tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22731186061864812952024-02-08T05:02:23.623+02:00An American in BulgariaAll Good Things Must Come to an EndNatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-48203896202484906572012-06-30T11:30:00.000+03:002012-07-02T01:16:07.879+03:00Epilogue - What Everything is Made Of<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The sun bakes the mountains of Macedonia into a blue haze off in the distance. Many kilometers behind me, it shines peacefully down over a wide expanse of fields rife with plants waving in the gentle breeze. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Yesterday was St. Peter's Day, the traditional beginning of the harvest season in Bulgaria. It is a beautiful,</span><span style="font-size: small;"> blazing</span><span style="font-size: small;"> summer morning. I was up at dawn, packing the last of my things, making sure I had forgotten to pack nothing except what few negative memories I had of my year in Bulgaria and my trepidation at the most challenging of journeys I was about to embark on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Out in the fields of the great, beautiful, mountain-rimmed expanse of the Sofian Plain, perhaps, a few women in traditional costumes have gone out to reenact the ritual of the beginning of the harvest, singing their mournful duets back and forth to each other, the ritual an empty vestige of what once was, a defiant survivor of an age past.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">We reap what we sow. Life has a way of taking what we choose to pour into it--energy, apathy, joy, sorrow, defiance, resignation, love, hatred, passion, interest--turning it around and backward and head over heels, blending it into a mystic elixir, and presenting it back to us as the cumulative content of our life. The last two months have been painful and trying for me, but they have not diminished--in fact, perhaps they have enhanced--the experience I've had this year. It has been a year of growth and trials and discovery and accomplishment. I have experienced more than my share of twists and turns, which have been, perhaps, fitting for a year spent in a foreign land as the result of a lark and a dumbly blind eye to fear. I have tried, at every turn, to spend my time well, to make the most of what this year has been--an opportunity - an opportunity to discover and meet people and change myself and become things that I have always wanted to become--and I have been repaid in kind. I have begun to see that the content of life is, to an extent, self-determining.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Nothing in this world has value except for that which we assign it. There is nothing intrinsically valuable about mundane things, like money or gold or houses or water or cars or trees or air. It is the use or the consequences of all these things--and how we interpret them--that determines their value. Things that we want and need are valuable; things without which life would be little different than it is now are not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Life is about people. One thing that is valuable in this world is the relationships that we forge with our fellow Travelers In Life. Not to delve into a series of wretched platitudes, but human relationships are the closest things we have in this universe to something that is intrinsically valuable. Knowing other people allows you to know yourself. Loving other people allows you to love yourself. Finding and meeting and discovering other people opens up a world of self-discovery that can change your life. And the greater the challenge it is to do so, in whole and in part, the greater the rewards that lie in it </span><span style="font-size: small;">are</span><span style="font-size: small;">. We reap what we sow. Relationships, like Life In General, are largely self-determining. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I have been many people this year. We are all many people over the course of our lives, and we will continue to be so, on and on until our precious time on earth runs out. We live our lives under many different identities as time marches forward, and we see the world through many different lenses as we learn and grow as people. This year, I have lived through many different stages of my life and had many different relationships with many different people. Shakespeare, in one of his most overquoted gifts to the English language, said "All the world's a stage,/And all the men and women merely players;/They have their exits and their entrances,/and one man in his time plays many parts." The last line of that, though it is the one that is most often overlooked within this torrent of insight into the human condition, is, to me, the most profound and important one. It speaks to the many different roles we all fill, sometimes all at once, and this is of the utmost consequence to our relationships and our personhood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I found myself, this year, through the vehicle of a titanic, momentous journey, because I had so much searching to do. In the last few months, I have </span><span style="font-size: small;">again </span><span style="font-size: small;">lost myself a little bit, but the journey I'm about to embark on will be less momentous and less extensive than the one I have just completed because, now that I have already found myself once, and become, at least temporarily, the person that I wanted to be, I have much less searching to do in order to find myself again. The person that I now want to be has changed by degrees from that previous incarnation of my hopes for myself, but the distance between who I am and this new vision of who I need to be in order to be satisfied with myself is much smaller than the one that confronted me previously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I am ending this year the way I began it - leaving for
someplace exotic and exciting and new, someplace about which I know
nothing, in order to find myself once more. Travel, it would seem, is a productive way to discover things about the world and about other people and about yourself. Maybe it is the isolation inherent in it - no matter who you may be with, you are far from home, outside of your comfort zone, forced to grapple with your surroundings and to come up with a new identity that will suit you and allow you to cope with a new version of the world around you. That's certainly what I'm prepared for, and my hope is that it will bring me back to a place in which my life is complete and whole and centered and the richness of the world once more hides around every corner, behind every door, beyond every sunrise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I close my eyes and I'm back <a href="http://www.tsenet.com/pix/Year%202007/Summer%20CA-West%20Coast%202007/062707%20downtown%20la2.JPG" target="_blank">there</a>. And <a href="http://collegecandy.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/campusfountain.jpg" target="_blank">there</a>. And <a href="http://www.seeing-stars.com/oc/RedondoBeachPath%28500%29.jpg" target="_blank">there</a>. I think about what
this means, and I think it is that I really, truly love LA and that it has genuinely
become home. Separated from it by thousands of miles, I can't stop
thinking about it, and I suppose, if I am frank with myself, that I haven't this entire year. The urge to run back there, to resume the life that I led, has grown stronger and stronger as the weather in Sofia has converged with that in LA, as I have attempted to repair the cracks that the last couple of months have put in my life, as this year has drawn to a close and the time for leaving has grown ever closer. It was just a year ago that I had to go through the process that I have gone through in the last several weeks, only last year's</span><span style="font-size: small;"> was much harder</span><span style="font-size: small;">. I was a lesser person, and the content of my life had come to a triumphant head, and it was a place of comfort I was leaving. It is easier to leave this place because of what lies ahead and because of the person I have become, but there is still a very big part of me that wants to stay.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">It has truly been a privilege to know everyone I've known, gone everywhere I've gone, and done everything I've done this year, and I mean that, sincerely, earnestly, without the saccharine sentiment that typically accompanies these sorts of statements. It has been, above and beyond any of the details and pitfalls and triumphs and personal changes I've gone through in the last 11 months, an overwhelmingly positive year. I have discovered, for the first time, that I have an enormous amount of influence over what happens to me, contained in the simple facet of my attitude towards life and all the situations it has a way of throwing us. We reap what we sow. </span><span style="font-size: small;">We drive down the highways of our lives with nothing but our personhood, our ventures, our relationships, our faults, our joys, our loves, our passions, our identities, and all the rest, using them and adapting them and changing them to try to make as much sense as we can out of the Universe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I will, after some indeterminate amount of time, return to the country that I had the privilege of calling home for the most formative year of my life. And it, and I, and the world will be changed, and I will have to do whatever I can to make sense of those changes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I will adapt one of the greatest closing monologues in film's history to sign off to you now and for good. So I ask: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">When will I be going back? And who will I be?</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com4Kamenichka Skakavitsa, Kyustendil, Bulgaria42.2364397 22.498982542.2246837 22.4792415 42.2481957 22.5187235tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-21986566738560616502012-06-30T10:00:00.000+03:002012-07-01T10:46:51.234+03:00The Year in Review, Part 3: The Things<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Part 3 in a 3-part retrospective of the year I've spent in Bulgaria.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">This morning, I ate the last <i>banitsa</i> of the year I have spent in my latest home. Maybe it was the sentimentality of the event, but I would venture to declare that it was the most delicious <i>banitsa </i>I've had this entire year. Hot, greasy, and rife with melting butter and <i>sirene</i>, it was just about the most wonderful culinary way I can think of to say one last, delicious goodbye to this land of <i>domashna xrana</i> and <i>topli zakuski</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">If not quite as much as it has been the people and the places that have made this past year so great, the things I have experienced here have done their own small part to replace those that I left behind in the States. Me being a fat kid at heart, food has been a major focal point of my attention in this place. And, let me say, there are a few things I'm really going to miss about the food in Bulgaria.<i> </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Ayryan. Shopska salata</i> (although this, easily made, will be coming back with me to the US, and will continue to meet its end in my stomach, perhaps joined by a splash of <i>rakia</i>). The beer here--cheap and delicious--will be sorely missed. I will not welcome with open arms the chance to pay $8 for a beer again, vastly preferring to pay 80 cents, instead. <i>Shumensko, Zagorka,</i> and <i>Pirinsko</i> will join Yuengling on the list of cheap, really good beers that I will not be able to drink on a regular basis. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Open-bottle laws will likewise be something I will not be pleased to go back to. Not that drinking in public is something I find integral to the enjoyment of my life, but it's nice to sit in the park and share a beer with people. Such bench parties are, in fact, mainstays of Bulgarian cultural life at this time of year when the weather is warm and the air heavy in the creeping darkness, and they are consistently fun and pleasant. I will miss these open-air gatherings almost as much as the price and quality of the beer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">One item of food I will not miss is the Bulgarian idea of pizza. I found myself missing a few things from the US in the last few weeks--most of them food-related--one of which was the hot slice of mozzarella perched atop a veritable ocean of tomato sauce that you can get at any reputable pizza establishment Stateside. While I appreciate the effort made on the part of Bulgarian entrepreneurs to introduce this monument of culinary excellence to the Balkans, their adaptation of same simply does not cut it. <i>Kashkaval</i> is not mozzarella, and ketchup is not tomato sauce. It's as simple as that, and these things add up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">But with so much good food and beer (and wine, as well)</span> in this place, sitting down for long dinners amongst good company is a way of life, and it's something else I'm really going to miss. We have the wrong idea of eating in the States - it's typically a rushed affair, for justifiable reasons or not. Eating out, you can expect to get the check as soon your food is eaten, and you certainly never have to ask for it. But here, as long as the conversation, which can stretch on and on <i>ad infinitum</i>, and the drinks, which can stretch on even longer, are flowing, dinnertime abides, defying clock and circadian rhythm. I'm convinced, after spending several evenings this way, that this is healthier, more enjoyable, and a better use of time than any I can think of.<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Living in LA, I've gotten used to a complete and utter lack of public transportation to ferry people between points A and B. Sofia's public transportation, though, while universally delayed, is extensive, and there is usually a way to get between two points in the city on a tramcar, trolleybus, or good old autobus.</span> The infrastructure leaves something to be desired, and the pace of these modes of transportation is usually equivalent to speeds not exceeding those of a sprinting human, but if it should come down to the choice between sprinting for several kilometers and riding a noisy, slightly pungent tramcar for the same distance, I'll gladly pay my <i>lev</i> and save myself the trauma.<br />
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Of course, if one wants to pay slightly more, one has at one's disposal what is perhaps the best institution in the city - the cabs. Taxis in every city are highly idiosyncratic beasts, but when it comes down to it, Sofia's may be the best in the entire world. First of all, they are criminally cheap. Getting from one extreme side of the Center to the other will cost you 5 <i>leva</i> - about $3.50. Second of all, the range of personalities one may encounter in such cars is award-winning. This year alone, I have gotten in both a shouting match with a truly despicable character who tried to take advantage of the fact that I was a foreigner, not knowing that I knew enough of the language to make rather repugnant insinuations about his mother, and an extremely good-natured conversation about the Eurocup and who should win it based on the quality of the women in each participating country (the resolution we came to, of course, being that Bulgaria should win going away). Joe Jackson was right - in this city, at least, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUV2oIjNYFo" target="_blank">you never know quite what you'll find, stepping out into the night</a>.<br />
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It seems to be that, on any given weekend night, most of these cabs are headed in the direction of any one of a number of <i>chalga</i> clubs. <i>Chalga</i> is, more or less, folk music thrown in a blender with electronica, the results of which are simply stunning, and not entirely in a good way. The lyrics are vacuous, the beats are unimaginative, and the genre gave rise to <a href="http://ventanagayperu.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/azis_p37.jpg?w=450&h=394" target="_blank">this guy</a>. But there is a goofy, intriguing subculture surrounding this music. Starting around 1 AM, clubs start filling up, week after week, with big guys--huge chests and massive biceps unabashedly on display--and their miniscule, crimped-hair, barely-dressed girlfriends. It is a thing of beauty, and something amongst which I actually wish I had spent more time.<br />
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Closely related to this institution of gaudy popular culture, for the younger folk, is the Bulgarian version of prom, which coincides with their graduations. Imagine, if you will, that for two weeks in June, the city is filled with cars honking at every opportunity--and sometimes, at the most <i>inopportune</i> of times--balloons and streamers trailing from their roofs, hoods (a safety hazard if ever I saw one), antennae, and anywhere else such things could conceivably be attached to an automobile, the drivers' sobriety in question, the passengers waving and calling to friends and random passersby alike. They gather in public places to display their finery, the boys, as in the States, in tuxedos, the girls in <a href="http://bturn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Bulgaria-prom-3.jpeg" target="_blank">dresses that would scandalize Lady Gaga</a>. Welcome to the Balkans.<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">One of the vestiges of the country's 45 years of Communist government is a considerable amount of infrastructure remaining from these years of the People's Republic. In every city, you can see two things that will remind you that this was, in every way, an Eastern Bloc nation not so long ago: Faceless, unattractively nondescript highrises and monuments to either the glory of Socialism, the friendship of the Russians, or the heroes who died for the cause of the Revolution. Many of the highrises, originally uniform and equally nondescript on the inside, have since been gutted and remodeled into attractive units, retaining their cinderblock-and-prefabricated-concrete façades. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">The monuments, though they possess differing degrees of visibility depending on where you are, are nevertheless ubiquitous in city and village alike. Less than 10 minutes from my old apartment, in fact, is <i>Orlov Most</i> ("Eagle Bridge") park, at the center of which stands a sculpture, perched atop a 25-meter-tall obelisk-shaped pedestal, of a Russian soldier with his arm upraised, AK-47 held aloft, flanked on his right by a Bulgarian woman and on his left by a Bulgarian man, symbolizing the liberation of Bulgaria by the Red Army in 1944 and the eternal debt of gratitude owed to the Russians by the Bulgarian people. It is a fascinating cultural insight that monuments like this exist here, and in such prominent and frequent numbers. Imagine the attempted construction of something similar in the US. Would it ever get off the ground? Unlikely.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">One of the things I think I will miss the most about living here is hearing the lilt of the Bulgarian language every day and the game of trying to make out enough words to discern the meaning of a sentence. It has been a challenge for me this year, one that I have undertaken mostly gladly, to learn as much Bulgarian as I can. Language holds the key to culture and personality, and the more of a people's language you know, the better, I think, you are able to understand them. As this was part of my goal this year, it was something I really wanted to do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">For someone who spoke no words of any Slavic language prior to learning this one, it was a impossible, at first, to make any sense of the underlying components of the way this language operated. But as I learned more and more, the mechanisms it uses to convey information became more and more clear to me. Now I'm at the point, though I still don't possess a very big vocabulary, where its structure and organization make sense. In the vast scheme of the world's languages, it is probably one of the simpler ones, despite its idiosyncrasies. It conveys information in straightforward ways, with much nuance and shades in meaning conveyed implicitly. It is a textbook example of a low-information language, contrasting sharply with English, which posseses many different ways of saying the same thing. It is also a lyrical language, with a lot of good consonants to hang onto, something I similarly like about German. I would dearly like to keep speaking it, though the opportunities I'll have to do so in the immediate future look fairly scant. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Bulgaria has a lot of interesting, cool, pleasant, delicious, or otherwise positive institutions that have made it a really wonderful place to spend the year. All of these things I will miss, along with this land and its people. Home is not everywhere, but this year, I've discovered it many, many kilometers from the land of my birth.</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com2Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.326010642.3230482 22.6942966 43.0699352 23.9577246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-14687047598430923682012-06-24T22:18:00.005+03:002012-06-24T23:38:27.624+03:00The Year in Review, Part 2: The Places<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Part 2 in a 3-part retrospective of the year I've spent in Bulgaria.</i> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">It
is that absolutely idyllic point in a hot, dry day when the
air is in the process of cooling and it has reached that temperature
when one
cannot feel the presence of heat or cold on the skin. It's like being in
a swimming pool that has similarly reached that perfect temperature in
which one simply floats, feeling nothing to indicate that there were
anything
surrounding them. It is abhorrent to me, around this time of day, to jog
or hurry or do anything at any pace other than relaxed, a hint of
sleepiness just on the periphery of my consciousness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Sofia
is gorgeous in the early summer sun, especially around 5 or 6. For some
reason, I usually hate this time of day (Douglas Adams having once
perfectly labeled it the Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul), but when the
weather is upliftingly, soul-affirmingly warm like it has been for the
last few weeks and the shadows play their way over the ground, it's
actually one of the nicest times in this city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Sofia
really is lovely, despite all of its shortcomings. It's a city that
seems shaped--in my mind, at least--by its dual identities as a European
city in a poor country. It is laid out in a circle, with points
conveniently radiating outward from the center, and it is, in every way,
designed to be lived in, contrasting with some other cities I've
visited that seem to be lived in despite the difficulties presented by
doing so. It has a system of public transportation that seems extensive
compared to most cities in the States, but pales in comparison to some
of its richer European counterparts (a host of German cities comes to
mind). It is a city of 1 million plus, but the area that this population
occupies seems quite small. Its distinct neighborhood-level divisions
and its concentration of public spaces and eateries result in a
small-town feel in more than a few places, which I really like. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I may be spoiled, having lived where I did up until two days ago, when I bid <i>adieu</i> to my <strike>penthouse suite</strike>
studio. I lived in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city, and it
was central to a great many things. Sofia University, the Institute of
Art Studies, <i>Orlov Most</i>, the <i>Borisova Gradina</i>, a wealth of
bars, shops, and coffeehouses, Zaymov Park, Alexander Nevski Cathedral,
and everything I needed to live were within an easy, short walk of my
apartment, and the more time I spent out among these things, the more I
enjoyed the nature and culture of the city. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Once
I got outside it, however, was when my eyes began to be opened to the
greater nature of Bulgaria. Living in the largest and richest city in a
country will teach you some things about that country, but it can also
create a bubble through which it may be hard for other facets of the
place to penetrate. Sofia really has been lovely, this year--though I am
not certain, were I to stay indefinitely, how long I would continue to
feel this way--and I can't really imagine a better place in Bulgaria to
have been, considering my affinity for urban culture and the
accessibility of certain things that come with it. But to really get to
know a place, you have to experience as many of its locales as you can.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2011/09/to-black-and-back-long-weekend-in.html" target="_blank">The first time I left Sofia</a>
and came back--the last weekend in August, when Greg, Fred, and I went
to Burgas for the weekend--I had a minor revelatory moment when, after
gliding through endless kilometers of hills and fields, our train
suddenly emerged in the veritable center of the city. Having spent most
of my entire life in the States, where urban sprawl has transformed the
outskirts of many cities into endless tracts of houses, it had never
occurred to me that there were cities without suburbs, into which one
could simply emerge as suddenly as one looked back out the window.
Sofia, at least, is one such place, where the country starts as soon as
one has passed its last industrial plant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">This fact led to what was perhaps my biggest eye-opening moment of the entire year. On <i>Lazarovden</i>, <a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2012/04/thessaloniki-passover-lazaruvden.html" target="_blank">I went out to the village of Gorni Bogrov</a> to observe the ritual of the <i>Lazartsi </i>in
whatever form it still existed. When I got there, I was floored by what
I found - a rural Bulgarian village with narrow roads that one could
walk across in 10 minutes. To be sure, the houses were somewhat modern,
and the roads were paved, but there, smack dab in the middle of an
endless plain with mountains rising in the background, was a small
cluster of houses whose limit was defined by a one-lane road running
around its periphery. Each house had a garden, some had horses, and once
you stepped across this road, you were definitively out of the village.
