains of the treasury, the massive kitchen, and the decorous rooms of Sultans, but I will save that for later, as it is getting rather late and I am not fond of not getting a proper sleep!

To be continued...

Monastery Part 2

I'm back from Istanbul and will post something about that later. Right now I would like to post some photos of the monastery I visited last week. The nave of the church was very black - either due to candles or some sort of fire, but it was undergoing restoration. We were still able to go in and see it, and it was quite nice that there were no tourists who had trekked the six kilometers in the subfreezing temperatures to see it. The cold was not an issue, as the climb was strenuous and we had to do it both ways!

I especially like this one of Christ above the chandelier, which I had to work on to show the proper effect. It was quite macabre but spiritual at the same time.

It was rather interesting to see the restoration paints sitting there as in a proper art studio. As the church was quite beautiful, I'd be interested in going back to see it when the restoration is complete. The church is unique in that the outside of it is also painted. My favorite part of it was the wheel of life, seen below. Click on it to make it bigger and see the stages of life painted there. Nothing like getting eaten by a big fish with sharp teeth.

The monastery had once housed rebels fighting for independence from the Ottomans. It's a shame that landslides from the rocks above destroyed part of the monastery in 1991, but at least the church was spared.

I leave you with a few more photos, including one of the incredible view from the monastery.

It´s not every day you can walk to another contınent

Visiting İstanbul rıght now. It is pouring, but İ did get to walk to Asia and back. Would write more here but am using a Turkish keyboard and havıng trouble typing.

Why aren't there more cows?

I found a place selling baked goods I had not seen before and stopped to have a look. Tom the English guy and I have been lamenting the lack of fresh baked bread in Veliko Turnovo since we first sunk our teeth into the boring white bread they eat here. There is still a Soviet mentality here when it comes to food - no variety. Take cheese, for instance. You can have sirene, which is a wonderful feta-like cheese, and there is kashkavel, which is an oily, yellow cheese. I would like to cook Cincinnati Chili for the hostel - you know, something to share from home - but cheddar cheese is nowhere to be found, and it is an essential ingredient! The other ingredient I'm worried about finding is Worcestershire sauce. I'm not sure how I could substitute for that.

Last night, Tom, Fedio, and I were sitting in the common room when Tom asked Fedio why there aren't more cows in Bulgaria. The question came up while we trekked to the monastery when we talked about how most of the beef here is veal, and even that isn't common. Strange considering the cost of veal. Anyway, Fedio blames communism. In 1956, if I remember correctly, the Bulgarian government, which had been "voted" into power by "Bulgarian" citizens, nationalized the land and cow farms were split up since no one could own more than everyone else, so the cows had to be redistributed. Thousands of people resisted and were killed or put into concentration camps and displaced from their lands.

Fast forward to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Imagine the mess the new Bulgarian government had to go through in giving the land back to its rightful owners or their heirs. Many of the documents used to prove land ownership were destroyed under communism, and many people have died or were killed and left no heirs. Hundreds of thousands of acres of rich farm land lay unclaimed across the country. Some people have managed to prove ownership and are living on the family farm. Others are using the land to build hotels or resorts or condos in a get-rich-quick-and-now mentality rather than trying to build the necessary infrastructure to turn Bulgaria into a developed country. Corruption is rampant, with bids going to contractors who have friends in government or who have paid large bribes. No one seems willing to be patient and put forth the hard work and effort it takes to raise cattle or other crops because the fruits of this labor are not immediate.

It kills variety, it really does. So when I saw the croissants in the store window, I rejoiced, despite them being filled with kashkaval. They were warm and had been baked in the morning, and in my ravenous desire for freshly baked bread, I threw my change down and stuffed one into my mouth right there on the street. It was by no means the best croissant I ever had, but by god, was I grateful for it!

No, they really don't have it

Orange juice, orange juice, wherefore art thou, orange juice? I miss your sweet taste, your scintillating sunshine in my mouth! Why, oh why, does a land exist void of orange juice, the nectar of life and health? Why have I been cursed with the likes of Cappy and Prisun, their pictures of orangy goodness on their cartons teasing me as the 10% fruit juice laughs from within?

Seriously, if Coca Cola can sell Cappy here, why can't it sell Minute Maid?