Quite frankly, I had not expected to find something like this in 2012
in a member of the European Union. My conception was that the rural
village had died, but, as it turns out, it was just a few kilometers
away the whole time.</span></div>
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<div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Of
course, I've gone to a host of other really cool places in the time
I've been here. I've spent this weekend, in fact, in the seaside town
of Burgas hanging out with some fellow Fulbrighters for our last
collective weekend in Bulgaria. Burgas--and its coastal neighbors that
I've visited, Byala and Varna--are extremely pleasant this time of year,
as is to be expected. The Black Sea coast is, in a lot of ways, nicer
than what we have in the States; though the culture is decidedly
different, it offers most of what one might find at the Jersey Shore or
in the beach cities of the South Bay, only with finer sands and (in
general, at least) less trash. <a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2012/05/reset.html" target="_blank">The weekend we spent in Byala</a>
was obscenely pleasant--though that was due in large part to the
company--and the time I've spent in Burgas has been much the same. I was
never much of a beach person, but I'm beginning to enjoy the setting
more and more.</span></div>
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<div>
<span style="font-size: small;">One
of Bulgaria's biggest draws is its geography, which is on full display
during the 400-kilometer journeys from Sofia to the coast. The country
is bisected latitudinally by the <i>Stara Planina</i> (literally, "Old
Mountains"), the Balkan Mountains, which are stunning in and of
themselves; one of my big regrets from this year is not having made time
to explore them. In the eastern half of the country, they form the
northern boundary of the Thracian Plain. Much of the land to their north
is uneven, forming endless foothills to the range until these run up
against the Danube Valley. To the south, in the west of Bulgaria,
several other mountain ranges rise to meet the Balkans, forming much of
the terrain that has shaped the culture of <i>shopski kray</i>.</span></div>
<div>
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<div>
<span style="font-size: small;">When
we all first arrived in Bulgaria for FISI at the beginning of August,
we were immediately swept off to the skiing town of Bansko, nestled in
the Rila Mountains (in the summer, it had functioned as mountain resort
for the rich and well-connected). The landscape was, of course,
gorgeous, and it was a rather idyllic setting for us to gain our first
exposure to this place. Mt. Vitosha, which looms over Sofia like a
watchful protector, is one of the symbols of Bulgaria, and is an
important peak in the Balkan Range. Sofia, which lies on an elevated
plain between the Balkans and Rilas, is, one forgets, a mountain city,
and there is a lot of good, accessible hiking to be had. I was fortunate
to have had a day, in the beginning of the year, <a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2011/09/its-holiday-in-bulgaria.html" target="_blank">to hike Mt. Vitosha</a>, though I wish I had done it more than once.</span></div>
<div>
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<div>
<span style="font-size: small;">There
are also a lot of cool things to see and do within plausible day-trip
distance of Sofia. Plovdiv, another of the largest cities in Bulgaria,
is a 2-hour drive/bus ride from the city, and its Old Town offers a lot
of very cool things to see, historical and otherwise, which <a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2011/10/last-10-days-in-10-paragraphs-or-less.html" target="_blank">many of us did back in October</a>. A few weeks after that, I took a short trip to the nearby city of Pernik for St. Ivan Rilksi<i> </i>Day,
which was a much better time than I expected, and in December, Greg,
his family, and I took another such trip to Belogradchik, about a 3-hour
drive from Sofia, <a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2011/12/blogging-at-midnight.html" target="_blank">to visit the Magura Cave</a>, which was awesome in every way.</span></div>
<div>
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<div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Perhaps
the thing that has made so many great things possible this year has
been Bulgaria's relatively small size. The furthest point in the country
from Sofia is 7 hours away, and bus tickets are extremely cheap
compared to what we're accustomed to in the US (Chinatown buses
notwithstanding), so really, the sky's the limit. The biggest limitation
to my traveling this year has been the constraints of time I've been
under. But as far as the plausibility of internal travel is concerned,
Bulgaria is a place that is about as good as it gets. There are a lot of
fascinating and wonderful things, all much different from each other,
and all within a not-obscene distance from each other, either. I'm glad
that I've taken the advantage of it that I have.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">On
Wednesday, we will conclude this 3-part retrospective, as the year
draws to its inevitable close, with a look back at the veritable host of
things that I have come to love about his place and that I will surely
miss in the coming years. Onward ho to the bitter end, and thanks for
being here, y'all.</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Burgas, Bulgaria42.4976779 27.470025442.3103644 27.1541684 42.6849914 27.785882400000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-52139348977345094182012-06-20T20:12:00.001+03:002012-06-24T22:25:39.703+03:00The Year in Review, Part 1: The People<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<i>Part 1 in a 3-part retrospective of the year I've spent in Bulgaria.</i><br />
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I'm not entirely sure that this post should be the first in this retrospective series. What I've come to realize is that an outsized part of the way I feel about a given place has to do with the people I meet there - people make experiences; experiences make feelings. I've also come to discover that I'm really more interested in people than most other things in the world. So I sort of feel like this should be the last, culminating chapter in this miniseries - but maybe it's just as well. I've already started; let's talk about the people I've met this year.</div>
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When I arrived in Bansko in August, I knew nobody. <a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2011/08/on-eve-of-travel.html" target="_blank">I was</a>, as you'll recall, brimming with trepidation at the idea of being thrown into a new situation--social, cultural, and geographical--with no contacts and little command of the local language. My experience, having yet to have begun at that point, could have gone in literally any metaphorical direction. I was in for some kind of year, but the scary part was having no guarantee of what kind of year it would be.</div>
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FISI proved to be a godsend for how I would make my initial contact with the people of Bulgaria. It worked as those who organized it had conspired: Our first interactions with Bulgarians were with ones that had much in common with us, so the initial bonds developed easily. I made many friends those two weeks, not just with Bulgarians, but with Serbians, Croatians, and many others. Having that early nexus of contact was comforting, and it would prove invaluable to have a rudimentary support system already in place by the time I and my compatriots were finally released into the wilds of this country. More rewardingly, that support system grew into a web of friends, with some of whom I've kept in contact through the entire year. This place has been a lot less scary with them around.</div>
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One of the biggest lessons I have learned living in Sofia this year, not coincidentally corresponding to one of the primary aims of the Fulbright Program, has been that of openmindedness, and, more specifically, cultural relativity. The general idea was that, being acculturated to a certain society with its own norms and values, it would take an open mind to accept a different society with different norms than my own and to realize that, no matter how different the behavior of the people in that society might be, it would be as correct in that society as mine had been in my own. As simple and intuitive as that sounds, that consciousness has not always been easy to maintain this year.</div>
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Sofians, by habit--that is, by acculturation--do a lot of things that Americans might perceive as rude. Some things that we take for granted in our society, both small--smiling, saying "please," holding the door for people, giving the right of way--and larger--avoiding incursions into personal space, waiting in lines, and even refraining from low levels of public shaming--are not generally facets of the culture here. This is changing somewhat, especially--being subject to the highest degree of exposure to Western European culture in this country--in Sofia, but I have witnessed the breaking of all of the above American morés here. What has been surprisingly difficult to keep in mind is that these actions, performed by Bulgarians in their own society, have violated no social principles.</div>
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That's not to say that I haven't witnessed, and even been party to, genuine mistreatment in some instances. Jerks exist in every society, and Bulgaria is no exception. But the concept of cultural relativity is that values and norms in a society are, by definition, <i>right</i> within the context of that society if the social order accepts them, and if they persist, then it means that the social order has indeed accepted them. Every culture's customs, in other words, work in maintaining a functioning society. Even if some of the actions I've witnessed here violate the values of American society, those rules do not simply apply here, just because I'm an American. A society should not be expected to change for my sake. There is no set of universal human norms, save, perhaps, one or two, and so it is unfair when anyone thinks less of another culture because of theirs. Thence has derived my lesson in openmindedness.</div>
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I found, this year, that the degree to which I was able to integrate into this society was largely dependent upon my command of its language. Language being people's primary method of communication, this is not surprising. For most of the year I struggled to gain a better understanding of the language so that I could do things like have conversations, and progress was slow, but tangible. By this point, I can go out into the world and not be completely at a loss, which I'll claim as a moral victory. A lot of people speak English in this city, typically depending on their age, and they generally appreciate it if you make a good-faith effort to communicate with them in their language.</div>
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The generational divide doesn't just pertain to language use. The fact that many younger Bulgarians speak English while many older Bulgarians speak Russian is but one vestige of this country's fascinating recent past. This divide even extends, I've found, to manner, customs, and outlook. Younger Bulgarians tend to be more receptive to Western culture, and, less predictably, even tend to be more optimistic. If I knew more about the dynamics of this society and the psyches of its people, I could speculate that this has had to do with growing up in a "free" society as opposed to a "censored" one, one that is integrated into Europe and the rest of the world like it hasn't been in generations, one whose inhabitants have greater opportunities for mobility and wealth and individualism than their parents before them, but, sadly, I don't feel that I know these things well enough to make any sort of confident statement about them. What I've observed, to a large extent, is that younger Bulgarians tend to be more trusting and less skeptical than their older counterparts.</div>
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One of the things of which I've become acutely aware this year, something which I hadn't really thought about in any depth prior to my arrival here, is the fact that Bulgaria, despite its former membership in the Eastern Bloc, despite its location down in one of the more isolated corners of the continent, despite its proximity to the Middle East and, though less so, to Africa, is still a European country, and its inhabitants are still European people. As such, there are elements of its society that I've perceived to be pan-European. As it has turned out, I like Europe. I like the people's propensity for sitting in the park, drinking beer when the weather is nice. I like how dinner can take hours and hours, the meal and subsequent socialization being a process rather than an event. I like the fact that public transportation exists here, and the quasi-comical culture that accompanies it.</div>
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And I love the sociability of the Bulgarian people. This sociability was one of the first things
I noticed about their culture when I arrived, in
the midst of a heat wave, in the late Sofian August. At a time when the inclination of the average
American would be to stay inside and turn on the air conditioning, Sofians
refused to be deterred--many of them being without air conditioning in the first place--and came out in force to distract themselves from
the heat. This was not just a warm-weather phenomenon, either,
though the people of this fine city have come out in greater numbers over the course of the last few beautiful weeks
than I have ever seen. Throughout
the winter, round about 5 o'clock, the cafés, bars, and restaurants began
to fill in identical manners to the ways they have filled on these recent warm
summer evenings, only in the winter months, the drinks were hot and the doors were closed, the
tables and chairs safely ensconced inside their establishments.</div>
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Just down the block from my apartment is a small park, and at the same time that Sofia's plethora of establishments (the sheer number of places to stop in and get a drink or something to eat being something I really love about this city, though we'll get to that in the next post) are getting full, this park--and, as I've discovered, seemingly every public space in the city--is overrun with families, children, adolescents, and adults alike. Babies are especially popular sights, much moreso than in the States, the significance of which I don't know enough about to speculate on. Though this results in a setting that is a bit too loud to be idyllic, it is nevertheless pleasant, and insightful, to boot.</div>
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This is representative of something that I always imagined when I pictured my ideal
community: a group of people who spend their lives outside their
homes, savoring the weather when it's nice, distracting themselves from
it when it isn't. This was always my conception of the American dream - a
vision of a community that lived its collective life not in isolation,
but in the presence of the rest of its collective self. And, at least in this way, the Bulgarian people have not only fulfilled my idealization of community, they have, in some way, redefined it. When the day comes for me to find some place to settle down, to pick a group of strangers amongst whom to live in a place that may or may not be totally alien to me, this is the standard to which I will hold each prospective home. The people of Sofia have shown me that community like this can exist, and it is something I will forever hold a significant desire to be a part of.</div>
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It seems almost bizarre, but I have witnessed the realization of many small American dreams in this land so far removed--geographically, historically, politically, culturally--from America: unspeakably perfect, warm summer evenings, what seems like the entire population of the city out to enjoy the weather in all its splendor, ice cream vendors on every corner, adorable children happily frolicking in the glory of air that seems tinged with magic, dogs happily chasing each other, parents attending to their newborns, adolescents in the throes of tweenhood bravely forging ahead in their quest to find their place in this world, a sun that seems like it will refuse to set tonight, a world at contented peace. In its own not-entirely-superficial way, the dream of the white picket fence is thriving tonight, and I am fortunate to be, in this moment, surrounded by it.</div>
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If this has resulted in an overly romanticized or idealized account of the residents of this place, then so be it. The evening is beautiful beyond compare, and I am in a peaceful and generous mood I have rarely experienced so overflowingly. I am sitting in the <i>Borisova Gradina</i> with the first golden raisins I have tasted in a year, I have given my spare change to beggar and busker alike, the children are flying kites, smiles ablaze on their faces, so far from quarreling that their attendant father must certainly be as contented--for the moment, at least--as I am. It is difficult to be objective about this place or its people when surrounded by so much pleasantness.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I have had a true myriad of experiences with the people of Bulgaria this year, but overall, that body of experience has been decidedly positive. Fulbright is supposed to serve the purpose of cultural integration, understanding, and experience, and I certainly feel like I've accomplished that. I've had a good time here, and it is mostly attributable to the people who have populated my life in the past year. I will leave this place with positive memories of this society, maybe even having learned a few things. In that respect, my purpose here has been fulfilled.</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com5Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.326010642.3230482 22.6942966 43.0699352 23.9577246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-54278634525787482662012-06-17T18:11:00.002+03:002012-06-18T01:17:26.345+03:00This Post is Not Entitled "The Final Countdown"<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
But it started to hit me this week that I have, as of yesterday, two weeks left in Bulgaria. 13 days from now, I will be leaving this good land.<br />
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This will be the last post of this blog's typical quotidian, mundane nature before I turn it over to my alter ego, who, despite remaining nameless, specializes in sentimental and poetic writing.</div>
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Anyway, yes, this was my third-to-last week here in this wild, wonderful land so recently behind the Iron Curtain, and I've started to realize how much I'm going to miss it. It has been such an enormous year in terms of, well, everything, and that isn't something I will ever be able to forget.</div>
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The first draft of my thesis is done, and, as of Friday, reorganized into a coherent narrative that builds a case for my findings in a logical, step-by-step manner. This next week I will rewrite, consolidate, and edit down, leaving four days in my final week for proofreading before I hand it in on the 29th, after which I will enjoy one last day in Sofia before departing the next day for the start of my Epic Trip of the Century.</div>
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This, I suppose, would be the most opportune place to tell you about the trip that I've been hinting at for months. From Sofia, I depart for Skopje, Macedonia on the 30th of June, following which I will spend the next five weeks traveling through Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France, and Spain, culminating with a few days in Madrid, after which I will fly to my <i>Urheimat</i> of Pennsylvania and officially end my Great European Year Abroad. <br />
<br />
I will be relying on nothing more than buses, trains, carpools, Couchsurfers, hostels, family friends, a small amount of cash in my pocket, a sizeable backpack on my back, my ukulele, a couple years of education in foreign languages, and the wits in my head to survive as I traverse and explore, in all facets of its great, exotic mystery, the boondoggle that is the European Continent. This will be a trip more expansive and ambitious than any I have ever undertaken in my life, but though it comes with a certain amount of risk, I am maybe-a-hair-inordinately eager to put myself to the test, just as a final proof that I can survive out there in the world. In that respect, this year could be seen as a prelude to that test, but that view would be injudicious to the enrichment and experiences I've had here and the ones I will have out there. This year abroad has been more than just a test - it has been a portal, a crucible, an adventure; so will the next seven weeks be. </div>
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I always get sentimental around this time of year, with lots of things drawing to a close, which inevitably means I have to say goodbye to certain people and things. But I'll try to save that sentimentality for the coming two weeks. These last four posts will be so replete with saccharine platitudes, they will give you a headache.</div>
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For now, my feelings extend little past overwhelming happiness to have had an entire free weekend to relax and breathe a little. Friday, I met Irena, Fulbrighter Melissa, and her friend Diana in the Center to participate in that quintessence of Bulgarian social culture, lounging in a streetside café at the culmination of the workday in the early evening, drinks and snacks at hand, unwinding in pleasant company. Yesterday, friend of the Fulbright Program Georgi was in town from Pleven, and we repeated in largely similar fashion. </div>
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Today has been a day of reading (my current pursuit being Stephen Hawking's classic <i>A Brief History of Time</i>) and, most enjoyably, picking up my drumsticks and beginning the long process of getting my hands in shape suitable to come out of retirement from competition, which I will do in September. I also went out onto Vitosha Blvd. for the last time and busked, turning my normal hour into a 100-minute barnburner, figuring, as it was my last time, that I would pull out all the stops, and the people of Sofia rewarded me well for it. It was even--dare I say it?--a little fun.</div>
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The result of these two days of by-now-seemingly-gratuitous abstention from work has been a vastly more pleasant weekend than any I've had in a while. I needed it, and it's been nice to have a little time to enjoy this place like I used to before I got busy in January. Rediscovering how pleasant the city is--especially in the warm weather, which has been accompanied by a general uplift in the collective mood of the people here--I realized that I really am going to miss it, the people, the things - but like I said, that's a topic for the next few posts.</div>
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It has been really great and even intermittently therapeutic to be able to talk about my days on this site. If you've stuck with me for the entire year, wandered off and come back, or even been a latecomer to this blog, I am honored to have your readership, especially considering the frequently unexciting nature of my day-to-day, which has, of course, translated to frequently unexciting content on this site. To be quite honest, I wasn't entirely sure I would either have the discipline or the readership to support a year-long travel blog, but I'm glad I made the commitment to do this. It's been a place where I've been able to work out some things for myself, as well as a place to record events I might otherwise have forgotten, so that, in some distant point in the future, I might stumble back across it and be that much more able to lucidly Remember When.</div>
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It's given me a nice dose of perspective to be able to go back and, with the benefit of distance and hindsight, recall moments from this tremendous year abroad, how they made me feel at the time, and compare those feelings to the ones I have now, now that the year is mostly behind me. I've certainly done a lot of changing these last 10-odd months, and a lot of things that once seemed alien to me are now commonplace, just as my life has changed in numerous ways.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But, before we go down that road, I'll leave you to your pleasant Father's Days, and wish my own Father a very happy one, accompanied by my love. I'll be back in a few days to begin wrapping up this wild, startling, totally unexpected but gratifying and momentous year.</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com1Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.326010642.3230482 22.6942966 43.0699352 23.9577246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-3952228388832599312012-06-10T18:05:00.000+03:002012-06-10T23:31:09.286+03:00Exhaustion (But not for Long)<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
There was a time, once, when I was as exhausted as I am now. That time was the end of my junior year at university, and it had been the most challenging year I had ever known. Everything had come due at the same time, I was under a lot of stress, and I had overcommitted myself. I was worn out and stretched thin. It was late Spring.</div>
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Funny how these things have a way of repeating themselves.</div>
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Here I am, it is late Spring, 2012, and I am worn out and stretched thin and in every way in need of a vacation. Today marks the 35th day I have been drafting my thesis - the completion of the first 5 of what I had anticipated being a 6-week process. The good news is that, following the completion of today's tasks a bit later tonight, I will have but one solitary day of work remaining, which I intend to fulfill by 5 PM tomorrow, after which fellow Fulbrighter Michael and Friend of Fulbright Chris are coming into town, and I will give myself a mid-week weekend to relax before I begin the editing process to procure Draft 2.</div>
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The confluence of my exhaustion and some personal angst has made the last month kind of tough, and in a lot of ways, I'm past the point at which I can typically draw on my well of resilience. That particular well is running dry. But what is keeping me going is the prospect that in less than 3 weeks, I'll be embarking on the coolest trip of my life.</div>
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I certainly didn't mean for this blog to devolve into a nexus of negativity, which I feel like it has partially done over the course of the last couple months. For that I'm sorry, and I promise that the rainbows and butterflies will be coming back in full force in the not-too-distant future. It's just that I've semi-unconsciously determined that candor is probably the best M.O. for this blog, and in that vein, I haven't been in the habit of holding back too much here. This blog, coexisting with the far more academic writing load of my thesis, has also, to a certain extent, become an outlet for me into which I've been able to pour my less-formal scribal inclinations. But, like I said, the tone will lift soon; this has just been a tough stretch for me lately. To try to regain my spiritual center, I've started a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khichuri" target="_blank">khichuri</a> fast and I intend to start sleeping more, too, so we'll see how that goes.</div>
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None of this is to say that I haven't been having fun here, from time to time. Last night, I met a couple other Fulbrighters to go see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sftuxbvGwiU" target="_blank">Prometheus</a> in IMAX, which was fun, even if it was a little intense for me. If you're into that kind of thing, though, I highly recommend it.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Next weekend, I will be much more relaxed - scout's honor. This is the last weekend I have to work straight through to keep up with my deadlines, and getting some rest every week will be a welcome change of pace. So until then, здравe и всичко хубаво</span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">.</i></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.326010642.3230482 22.6942966 43.0699352 23.9577246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-20971381271139296282012-06-03T20:16:00.000+03:002012-06-03T20:16:55.121+03:00Welcome to June<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
It's fairly incredible and unbelievable that it is already the third of June. June has always been a month that has taken me by surprise, as it usually comes on the heels--or in the midst--of some manic attempt to complete something or somethings. It is the end of the school year, the choral season, the spring. This year, it is the end of my stay in Bulgaria.</div>
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As a result of all of these, I'm usually exhausted by the time this month rolls around, and it, despite my lack of foresight in anticipation thereof, that is always welcome, as it means the summer--which typically equates to a glorious period of rest and fun--is right around the corner. Which is now the case.</div>
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I have one more week, plus a couple of fudge days during the next, to finish drafting my thesis. A good thing, too, because I'm seriously starting to question my ability to write anything more at all. I have never applied myself to an academic venture of this magnitude before, and I'm worn out. This process has imbued me with the perspective to be flabbergasted by the reality that there are thousands of people out there who do this every spring, working under stricter deadlines than I, with more in their schedules.</div>
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<strike>Sporadically</strike> Diligently working on this demonic leviathan, however, has left me few opportunities to have fun. My attention span being shorter than is probably conducive to a 24-year-old male in need of some efficient work periods producing a paper of this magnitude in a timely fashion, my work days tend to get spaced out over a period of 12 hours or more, not entirely all of which is actually spent on work. This phenomenon tends to get in the way of having free chunks of time for getting out and doing fun stuff.</div>
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The good thing is, though, that today I got such a day, as I decided to leave my work for tonight--it remains to be done--and to just get out and relax. This morning I met Irena, committed the heinously indulgent crime of buying ice cream at 10:30 AM, busked out on Vitosha Blvd. for about an hour, went to a cafe, tried in vain to organize my notes so I could begin writing section 9, actually organized my notes, began section 9, and then chilled out with fellow Sofian Fulbrighter Sophia and her friend Adrienne for a couple hours to commemorate the 45 minutes of real work I had done earlier in the day.</div>
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And a good day it was for it, too, as this is the first day it hasn't rained (though four hours remain, I suppose, in which precipitation that would force me to eat my words could ensue) in, no lie, more than a month. I wore shorts today, and sat in the sun for awhile. It was really--really!--nice.</div>
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<br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But as a result of this relative loafing, I'm left with many pages to write tonight, so I will bid you </span><i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">adieu</i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> and goodbye. Until next week, when, hopefully, I will be bursting with the news that my first draft is complete. Here's to hope.</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.326010642.3230482 22.6942966 43.0699352 23.9577246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-6277522250349555992012-05-30T23:30:00.000+03:002012-06-01T12:10:08.908+03:00Visitors and Counting Down<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
Today marks the beginning of my final 30 days in Bulgaria.</div>
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There are no words to describe all of the experiences I've had this year, and just how much they've impacted my life and my person, but in the next few weeks, I'm going to give it a try, so stay tuned for that.</div>
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The overarching narrative of this past week has again been--you guessed it--the inexorable march towards completing my thesis. Having passed 100 pages and 8 sections completed today, I'm now 2/3 finished with my first draft, and still sort of on schedule, give or take a day. That said, this has been the week it has stopped being fun, and begun, in unpleasant earnest, to be a slog towards the finish line. I have ceased writing; I am now doing battle.</div>
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For that, I feel like I owe this place and my experience here an abstract apology of sorts. None of this year was supposed to be killed time or compulsory effort in service of something else, not even the final dregs of it. But, I suppose, this happens quite often during the penultimate stages in the completion of something major; maybe it's just human nature to want the end of something when that end--especially when it's a goal to be achieved--is in sight.</div>
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And, in my defense, this has been one of the toughest weeks I've had in a long time, with which the details thereof I'll furnish you should you feel compelled to ask me. To keep things vague and concise, the hour-long episode I experienced of getting caught in a torrential downpour on Sunday night when I was out running for the first time with my new iPod was a fitting metaphor for the content of my life during the last week and a half.</div>
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Senioritis--or its equivalent to whatever-role-in-life-it-is-I-am-presently-filling--has been afflicting me for a couple months, but this has been the week that has vaulted me over the final wall of disenchantment separating my consciousness from the desire to just go home already. Not that I want to sound ungrateful, or unhappy, or fed up, because I'm not. Really. I'm still happy where I am, I'm still having a nominal modicum of fun, I'm still so grateful to be here and to be doing this, because this has been, and continues to be, an awesome experience in a whole mess of ways. But the honest, earnest facts are that it is late May, it's been raining here for a month straight, I have been spending the last 3 1/2 weeks sitting on my fat stores typing on this same loathsome machine, and I'm ready for a change of scenery. My only regret is that I'm afraid that all this will prevent me from enjoying this place and honoring this opportunity to the extent that I should be for my final month here. To put it more simply, I'm over this, and I feel bad about that.</div>
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But - </div>
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30 days remain here, and no matter what has built up to this moment, the onus is on me to use those days to the fullest extent and to try to squeeze every last remaining drop of significance out of this year that I can. So, though I'm beginning my 30-day countdown, I'm still going to put my fun face on when I put both feet on the floor every morning and just do the best that I can. That's all any of us can do anyway.</div>
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All of that said, it's not like my life has been one festering hollow of despair lately. This weekend I had some visitors (as I have had almost non-stop since returning from Vienna), including my very own father, as well as Macedonian Fulbrighter Cassidy, whom I met in Thessaloniki last month.</div>
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My dad, who had been in Israel for the week-and-change prior to this past weekend, was supposed to come in late on Friday night, giving him roughly a day and a half to check out the true face <strike>and not just the fairytale I had been feeding him</strike> of my life here. For reasons stemming from the silly nature of air travel, he ended up having to fly from Tel Aviv to Vienna before coming back down thisaway, and unwisely chose Austrian Airlines to ferry him thus, as I could have advised him against. Lo and behold, this sham of a company delayed his flight out of Tel Aviv, causing him to miss his connection in Vienna, meaning he didn't get into Sofia until noon on Saturday, a mere 20 hours before he had to leave again.</div>
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So. We got to spend a little time touring the city (me giving my now-routine Eastern Half Tour) and hanging out, which was nice after going such a long time without us having done so. We played some music, went out to eat, went to the bar, etc. It was too short of a time to spend with him, but I'm going to be home in two months, so there's a silver lining in the inadequacy of that period of time.</div>
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While we were out seeing the city on Saturday, the oddest assortment of things kept happening. Cars kept driving by and honking, balloons flying from their antennae, and windows, and, seemingly, every other attachment point possible, people leaning out of those same windows and waving, screaming, and pointing. And at the Cathedral, I saw something I'd never seen before: Hundreds upon hundreds of Bulgarian kids, all decked out in the most ridiculous of dresses, suits, and tuxedos (Click <a href="http://bturn.com/8545/the-real-balkan-prom" target="_blank">this</a> for a no-BS look at what we were seeing), all yelling, having what appeared to be a rager, bottles and all, in the middle of the day.</div>
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What we were witnessing, as it turns out, was graduation season in Bulgaria, these kids all graduating high school students heading to their proms and graduation banquets. As I later heard, it happens every year, and there is nothing else like it, as I will henceforth attest.</div>
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On the heels of my dad's exit came the entrance of temporary Skopje resident Cassidy. Her stay here was mostly uneventful, as I--will this sound familiar?--had work to do, though we did meet up with Georgi, who took us to a traditional Bulgarian restaurant, albeit one with questionable service (well, they <i>did</i> give us free brandy at the end of the night to make up for it). And we <i>did</i> get serenaded by a folk band in a manner broadly similar to <a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2012/01/istanbul-not-constantinople.html" target="_blank">the experience I had in Istanbul in January</a>. But the next morning, she, too disappeared like a puff of smoke in the wind, and I was left solitary once more.</div>
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However, old Friend of the Fulbright Program Sanja, and her boyfriend, Adrian, were in town from Berlin, so last night, I ventured out of the battlefield that my apartment has become to go meet them for coffee and drinks and dinner. It was really terrific to catch up with them - they moved from Sofia a few months ago and I hadn't seen them since. Next year, though, they are moving to the Toronto area, and so are going to have the distinction of being the most local Foreigners I've Met This Year to me next year, presenting some interesting opportunities.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So -</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It has not been the most fun week I've ever had, but there have mercifully been things to keep me going. Now it's time for me to go. I've been staring at this screen for--no lie--13 straight hours today, and my eyes hurt. But we'll be back together soon enough. So for now, enjoy everything that life throws you.</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.326010642.3230482 22.6942966 43.0699352 23.9577246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-39734031949820331612012-05-23T22:29:00.003+03:002012-05-23T22:29:50.656+03:00An American in Vienna, An Apocalypse in Bulgaria<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
Part 1: Travels</div>
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The thing I have probably enjoyed most about this year has been the degree of mobility afforded me by living in a part of the world with such small countries. In the States, you travel for a while, and you may or may not even be in a different state; the people still speak English; you can still walk down the road and get a pizza; your money is still green (or blue or orange or any of the other myriad colors in which legal tender in the US now comes). Traveling is just simpler, cheaper, and more accessible in the Balkans, where a completely alien culture is just a bus or plane ride away. </div>
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So to put the finishing touches on my <em>œuvre</em> of warmup travels that has presaged the biggest trip of my life, coming up next month (!), I took a long weekend to Austria to visit fellow Los Angeles Fulbrighter Andrea and to see Laura for a few days. Last month, I had the opportunity to be whisked through Vienna for an apocopated two-hour tour of the city (never mind that more than half of that time was spent on the <i>U-bahn</i>), but, that short time hardly having counted, I wanted another chance to visit for reals. So on Thursday, I made a little jump over a couple mountains and some other quasi-important stuff to go stay for a few days.</div>
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After meeting my two governesses at the airport, we scampered off to get some of the best ice cream known to man. No, seriously, hyperbole has no place in this blog, and my word here is bond. Finishing this nirvanic treat off well before we reached the safety of Andrea's apartment, we took the long <i>S-bahn</i>, <i>U-bahn</i>, and <i>Strassenbahn</i> ride to catch up a little and take in the Viennese scenery. Upon getting home, it being nearly 6 (my original flight having been cancelled, pushing my arrival back), we made some dinner, got settled in, and opted to chill out for the night.</div>
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The next day, us having crashed far earlier than the usual post-PM times to which I've grown accustomed, began bright and early, but with the added bonus of a decent night's sleep under our belts. We had a rather pleasant, leisurely breakfast (replete with tea <i>and </i>toast), and then headed out to be <strike>obnoxious American</strike> good little tourists about Vienna.</div>
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Our first stop was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schonbrunn" target="_blank"><i>Schönbrunn</i></a>, the summer home of the Habsburgs during their extravagant reign. To paint the most simplistic picture I can of the place: It is large, and the courtyard is huge, and it's got a lot of ornate stuff in it. Just look:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYMs4Vhlja2q2tzSOarBB5aJf85WUwDUdaL8ukZT15XjSQzSDkSBuhk17nq1Wph2EK6VVg_rLv1-GNLVbbo_WWd7JLoyF4b26B6j8SofzQkLTS9Yc5XmlxlMwjai4-ZJxLvmfQlXw2tX8/s1600/DSC_0002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYMs4Vhlja2q2tzSOarBB5aJf85WUwDUdaL8ukZT15XjSQzSDkSBuhk17nq1Wph2EK6VVg_rLv1-GNLVbbo_WWd7JLoyF4b26B6j8SofzQkLTS9Yc5XmlxlMwjai4-ZJxLvmfQlXw2tX8/s640/DSC_0002.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The fountain and gloriette up the hill</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiGGy9_wuWpysxoX6v5QuARILXsIdnEX46iMzjTYhXeOPZtKlre7eT9U2L5cOVL5kGu2_PWvimRnAEkylrWjuryee6TaWEtlwmskAmlt5dcukgEr-Xf2lXscY1rHp1m8YAu-44JXf83-E/s1600/DSC_0007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiGGy9_wuWpysxoX6v5QuARILXsIdnEX46iMzjTYhXeOPZtKlre7eT9U2L5cOVL5kGu2_PWvimRnAEkylrWjuryee6TaWEtlwmskAmlt5dcukgEr-Xf2lXscY1rHp1m8YAu-44JXf83-E/s640/DSC_0007.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking back down, Vienna in the background</td></tr>
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After reveling in this opulence for a few sunny hours, we made a brief foray through <i>Karlsplatz</i>, which included reflective, digital counters of all sorts of interesting items, like this one that was counting worldwide "armaments expenditures," AKA defense spending, since January 1st (in Euros): </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJnhGSqWL7ZlAR1WAnRtQwHeyk1QKFnqSRynOkFHy627dhpCZ3pbwwV7ravRBZQKcnxBcAsZkZs09vK2ZCq2rjf0i1aMQ1ehAWlY621ljELHTf2mWt9dMK9Dq3A9dMY0XcLrFhI9axIiw/s1600/DSC_0044.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJnhGSqWL7ZlAR1WAnRtQwHeyk1QKFnqSRynOkFHy627dhpCZ3pbwwV7ravRBZQKcnxBcAsZkZs09vK2ZCq2rjf0i1aMQ1ehAWlY621ljELHTf2mWt9dMK9Dq3A9dMY0XcLrFhI9axIiw/s640/DSC_0044.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">€ 512 billion = A lot of money.</td></tr>
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This being merely a transit point between where we had been and where we were going, we declined to linger, and made straightaway for Vienna's 1st District. In our jolly hours wandering around this, the city's oldest and most central part, we happened upon a large collection of Really Neat Stuff, including the <i>Burgtheater</i>, Vienna's most prestigious theater, the <i>Rathaus</i>--Vienna's city hall, all decked out for the imminent Life Ball, at which Bill Clinton was to give an address--the Austrian Parliament, the <i>Volksgarten</i>, and Hofburg Palace.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvqOZov0RIyHA03Y3-r2g9tlZy_EViCfxc9rfsP-o-Jy92MB7oR4bELQN6lA9meqW4tgXRlmGwuIH6g8F92EC8DKkU3MgAhy3bhFE65EkDjW1w8-T-hOTjeMAjhJ_C1PHV4U-gmVDPkw0/s1600/DSC_0046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvqOZov0RIyHA03Y3-r2g9tlZy_EViCfxc9rfsP-o-Jy92MB7oR4bELQN6lA9meqW4tgXRlmGwuIH6g8F92EC8DKkU3MgAhy3bhFE65EkDjW1w8-T-hOTjeMAjhJ_C1PHV4U-gmVDPkw0/s400/DSC_0046.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Burgtheater</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihv4_B20mC6lO8aC-tqtqcjUH3JOQzu1YzWEW0qqDkasJ2eKkVbTuqdaUvHDO_Ok6SfFOnW7GZACHyK6C_1eXNVJcgThEvwy63aXghexBuwce_czWgab15pf-NejfvgG_sKVzig5RbGg/s1600/DSC_0049.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihv4_B20mC6lO8aC-tqtqcjUH3JOQzu1YzWEW0qqDkasJ2eKkVbTuqdaUvHDO_Ok6SfFOnW7GZACHyK6C_1eXNVJcgThEvwy63aXghexBuwce_czWgab15pf-NejfvgG_sKVzig5RbGg/s400/DSC_0049.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Rathaus</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib7DKKXNi_APe-zdH2yi4o7cU_pTQkRJ0rYZcEB8FGCwSPYAqUD0rHvQF2gAc4R_KJHA-05ozw7dJYhjIHC0hHqVQajBl5nhzsQMCGzqa_0wsbejVVlazlSfS3O_wISqBMArTG83jqgpo/s1600/DSC_0058.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib7DKKXNi_APe-zdH2yi4o7cU_pTQkRJ0rYZcEB8FGCwSPYAqUD0rHvQF2gAc4R_KJHA-05ozw7dJYhjIHC0hHqVQajBl5nhzsQMCGzqa_0wsbejVVlazlSfS3O_wISqBMArTG83jqgpo/s640/DSC_0058.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Parliament, which begs the question of why our government buildings don't have stuff like this in attendance. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIkQ2G6EOhEcucShwH4MqvV0CoN6wrj_TZfVPXC2Dk8YgCqngLvPHzrAwzEfVWTZPYumuxIKPPvH5jcxX-39EYUiek7P8urCZOS38yzEWVktTQjOz_xtktLnf-QtTPlpy-4m2gXDMsL8/s1600/DSC_0096.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIkQ2G6EOhEcucShwH4MqvV0CoN6wrj_TZfVPXC2Dk8YgCqngLvPHzrAwzEfVWTZPYumuxIKPPvH5jcxX-39EYUiek7P8urCZOS38yzEWVktTQjOz_xtktLnf-QtTPlpy-4m2gXDMsL8/s640/DSC_0096.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Hofburg Palace</span></td></tr>
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While we were ogling these Old World wonders, having seen a great many cool things that day, evening fell and we moseyed back to Andrea's apartment, from which she scurried off to rehearsal, while Laura and I made dinner.</div>
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Exhausted from another long day, we feel asleep rather early that night, and awoke not-late-ish on Saturday, first to go to Yamm--a vegetarian pay-by-weight buffet that was nothing short of damned delicious--and then to go to Vienna's huge, historic cemetery, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zentralfriedhof" target="_blank"><i>Zentralfriedhof</i></a>. As it spans more than 2 square kilometers, we didn't nearly have enough time to see all of it, but we did hit some of the more important parts. First up was the composers' section:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2-kLSQue4H86A6b_fttvuKXBHlcpGHbBW5_dvPKzZVneNllRU5LMJAfvFbkXXUWnrcOtNv6FvO491qTcqDFc-NcJhnxDgL5CAgO3f3FNcjrARPUCqgIQJcJn5Ip7w-uSXpeFtAF6maXs/s1600/DSC_0120.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2-kLSQue4H86A6b_fttvuKXBHlcpGHbBW5_dvPKzZVneNllRU5LMJAfvFbkXXUWnrcOtNv6FvO491qTcqDFc-NcJhnxDgL5CAgO3f3FNcjrARPUCqgIQJcJn5Ip7w-uSXpeFtAF6maXs/s400/DSC_0120.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beethoven</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVItKjHsIq03yp6iNL9E6rzGcy_PlDbuKrGbIAg5mhQqcNzlA-v1teR-QfVf4VvoVnN0Njh_KDEZwH8CfKvseX2u26f92YFFzo8y5OhIPqPZgZ-NpdVx6AdQ74M6yLBqOy0yT3pCTDhw/s1600/DSC_0123.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRVItKjHsIq03yp6iNL9E6rzGcy_PlDbuKrGbIAg5mhQqcNzlA-v1teR-QfVf4VvoVnN0Njh_KDEZwH8CfKvseX2u26f92YFFzo8y5OhIPqPZgZ-NpdVx6AdQ74M6yLBqOy0yT3pCTDhw/s400/DSC_0123.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monument to Mozart</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSO87Emw3-U4FZNWpiod78FWJqMWYR-CuU0YR7sDu0APKd6nzn6iWCoaoRZvocLef4bOlp8b13yQw7nWRAsGZdZlMzuvVSSlULEj_cUwk_EmV0w_BIVlVbcIriuiThr6fbPQWNi4bU9Fw/s1600/DSC_0127.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSO87Emw3-U4FZNWpiod78FWJqMWYR-CuU0YR7sDu0APKd6nzn6iWCoaoRZvocLef4bOlp8b13yQw7nWRAsGZdZlMzuvVSSlULEj_cUwk_EmV0w_BIVlVbcIriuiThr6fbPQWNi4bU9Fw/s400/DSC_0127.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Schubert</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lunX-HuOtDMWqZ7-bUPfFt3qteOUy7B7OuIqXZrbaJPEtBh9mXe2z-WB5Wbdf_XYJHf9ubgXfGTQzROql2O0Inczq_nmOTj06O2wlWPHyqhGUu8eyKFBFYSug7ypMOO4xt9ghLzwHNU/s1600/DSC_0129.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lunX-HuOtDMWqZ7-bUPfFt3qteOUy7B7OuIqXZrbaJPEtBh9mXe2z-WB5Wbdf_XYJHf9ubgXfGTQzROql2O0Inczq_nmOTj06O2wlWPHyqhGUu8eyKFBFYSug7ypMOO4xt9ghLzwHNU/s400/DSC_0129.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Johann Strauss</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlOKDF5rFlLzdPkqFwr8jt3LaU0nYj8rkY2TZj1b958EFU0Il8QCp882_NbqrVcMdSDgQazNYYLve_pqxfQ1eP6oWQzho3iOaed2oILu8uLLS9ameT_Msq6vqRgg6XUEBUhTLiwxA8o98/s1600/DSC_0130.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlOKDF5rFlLzdPkqFwr8jt3LaU0nYj8rkY2TZj1b958EFU0Il8QCp882_NbqrVcMdSDgQazNYYLve_pqxfQ1eP6oWQzho3iOaed2oILu8uLLS9ameT_Msq6vqRgg6XUEBUhTLiwxA8o98/s400/DSC_0130.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brahms, in all his perplexed glory</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3uiad__MzHrdtC1iupmFxBeMBrxREc_Ie0cOK3-qdZ3jfUV-DkxHZrR-wzbUJ6dvM7IAI4FXgAzFIF8DxJd1STr5T4Q-0l2EFv-tkzsqG11g4GeXKyN_bnCNQjjtWMfsVlDXfxpjqg0s/s1600/DSC_0132.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3uiad__MzHrdtC1iupmFxBeMBrxREc_Ie0cOK3-qdZ3jfUV-DkxHZrR-wzbUJ6dvM7IAI4FXgAzFIF8DxJd1STr5T4Q-0l2EFv-tkzsqG11g4GeXKyN_bnCNQjjtWMfsVlDXfxpjqg0s/s400/DSC_0132.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wolf</td></tr>
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After that, we wandered over to what was nominally the "President's Section," though it mostly contained non-presidential, though otherwise notable, people:</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvofi9FNatt4_GAIKeHtUJJWB8XTvsaDmiJs2qcd-exMch7UMO_yG4o7e4idevxs29DuBVWpDm9gu62ug4I2MyT62H_-6HdSuMLNeBlHXWfxtt1mBtIG33FxoUIqKA1POQAx4_RFsfO0g/s1600/DSC_0150.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvofi9FNatt4_GAIKeHtUJJWB8XTvsaDmiJs2qcd-exMch7UMO_yG4o7e4idevxs29DuBVWpDm9gu62ug4I2MyT62H_-6HdSuMLNeBlHXWfxtt1mBtIG33FxoUIqKA1POQAx4_RFsfO0g/s640/DSC_0150.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Julius Raab - actually a president of Austria</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRhcJtbOuPGYd9462JUb-ZXQHSOMWkHapzigXV1Syd7X-rvMQ1zkQ7xJsGvSRceK3JwJ8QP22LYkGZAzTl_JUJhdUUdJ2g3qpEnNALH_UjLbIbvMwpdAsQRaeU0gYuc0_zo7pNXeL21-8/s1600/DSC_0156.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRhcJtbOuPGYd9462JUb-ZXQHSOMWkHapzigXV1Syd7X-rvMQ1zkQ7xJsGvSRceK3JwJ8QP22LYkGZAzTl_JUJhdUUdJ2g3qpEnNALH_UjLbIbvMwpdAsQRaeU0gYuc0_zo7pNXeL21-8/s640/DSC_0156.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arnold Schönberg - not a president of Austria</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglPN4DI-qmTUnR1Np4kVmQWKZ40QMyvSFvhzaMXElu9os0htt31r7kf_CSKxQlfnG7GQxnLxD8lOwcZAMbvy1Fueq0R_mtaYl8cI1wo0i144hlFX3mm-oHTbobZdV5hNsvQmkXN3Y3E7U/s1600/DSC_0162.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglPN4DI-qmTUnR1Np4kVmQWKZ40QMyvSFvhzaMXElu9os0htt31r7kf_CSKxQlfnG7GQxnLxD8lOwcZAMbvy1Fueq0R_mtaYl8cI1wo0i144hlFX3mm-oHTbobZdV5hNsvQmkXN3Y3E7U/s400/DSC_0162.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zemlinsky - also not a president, but cool anyway</td></tr>