The Monastery Part 1

The English guy Tom and I finally got to the monastery, albeit a kind of roundabout way. We left much earlier this time rather than waiting until the waning hours of daylight. Wanting to take a different path, we asked about it and were given another way of getting there. We climbed and climbed a hill along a narrow path that looked more suited for goats than humans, but as we got further along, the path grew closer and closer to the cliffside until we were staring straight down at certain death if we were to slip, and it was muddy.

Not in the mood for death, we chose to climb up the hillside to see if we could find another safer path higher up. Perhaps we had just missed a turn somewhere, we thought, and the real path was up a bit. After all, why would our host send us on such a dangerous trail?

But there was no higher path. We had three options: to follow the cliffside path and hope we didn't slip in the mud, to turn around and start again on the path we had taken on the previous night trip, or to climb the hill up to the summit (in some parts crawling was a better word than climbing) and join the path we had used before. Given that we had already been walking for a half hour, we didn't want to turn around and start again, which would have wasted an hour of precious daylight, so we chose the hill route, which was pretty fun. Since the hillside was so muddy, we had to make use of some of the trees to ease our ascent.

We finally reached a rock formation near the summit that Tom had no problem climbing, as he is quite tall. I, on the other hand, could not possibly scale the thing with my short legs. I stood there for a few minutes wondering how I was going to get up there, looking around at my limited options. I spotted a rock which had broken from the formation, disappeared for a moment, and returned with it, placing it at the base of the formation, which gave me just enough extra height to make it up the rocks.

From there, we found our path and made it to the monastery with no problems getting there...

Conversations with Bulgarian students

Here in Veliko Turnovo, there seems to be a lot of interest in the Japanese language among young people. I'm not sure why this is, as I don't think there is much of a connection between Japan and Bulgaria aside from some Japanese organizations buying property in Plovdiv, renovating it, and turning it into museums, at least that is what I have been told. Many university students in Turnovo take Japanese courses which seemingly have no practical use for them, so I've been trying to come up with theories as to why this language is so popular. Most of the students don't have much exposure to Japanese people, which is why a Japanese guy, Hero, who is living in the hostel is something of a celebrity in town. I'm simply hypothesizing, perhaps wrongly, but I think the interest in Japanese has something to do with the lack of diversity in the town and in Bulgaria as a whole, and a Japanese guy is seen as sort of exotic.

Coming from a country in which nearly everyone's ancestors have come from other countries, diversity is normal to me. Indeed, as a white person, I was a minority in Washington, DC. A friend of mine from Austria who came to visit in September remarked about the diversity as we rode a DC bus - he seemed to be in awe of the fact that we were the only two ethnic European types on the bus, which was filled with black Americans, Ethiopians, Latinos, and Asians.

I guess diversity is a pretty tough concept to grasp when everyone around you is the same, which is why I think many of the Bulgarian university students here continue to bring up the issue of slavery in the US as if they think nobody of different colors can get along because of it. If they were to visit an American city and see the rainbow of people who live in America, it would throw their whole stereotyped world out of order. Indeed, if those who claim to hate America would set foot in my country, they would be confused by the contrast between what they perceive America to be and how we actually live. Sure we have our race relation problems, but in a country of 300 million people, how can we not? We're human. One of the leading candidates for president is a black man - does this not say something about our country?

I'm not saying all Bulgarians hate America, not at all. Many of them simply hate American politics, and well, we're kindred spirits in that regard. It's a shame that so many of the university students I have come to know and have had several discussions with have grown up knowing only Bush as the US leader, as they have no other reference point to base their ideas on. It's just a shame that there aren't more people who can help these students see that there is more to America than Bush's follies, that we aren't simply a nation who loves to be at war.

I guess that's my job. As an American in small town Bulgaria, I am something of an oddity myself, as many of these students have never encountered a real-life American, and certainly not one who has taken such an interest in them. This is why the topic of America and American politics comes up on a daily basis and I find myself on the defensive side of things quite often. At first it really upset me, as I did not come here to be insulted, but I've come to realize that these students have an insatiable curiosity about this thing in the media called America and they don't know much about it aside from what they hear in the news. I try to make them see that America should not be defined by its bombs, but by its ideas. I want them to know that not all of us came from wealthy slaveholding ancestors but that most of us came from poor or persecuted families who left their homelands to seek better lives in the "Land of Opportunity." I tell them that the Statue of Liberty, which used to greet sea traveling immigrants with open arms, has at its base "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." But the greatest difficulty I have is trying to explain how big America is and how 300 million people are spread over fifty states with fifty separate governments and not everyone thinks the same, that indeed, parts of the US have such vastly different cultures that it is easier to think of them as separate countries.