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Finally, we headed over to the Jewish section, which, to my surprise and sadness, was overgrown and in disrepair. Having somehow escaped the destruction that befell so many Jewish cemeteries during the Holocaust, it has clearly not been maintained, either by virtue of the interreds' families having permanently fled the former Reich, and so being unable to pay for maintenance of the graves, or simply through negligence on the part of the caretakers of the cemetery. Whatever the case, it was a sad and telling reminder of the recent history of the country.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp7edveYWm2kyGADrCiMLTaaxt62g9up_QwGhkhtIeu_2dy6g7d80Pr1tddUF2pAeAB_N9CAMNRLUuxBmZgelHnEDeKFqbkcFXRJfsstI5-IR0_tWutNmOR7x0L7iZccK_lBy0pKW9pqI/s1600/DSC_0190.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp7edveYWm2kyGADrCiMLTaaxt62g9up_QwGhkhtIeu_2dy6g7d80Pr1tddUF2pAeAB_N9CAMNRLUuxBmZgelHnEDeKFqbkcFXRJfsstI5-IR0_tWutNmOR7x0L7iZccK_lBy0pKW9pqI/s640/DSC_0190.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Overgrown</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEithzvyo0HYQwGzAM2iseur08lOAE9iSku3xV37y_akTPuZifUgPydL8LW9zAt6cqPyX5n55I2D_ugMAFp4Pdm-sWrBwYHbzx6ZIlqjmXsR1wk09-19DO-NZSMIGgxQ0WrqiZ0eGjpdjGI/s1600/DSC_0192.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEithzvyo0HYQwGzAM2iseur08lOAE9iSku3xV37y_akTPuZifUgPydL8LW9zAt6cqPyX5n55I2D_ugMAFp4Pdm-sWrBwYHbzx6ZIlqjmXsR1wk09-19DO-NZSMIGgxQ0WrqiZ0eGjpdjGI/s640/DSC_0192.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Broken down</td></tr>
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Needing to get home, as Andrea had a performance of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Schopfung" target="_blank"><i>Die Schöpfung</i></a> to get to, we left this sobering site and took the <i>Strassenbahn</i> and <i>U-Bahn</i> back to <i>Schwedenplatz</i>, where, before heading home, we chilled out with some good drinks and casually overlooked the Danube.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7erSLA7isinDFyeF9_sUQC9GRommIQ2HEqYYQWJGpME1o2EmRVnGx1j7nX0KWdPpK4c666vCBn5Npvs2awznU3NMkLM-aVyVZD9zmKIHE0dGdsEvzTlYCta5WMhw77RbwDXxs8vCgaMg/s1600/DSC_0196.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7erSLA7isinDFyeF9_sUQC9GRommIQ2HEqYYQWJGpME1o2EmRVnGx1j7nX0KWdPpK4c666vCBn5Npvs2awznU3NMkLM-aVyVZD9zmKIHE0dGdsEvzTlYCta5WMhw77RbwDXxs8vCgaMg/s640/DSC_0196.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pretty</td></tr>
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Andrea went running off, as had become her wont over the course of this trip (busy singer that she is and will continue to be), and Laura and I made dinner, as had become ours, and watched FC Bayern's heartbreaking loss play out to Chelsea FC on penalty kicks in the Champions' League finals.</div>
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The next day would be our last in Vienna, and while Andrea was at church, Laura and I went <i>spazieren gehen </i>in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augarten" target="_blank"><i>Augarten</i></a>, which happens, conveniently, to lie in the shadow of Andrea's apartment. It was a warm, pleasant Sunday morning, the idyllic setting of the park being broken only by the bizarre specters of antiaircraft towers, built by Hitler in the waning days of World War II, looming over the entire place.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtCkbJFvPJ_SaMz7E-yeZNVsjWp2W2iIEgzIos-FoEUtgHKW1TyWgbOKuidxMp7pKy4GEUSEKiDQNKG5fLucvxe1YmDqVypi2utDI-LMiLn1RrAR0YDxkpQ20poERTY3_hpOJz-SFb37k/s1600/DSC_0226.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtCkbJFvPJ_SaMz7E-yeZNVsjWp2W2iIEgzIos-FoEUtgHKW1TyWgbOKuidxMp7pKy4GEUSEKiDQNKG5fLucvxe1YmDqVypi2utDI-LMiLn1RrAR0YDxkpQ20poERTY3_hpOJz-SFb37k/s640/DSC_0226.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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After Andrea returned, we three went out for a last tour around Vienna before it was time to go, including a trip to a little outdoor restaurant where I got my first taste of <i>Kalbbratwurst </i>(it was delicious). I got back to Sofia late Sunday night, a different person from all that had transpired on the trip, but there was no time to ruminate on it; as Ben Folds almost said in what is undoubtedly one of the greatest songs ever written, life <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciys5vfN6i0" target="_blank">was calling, and wouldn't hold</a>.</div>
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Part 2: The End of the World</div>
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I arrived back in Sofia to the welcome of fellow Fulbrighter Michael waiting at my apartment, as he had been staying the weekend in my absence. Going to bed far too late on Sunday night--the result of our lengthy discussion of my trip--we woke up Monday morning, I organized some notes, and just like that, with no time to pause and catch my breath, it was time to venture out into the world again and continue with my daily slog to fulfill the <i>raison d'être</i> for my continued presence here, the writing of my rapidly-ballooning thesis. So Monday passed in a whirlwind of writing and editing (Michael similarly being occupied, in his case by LSAT preparations), ukulele playing, and running.</div>
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Friend of the Fulbright Program Chris showed up in time for dinner, and after all was said and done for the evening, we three occupied my kitchen until the wee hours of the morning, me finally giving up on my work for the day as the conversation about the state of the American economy and worldwide financial policy became too interesting for me to resist. We continued in our heretofore fashion well past the hours when all but the most ardent of night-owls would be abed when the unexpected happened.</div>
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At first, I thought it was the vibration from the nearby elevator shaking the floor, but when it lasted far longer than a second, I knew this couldn't be the case. And as I nearly lost my balance from the lateral back-and-forth of my apartment up on the top floor of my Gd-be-praised-structurally-sound apartment building, ukulele still in hand, Tupac lyrics still hanging on my lips, I knew: We were having an earthquake, a big one.</div>
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My first instinct being to bolt for the doorway (the wisdom of which, as it turns out, is not entirely based on fact), I shouted, "Door!" and the other two followed me, huddling inside the doorjamb for what were 30 seconds of the 5 scariest cumulative minutes of my entire life. Finally, the shaking subsided, and we were left to slow our racing hearts and sort out what had just happened.</div>
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I came to Bulgaria fresh off of 5 years of living in Los Angeles, and I somehow managed to be out of town for both of the substantial earthquakes that struck during that period. I felt a couple of smaller ones when I was there, maybe 3.5's or 4's--just large enough to rattle some windows and shake some things around--but never before had I experienced any seismic activity as strong or lasting for quite as long as that which struck at 3 AM that morning. The official word coming out of Bulgaria's geological service is that it was a 5.6 quake, followed by two aftershocks at 4.6 and 4.3, both of which we felt and somewhat-less-fearfully reacted to.</div>
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We took it as a sign that our night should probably have ended, so we went to bed, waking the next morning to repeat our routine of LSAT preparation (Chris and Michael being identically occupied) and thesis writing. While out at the coffee shop into which we had settled, the apocalyptic phenomena continued to hound our lovely city of Sofia when large hail began to fall, leaving us to stare out the plate glass windows and wonder just what was going on and what it could mean. It made sense to me, in that moment, why ancient societies, without the benefit of scientific knowledge and skepticism, sometimes went so crazy over phenomena like these--ones that we now know to be unrelated and caused by natural forces--and assigned them supernatural, cosmic meaning. It was an interesting perspective-generating moment.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Today, on this rainy Wednesday, I've had much to do, and accomplished nearly all of it, so while I go to finish the rest, I'll leave you all to enjoy your lives, hopefully enriched by this, the tale of one of the more bizarre pages out of my own. Until next week, when we'll talk about a few visitors I'll be having this weekend, as well as the continuation of this less-fun-by-the-day process of academic pontification I find myself in the midst of, be happy and fulfilled.</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.326010642.3230482 22.6942966 43.0699352 23.9577246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-38714349169581973582012-05-16T18:28:00.001+03:002012-05-16T22:07:23.077+03:00Momentum<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
One of the things I had forgotten about the application of oneself to large-scale projects is that momentum plays a big factor in getting said projects done. Last week presented more of a challenge than may have come off in <a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2012/05/this-mothers-day-is-full-of-post.html" target="_blank">my last post</a>, and I had a pretty hard time - first sitting myself down and organizing all my notes, then beginning to actually write. Progress was--shall we say--halting, and as a consequence, the five days of work I had anticipated turned into seven.</div>
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But by Sunday night, with Section 1 finished, I was back on schedule, and the previous four days of solid writing set the stage for Monday, when I woke up, organized my notes for Section 2, took care of some other business, found a setting conducive to working in one of Sofia's many coffee shops, sat down, and, intermittently over the course of the next 14 hours (don't worry, I changed locations), pounded out the entirety of that section. That left me with two full days to write Section 3, which I just finished mere minutes ago. So, 13,000 words in, I'm still right on schedule. And now, having pigheadedly stuck to the time budget I set for myself, I have four free days to go explore Vienna.</div>
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It just goes to show that, at least for me--and, I suspect, for much of <i>homo sapiens sapiens</i>--starting (or restarting) something is the hardest part of completing anything. It's the same way when I have to go for runs - I may, in some extreme cases, let hours go by in the most extravagant displays of procrastination the Earth has yet seen, but once I'm out the door, it gets done. Having spent so much of the previous week writing, without even a pause for the weekend's sake, catapulted me right into this week's bout with the lingering parts of my childish irresponsibility.</div>
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None of this bodes well for next week, of course--a four-day weekend reserved purely for sightseeing and jollity will surely kill any momentum I may have built thus far--but for this week, I'm right on schedule, and (as I just realized, having looked up at the calendar) nearly halfway done with the initial drafting process, which should be significantly harder than the revision stage. So, all I have to do is to continue to procure the smoke and mirrors for another 3 weeks, which will take us well into the month of June (Hard to believe, isn't it?).</div>
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So there's the first third of this thing disposed with. As of now, it's on (the alarming) pace to come in between 120 and 150 pages, and has an outside shot at threatening 40,000 words - much longer than I had envisioned it. But we'll see how much of the actual material I write ends up on the cutting room floor. Probably, though, better to be too long than too short.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Next time, we'll talk about my weekend in Vienna, and after that, it's back to work. Until then -</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com2Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.326010642.3230482 22.6942966 43.0699352 23.9577246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-52041244464475534562012-05-13T22:31:00.001+03:002012-05-13T22:31:48.469+03:00This Mother's Day is Full of Post<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
Something I suppose it took me until about 9 months into my Bulgarian adventure to notice about Bulgarian society is that peace and quiet are not especially valued here, at least not in public.</div>
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This has been the week that I've dived headfirst into vast tracts of academic writing, and because I seem to have such a hard time working when I stay home, I've been seeking out good spots where I can sit for a few hours, churn out a couple of pages, and relax as much as possible while doing so. The problem in every place I've tried thus far has been that music seems to be a <i>sine qua non</i> of public space here. Coffee shops, restaurants, and the like have all been filled, to varying degrees of volume, with music, chatter, and/or commotion. I suppose there are some of you who can work perfectly well under these kinds of conditions--I remember that I used to work <i>better</i> with music on in the background--but now, I have the hardest time putting words together to form coherent thoughts and sentences together to form cogent arguments when my ear is being bombarded with what-have-you.</div>
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And thus has gone the week - a series of never-ending searches for a good space to work, followed, when a remotely satisfactory space has been found, by the exhaustive cudgeling of my brain in sometimes vain attempts to string thoughts together in manners that will somehow advance my thesis.</div>
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It's been an interesting experience, delving back into academic writing; it's something I haven't done in quite a while. But--resounding praises to the deity of your choice--I'm making satisfactory progress so far. The goal for this past week was to complete the introduction and Section 1 of this thesis, and come the neighborhood of midnight or 1 AM tonight, these will indeed be finished, albeit much longer than I had envisioned them being. But their unanticipated lengths, in some ways, are a blessing, as I was--and remain--unsure that I have enough material and will be able to <strike>say the same things in a sufficient number of different ways</strike> expound enough upon the critical subjects to flesh this thing out to the length I had originally envisioned. But I'll let you in on a little secret: I may not be actively striving to write in the concise manner that high school teachers upon college professors have tried to beat into me by virtue of pain and F's.</div>
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One scheduling matter that I had hoped to avoid, however, was working on the weekends. The way this process had come together in my mind prior to the actual moment when I sat down and dug in was that I would slowly grind through page after page, Monday through Friday, and so earn weekends that would be gloriously free and unfettered by self-imposed exile in order to get done the tasks that needed doing. Having failed to complete the week's requisite amount of work by Friday evening, however, I've had to work straight through this weekend, which isn't exactly how I had envisioned spending it. To unabashedly mix two wildly disparate pop culture references, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjJCdCXFslY&feature=related" target="_blank">I have met Lumbergh</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_%28comic_strip%29#.22We_have_met_the_enemy_and_he_is_us..22" target="_blank">and he is me</a>.</div>
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On an unrelated note, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBNcjvxLfFc" target="_blank">wild pianos have appeared</a> at various points in my neighborhood. There's currently an old, beat-up upright, encased in an inexplicable exoskeleton of styrofoam, sitting in the middle of the path in the Doctor's Garden--a four minute walk from my house--which I've taken the liberty of playing a few times as I've walked by. There's also a much nicer one, a quasi-in-tune 6-footer, sitting underground in the Sofia University metro station. This one, more-or-less constantly attended by surprisingly well-trained Sofians, has been a bit harder to gain access to, though I did manage to bang out a rendition of <i>Tiny Dancer</i> on Thursday. These have apparently been placed in preparation for the Subtitled Music Festival, which is taking place this week. Exactly what said Festival will constitute, I couldn't tell you, but I've certainly been reaping the early benefits of its publicity in the form of the little vain thrills that attend the public performance of anything. </div>
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Nearly every time I've passed one of them by, there's been some mix of jazz, classical, and blues issuing therefrom. And as I've started seeing the same people over and over, the greater meaning and lesson to be taken from this episode has begun to dawn on me. It's a very real illustration of the power of music to bring people together in ways that otherwise wouldn't happen. The crowds stopping for minutes--or, in some cases, hours--at a time would have otherwise continued on their way, following the quotidian routines of their life, but for these accessible, public implements of music, and skilled hands to play them, in their midst. But, by virtue of this art and its accessibility, a great many Sofians have already been brought together--and more will surely follow suit--in a manner totally foreign to the norms of everyday life.</div>
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Looking to the next week: </div>
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This coming week will be of a character broadly similar to the one of the week past. Two more sections of my thesis await being bullied into existence, after which their oppressor is going to take a long weekend in Vienna to visit fellow Los Angeles Fulbrighter Andrea before she, surely called to be one of the Elect, has the privilege of returning to the City of Angels on June 1st. </div>
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Happy Mother's Day to All, including my own forebear, if she's reading this. I love you! Treat your moms well today. Stay tuned for more on climbing this Final Hill.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com2Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.326010642.3230482 22.6942966 43.0699352 23.9577246tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-23891847987618074822012-05-06T21:17:00.002+03:002012-05-07T01:41:03.461+03:00Reset<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
My time here in Bulgaria has so far managed to divide itself neatly into more-or-less coherent, theme-oriented chapters. Chapter 1, were there to be a forthcoming book (there isn't) would detail FISI and my first two weeks here. Chapter 2 would cover the first days in Sofia up through the High Holidays, including my first trip to Munich. Chapter 3 would comprise the month of October and my trip to Romania, and Chapter 4 would be the story of the rest of my time up until the Holidays - rushing to finish the allotted amount of research, my weekend trip to Belgrade, and tackling the titanic task of finishing my Grad School applications. Chapter 5 would, of course, be about merry, merry Christmas in Germany. </div>
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Chapter 6 would be the account of how I delved back into my research, traveled to Istanbul, found out about my Grad School auditions, and began putting all sorts of undue stress onto myself because of them. Chapter 7 would be the month of February back in the States, the memories of which remain a nightmare and a scourge unto my psyche. Chapter 8 would tell all about 'Conference Month'--as I've taken to calling it in my mind--and my trips to Berlin and Thessaloniki. And Chapter 9 would include the euphoric episodes of Spring Cleaning and Passover, making my final trip to Munich, heading off to the States for my brother's wedding, and what has transpired in the past week.</div>
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On Thursday, I interviewed Kremena Stancheva, one of the featured singers of <i>Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares</i>, to ask her about how her craft changed between the time when she was an amateur singer in her home village of Kovachevtsi and when she began singing professionally in Sofia. It was truly awesome--and a little surreal--to sit in the living room of one of modern Bulgarian folklore's celebrated figures and to get to chat with her about her experiences, having her get up halfway through to serve tea and <i>banitsa,</i> continuing to pick her brain about the state of modern folklore, and to get what was my most direct firsthand account of the stuff I've been trying to assimilate and understand for the better part of 8 months. And when it was over--having completed my archive work on Wednesday--I was officially finished with the research portion of my grant.</div>
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In my Fulbright application, I had originally proposed a deadline of April 30 to get this done, which would give me exactly 2 months to write my thesis. While I missed that deadline by 3 days (and I won't actually begin writing until tomorrow), it's a nice feeling to be (roughly) on schedule, especially since I proposed that deadline with no knowledge of my subject and absolutely no conception of what the situation on the ground would be.</div>
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So I'm in good shape, more or less. I have 5 full weeks to pound out my first draft, which I'm hoping will come in somewhere around 50 pages. You can do the math--all I need to do is to produce 2 pages per day for 5 days a week--and it doesn't seem that daunting. We'll see how things actually progress, but I'm optimistic that I can do a satisfactory job in that amount of time, it will leave me with 2 full weeks to revise, tweak, edit, and proofread.</div>
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To celebrate the end of this long <strike>slog</strike> quest for knowledge, I headed back to the Black Sea, along with a number of my Fulbright compatriots, for a long weekend starting on Friday. I'm on the bus back to Sofia right now, in fact, and as we fly past the forests and fields of Bulgaria, we are surrounded by largely untouched, heartbreakingly beautiful landscapes that conjure up in my mind images of an isolated, far-flung pre-modern agrarian society. It really puts me in the mood to come out here, into the Balkan Middle of Nowhere, and just sit for awhile. Ah, to be a monk, with the sole purpose and quest of finding enlightenment.</div>
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At any rate, we stayed the weekend at a little for-rent apartment complex in Byala, a resort town of moderate size located on the coast halfway between Varna and Burgas. Most of us arrived on Friday afternoon and spent a few hours resting up from our travels before making dinner and having a not-crazy party before collapsing, exhausted, into bed before midnight. Yesterday was spent largely at the beach (and what a <i>хубаво</i> beach it was) before we packed it in to repeat the previous night's festivities. Today, we packed up to leave, spent a little more time in the sand, and miraculously made it back to Varna on time and without incident before going our separate ways. It was a lot of fun, considering it may have been the last chance we had to party mostly together before our collective year here is done.</div>
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So, this was a weekend to reset, to mentally sweep away the entirety of the complicated, confusing, convoluted process of living--academic, emotional, and personal experiences alike--that has brought me to this point, and to prepare myself to climb this last, entirely new and <i>unbekannt</i> mountain that lies in my path, the one through which, by virtue of the work necessary to crest it, I will earn the right to conclude my year and leave this place satisfied and at peace. After this weekend, nothing that I've done up to this point matters any longer; I am left only with the knowledge I've accumulated, the growth I've experienced, and the people to whom I've hewn close. Nothing else.</div>
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This thesis is the last thing standing between this point and the end of my
stay. I'm not going anywhere, save a long weekend trip to Vienna,
and my focus is now narrowed to the singular task of finishing the year up strongly. Whereas the last 8 months have been marked by
variety, the next 2 will be defined by their simplicity, consisting of
nothing more than writing and celebration. It puts me back in the
mindset of those years when I was in high school, when, as soon as the
weather turned truly, gloriously warm again (as it has finally done this week), every one of us, to a student, was checked
out and ready to finish up.</div>
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But it's overarchingly strange to think that this will truly be the final chapter in the story of the year I spent in Bulgaria. I've gotten used to this place, my travels to destinations abroad notwithstanding, and while I'm definitely ready to go home, I'm finally realizing just how great it's been to me and for me. I can say with confidence, regardless of how these last two months turn out, that it has been one hell of a year, and it's been genuinely good for me.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com1Somewhere near Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria43.0785562 25.627157442.7074207 24.995443400000003 43.4496917 26.2588714tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-26698086441709058202012-04-30T21:00:00.000+03:002012-05-01T17:40:24.553+03:00Leaving, Again<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">My bags are on their way to being packed, and my dad and I are hitting the road in about an hour. This is the last time I'll bid farewell to Pennsylvania before I come back to the States for good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Somewhat unexpectedly, it's been quite difficult for me to go through the mental process of saying goodbye today. The last two times, while they included their share of difficulties, were different, I think partly because my sentimentality at leaving was tempered with the excitement of going. I'll attribute the challenges of doing so this time around to the emotional content of this trip. My brother's wedding on Saturday was beautiful, and it made me happier than I ever would have anticipated to watch him take this leap with his wife, Jenna, and to welcome her into the family.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I suppose what it did was to throw into relief everything that my life has been over the last 6 years. And, to be quite honest, I wasn't expecting that. I hadn't anticipated just how much this would affect me. But: Here I am--a somewhat new man thanks to a dose of new perspective--and things look, from this vantage point, both a bit clearer and a bit more muddled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Over the last 36 hours or so, I've had to take in a large part of the contents of my life and reassess where I really am. The most immediately direct and powerful result of that process has been my assessment of the relationships I've built over the last 10 years of my life, and how I've prioritized and valued them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I certainly haven't done so in any kind of egalitarian fashion - nor could I--or should I--have. A part of being human, something I've learned as I've grown up, is that some relationships are, necessarily, more fulfilling, and some more fun, and some more important, and some more difficult, and some more instructional, and some more complex, and some more organic, and some more trying, and some more stable than others. And as we develop them and grow through them, the only healthy thing we can do is to prioritize those that are better for us over those that are less so based on what we feel and what we know at the time. We can do no better than that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">So I've been doing that, and as I've gotten better and better at it, the overall quality of the relationships that I've cultivated and maintained has--surprise!--risen, and dramatically so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">But what this weekend--and, really, this entire week back at home--has done has been to make me reexamine some of those relationships and to really think about their places in my life. And what I've realized is that I haven't given some of them the energy and time they deserve.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I had an OK life in Pennsylvania before I went off to university. Every adolescent's existence is fraught with self-esteem issues and heartbreak, melodrama, frustration, and tough, painful lessons, and I certainly experienced more than my fair share of those. Overall, though, it could have been a lot worse, and what it did, at the end of the day, was force me to grow. But the time I had after I moved to LA and started my new life was so overwhelmingly positive and happiness-inducing (Though it was, by no means, idyllic or perfect - there was just as much drama in my life during those four years as during my previous four) that I unconsciously tore down and devalued various aspects of my life back in Pennsylvania. In short, my time in LA was so much fun that my former life seemed negative and incomplete by comparison.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">And while I can now, with the benefit of hindsight and psychological insight, understand <i>why</i> I mentally denigrated the memories of the first 18 years of my life, I can also now see that it wasn't the healthiest or most judicious thing to do. I had a few relationships back on the East Coast that I, instead of tearing down, should have been building up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Many of them were with members of my own family. To be sure, some of those relationships were actually served by the introduction of space into them, and have since regrown, stronger and better-adjusted. But at some point during my college years, I think I realized, luckily, that I really missed not having them close by, and this imbued me with something for them--appreciation--that I don't think I had had enough of prior to that. And so the time I spent away from them actually strengthened our relationships in the end.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">This happened with my brother. He and I, separated in age by 8
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</style><span style="font-size: small;">½ years, were never particularly close, and the fact that we were two totally dissimilar people didn't do anything to mitigate that. But the last 6 years, having thrown my growth process into hyperdrive, have closed the gap between us, and we've also grown more similar to each other as people. Having begun to develop a relationship with him in the past couple of years has been more fulfilling than I had ever thought possible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I think that's part of the reason why I've been so affected by his getting married. I'm incredibly happy to see him begin his life with Jenna, who is pretty damned excellent herself, and I'm excited, </span><span style="font-size: small;">as their family,</span><span style="font-size: small;"> to share in their household.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I have a lot to think about, </span><span style="font-size: small;">coming back to the East Coast in the Fall; in particular, about what I'm going to take with me from LA and what I'll have to leave behind. And in my emotional state this weekend, I remembered something important that I had forgotten: That I have some truly precious things, things from my former life that have endured through all the changes and situations and lessons of the past few years, that I'll be coming back to. And, despite the emotional maelstrom of the last month, that makes me, at my core, happy.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>And they lived happily ever after.</i></td></tr>
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</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com1Perkasie, PA, USA40.372048 -75.29267640.3478535 -75.332158 40.3962425 -75.253194tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-28195526033992303912012-04-15T19:56:00.007+03:002012-04-18T02:17:46.475+03:00Pause<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Today, on this meteorologically erratic, rainy-sunny-delugeal-sun-setting-over-peacefully-parting-clouds day, I will make soup with the matzah remaining from Passover, call home, listen to the Phillies game, and take a breath.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It has been a disjointed week. I'm caught in the limbo of the middle ground between trying to finish the fieldwork component of my research, a quick trip to Munich and Vienna, and a trip home to the States on Friday. The week past, and the one coming, are no-man's-land, flexible time whose use I have not yet determined, yet <i>ganz wertvoll</i>; I feel the time I have left in this place, and thus, the time to fulfill my purpose here, inexorably slipping away, grain by grain.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">This past week, and this next one, are planless - with much to be done, full of specific tasks to be accomplished, but utterly lacking those <i>sine quibus non </i>of all constructive progress: definitive order, clear organization, engaged motivation to use them to their fullest.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">This is what it is to drift.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I could write about the weather which greeted me upon my return to Sofia on Friday, about how the rainy season is here in full force, evidenced by sometimes-torrential downpours and intermittent hailstorms mixed thereinto. I could write about going out for pizza and beer last night with some friends to celebrate the end of Passover and the subsequent reintroduction of leavened breads and wheat products to my diet. I could write about later being swept into a beautiful Easter vigil at an Orthodox church, being given candles, witnessing the entirety of the musical ceremony, congregating with hundreds of other churchgoers as the crucifix was paraded around the church, being subsumed into the thrice-completed procession around the church, and walking home at 1 AM, accompanied on the streets by hundreds of Sofians, all bearing lit candles, keeping them lit the entire way back to their homes.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I could write about my excitement at my impending excursion back to the States to witness my brother get married, see old friends, and be able to enjoy the pleasures of home without the hindrance of a stressful purpose for being there, in contrast to my last trip home. I could write about my anxiousness to finish my research and start writing my thesis, my soon-to-be-frenzied drive to move towards that final step in my work here, the completion of that process being the golden key that will unlock the gateway to what promises to be the best summer of my life. I could write about all the fun things, still prospective, that lie on the horizon, waiting first to be planned, and then realized, over the course of my final two months here.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But today, and for this I sincerely apologize, I simply and utterly lack the inclination to do so. Today I would much rather simply check in with you, my magnanimous readership, tell you that I'm surviving, drop hints about all the exciting things that lie ahead, and call it a day. The internal battle to procure a high-quality, detailed account of this particular episode in my life is one from which I will have to accept a moral victory, in the fact of the realization of this post, alone. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Just know that things are the same as they never were, and that I will see you very soon. Good night.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuRpHnz2ZJo"><i>Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, und der Tag hat sich geneiget</i>. </a></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-26194309529019703422012-04-10T23:57:00.002+03:002012-04-11T00:45:08.741+03:00Thessaloniki, Passover, Lazaruvden, Tsvetnitsa<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I apologize for the fact that this is two days late in coming (my endeavor being to publish over weekends), but in my defense, it was kind of an eventful week, and my normal three-day window for starting, developing, and finishing these well-copy-edited, insightful articles was pushed back. But instead of rambling on with another tired excuse, let's just cut right to the chase.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover"></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Chapter 1: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki">Thessaloniki</a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">One recent seminar already under my belt (read about it <a href="http://anamericaninbulgaria.blogspot.com/2012/03/breakfast-in-berlin.html">here</a>), the Fulbright Commissions That Be saw fit to send me off to another one, balancing my trip up to <strike>the frozen wastelands of</strike> Northern Europe with one to Greece, the quintessence of Mediterranean life.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Leaving my packing, in typical fashion, for the morning of our departure, I hastily threw together the necessary items, caught a cab to Jamie's apartment, and he, Fred, and I set off on our 5 hour, 20 minute road trip to Thessaloniki. In spite of a couple of (very) wrong turns, we made it mostly without incident, and were welcomed that night with a reception in the art studio of the Thessalonian artist Soros. Much like Berlin's, this welcoming event served as our first contact with the other Fulbrighters in attendance, though instead of being charged with the Herculean task of meeting 500-odd people, we had simply to meet 30 or so, this conference comprising only that miniscule amount of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9_nXlvY6Io">wide-eyed wanderers</a>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The next day, with a good night's sleep under my belt (beginning to sound familiar?), I--much more happily than on the previous day--partook in the Seminar's festivities. These included presentations from 8 of the other Fulbrighters, which were both engaging and gave me some ideas about my own work, the author of a forthcoming book on Thessaloniki sharing excerpts therefrom, lunch in the swanky dining room of the hotel, and an after-dinner trip down to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Tower_of_Thessaloniki">White Tower</a>, where I and my companions made merry--in the medieval sense--and furthered ourselves in the cause of meeting everyone else.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The next day's activities began at the Museum of Byzantine Culture, and the morning progressed in much the same fashion as the the previous day, comprising project presentations and the offering of another speaker--this time Athens' Deputy Mayor for Finance--who spoke to us about the current debt crisis. After a tour of the museum and a small lunch, we got to go on a bus tour of Thessaloniki, which contained some extraordinarily cool things. But instead of tell you about everything we saw, be it that the thing I leave you with from this fly-by of history is that I saw my first blooming tree of the Spring, so--poof!--there went my <i>martenitsa</i>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFdO2v3IbvyWoN_EKowDC-AtDpaz9x1bFsfpbNgGfiAscRvJD-jfIXrGNhXltOV-1tvYwPr5Ldof7hMzGt3zcxQfBMaUr4JQKFOPdp-aMcruxUuNq_l4442-JMPhAxHrDc2kEtXq4n7tI/s1600/555911_3615895359056_1324004745_3321317_1787015954_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFdO2v3IbvyWoN_EKowDC-AtDpaz9x1bFsfpbNgGfiAscRvJD-jfIXrGNhXltOV-1tvYwPr5Ldof7hMzGt3zcxQfBMaUr4JQKFOPdp-aMcruxUuNq_l4442-JMPhAxHrDc2kEtXq4n7tI/s320/555911_3615895359056_1324004745_3321317_1787015954_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tying it to the branch</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">This would be the natural place to share any and all of the gorgeous pictures I took, but I, in my sometimes-staggering boneheadedness, neglected to bring my camera along for this tour, thereby relegating the spectacular views I witnessed to virtually certain forgottenness. Later, though, I would atone--at least with my own self--by venturing out, along with some new friends, on an ultimately-rewarding quest for <i>gyros</i>, which I found to contain, to my immensely pleasurable surprise, thick, American-style fries, which, when complimented with thick, American-style ketchup, transported me, in my mind, back to many a happy day under the Los Angeles sun.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">As Wednesday dawned, we had come to our Last Day. After gorging myself on another large breakfast (I have really come to appreciate hotel breakfast buffets in the last 3 weeks, both German and Greek), I and the rest of my compatriots boarded a bus to visit the <strike>dubious</strike> purported tomb of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_Macedon">Philip II of Macedon</a>, father of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great">Alexander the Great</a>. Before we did that, however--and after one wrong turn dropped us right into the middle of a convent--we ended up at a little monastery nestled in the Greek mountains, which we toured, to the accompanying explanations of the abbot, Father Panteleimon. Check it out:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from the monastery. Seriously.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Leaving the monastery behind to a now-steady drizzle, we continued our journey to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergina">Vergina Tumulus</a>, whose curators insist contain the tomb of Philip II, though thorough scholarship makes a strong case against this possibility. Nonetheless, there is some very cool stuff housed therein, including, but not limited to, several relatively-intact tombs from the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE, which made for an interesting, if a tad too-long, excursion.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It was nearly 3 by the time lunch rolled around, and we were all exhausted, resulting in the collective lucidity and order of said meal being reduced by half, give or take. Returning to the hotel, and eschewing the proposed walking tour--which would have had to take place in the rain--we instead rested up before our final communal dinner. Some food and several bottles of wine later, we were transformed into a band ready to head out for one final night in Greece, which many of us did, and deep into the night, at that. While less of a raging affair than was our final night in Berlin, it was still fun, and to be sure, the next morning arrived far too early.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After breakfast, Jamie and I--Fred having departed late on Tuesday night--loaded up the car, and headed back the way we had come. Or so we thought. Making a wrong turn outside Thessaloniki, we ended up traveling more than halfway to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavala">Kavala</a> before we realized that we were headed in the wrong direction. But, as with many wrong turns in this serendipitous universe of ours, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After stopping at a roadside service station to get a map and figure out where the hell we were, we decided that the best course of action was to continue in the direction we had been headed so that we could pick up the highway that would lead us back to the E79, the freeway that would take us back to Sofia. And, as we made our way down the highway, passing from small town to small town, the Greek countryside opened up as I had always envisioned, but never got to witness; rolling hills and vineyards splayed before us like something out of a made-for-TV-movie on BBC. After 4 days in Greece, we were finally seeing what we--or, at least, I--had come with the expectation to see.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stretching into the distance</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ya5eOICvoAkbiAUwJ7TL3KJ05miXMEfABIbnFTV1cphua1nzNBV6EO2ua48uqxT40ge3kcsrnJzL7coAYLoWM4PTzmTtWY-WbP6QesyU_rH_rpcXtN8RjAh4rN2cVLEhYbXGE_5Hkqk/s1600/DSC_0152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Ya5eOICvoAkbiAUwJ7TL3KJ05miXMEfABIbnFTV1cphua1nzNBV6EO2ua48uqxT40ge3kcsrnJzL7coAYLoWM4PTzmTtWY-WbP6QesyU_rH_rpcXtN8RjAh4rN2cVLEhYbXGE_5Hkqk/s640/DSC_0152.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mountains</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">And this was only the beginning. Crossing the border back into Bulgaria, those fields and vineyards turned into the types of mountains I never expected to see in this part of the world, so much like the beautiful, rocky, sparsely vegetated hills I had grown to love in Southern California they were. The air was warm; the colors stark. Spring had reared its gorgeous head once again.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNh3hYN9mPIdTe1auMbRb9XPkKRiROEWqGltaEQmM-3JfGtTz5m2RDMWr3KEKBWMkRj8h3dBydamHG2mj6sA-jDLFUyCaGib7WcsOOhj0HF-g50df4MFiVWDw-xil7VZVgSs30-bZHy8/s1600/DSC_0177.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzNh3hYN9mPIdTe1auMbRb9XPkKRiROEWqGltaEQmM-3JfGtTz5m2RDMWr3KEKBWMkRj8h3dBydamHG2mj6sA-jDLFUyCaGib7WcsOOhj0HF-g50df4MFiVWDw-xil7VZVgSs30-bZHy8/s640/DSC_0177.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the border</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_VgUn5wCh8fFezzcF05-j9YP-pMG4afWk-oVLBmKF5iB6AP-dk0OAl8NQ4oH9Ns2xnAd2ChBXY46XIjphvLuDsQnhYUmuNa5KpuElxMRyfRvK49C8uhSbqSO8zgScaR87zTEifns4Sw/s1600/DSC_0330.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH_VgUn5wCh8fFezzcF05-j9YP-pMG4afWk-oVLBmKF5iB6AP-dk0OAl8NQ4oH9Ns2xnAd2ChBXY46XIjphvLuDsQnhYUmuNa5KpuElxMRyfRvK49C8uhSbqSO8zgScaR87zTEifns4Sw/s640/DSC_0330.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seriously, Topanga?</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPbBOkmhMwGNpVlu__LlVUH4gPwv5IuxMy-u630DVq-X_Z6uuCQBQPmnYdErgsYgUHeFidOYfG4EyrYfvCUZFMcBZKlrL8HnbePx81Tk89EsE_BB0-gntka4HUWMZcgrPHQHthNz1KSY/s1600/DSC_0338.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPbBOkmhMwGNpVlu__LlVUH4gPwv5IuxMy-u630DVq-X_Z6uuCQBQPmnYdErgsYgUHeFidOYfG4EyrYfvCUZFMcBZKlrL8HnbePx81Tk89EsE_BB0-gntka4HUWMZcgrPHQHthNz1KSY/s640/DSC_0338.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Pirins</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Finally arriving at my apartment many hours after we had departed (with a good in-car nap to my benefit), I was feeling better, and ready to take on the next challenge: preparing a Passover seder in 24 hours.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Chapter 2: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover">Passover</a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Mere minutes after returning to my house, I threw open the windows (this day offering sun, warm air, and a light breeze), put on some music, and began to clean. Winter dies hard in this stalwart of the former Eastern Bloc, and 6 months of having the windows shut against the snow and wind will allow quite a bit of dust to accumulate. The time for Spring Cleaning had come.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">So I vacuumed the floors and washed the walls, cleaned the bathroom and mopped the kitchen, moved furniture around, and put my winter blanket away. The sheer exuberance of a warm April day notwithstanding, I also had company coming in short order.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Every year, my family gets together on the first (convenient) night of Passover for a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover_Seder">seder</a>, something I haven't been able to be a part of since 2006. This year, being abroad, I wanted to try my hand at hosting one, hence all the cleaning. The cleaning ended up being just the beginning, though.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After doing an initial round on Thursday night (while listening to the first game of the Phillies' 2012 season on the radio, a textbook 1-0 victory), I woke up early-ish the next day to finish what I had started. Emerging from my now-pristine apartment around 1 PM on Friday, I headed out to buy the assortment of vegetables, fruits, wines, and matzah that would constitute the ingredients for my share of the Passover cooking. Arriving back at my apartment, I spent the next couple hours whipping up <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matzah_ball_soup">matzah-ball soup</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_kugel">potato kugel</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charoset">xaroset</a>, and the various other accoutrements of the seder plate.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">And people came, and food, and wine, and pretty soon, 11 of us were seated around the periphery of my kitchen/dining room, reading from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggadah_of_Pesach">Haggadah</a> and singing the songs, making one of probably four seders in the whole country. It was an immensely nice experience, especially being so far from my family this year, and successful to a detail. Exhausting, but totally rewarding and gratifying.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Chapter 3: <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Saturday">Lazaruvden</a>/<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Sunday">Tsvetnitsa</a></i>, or, The Bus that Wouldn't Come</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Lacking the opportunity to sleep in this past weekend, I arose on Saturday to go out into the field for my research for the first time since I narrowed my focus specifically to Shopski <i>dvuglas</i>. And though, in most places in the world, it should have been relatively straightforward to get to where I was going, it was anything but.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After calling up Alex, an American law student living in Sofia this semester, to accompany me--with getting lost a near certainty--we made our way down to Петте Кьошета (The 5 Corners) to catch the #17 мартрушка, the mini-bus that, I was told, runs to Gorni Bogrov, the village I needed to get to. Pulling up in my own bus just in time to meet her and clamber aboard the <i>martrushka</i>, I paid for our tickets and asked the driver to tell me when we had gotten to Gorni Bogrov. He replied that his route didn't include a stop in Gorni Bogrov. Thinking I had misheard him, I asked again, and annoyed, he replied that we needed bus 118. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Hopping off at the nearest convenient point, we then proceeded to mosey our way down a street that looked as though it ran in the right direction. After being supplied with fresh information in the shadow of the crumbling apartment blocks by another local, we hopped a passing bus and took it the four stops to where she had said to go. As this was the end of the line, we again hopped off and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Trudging to the main road, we happened upon yet another bus stop and asked an overly friendly teenaged girl how to get to where we were going. She told us to head back to the stop where we had gotten off and take bus 14. This we did, when it finally came around, but to our chagrin, the end of its own line was a mere 2 stops hence. This stop, at least, was populated, and fortuitously replete with a scheme of Sofia's public transportation. It appeared to us as though we could get to the stop where we could finally board bus 118 via one final connecting bus, so before we boarded that, we bought day passes for ourselves, unsure of how many more trials we would have to go through before we reached our day's land of milk and honey.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Hopping on the appropriate bus for 2 more stops, it dumped us off at a remote terminal past which we could make out the tracks of a tram line. Upon further inspection, we discovered that it was tram 22, which happens to run directly in front of my apartment. 5 stops away. We had made a large circle.