It's something new to me, and I'm learning quite a lot from these kids (and some people my age as well!) I'm also learning a lot about my own country and its place in the world, which is one of the reasons I wanted to get away in the first place. Sometimes it's easier looking at things from the outside instead of trying to navigate your way through a labyrinth of what seems to be circular logic. (Look at my screen name!) I'm not sure if I will find any answers in three months, but at least I feel I'm getting a bit closer to them.

The Nodding

I'm never going to get it.

When I order a coffee and get a shaking head, the first thing I want to ask is why can't I have a coffee? But the shaking head is not telling me no, I can't have it. Bulgarians shake their heads in the opposite way from the rest of the world (except part of India).

Shaking and nodding the head is such an ingrained nonverbal form of communication that you don't think about - until you are confused and distressed about your coffee or your beer or your food or whatever other thing you think you can't have!

We've had great fun with Bulgarians on this subject. Those in the hostel and some of the university students have taken to kind of rolling their heads around in a sort of confused response to our own confusion. Not one day goes by when we don't confuse each other!

Nodding and shaking is especially important in a place where you don't speak the language and they don't speak much English or French or some other language of which you can at least spit out a word or two. I've been here long enough now that I can get by with some words, but at the beginning, it was terribly difficult to communicate, and showing me "no" for "yes" and "yes" for "no" exacerbated the situation.

Halloween

It was a dark and stormy night.

Ok, it wasn't. It was dark and it kind of rained a little at the end, but the evening started out to be quite pleasant when we set off for a nearby monastery. The 6km trail began at the top of Turnovo, and a whole city spread out beneath us until we disappeared around the hill and moved towards the forest. I recalled Halloweens of my youth when we walked through "haunted" forests in the dark and thought it an appropriate day to be taking a dusk hike.

There was a distant sound of what we thought were gunshots, so we made up stories about the gunman in the woods as we continued to walk. It turned out to be a gunboy using a rifle longer than he was at a trapshooting range. We didn't know what was scarier - our gunman story or a child shooting a gun!

After passing the shooting range, we descended into nature, climbing up and down hills, crossing bubbly creeks, and walking over a carpet of yellow lime leaves. Every now and then, the path required a little work to traverse the rocks, but when we reached a peak and could see the city's fortress in the distance, we could catch our breaths and stare at the beautiful sight before us.

Dusk began to fall, putting everything into a cartoon-like state, and the forest came to life. This wasn't entirely pleasant for me, considering I am not a big fan of wild animal encounters and every rock and log was a potential lump of fur to my eyes. I walked with two nature loving guys, however, so that was some comfort.

When dark finally swallowed the last crumbs of the day, the forest became a very black place, though fallen leaves had opened a hole for some of the cloudy night sky to come through. We discussed Brothers Grimm and South American fairytales as if we expected elves and imps to appear on the trail in front of us.

At one point, we encountered a massive boulder perhaps ten feet high that had fallen from the hills above. Each of us immediately saw the same thing - a face in the rock. Not only that, but it was winking at us! Such is the way the eyes work in a darkened forest.

We arrived after 6pm at the monastery, which would have seemed isolated had it not been polluted with the roar of cars on the motorway in the valley below. As the monastery had closed for the day, we sat there a bit and stared at the lighted fortress in the distance before returning to the city by road. Rain began to fall slightly just as we entered the town, but it was still warm so it was not uncomfortable. We ended our Halloween adventure by going to a costume party at a bar filled with university students determined to bring the Halloween tradition to Bulgaria.

On race and the idea of tolerance

In response to the Bulgarian who failed to get the joke about closing the bars on election day, I had begun to write a response that became long enough for a separate post. I have been hearing this same thing from many Bulgarians since I've been here, and I'm really starting to tire of it. It's getting quite frustrating. His comment:

FYI: The Turnovo constitution, adopted after the liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish yoke (1878), on 16.04.1879, states:

art.57 : All Bulgarian citizens are equal before the law.

art.61 : Nobody in the Bulgarian kingdom can buy or sell human beings. Every slave, regardless of gender, religion and nationality shall be free upon stepping on Bulgarian soil.