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Refusing to despair, however, we trekked up the road to a bus stop that looked like it could have been the right one. Instead of the promised 118 line, however, it showed only that bus 90 ran there. I was on the verge of giving up, when, perusing the list of stops along the line, I caught sight of the most blessed words I had ever seen in my life. Село Горни Богров - Village Gorni Bogrov. We had found our bus.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">From there, it was simply a matter of waiting for it to show up, passing the time <i>en route</i> chatting with a rather nice fellow whose rudimentary command English was the result of many hours spent playing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft">Starcraft</a> with "millions of Americans," and getting off at the appropriate stop. Once we did that, though, the day became eye-opening.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I had come to think of the concept of the small Bulgarian village, tucked away in a remote corner of the landscape, as extinct, or, at least, so far removed from the bustling metropolis of Sofia as to be effectively out of reach to me. But ah!--such is the wonder and mystery of living overseas--how one is constantly surprised by any new culture amongst which one lives. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">One of the extraordinarily refreshing things I have recently discovered about Bulgaria is that there are no suburbs here, in stark contrast to the urban sprawl that has become the common plague of the American city. The city here literally fades away to countryside in a matter of meters. So there we were, less than 20 kilometers from the city center, surrounded on all sides by fields and small, ramshackle houses.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">And it was beautiful. Before sharing the pictures I took, let me just note that the thing that really got me about this village was the juxtaposition of ancient and modern here. For starters, consider that we were standing, in the year 2012, in the midst of a tiny village that had probably been there for hundreds of years, with a European capital a few kilometers away. And within the city itself, the combinations of old and new were striking. To be sure, we found no mud-brick huts, but we found more than our fair share of old houses, and standing neatly next to them was a row of--there is no other word for them--mansions that would have fit in perfectly along the back streets of West LA. Most houses here, instead of a lawn, had a garden, neatly plowed, some with sprouts emerging from their soil, and I imagined that this was their modern-day adaptation of the subsistence farming paradigm that has been the hallmark of agrarian Western Bulgarian society for centuries.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Let me waste no more words on the subject:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi05EZ_-vVTt-WuLkczLL9Tt1tAC0Z4p0anxw0onbopTHioh5RyGVor3JhO3KIJohoeOMvK7YqLkqrXxqvzxy3UWsMAFSYszllVuO0dvpSIopL6MzCdTZJZcmX3zM_66YUi8zCBIN1cm4/s1600/DSC_0396.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi05EZ_-vVTt-WuLkczLL9Tt1tAC0Z4p0anxw0onbopTHioh5RyGVor3JhO3KIJohoeOMvK7YqLkqrXxqvzxy3UWsMAFSYszllVuO0dvpSIopL6MzCdTZJZcmX3zM_66YUi8zCBIN1cm4/s640/DSC_0396.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gardens</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-S4_mwGa8QFzSZu4py9jmpB8a1XCMCg9WdHkvZZaRbLsoO4sBZBXn4gZLLOMwn4lpJAKzDEIjDwHVEi18PCvwygfBVbEQbXAIKoPUmGL3E0gxlAlqhZb8uKb_r0ECHfwolQ3l-NC8M_o/s1600/DSC_0401.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-S4_mwGa8QFzSZu4py9jmpB8a1XCMCg9WdHkvZZaRbLsoO4sBZBXn4gZLLOMwn4lpJAKzDEIjDwHVEi18PCvwygfBVbEQbXAIKoPUmGL3E0gxlAlqhZb8uKb_r0ECHfwolQ3l-NC8M_o/s640/DSC_0401.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Note the secure fencing on the left and the tumbledown houses on the right</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Alex and I just wandered around the village for a while, taking it all in. After a few minutes, though, we remembered the purpose of our, or, at least, my journey: to capture the performance of the Lazarus Day customs. And if the first half of our day had been marked by wrong turns, bad luck, and getting progressively more lost, the Great Forces of Equalization decided to make up for it during the afternoon hours, as we rounded a corner and stumbled onto the village's singing troupe.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">We followed them for about half an hour as they went house to house, singing songs specific to the day and collecting food, hard-boiled eggs (traditional for this holiday), and money. When it was time for us to part, they cheerfully replied that I could take their picture.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDYCbasgHst-jeNBnKvWMdHTXhPNXxqT2QTPCTNOidKuJwy5YqV8c7xVBfaT18EYgo33TR3NWDJerjwyNlQGtYXS_P5JLHF-yczf-teOQDm6QT1bcFPihbNdbKDlzeYO2d_zrzmi_wzaM/s1600/DSC_0408.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDYCbasgHst-jeNBnKvWMdHTXhPNXxqT2QTPCTNOidKuJwy5YqV8c7xVBfaT18EYgo33TR3NWDJerjwyNlQGtYXS_P5JLHF-yczf-teOQDm6QT1bcFPihbNdbKDlzeYO2d_zrzmi_wzaM/s640/DSC_0408.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The keepers of the tradition</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Not quite having gotten my fill of the rural landscape, though, I wanted a few more pictures before we departed.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH-IMmccWKa-mtmVt7RNc4csaVMIqpML9ACTC3iSMSEl8Zsst0WREnfSgKWoTqE9w6TG6BINNjub3WNIl_kM8WjaT3drYaQtlOn6SRfUJ0riQH4wAZIXrvg6MevrgQlYFdJLtyIuAQduU/s1600/DSC_0449.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH-IMmccWKa-mtmVt7RNc4csaVMIqpML9ACTC3iSMSEl8Zsst0WREnfSgKWoTqE9w6TG6BINNjub3WNIl_kM8WjaT3drYaQtlOn6SRfUJ0riQH4wAZIXrvg6MevrgQlYFdJLtyIuAQduU/s640/DSC_0449.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mt. Vitosha across the plain</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUOo48J3WtJFj0Lu0D6kdfz9AOvMCADMgchsbkSHuLsHDkT0UuB3AZAlw6Efkqpv0D3fWlGUf2w1O8XldURWFwiMo9MmI3iapCqpD_tUFv8JCmcnh3eJfio9EZdNViSb0dcW5bB-yYdg/s1600/DSC_0471.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUOo48J3WtJFj0Lu0D6kdfz9AOvMCADMgchsbkSHuLsHDkT0UuB3AZAlw6Efkqpv0D3fWlGUf2w1O8XldURWFwiMo9MmI3iapCqpD_tUFv8JCmcnh3eJfio9EZdNViSb0dcW5bB-yYdg/s640/DSC_0471.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The old section of town</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ5qzz1qE3UR7s22oikYoM6NLnWDXhri7Nk5iZ_f0r1HxBoHsSI1zCxPTu4EAdRy0WuAV6q8HO9M7i1yQDu_s4QGzzKWnD975YdpMhMSzjf-MhWPA8KJkOWiXzGtW3RLWi-4e8akHQvUQ/s1600/DSC_0501.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ5qzz1qE3UR7s22oikYoM6NLnWDXhri7Nk5iZ_f0r1HxBoHsSI1zCxPTu4EAdRy0WuAV6q8HO9M7i1yQDu_s4QGzzKWnD975YdpMhMSzjf-MhWPA8KJkOWiXzGtW3RLWi-4e8akHQvUQ/s640/DSC_0501.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A shepherd with his flock</td></tr>
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It ended up being a very interesting day.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The next day served much the same purpose, but with far fewer complications and far less drama. Heading out to the village of Jelyava--in the same direction as Gorni Bogrov, but further out--I went, alone this time, to attend the celebrations put together by the <i>chitalishte</i>, the community center, for <i>Tsvetnitsa</i>, or Palm Sunday.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After my trip on what must have been the oldest and slowest bus in existence, I finally arrived, 30 minutes late, to the village, and proceeded up the winding road to the <i>chitalishte</i>. When I got there, I found, instead of folklore, a junior cheerleading squad doing a dance routine to a techno remix of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN8iRqAFQQo&feature=related">Popcorn Song</a>. Though initially a bit confused, my patience was ultimately rewarded by 10 minutes of authentic <i>dvuglas</i> from a sextet of <i>babi</i>, though to my annoyance, the crowd apparently did not find it engaging enough to give them their attention, talking loudly over their performance.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Thus went these particular <i>praznitsi</i> - vestiges of tradition mixed with the modern. It seemed to be a microcosm for how Bulgarian society has appropriated tradition today--by diluting it, with an amount, that I have yet to ascertain, of disregard for it, with the modern--but this will be the subject of its own post at some point in the future, as it is a crucial and interesting point of this culture, so I won't get into it now.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After making my way around the inexplicably cold village (believe me when I say that winter dies hard here) to take some more pictures, the bus mercifully came around again, and I went home.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It was quite a jam-packed week, and it contained a lot of new things for me to assimilate. I'm still working through them, but ultimately, I think it will prove to be one of those weeks that help to crystallize my experience here. So there's a good chance I may be revisiting it in the coming months.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">That's about all for me this week, and with good reason, as I'm catching a flight to Vienna in a few hours to visit Austrian Fulbrighter and friend from home Andrea. From there I will hop to Munich for a couple of days before returning to the friendly confines of my adopted home. So until the weekend, stay happy, stay healthy.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-28934057070724508412012-03-31T23:16:00.000+03:002012-03-31T23:16:37.368+03:00Forging Ahead, Comfort Zones, Changes<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It's been another one of those weeks.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It all started on Thursday. Since getting back from Berlin, I had been watching videos of some of the groups that performed at the 2010 Koprivshtitsa Folklore Festival as part of my research. The idea is that by watching performances of the pertinent types of music, I can get a feel (and make objective qualifications) of the state of folklore today, which is, of course, essential to the comparative analysis I'm doing. So, I spent the beginning of another week sitting in the library at BAN, watching videos, making transcriptions, and taking notes.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But there was only enough material to last a couple of days, so I finally made my way, along with my adviser, over to the archives of the Institute of Art Studies, where I first had to get set up. Which meant having to explain myself and ask for help. Not typically a problem for me anymore, except:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">My adviser understands English fairly well, but is uncomfortable speaking it, which is more or less the same relationship I have with Bulgarian, except I think that her understanding of my mother tongue is better than mine of hers. So our conversations tend to be in Bulgarian - simple Bulgarian, unable as I am to understand or articulate anything complex. These conversations tend to make me nervous, as I will admit to being a bit intimidated by trying to keep up semi-academic discussions in a language not my own. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">However, we've hit on more or less an ideal solution. We typically communicate by email, as both of us are entirely competent readers of each other's languages, provided academic or overly floral registers have been avoided. She writes me in Bulgarian, I respond in English, and we understand each other satisfactorily. This works just fine, unless there are occasions when face-to-face contact is a necessity.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Like Thursday. As we went to the archives to get set up, I was my typically nervous self, straining to make out enough words per sentence to put together its basic meaning. I gamely struggled through for close to an hour, and when we got there, we met the ladies who would be setting me up with my materials. To my sinking realization, they possessed the same knowledge of English as my adviser, so I was forced to continue straining for comprehension--not having had a chance to release the cumulative weight of the previous hour--as we all sat in the listening room and discussed a bit of this and a bit of that. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I will confess to becoming more and more stressed out by the minute. It's exhausting, and nerve-wracking, trying to prove that you aren't a simpleton to three completely-at-ease speakers within an environment that's entirely comfortable for them, speaking their native language. In a moment of self-awareness, I caught myself huddled up against my chair, making myself as invisible as possible, trying to disappear from the room, and I realized I was more on edge than I had thought.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But something changed when my adviser and one of the assistants left the room and it came down to me speaking one-on-one with the other. As we chatted about life and ourselves--and the pace of the conversation slowed--I relaxed, and to my surprise, found myself understanding more and searching for words less. It made me realize, though it may seem self-evident, that the further inside your comfort zone you are, the better you tend to think. In this case, that meant being able to speak a language with far more ease.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It was a trying experience, but ultimately a valuable one. For most of the year, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca"><i>lingua franca</i></a> between myself and the Bulgarian interlocutors with whom I've had extended conversations has usually been English, as in most cases, their English has been better than my Bulgarian. It has certainly been that way as I've spoken to the younger generation of Bulgarians, as knowledge of English is near-universal in schoolchildren in this largest and richest of cities in this country. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But it was rewarding to have the roles finally be reversed, for the others to have to depend upon <i>my </i>knowledge of <i>their</i> tongue. And it was instructive to see how being within or without one's comfort zone can directly affect one's ability to--broadly--recall information and--specifically--to speak a foreign language. It's now more apparent to me than ever that the best thing I can do for myself is simply to speak this language with others as much as I can in order to expand that particular comfort zone.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">To that end, I went today to Sofia's weekly conversation swap, which was a great chance to work my Bulgarian out with people who are there for express purpose of helping foreigners like me work their Bulgarian out, clause by halting clause. And it actually went pretty well, warmed up as I had been from two previous days of racking my brains for the right words to say. The part I was most pleasantly surprised by was my ability to listen and to comprehend meaning. Today was the most successful day I've had in that regard, I think, so it's something to build on.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Today happened to be a fairly representative sample of my week, actually - though I didn't do any research, I spent time speaking Bulgarian, getting things together at home, and going out to the Sofia University metro station--like I've been doing every day this week--and busking with my ukulele, mostly just for the sheer fun of it. I've been playing songs like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMS_ykiLiQ&feature=related">this</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAsV5-Hv-7U">this</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctu406Wa2Ik">this</a>, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-pkkF9e76U">this</a>. It's really been quite fun, and while I wouldn't go so far as to call it lucrative, I have managed to put away a (very) little traveling cash.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The only thing diminishing the fun of these jocular one-man jam sessions has been the weather. Yes, sadly, after a semi-pleasant week, capped off by a glorious Thursday, winter, in its death throes, has returned to strike one final blow at the collective morale of the residents of this fine city. If the forecasts are to be believed, it's actually going to snow tomorrow--a fine April Fool's prank if there ever was one--before the climate finally relents for good and Spring begins in earnest. But if it has to happen, it couldn't come at a better time, because:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Fresh off of one international Fulbright conference, I'm headed to another tomorrow, this one in Thessaloniki, Greece. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited, as this will be my first time in Greece, a country which necessitates no reminders of its awesomeness. This conference, well placed in the Springtime, before tourist season picks up, will have me spending 5 days--along with my Bulgarian Fulbright companions Fred and Jamie--in a city with more history than any I've ever been in. Ridiculous? A bit. Fortunate? I am.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So I'll be back in a week with pictures of Greece. Get excited. Until then, </span><a href="http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/03/29/will-ferrell-anchorman-2/" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Stay Classy</a><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">.</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-2574797512273034872012-03-25T20:31:00.000+03:002012-03-25T20:31:39.352+03:00Breakfast in Berlin<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Things I have done in the last three days in defiance of the fact that it's still March:</div><ul style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><li>Hung my laundry on my outdoors clothesline</li>
<li>Wore my flip-flops when I went out</li>
<li>Went for my first outdoor run of the year</li>
<li>Busked in the metro station for money (and made 12 лева!) </li>
<li>Smiled at everyone and everything, because it was 21° (70°F) (!)</li>
</ul><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It's Springtime in Bulgaria. The calendar says it, the <i>martenitsi</i> say it, and, best of all, the weather says it. Color me exuberant.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I should preemptively apologize, at this point, for my near-certain preoccupation with the weather over the course of the next several weeks. As I mentioned before, I hate the cold, so the couple of weeks in March when it starts to get warm again and everything comes alive is one of my favorite times of year. I can get a little obsessed. So please excuse all future references to the weather from here on out.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Let's talk about my awesome trip to Berlin, though, <i>ja</i>?</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">This past Sunday to Thursday was the annual conference in Berlin of a selected sample of European Fulbrighters. For four days, this miniscule club of 600 was tasked with sitting through rather a <i>lot</i> of presentations and making the effort to meet every single other member of said club. In retrospect, I think we did surprisingly well.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Very early on Sunday morning, Fred and I caught a flight to Berlin by way of Munich. Arriving at Berlin's Tegel Airport around 10:20, we caught a bus that conveniently delivered us directly to <i>Alexanderplatz</i>, where our hotel was located. As we checked in, I found Laura--who had ventured up from Munich the previous day--waiting for me in the lobby, and we crashed for a couple of hours (as I, having awoken at 4:45 AM, was experiencing something akin to the sleep deprivation that might befall a survivor of the Apocalypse) before setting off, with several hundred of the other Fulbrighters, on a tour of the city.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Designed to be a survey tour rather than a detailed one, the bus took us to a lot of the sites important to the history of Berlin's role in the Cold War, and, of course, showed us much of the path where the Berlin Wall stood. Starting at <i>Alexanderplatz</i>, we soon found ourselves at the East Side Gallery, a section of the Wall that has been painted over extensively by muralists and graffiti artists alike.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Pd7FjYKKtUvr9a1MtQSMdHUC-uPseTcT8gE9OgRPFZx1JF9QhtBYkeIXpn0UqmkdP3uO3mtBJsiqnVuNSU49jyQfY7pSX2PSkEf6l07ZdiLWsPKodzIqtXgtRraXILTM_xr2bJKDyR8/s1600/DSC_0024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9Pd7FjYKKtUvr9a1MtQSMdHUC-uPseTcT8gE9OgRPFZx1JF9QhtBYkeIXpn0UqmkdP3uO3mtBJsiqnVuNSU49jyQfY7pSX2PSkEf6l07ZdiLWsPKodzIqtXgtRraXILTM_xr2bJKDyR8/s640/DSC_0024.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The East Side Gallery</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Driving past this section of the Wall for a while, we then crossed the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberbaum_Bridge" title="Oberbaumbrücke">Oberbaumbrücke</a></i> into West Berlin. Driving through some of the more "artistic" neighborhoods on this side of the city, we ended up at Checkpoint Charlie, which was not, I was surprised to learn, a metaphorical character symbolic of the division between East and West, but rather <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkpoint_charlie">an actual border crossing</a> at the former site of the Wall.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJgvJcc2c_SbVyIkugLxVX1YBnTkhdjBA5AcHCPdk0J3QprU48vUGzp0eCyY1nC9JTTXUoxROO0WoZFxopCSh2UswQPJw7DW4eKz6tKL1QV2vBMoF6eNG7ACGX3dXTDJg_y0gQ_EiD-Y/s1600/DSC_0032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJgvJcc2c_SbVyIkugLxVX1YBnTkhdjBA5AcHCPdk0J3QprU48vUGzp0eCyY1nC9JTTXUoxROO0WoZFxopCSh2UswQPJw7DW4eKz6tKL1QV2vBMoF6eNG7ACGX3dXTDJg_y0gQ_EiD-Y/s640/DSC_0032.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anonymous Soviet Soldier is watching you</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After a fascinating trip through the museum that accompanies this landmark, we headed off again through <i>Potsdamerplatz</i>, past what I believe was the seat of the European Trade Commission and the former headquarters of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_in_the_American_Sector">Radio In the American Sector</a>, and found ourselves at another section of the Wall that has survived, largely unaltered, since it was constructed.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFx7ppudX9cYu9Uq8yPf2dZbXTbY7QX_kaQpbYZ47jUXZg8E3mNWdinBlrCV6UJswWcfg2ZY1Dl6xJE2cnRlBdAXkkWpnDhn9Ic7ToUSySSdj3uCzNtO8omdrSsGeqR0hRI5zhg1nwmhI/s1600/DSC_0063.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFx7ppudX9cYu9Uq8yPf2dZbXTbY7QX_kaQpbYZ47jUXZg8E3mNWdinBlrCV6UJswWcfg2ZY1Dl6xJE2cnRlBdAXkkWpnDhn9Ic7ToUSySSdj3uCzNtO8omdrSsGeqR0hRI5zhg1nwmhI/s640/DSC_0063.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here stood the Wall</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJcJuYqxBMQpDb9Uoqqx1WTasRm5GMD7gFR1QEfHtrxoISJpEdMxMNnBY-7nb3rUTWZJsS2Pw34eWh0JIxyOGJBCE28zFHOjTZJOv7utQ711RXX_KMw-kjXwouXuRcRkS4ObWkMonJ4vE/s1600/DSC_0064.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJcJuYqxBMQpDb9Uoqqx1WTasRm5GMD7gFR1QEfHtrxoISJpEdMxMNnBY-7nb3rUTWZJsS2Pw34eWh0JIxyOGJBCE28zFHOjTZJOv7utQ711RXX_KMw-kjXwouXuRcRkS4ObWkMonJ4vE/s640/DSC_0064.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Iron Curtain epitomized</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Following this, we began to make our way back toward the hotel, along the way passing several musea, Humboldt Universität, the <i>Berliner Staatsoper</i>, and the <i>Berliner Dom </i>(pictures of that to come later) before finding ourselves back at Alexanderplatz. Our tour ended, we filtered back up into the hotel.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Resting up a bit more before dinner, I met my roommate for the week, Arthur, and we went back downstairs for the pre-meal ceremonies. Dinner itself was a raucous (and delicious) affair, with the introduction of good beer and wine almost certainly a move motivated by the desire to facilitate networking. Well, it worked. Three hours later, having met a large share of the students flung afield throughout Europe, I left the dining room to meet Laura before she had to catch a midnight ride back to Munich.<br />
<br />
Having somehow survived this long day, I fell into bed that night and awoke the next morning with a good night's sleep under my belt, and feeling all the better for it. Monday would set the tone for the rest of the conference, as it featured several long "mini-conferences" (speeches, panels, and the like), several more "networking meals," and on Monday night, a long opening ceremony at the Federal Foreign Office featuring several speeches <i>auf Deutsch</i> (perhaps defeating their purpose for the non-Germanophone members of the audience), after which there was a reception filled with supremely delicious German delicacies. Said reception also featured my reconnection with a couple of old classmates at USC, neither of whom I knew were in Europe on Fulbrights. It was a Small World Moment.<br />
<br />
Tuesday, though filled with different content, contained many similar events. The morning session featured another spate of speeches at the <i>Berliner Rathaus</i> (City Hall) and a Q&A session with Björn Böhning, the head of Berlin's State Chancellery. (The <i>Rathaus</i> also contains a very imposing and very cool painting of the Congress of 1878--which I couldn't help staring at every few moments--at whose center is a towering and dour-looking Otto von Bismarck.) After lunch, I decided to make my way around our section of Berlin to see some of the cool stuff we hadn't had the chance to see on Sunday.<br />
<br />
Within a few meters of the hotel are Berlin's TV tower and the <i>Marienkirche</i>. The TV tower is rather large. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYOWihNQe7Nsu6LK2d0sjytEVO3wPipH2QMEXwxfZoUBArC5i3JER55BBc3VkANQ_Qs0ffXdSsSxFvl6nGvVEbLL_1qpLspNb8AQQXECdqS32GN1tflL0Cb77IQrWiScpW_bmHXRSSACw/s1600/DSC_0095.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYOWihNQe7Nsu6LK2d0sjytEVO3wPipH2QMEXwxfZoUBArC5i3JER55BBc3VkANQ_Qs0ffXdSsSxFvl6nGvVEbLL_1qpLspNb8AQQXECdqS32GN1tflL0Cb77IQrWiScpW_bmHXRSSACw/s320/DSC_0095.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seriously.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