Note: The slavery institution doesn't existed in the all 1300 year history of present Bulgarian state.

art.86 : The Parliament consists of members, chosen by direct vote, 1 representative on 10000 citizens from both genders.


On comparison, the women in USA got the right to vote as early as 1920(19th amendment) and the blacks in USA were (in fact) allowed to vote after 1965.

So someone from the cradle of democracy should tell us what the democracy is ???

First of all, SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION. At the time of the founding of the Republic in 1776, slavery existed everywhere on earth and had been an accepted aspect of human history from the very beginning of organized societies. In fact, slavery in the United States wasn't even started by the United States - it was started by the British, from whom the US gained its independence!

Secondly, the entire United States did not have slavery and a civil war was fought to end it in all of the country. Slavery existed only briefly, and in limited locales involving only a tiny percentage of Americans. Slavery was outlawed by the 13th amendment to the US Constitution in 1866 but had not been practiced in the northern part of the country except in a few cases, but the north outlawed it shortly after the US gained its independence.

Thirdly, blacks got the right to vote under the 15th amendment to the US Constitution - in 1870. You are referring to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was not intended to give the right to vote but to stop discriminatory practices like literacy tests that were given by some Southern states. What so many Bulgarians fail to understand is how vastly different the South and the North are. They also fail to understand that each state has its own government which determines each states election laws. The Federal Government exists to protect rights, not to tell citizens what to do (in theory). When individual states violate rights protected in the constitution, that is when the Federal Government is supposed to step in, hence legislation like the Voting Rights Act. I've tried to make the Bulgarians I've talked to understand that there are 50 different states with 50 different governments, but they just can't seem to wrap their heads around the concept of federalism. And they think all Americans are alike, whether they be from California, Texas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, or Ohio. Yet these cultures are so different that they are like different countries.

Fourthly, Bulgaria has never been in a position to have slavery, because the modern Bulgarian state has always been dominated by another empire. Bulgaria gained its independence from the Ottomans after slavery was being outlawed throughout the world. Prior to that the Bulgarians were slaves themselves in the Ottoman Empire - how can a country have slaves if they are slaves?

Fifthly, there seems to be this notion that racism does not exist in Bulgaria.

• How about this delightful story, with a Bulgarian saying to a black British woman, "What the f--- are you doing here? You don’t belong in Europe. Get the f--- out of my country. I f----- hate you. You’re a f----- nigger."
• Also, I hear all the time from Bulgarians racism against Gypsies. Roma continue to be subjected to discrimination in the spheres of employment, healthcare, education, housing, and the criminal justice system. It was common practice not to let any people of Roma origin into public swimming pools, cafes, or cinemas, according to the Bulgarian Human Rights Foundation.
• Oh, and don't forget the assimilation campaign of the 1980s and 1990s against the Turks, when they were forced to change their Turkish names to Slavic Bulgarian ones and Turkish culture was suppressed.
• In 2005, the racist Bulgarian party Ataka won 10% of the votes. I have often seen graffiti on walls saying Ataka with swastikas above it.
• The first specific law against discrimination in Bulgaria came into effect in 2004, not because the people wanted it but because it was a requirement for EU accession.

Lastly, while America deserves no unique blame for the existence of slavery, the United States merits special credit for its rapid abolition across the globe. In the course of scarcely more than a century following the emergence of the American Republic, men of conscience, principle and unflagging energy succeeded in abolishing slavery not just in the New World but in all nations of the West. During three eventful generations, one of the most ancient, ubiquitous and unquestioned of all human institutions (considered utterly indispensable by the “enlightened” philosophers of Greece and Rome) became universally discredited and finally illegal – with Brazil at last liberating all its slaves in 1888.

The United States is founded on the idea of equality:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

That is from the Declaration of Independence, published on July 4, 1776. No country is perfect, as countries are run by human beings. But America has done more for the world than any modern country on Earth. Do you like your television, your internet, your computers, your automobiles, your airplanes, your trains, your medicines, your electricity, your telephones...? Why are people so quick to criticize America when we have given so much? Why not for once just thank us?