Just down the road are the <i>Rathaus</i> and its awesome (and mildly famous, I've heard) fountain.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh1MU18Kqu1QvDoGwcPbx6ZlUp16Wpl89WpCI7dGR5v-BQCXUVfSW41fIxP-1gk3ayz3szVKQWY69lc8jdbKGsmZbPCbVZhlz3Le61nTTKuz9bt05B6T9UvstrfpWTGJVvdDEwRUPJzxI/s1600/DSC_0123.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh1MU18Kqu1QvDoGwcPbx6ZlUp16Wpl89WpCI7dGR5v-BQCXUVfSW41fIxP-1gk3ayz3szVKQWY69lc8jdbKGsmZbPCbVZhlz3Le61nTTKuz9bt05B6T9UvstrfpWTGJVvdDEwRUPJzxI/s320/DSC_0123.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poseidon with the <i>Marienkirche</i> in the background</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Another few meters down from these magnificent wonders (there really is a lot of cool stuff in this neighborhood packed into not very much room) is a <i>Platz</i> bounded by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Cathedral">Berlin Cathedral</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altes_Museum"><i>Altes Museum</i></a>, with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Box">Humboldt Box</a> just off to the side. None of the following pictures will really give you an accurate impression, but one of the reasons this area is so fixating is because these structures are <i>gigantic</i> with a capital HUGE. Seriously. They are beautiful, and old, and <i>large.</i><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQEJfsQUCiSxhC8vvf7UT3s-yl2RQXne9Zr5hWhxH3UcAwB5GTMkTrcPhu9bp_48MnfyqDcC2mrjwEc4vjij3KFYn4Y7r-RGUuBGebc3r_pmkuXMIbWUjRP6HoUCgBTJ8Sy5V7wuLzFv4/s1600/DSC_0156.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQEJfsQUCiSxhC8vvf7UT3s-yl2RQXne9Zr5hWhxH3UcAwB5GTMkTrcPhu9bp_48MnfyqDcC2mrjwEc4vjij3KFYn4Y7r-RGUuBGebc3r_pmkuXMIbWUjRP6HoUCgBTJ8Sy5V7wuLzFv4/s640/DSC_0156.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Altes Museum</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrsyKFP-54G0k2ouxkq3V6r4F9bGKSpmLJ6zuBWYLdonncPh_o8goosk8DMnbpDN6Rl8YhnZ-pX-1qsJkO00PKfNl0ualmTQ3B7xKygWxt-9DvdrIcq284V9AKJriEvjs4V29qva5GED8/s1600/DSC_0159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrsyKFP-54G0k2ouxkq3V6r4F9bGKSpmLJ6zuBWYLdonncPh_o8goosk8DMnbpDN6Rl8YhnZ-pX-1qsJkO00PKfNl0ualmTQ3B7xKygWxt-9DvdrIcq284V9AKJriEvjs4V29qva5GED8/s640/DSC_0159.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Cathedral, with the TV Tower in the background</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Tearing myself away from this concentrated display of Old World architecture after taking 98265898356 pictures thereof, I continued my journey along the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree">River Spree</a>, only stopping to witness an impromptu performance by a couple of <i><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marktsackpfeife">Marktsackpfeife</a></i> players accompanied by a drummer.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO38XHjLQL356qW9gq3q03pj1G4LMlQ1E3uEKZtBi1Bx_XePbes027UpQdzKRfxUGz3t0xMriUDvpyxXw8w4ScVu6pb1PzfGsZnDtNJAeniSPYkUlLjjFUVwWKtk-3wIY3f3ejEIaVWY8/s1600/DSC_0184.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO38XHjLQL356qW9gq3q03pj1G4LMlQ1E3uEKZtBi1Bx_XePbes027UpQdzKRfxUGz3t0xMriUDvpyxXw8w4ScVu6pb1PzfGsZnDtNJAeniSPYkUlLjjFUVwWKtk-3wIY3f3ejEIaVWY8/s640/DSC_0184.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Super cool</td></tr>
</tbody></table>My next stop was the <i>Neue Synagoge</i>, which was built in 1866, set on fire during <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht"><i>Kristallnacht</i></a> in 1938, and destroyed by bombing in 1943. It was rebuilt after the war, and dedicated in 1966 on its 100th anniversary.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtSw83m4Gd5kHqc_fPrZH3FXue6FV_9R3K1T17YWc2cbn7WdDLTlfXcgisfh6A6iWnszCwcfukO3TJEG9I1zJNNylzzwrtihM3Z2O_eNZQWLnkFdzP1NsUKvN353LZj5gzYQk8rNhhhOc/s1600/DSC_0211.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtSw83m4Gd5kHqc_fPrZH3FXue6FV_9R3K1T17YWc2cbn7WdDLTlfXcgisfh6A6iWnszCwcfukO3TJEG9I1zJNNylzzwrtihM3Z2O_eNZQWLnkFdzP1NsUKvN353LZj5gzYQk8rNhhhOc/s320/DSC_0211.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Like few synagogues you've ever seen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>After that, I headed back south to the Spree and continued to follow it west. After crossing over it on the <i>Friedrichstrasse</i> bridge, I headed toward the penultimate stop on my mini-tour: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_%28building%29"><i>Reichstag</i></a>, the seat of the German parliament.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wQCN7tMnqyf5zh6DBVjDsHGbYbZndbSAOK4FjCimH7zRerhM3EFCkcBaMOpGsTzCe0XYRKpo_nrSCPTB6e7ZAFfT9s-E21b7rMAeH8CAmmEgfon1dDMmhGYn5y-iHXqKleFrJYQ_SqI/s1600/DSC_0226.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wQCN7tMnqyf5zh6DBVjDsHGbYbZndbSAOK4FjCimH7zRerhM3EFCkcBaMOpGsTzCe0XYRKpo_nrSCPTB6e7ZAFfT9s-E21b7rMAeH8CAmmEgfon1dDMmhGYn5y-iHXqKleFrJYQ_SqI/s640/DSC_0226.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approaching it from the river</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsKQne-eJ5Lt_pEMiKJHDf1a8uAYlyWdrdg2QdPx19spNP5N7GXs2dJ5VeHTkubrASVyDvEcS4G1ILoh-1gJ-Wami1XAW_v3Ey3oOk8SWlYGU-56gl3svg4dQ7Ug7tywJ9JNZDBlkivQ/s1600/DSC_0280.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibsKQne-eJ5Lt_pEMiKJHDf1a8uAYlyWdrdg2QdPx19spNP5N7GXs2dJ5VeHTkubrASVyDvEcS4G1ILoh-1gJ-Wami1XAW_v3Ey3oOk8SWlYGU-56gl3svg4dQ7Ug7tywJ9JNZDBlkivQ/s640/DSC_0280.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BAM</td></tr>
</tbody></table>After stopping to marvel--again--at how grotesquely large yet another important piece of architecture was in this city, I walked the last hundred meters to the final destination of my tour, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_gate">Brandenburg Gate</a>, made famous, perhaps, by this photo:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yiHixbcoa-XJOx-QD50qoyhpChgpQbrE3dFeWCSURlTNpgtANWxrZnLzqwBLzraE-UkXCPal5i7m4p9TfY24_TT4TNAi_LtdKaUAzcdQZClsU_tkvCEiKo5PJjHUgfteKSJhAIh25ZY/s1600/011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yiHixbcoa-XJOx-QD50qoyhpChgpQbrE3dFeWCSURlTNpgtANWxrZnLzqwBLzraE-UkXCPal5i7m4p9TfY24_TT4TNAi_LtdKaUAzcdQZClsU_tkvCEiKo5PJjHUgfteKSJhAIh25ZY/s640/011.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hopping the Wall in 1989</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Here's what it looks like 22 years later:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpuJ3AFxiaH_HYUM_AuBMAq0oA2cQlrCtHi2AMr0Qul_ExwhM0oj4JhFMOYxKNfbGEtCEKtWjMzuAcryeCB-FaGOwNTUbqLc4pr765orOJI9Oo3oQKUdamcLceeEeSnUXjUl_qLOAqE2M/s1600/DSC_0296.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpuJ3AFxiaH_HYUM_AuBMAq0oA2cQlrCtHi2AMr0Qul_ExwhM0oj4JhFMOYxKNfbGEtCEKtWjMzuAcryeCB-FaGOwNTUbqLc4pr765orOJI9Oo3oQKUdamcLceeEeSnUXjUl_qLOAqE2M/s640/DSC_0296.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With Victoria and her horses looking on</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Having seen nearly everything I had set out to see, and running short on time before dinner, I made my way straight back to the hotel down <i>Unter den Linden</i>. After stuffing my face for the millionth time on this trip, it was time for the Music Gala, an extensive concert put on by some of the current Fulbright music students. Though I was expecting it to be good, it turned out to be <i>really</i> good, and it made me miss the days when I used to go to concerts all the time. (But those days are coming again soon!) After returning to the hotel, I went out to a local <i>Brauhaus</i> to grab a beer with several members of the Spanish contingent, plus some others, thus ending another long day.<br />
<br />
And just like that, when I awoke the next morning, it was the last day of the conference. It was a good one, too; the morning featured the project presentations of 9 current Fulbrighters as well as a panel of 8 others who shared their experiences with such exotic locations as Finland, Hungary, and Sweden. After a lunch of some surprisingly good Chinese food (prepared by a Korean woman on the streets of Berlin - I love Europe), we had another panel regarding the future of the EU with several officials thereof. It was a great chance to learn about the dynamics currently working themselves out within the economies of Europe, ask some questions about them, and speculate about where everything was heading.<br />
<br />
After dinner, we were all bussed to the <i>Kulturbrauerei</i>, a club/bar-like situation, where we hung out, danced, and got the last of our "networking" out before we had to depart. It made me realize how much fun I had had at the conference, and that it actually had its intended effect - I now know people living all over Europe, which will be awesome come this summer (more to come on that in a few months).<br />
<br />
But alas, even after staying out until 2:something AM, breakfast the next day refused to postpone itself to a decent hour, so I dragged myself out of bed, forced myself downstairs, and had a long, groggy breakfast, mostly spent rehashing the details of the night before. After checking out, I went to lunch with Joe, one of my aforementioned USC compatriots, and then set off to see a couple more things before my 5 PM flight. The most important of these was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, located just to the south of Brandenburg Gate.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbYCyE1sr4nXQEqfU27KUR9LhyphenhyphenKfMEPPQ0g-AW-OE3GzXAWmp4tsoURW1GDCk8F7zZjskLQo3eImlqe7mPQRzrkHZwXAFyDiN7_xHF_YKVN9pTFYTk8Wl9c-NYGF-A4cnq_FZ-vY5q-sY/s1600/DSC_0316.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbYCyE1sr4nXQEqfU27KUR9LhyphenhyphenKfMEPPQ0g-AW-OE3GzXAWmp4tsoURW1GDCk8F7zZjskLQo3eImlqe7mPQRzrkHZwXAFyDiN7_xHF_YKVN9pTFYTk8Wl9c-NYGF-A4cnq_FZ-vY5q-sY/s320/DSC_0316.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Field of Stelae</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHIT4luwAnncroiuYaYbph2pg2O0oBhhOw5tDGrQ3wVbAgdnUboUYRgZLAKVKkXA6p4cVv-5BWbSJKpZOt-Y3dGQGaqlgqvaGZRo9VRe9aMuoN0Nl7Z_kYVkdBiE-c3NjnTrJeIALBVQg/s1600/DSC_0379.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHIT4luwAnncroiuYaYbph2pg2O0oBhhOw5tDGrQ3wVbAgdnUboUYRgZLAKVKkXA6p4cVv-5BWbSJKpZOt-Y3dGQGaqlgqvaGZRo9VRe9aMuoN0Nl7Z_kYVkdBiE-c3NjnTrJeIALBVQg/s640/DSC_0379.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From inside</td></tr>
</tbody></table>After spending an hour and change absorbing all of it, I was out of time, and caught a bus back to TXL. Fred and I got back to Sofia at 9:30, and just like that, our trip was over.<br />
<br />
It was fun. I really like Berlin.<br />
<br />
Now it's back to reality, and I have a mountain of work to do this week before it's off to another conference in Thessaloniki. Stay tuned for more.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com1Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-52286153786921660972012-03-17T19:04:00.000+02:002012-03-17T19:04:06.330+02:00Springtime for Borisov<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After five long, dark months of biting cold--and nearly as long a period of snowfall--spring has descended upon Sofia. Cue <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K08akOt2kuo" target="_blank"><i>The Producers</i></a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0bMxsNc7I4" target="_blank"><i>Carmina Burana</i></a>, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGKPHFrHVVY" target="_blank">The Beatles</a>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I wouldn't go so far as to say we're into the warm part of Spring yet - give that another couple weeks. But when I walked out of the library yesterday, it was windbreaker weather, and the sun stayed out until nearly 7. And today was, for the sheer fact of Sofia's previously dismal temperatures, glorious. It got up to the 60's, and, for a few liberating moments, I walked around in my T-shirt, which felt just plain nice. And soon, mid-March will give way to April, and we'll really be talking.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I think I've coped reasonably well with my first prolonged winter in six years, but I'll be the first to admit that it's gotten me a little down, and I'm immensely happy that its last traces will soon be swept away. Sunny days will soon be here to stay, as evidenced today by the uplifting sight of a park full of happy, playing children. I even caught a few of their more gastronomically exuberant parents eating ice cream. All will soon be right with the world.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Yesterday, I finished the book I've been slogging through for the last couple of months, something else I'm overjoyed to be rid of. And today, Xristo and I pored over the last of my reading in Bulgarian. It didn't go so easily, as these last two articles were in the infuriatingly academic mold that goes out of its way to reiterate something in as many different ways as possible, deliberately taking several pages to impart knowledge that could be passed on in a paragraph. But finally, we finished with them, which leaves me one more paper to analyze before I move onto the next phase of my research in the archives. That insane, manic schedule I laid out in my previous post? One week down, and so far, so good.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Tomorrow, I will indulge in the awesome experience of visiting Berlin for the first time. Fellow Fulbright Compatriot Fred and I have a very early flight out, and we'll spend 4 days there, conferencing with other Fulbrighters from around Europe. It should be a scintillating time, as every account I've heard of Berlin has been of a ridiculously cool city, and getting to meet with Fulbrighters from other countries is guaranteed to be enjoyable. Laura will join me for the day, and we will bask in what promises to be a gorgeous weekend.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Tales from Berlin to follow. Thanks for reading!</span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-25136654250154049442012-03-14T22:18:00.000+02:002012-03-14T22:18:48.547+02:00Here Comes Crunch Time<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUH3JQjcweM" target="_blank">Things are starting to get real</a>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm down to my last 3<style>
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</style> <span style="font-size: 12pt;">½</span> months here, as unbelievable as that is. One of the many things that means is that the time I have left to finish my research and write my thesis is dwindling, and I still have a long trek ahead of me to finish up. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Still to go on the reading front is my current book, in addition to 3 other long-ish articles, 2 of which are in Bulgarian. After that, I'll be camping out at BAN's audio and video archives, transcribing and analyzing the recordings of the folk songs they contain. Following that will be a fairly intensive week of fieldwork during Holy Week, as I'm hoping to watch celebrations on Лазарувден (Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday in the Orthodox Churches), Palm Sunday, and Easter Sunday. Somewhere, in this whirlwind of academic interest, I will also be interviewing Kremena Stancheva, one of the prominent members of the Filip Kutev Ensemble, and then meeting with a few people who are helping me out with other, mainly ethnographic, niches of my research. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Destination? May 4.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Things are going to be made slightly more difficult by my absences from the country. This Sunday, I'm heading to Berlin for five days, and then two weeks later, I'm going to Thessaloniki (which trip I am looking forward to with an extraordinary amount of anticipation) for another five days. The icing on the fluffy Travel Cake will be my trip back to the States on April 20th for my brother's wedding.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But: If I can somehow adhere to this condensed, somewhat manic schedule, I will be in great shape heading into the "writing leg" of my grant. I had in mind a budget of two months to churn out around a 50-page thesis, and this schedule will give me that. We'll see how well that goes.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I've had my doubts about how well it was going to go because for the last couple of weeks, to be honest with you, I think I've started to mentally check out. I'm going to the school of my dreams next year, and nothing else really seems to matter at this point. I've had a one helluva classic case of <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5lNVnFv6nld8vMrbHKJIafkRpVXigrp77gdK3Xwh22r5xHu9bIJlR3lGhqv6IUtgfM-_6QddeIN-rHSiK3j5kvkzxIM5Gu4vm-BEZ0sGuZOuZhez1xkCBB1F57NK0OleoxrztFU3G2L0/s1600/Senioritis.jpg" target="_blank">senioritis</a>. But the realization that this veritable mountain of work, the very justification for my time here, remains to be done snapped me out of it. Today, at least. We'll see about tomorrow.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But despite my less-than-100%-applied approach the last week or so, I haven't been totally excreting my time away. Renewing my efforts to learn more of this idiosyncratic South Slavic language, I've begun working in my old textbook again, and on Saturday, I went to my first conversation swap. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It was an interesting affair, multifarious and disorganized, but I managed to find my way to a table where I got some practice speaking Bulgarian (and, inadvertently, a little German) with some indulgent native speakers and a few fellow learners. It was good, much-needed practice.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">All the time I've spent in the library deciphering dense, Communist-era texts has done wonders for my reading and comprehension. I got to the point, after I got going today, where I read an entire page on which I could identify most of the words and figure out their meanings by context and etymology; I typically only have to look up about 10% of the words in these texts now. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">This method of learning has presented two problems, however: The vocabulary I've assimilated, made up largely of terms specific to Bulgarian folk singing and ethnomusicology in general, is in a maddeningly academic, ennui-inspiring register, and therefore of little help to me in everyday conversation, and, of course, it hasn't improved my verbal skills at all. My ear, through repeated bombardment, has gotten marginally better, and if I think and speak slowly enough, I can eventually--to the patience-testing chagrin of my listener--articulate my thoughts back thereto. But what I really need, at this point, is regular conversation on a wider range of topics, so the conversation swap was a welcome test of my skills.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">So the theme of the week and, I fear, for the rest of my time here, has been and will be forced productivity. We'll see how long I can keep that up. Til next time - </div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-82038528594659371962012-03-11T20:20:00.002+02:002012-03-12T00:16:42.398+02:00In Which I Come Crawling Back from the Wars<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Hello again.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Nothing I could possibly say herein would serve as ample justification for a month-and-a-half-long absence. But, if it please the court, I'll tell you my story and let history be my judge.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">What seems like an eternity ago (the date actually being November 1st), I got back from a trip to Romania and began in earnest the process of applying to grad schools. I was nervous, but--perhaps in greater measure--tragically overworked in completing what would seem to be the simple tasks of filling out electronic applications, writing and editing résumés and personal statements, selecting and editing footage of myself conducting, and jumping through the hoops requisite to making it all official. These tasks, however, proved to be not-quite-so-simple, and I worked, with ever-increasing degrees of desperation, right up until my deadlines, most of which fell on December 1st.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Having accomplished these surprisingly Herculean tasks--in quintuplicate--I was pretty exhausted, but, having partially neglected my responsibilities to my <strike>country</strike> grant to get them done, I worked more or less feverishly over the course of the next two weeks to make up the lost ground and finish the calendar year strongly. Luckily, I did, and had a nice two-week break to recuperate, grad school applications having receded, more or less, from my consciousness.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Then, I returned to Bulgaria and Real Life caught up with me. I learned about auditions at Westminster Choir College and Yale in quick succession, and was treated to the first Sinking Feeling In My Stomach in a while when I realized that they were scheduled for the same day, February 27th. Working as best I could to resolve the conflict, I got Westminster to reschedule me to February 3rd, but by the time that particular flurry of correspondence resolved the situation, it was January 18th, leaving me two weeks to prepare two movements of Brahms' <i>Requiem</i>, coax my dormant knowledge of music theory and my aural skills out of their deep hibernation, learn to play piano, study up on said work, and book a flight back to the States. But all of these I did as I continued to put in my hours at the library.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Given this cornucopia of Things To Be Done, I didn't have time to breathe, let alone sleep. Those two weeks were among the most manic of my life, but, somehow, some way, I managed to cram an amount of productivity into them that would make the heads of the staunchest proponents of the Big Bang Theory spin. And just like that, without a single chance to pause and decide if what I was doing was just mostly or completely nuts, I was off on a plane back to the States.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">One of the things I've been debating as I've been planning out this humblest of returns to you, my indulgent and forgiving readership, is how much to actually say about my time back in the States. This <i>is</i> a travel blog, after all, and it, as sure as Barbra Streisand is both a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbra_Streisand" target="_blank">Grammy Award-winning music goddess</a> and a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbra_Streisand_%28song%29" target="_blank">#1 club hit</a>, isn't named <i>An American in America.</i> That would be gratuitous and silly.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">So forgive me, should you find it necessary to do so, for choosing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_way" target="_blank">Middle Way</a> of going about this: I'll leave you with just enough detail to give you an idea of how my month went, but, as I've already rehashed nearly every moment of every day of it, either to myself or to others, I'll avoid doing so here. If you're really dying for a blow-by-blow, appeal to me via some medium other than this one, and I promise, I'll oblige you.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">So...I landed on a Wednesday night; 36 hours later, I was driving to my first audition. (Driving, in and of itself, was strange. It took the end of my six-month vacation from driving a car to realize how incredibly pleasant it has been not to have been concerned with the operation, maintenance, or--most of all--costs thereof.) The Westminster audition would turn out to be a semi-grueling, all-day affair, one which tested my level of preparation. But despite the short amount of time I had had to prepare for it, it went mostly well, and I came away feeling good about what I had done, all things considered.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">If you thought I was in panic mode following my abrupt decision to fly home and audition two weeks hence, imagine my state of mind, five days after that particular decision, when I found out I had also secured an audition at the University of North Texas. The kicker in this scenario? This audition was scheduled for three days after the one at Westminster, though I managed to stretch that three to five after supplications to the head of their program. But the inadequate amount of time I had to prepare for my first audition forced me to put off preparing for the second until the first was finished. So when that day had come and gone, I switched gears to spend the next three days cramming every bit of knowledge and music into my head that I could.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">For those of you who aren't conductors, two weeks--let alone three days--is a woefully inadequate amount of time to prepare the amount of music that these fine institutions required of their auditioners. Without going too much into the process, it takes a while to internalize said amount to the point where one can hear errors in its rendition, and as dedicated as I was in feverishly trying to do so, I came in feeling moderately underprepared for the first audition and horrifically underprepared for the second.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The day before my audition at UNT, I flew to Dallas, and I stayed with some friends of my mom, who, fortuitously, live quite close to its campus. When they dropped me off the morning of the audition, I had no idea what to expect. As it would turn out, the process there was much lower-impact than the one at Westminster had been: I sat in on a lesson, had a relatively brief interview, went out to lunch, sat in on choir rehearsal, and rehearsed the choir through my two quite-underprepared pieces. That was that, and, another audition down, I celebrated that night with my buddy Adam, whom I hadn't seen in more than a year.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I flew back to Philadelphia the next day, and the day after that, I began preparing for the big one - Yale.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Yale happened to be Choice Numero Uno on my list, and, fittingly, presented the most extensive and challenging audition. In addition to the usual litany of tests--theory and aural skills, sight-reading, and the like--we had to dictate a Bach chorale, identify unmarked scores, sight-read an open-score four-part Bach chorale in c-clefs, conduct a movement of <i>Carmina Burana</i>, and prepare six movements of <i>Messiah</i>. With two and a half weeks to prepare, I had my work cut out for me.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But Yale boasts by far the best reputation and the highest-quality education of the bunch, and, perhaps even more desirable, a guaranteed full scholarship to all music students, so it had been my primary target from Day One of this process. With great tribulation comes great reward, and boy, was I in for some tribulation.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I spent nearly every day of those two and a half weeks locked inside one practice room or another (as well as living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, hotel rooms, libraries, and even, once, a car), feverishly preparing music, practicing my score reading, scribbling notes onto manuscript paper, reading up on the history of <i>Messiah</i>, settling on bowings and marking them into my score, and all the other hurried actions of an aspiring conductor with a less-than-adequate amount of time to prepare for the biggest audition of his life.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I can honestly say I have never worked on something so hard.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But all that disciplined work, borne out of a greater hunger--a greater desire to achieve--than any I had ever experienced, changed me, much in the same way that spending this year abroad has, and continues to, change me. Somewhere along the way, I was transformed--through the work itself--into something I have always desired to be - disciplined; a winner; the type of person you see on ESPN who, out of sheer will to win and drive to succeed, puts themself through all kinds of hell to get what they want.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I have never been that. I have never been the most disciplined or the hardest worker. But the last month, and especially those two and a half weeks leading up to the Yale audition, turned me, out of sheer necessity, into the hungry striver with the superhuman will to achieve. It was one of the first times in my life that I had wanted so badly to succeed that I made myself miserable in the pursuit. And as I put in the hours, day after day, and began to look back on the body of work to which I had applied myself, I began to feel more strong and capable and successful than I ever had before. I had finally begun proving to myself that I could be focused, and disciplined, and relentless in pursuit of something. I began to feel like I could do anything. It was intoxicating.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">So I came to the audition prepared as best I could be, given the sub-preferable amount of time to be so. Things went about as well as could be expected (though made interesting by the spacing of my appointments between 8:30 AM, 4:15 PM, and 9:50 PM, leaving me lots of down time to psyche myself out), I had a great experience talking to the other auditioners and some of the current students, and when it was all over, a huge sense of relief washed over me that--finally!--my whirlwind 4-months-or-so were over.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">And so, I returned to Pennsylvania with a huge weight lifted off my shoulder, simultaneously feeling empowered by the sense that comes from climbing a mountain you didn't think possible. And though I flew back to Bulgaria (and to Laura, who was waiting for me at the airport) the next day, a part of my mind lingered on the previous month, decompressing and sifting through everything I hadn't had the time to think about at the time it was happening. And a few days later, I learned that all that miserable, relentless work had paid off.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I got in.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I'm going to Yale in the Fall. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Since being back, I've taken a little time to celebrate, despite being preoccupied by the need to get back to my research. This week, I've been transitioning back into library work, which will soon give way to the next leg of my research - analyzing recorded material in the library's Archives. I'll go into more detail in my next post as the situation develops.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Overall, it has been an exhausting couple of months, but things are beginning to get back to normal here. My goal for my last four months in Bulgaria (can you believe it?) are simply to finish my research and get my thesis written. To accompany that, I'm delving back into my effort to learn this boondoggle of a language, I've gotten back to my workout routine, and here I am, reaching back out to all of you after my heretofore hibernation.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">While we're on the subject of Spring Thaws, let me wish everyone a very belated честита Баба Марта (literally, Grandmother March, as this month, with its wild swings in weather and temperament, is personified by a cranky geriatric). The day I flew back, March 1, was the traditional beginning of Spring here in Bulgaria, and to celebrate Nature's rebirth, Bulgarians wear мартеници (<i>martenitsi</i>), little bracelets of red and white, of which I've received two from a couple of friends.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Ever onward; ever upward. My tale thus completed, let me bow respectfully from the room and leave you to contemplate all herein. But I'll see you very soon.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-86528848323149923002012-01-26T12:16:00.002+02:002012-01-26T12:18:33.483+02:00Istanbul, not Constantinople<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">This time with apologies to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_%28Not_Constantinople%29#They_Might_Be_Giants_cover" target="_blank">They Might Be Giants</a>. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It seems that not-even-remotely-current chronicles of my life are becoming the New Normal around these parts. While I'd like to apologize (I do) and say it has been unavoidable due to the increasingly hectic and stressful nature of the way my separate endeavors are bearing down on me (I will), let me also, before we go any further, disavow myself of the responsibility to write about my life here more than actually living it (I have). My days have been jam-packed since I returned to Bulgaria, and next entry, I'll spin a yarn that will have excuses jumping right off the erstwhile electronic page. But for now: </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It boggles my mind that with as much as I've had to do, I've kept my goal of visiting another country every month in some part of my mind other than the deepest, darkest recesses thereof, let alone intact. But when my friend from LA, Carrie, swung through this part of the world on her way south from Poland, I couldn't resist the chance to come along for the ride, considering the ultimate destination of her travels was Istanbul, a town I've heard so very much about and has been highly recommended by nearly everyone in the universe. So we went.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Carrie got into Sofia one cold, bright Saturday morning (last Saturday morning, in fact), and I belatedly picked her up from the train station. After a few small business items back at my apartment, we set out so I could give her the tour, one I've given numerous times by now, of my city for the nonce. After we returned, chilled and snowed on (but extravagantly culturally enriched!), we took the opportunity to rest up, engage in various frivolities, and prepare to head out to dinner.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Dining out has generally been a genial and pleasant experience here in Sofia, and this would prove to be no exception. The act of getting to the given arena of consumption has likewise typically proven to be of minimal <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsuris" target="_blank"><i>tsuris</i></a>, but on this fateful night, all sorts of precedents would be broken, this last one first and foremost among them.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">We saw the restaurant on the map, got verbal directions, and despite the gnawing pit of uncertainty in my stomach telling me to be extra sure of where we were going--since I had never been in the neighborhood--we left amid much fanfare and hailed a cab. 15 minutes later, it dumped us out on an unmarked street, the two of us having good company in failing to know where the hell we were going. So we walked. And walked. Eventually, I tried asking some passing souls for directions, receiving as many different answers as questions asked. Phone calls to the rest of our party proved to be minimally fruitful. After having a protracted conversation in German with a more-or-less kindly old gentleman, we walked some more, had more conversations with the now-frantic other members of our party, and generally grew colder and hungrier out there in the night wind, nary a sign of civilization about.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">To cut an abjectly long remainder of a story short, we ended up finding a second cab, had my friend Alberto tell the driver where the restaurant was three times, and eventually found ourselves in what appeared to be Nebraska, replete with rolling fields, barns, and still no sign of civilization. Assured by our driver that the restaurant we sought lay behind the nearest of said barns, we uncertainly trudged down the long, icy driveway, and an hour after we set out, were greeted by the blast of warmth and noise one typically finds in a restaurant on a Saturday night.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Dinner passed comparatively uneventfully, save for the kitchen forgetting my order, a spate of karaoke as we were all beginning to settle into the thought of leaving, and the heretofore unanticipated charge for same. Carrie and I, exhausted from our day, elected not to join everyone else at the club when the time for leaving truly was upon us, and we instead headed for home.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The next day dawned much too early for either of our tastes, but we weathered it the best we could by concocting an overlarge batch of pancakes that somehow, to our exultant surprise, turned into <a href="http://cdn.taste.com.au/images/recipes/agt/2001/09/12097.jpg" target="_blank"><i>crèpes</i></a> in the pan. Aside from taking care of some more business (including the almost-overlooked task of going to the bus station and buying our tickets ahead of time), we spent much of the day at my apartment in preparation for traveling, also venturing out to secure some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banitsa" target="_blank"><i>banitsa</i></a>, which Carrie had never before encountered. When the appointed hour rolled around, we were ready, and at 9 PM, we set off for Istanbul.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I struggled to sleep on the bus, and when we got to the border crossing, I was awakened from my fitful slumber to the most absurd border crossing I have ever experienced. For those of you who are not familiar with intra-European travel: It is easy, fast, low-key, and, best of all, free for those traveling within the EU and countries friendly thereto. But no matter how hard I set my mind to it, I simply cannot find any way to justify using such adjectives to describe this particular crossing. At 2 AM, we filed out of the bus, showed our passports to the Bulgarian exit officers, and were more or less quickly on our way. To make it as stark as I possibly can, I'll simply state that crossing <i>into</i> Turkey took our busload of 5 people an hour and a half in the middle of the night.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The Turkish government, wise to the value of the desirability of their largest city, have levied a €15 entrance tax, disguised as a visa, on visiting tourists. Before you get the wrong idea, this is not a visa that you go through any trouble (that is, any <i>official</i> trouble) to obtain. Told that we needed such visas to cross the border, Carrie and I walked a tenth of a kilometer in the freezing cold over to what looked like a border post. Told that the office we actually needed was another few meters past this one, we set off again directly for it, all the while afraid that our bus might somehow leave without us. When we got to appropriate office, we were greeted by a large, surly man, demanding our money for what turned out to be a sticker--direct from a ream of hundreds of other such stickers--that he placed on the last page of our passports. Background checks? Nope. Picture ID's? Please. Feeling stranger about the experience with every passing minute, Carrie and I raced back to our bus, which was thankfully right where we had left it, got on, and waited another hour for the geologically slow machinations of Turkish border security to deem us fit to enter their country.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After a few more hours, I was awakened yet again and told that we were in Istanbul. The time was 5:20 AM. Disembarking, we found ourselves in a seemingly-abandoned Central Bus Station and contemplated committing the cardinal tourist sin of waving down a cab, but we decided to stick it out and try our luck with the Istanbul metro.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">In attempting to buy metro tokens from a machine that was completely devoid of any English whatsoever, we encountered the first instance of a phenomenon that would prove to be ubiquitous in our stay here: People being insistently friendly and helpful. Not that I've never experienced friendliness from locals before, but over the course of the next two days, we would be treated to myriad displays of kindness from complete strangers on a scale I have never before witnessed.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The destination of this particular anecdote is that we bought our tokens and took the light rail system (akin to Germany's <i>S-bahn</i>) to our changeover. As we stepped out of the station, the sky was just beginning to lighten in the east, and a startling call rang out from the mosque to our immediate left. The <i>muezzins</i> called the city to prayer as we spent the next half hour trying to find out where exactly where we were supposed to catch the tram that would take us to our hostel. We eventually found the station by dint of pure dumb luck, and after walking onto the wrong side of the platform, the security guard indicated that he would look the other way while we crossed the tracks to the correct side.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After a short ride to <i>Sultanahmet</i> Square, we debarked and again tried to find our way with limited knowledge of our surroundings. There was a moment, as the sun rose over the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan_Ahmed_Mosque" target="_blank">Blue Mosque</a>, when I wondered if I was in a dream. But I was roused from my reverie by yet another friendly, helpful stranger who walked us to our hostel, and making a quick executive decision to try to catch a little bit of sleep while it was still possibly justifiable to be abed, I passed out in our room until 9 AM.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Never has a cold shower been more refreshing than the one I took upon waking up for the last time that day. After venturing upstairs (for this hostel, we were told, featured a rooftop restaurant), I sat--completely and utterly flabbergasted, my utterly delicious complimentary breakfast spread before me--overlooking the Sea of Marmara, wondering for the second time that day if I was in a dream and I would wake up to a life in which I would not be refreshed, fed, warm, and in a place with a sea beneath me, the towers of a mosque to my left, and another continent to my right.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Needless to say, our stay had gotten off on the right foot. From there, it was all just a matter of sightseeing.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Istanbul, straddling two continents, is essentially divided into three halves. Though we didn't get to cross to the Asian side (more on that later), we spent the two days that I was able to stay exploring almost the entirety of the European side, which is bisected into two parts by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horn" target="_blank">the Golden Horn</a>. Our first day, we ventured around the Old City, in the southern half of the European side.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Our first stop was the Blue Mosque, which is, in my novice opinion, the second coolest mosque in the city.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBU2OpzpkOTlO54OSjDicD_KawqrNW-ekXxwfwLk8VvlX35I8YKKNAf82KE4f_R3gw_B5G4khwB5AtAmI_XBODebYTCPmz5uSbJOq97udcZY63c7JS1uf0vSFAh8HeK44bPcOx1WZW7LE/s1600/DSC_0008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBU2OpzpkOTlO54OSjDicD_KawqrNW-ekXxwfwLk8VvlX35I8YKKNAf82KE4f_R3gw_B5G4khwB5AtAmI_XBODebYTCPmz5uSbJOq97udcZY63c7JS1uf0vSFAh8HeK44bPcOx1WZW7LE/s640/DSC_0008.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's blue inside.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> In the immediate vicinity thereof are the Hagia Sofia,</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfhl8nGXNyVO4roMsVCzgeFO9PIB_zqNLmq0hIUfFFP3YNXEIWCZhK8Ns29nIepYDi7v48VurQ4Bz6fzoNXbWzt54OJZfshhNlSiN3VQGhGJV7H_Pu_jRRuXBr6DJrBfw9QDjuGZMnkCI/s1600/DSC_0041.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfhl8nGXNyVO4roMsVCzgeFO9PIB_zqNLmq0hIUfFFP3YNXEIWCZhK8Ns29nIepYDi7v48VurQ4Bz6fzoNXbWzt54OJZfshhNlSiN3VQGhGJV7H_Pu_jRRuXBr6DJrBfw9QDjuGZMnkCI/s640/DSC_0041.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Right next door.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">the Egyptian obelisk,</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf2dL04X_Sbdpro9Fb2dy-N6hUdk5aeyIfkoo6pkCjwBKNUobWJO2lfGlYoS6wKLCNUpjQBJuJ6cgs5i36l10xWs9arcc62ue71zVaFbo7l2XyP6e27u1JcxTFcghFQdmBLj6AfnvFPfs/s1600/DSC_0074.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf2dL04X_Sbdpro9Fb2dy-N6hUdk5aeyIfkoo6pkCjwBKNUobWJO2lfGlYoS6wKLCNUpjQBJuJ6cgs5i36l10xWs9arcc62ue71zVaFbo7l2XyP6e27u1JcxTFcghFQdmBLj6AfnvFPfs/s320/DSC_0074.JPG" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's just the top third of it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">and the Basilica Cistern, a creepy-cool underground cistern that used to be a church.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiXbB-uA7EDiY9M2LpTqJ7hIHQEFYgn99rvT3_L4bK2F2hr4jlGMwR5FV3Q23Nj9d8XFOyTX6InRu8H5hCe8gMF6GmMJqrjW1hTWgvi7tEc6TSE0IMXaSkMG1L4lOmNMb2i5rt7f35bcU/s1600/DSC_0061.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiXbB-uA7EDiY9M2LpTqJ7hIHQEFYgn99rvT3_L4bK2F2hr4jlGMwR5FV3Q23Nj9d8XFOyTX6InRu8H5hCe8gMF6GmMJqrjW1hTWgvi7tEc6TSE0IMXaSkMG1L4lOmNMb2i5rt7f35bcU/s320/DSC_0061.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seriously.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">After drinking in these sights, we headed up the hill to the area of the Grand Bazaar, a massive indoor marketplace (The Ottomans invented malls. Who knew?). It was there that we experienced, in full force, the juggernaut that is a Turkish sales pitch. Yelled at from every angle with "special deals" and greetings that would make the person with the lowest self-esteem in the world feel valued, we made our way through, around, and between a maze of shops selling anything and everything imaginable.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJByutjUC_rSD9xweae_bSR-Klyy5OMBuHFyqNcBAUhnI3EpMoWpeKYXxtZ91Y6yqZqA83Scd_3cB-0JdNOiy36AQA1wm7Bg_be2aklaLfthbxfx-sdNHWvFXJKa5X-VsDfmKhsOutVQs/s1600/DSC_0122.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJByutjUC_rSD9xweae_bSR-Klyy5OMBuHFyqNcBAUhnI3EpMoWpeKYXxtZ91Y6yqZqA83Scd_3cB-0JdNOiy36AQA1wm7Bg_be2aklaLfthbxfx-sdNHWvFXJKa5X-VsDfmKhsOutVQs/s640/DSC_0122.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mall.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Finally making our way out of this delightfully treacherous labyrinth of merchandise, we found ourselves again on the street, and hungry. Stopping for a lunch of the most delicious <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab" target="_blank"><i>döner kebab</i></a> I have ever had (though it is ubiquitous and quite delicious here in Sofia, the <i>döner</i> in Istanbul was just the best thing ever) at a streetside truck, we then made our way to one of my favorite things on this trip, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleiman_Mosque" target="_blank">Süleyman's Mosque.</a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Built for Süleyman the Magnificent and finished in 1558, it was meant to be the grandest thing in the city, and I have a hard time believing it wasn't, if it isn't still. The architecture is ridiculous, ornate on a monumental scale, and the whole thing has been incredibly well-maintained. The grounds house several smaller domes, which serve as mausolea for Süleyman, his wife, and the architect that designed the mosque. Check it:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhU9g00bkZzgBsVNBhskn-GdyiqI_q4iwmY-SloUs3U_DgmBKJYvzfstlDf8S0_U4Clnczcr5lL1UcrPOnhgWEAiz1J_GQyyiggRvaWYTi82JjGCf6LnQrThmBVSwG3eC_QFR1wWVzsic/s1600/DSC_0191.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhU9g00bkZzgBsVNBhskn-GdyiqI_q4iwmY-SloUs3U_DgmBKJYvzfstlDf8S0_U4Clnczcr5lL1UcrPOnhgWEAiz1J_GQyyiggRvaWYTi82JjGCf6LnQrThmBVSwG3eC_QFR1wWVzsic/s640/DSC_0191.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just exquisite</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg82S2cFfQ40TgCnaibt5XVDs4vQpIVqZxUTYUvEeVo9F322ZvRvEXP6PpkUZiGubT-xCsBJEnYfm1_ERcGI56UjdvtatBj0bOgd796WFTq-ucoiSM2tVhx4dtiGMQRtiZ7DCXAbEJ2cmM/s1600/DSC_0182.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg82S2cFfQ40TgCnaibt5XVDs4vQpIVqZxUTYUvEeVo9F322ZvRvEXP6PpkUZiGubT-xCsBJEnYfm1_ERcGI56UjdvtatBj0bOgd796WFTq-ucoiSM2tVhx4dtiGMQRtiZ7DCXAbEJ2cmM/s640/DSC_0182.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And beautiful</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYgaaB1TsR92hSN_YcQpFhl2vwZsSGTFU2zUQSgx8Yvmm6Mx7BHmdlS3FH2jB1r_z4Sa4WUIZq3sikdWgjxAcXtMIxM2CsV0d8_GrVRiE1gCf7qp6bHYhhh4iBBeVEyzsl5TKzZE5WZr0/s1600/DSC_0158.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYgaaB1TsR92hSN_YcQpFhl2vwZsSGTFU2zUQSgx8Yvmm6Mx7BHmdlS3FH2jB1r_z4Sa4WUIZq3sikdWgjxAcXtMIxM2CsV0d8_GrVRiE1gCf7qp6bHYhhh4iBBeVEyzsl5TKzZE5WZr0/s640/DSC_0158.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the courtyard</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Our last sightseeing stop for the day was the Spice Bazaar back down the hill. While it bore more than a passing resemblance to the Grand Bazaar, it was entirely dedicated to food, and, of course, spices. It smelled delicious.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrBq-6jOUNPjo69TNqK-xU3F57-DSLeqX7LyygouMLtubnJqitf1a3Kz8_3oAtSoHuAdlludY_pMSV3gVolosQyAE1naYP-Nyer2dmk-ajGoNley-mh4GPddaxI_yvYEhYyOulM05qk8/s1600/DSC_0214.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrBq-6jOUNPjo69TNqK-xU3F57-DSLeqX7LyygouMLtubnJqitf1a3Kz8_3oAtSoHuAdlludY_pMSV3gVolosQyAE1naYP-Nyer2dmk-ajGoNley-mh4GPddaxI_yvYEhYyOulM05qk8/s320/DSC_0214.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Really delicious.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">When we emerged, it began to flurry, and then to out-and-out snow, so we decided to head back to the hostel to warm up, rest up, clean up, and get some dinner, after which we retired, having been joined in the dorm by a couple of ERASMUS students from France and Romania.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq5IA-D82UfkTMjEBpyNiTIS7cfz6tG_xgBHVMlvwEln1GI-yCdQX3Yzk1P4Zdgkltsoih6-_UYQhgTtDgT67qyQ7BbZEO7ed3vm7t3N0Bv3UasjeouxOZTWtfn4T0OVa1u_7uLQvMjcM/s1600/DSC_0238.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq5IA-D82UfkTMjEBpyNiTIS7cfz6tG_xgBHVMlvwEln1GI-yCdQX3Yzk1P4Zdgkltsoih6-_UYQhgTtDgT67qyQ7BbZEO7ed3vm7t3N0Bv3UasjeouxOZTWtfn4T0OVa1u_7uLQvMjcM/s640/DSC_0238.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Blue Mosque in the snow</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">That night, I slept hard, having pieced together barely more than five hours of sleep the previous night and topped it off with kilometers and kilometers of walking the previous day. When I awoke, awash in sunshine, the dorm was deserted, but I once again ventured upstairs and found Carrie at a table, and we proceeded to repeat the delicious morning festivities.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">That taken care of, we planned our day, I checked out of the hostel (for I was to be returning that night), and we ventured out. After securing my ticket home, we decided to spend the day on the European side <i>north</i> of the Golden Horn, the New District. Stopping to appreciate some of the sights we had missed the first day, we made our way to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galata_Bridge" target="_blank">Galata Bridge</a> and crossed over the water.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Our closest and most trusted companion on this trip was Rick Steves' guide to Istanbul. I had never been exposed to the magic that this series of travel guides represents, but I quickly became a believer. After crossing the water, we decided to travel--backwards--one of the routes he recommends. So to get there, we made our way through narrow alleyways and up tiny streets, past Italian-built (!?) towers, little synagogues nested into the rows of houses, and an inexplicable number of music shops, to <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istiklal_Avenue" target="_blank">Istiklal Caddesi</a></i>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQduGao4Bw_TEUbTwXBycBFChXteQu4T_E33O3ugJbDB5x0-xcqQBi05Dtt0rVd6r4Dwlf_iA9hHoDNMoGXOpGy8wnf6MsTOXAuWpcxbs1iIZ9GmZc-EQh9wm9iMdsm7VelNKxQVCbTRI/s1600/DSC_0317.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQduGao4Bw_TEUbTwXBycBFChXteQu4T_E33O3ugJbDB5x0-xcqQBi05Dtt0rVd6r4Dwlf_iA9hHoDNMoGXOpGy8wnf6MsTOXAuWpcxbs1iIZ9GmZc-EQh9wm9iMdsm7VelNKxQVCbTRI/s640/DSC_0317.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seriously. The Genoans built a tower right in the middle of Istanbul.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQrDUwEUsqkEqSwHWQr-zet0n6t1-PSamDOlumWgO3uUTsa9L2P-nv8J1W-jtcantAi47TtnV8Gvr_GiURRcy2ptQGajapSHxKpS9HkDDyOW-z8UDc25rSpW61_IF95mlgcbvljaEC0w/s1600/DSC_0324.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQrDUwEUsqkEqSwHWQr-zet0n6t1-PSamDOlumWgO3uUTsa9L2P-nv8J1W-jtcantAi47TtnV8Gvr_GiURRcy2ptQGajapSHxKpS9HkDDyOW-z8UDc25rSpW61_IF95mlgcbvljaEC0w/s320/DSC_0324.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The most inconspicuous synagogue ever</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">We spent the next hour or so moseying on down this shoppers' paradise, swarmed even at the midday hour, pausing only to try some new Turkish food. We eventually emerged, unrelieved of any money save for that we had spent on lunch, and went ahead with what had been our plan all along - to head to the bridge across the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosphorus" target="_blank">Bosphorus</a> and cross into Asia.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Though it was not incredibly far to go, the walk still took us the better part of two hours as we lacked any definite idea on how to get there and what to do, other than to walk towards it and then walk across it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZtmYw02ZLRyQ_eaL_rwwgdlYlQR7-xsJeYqFEkzMNG-5k9QB_btuGo-hoBzRvX8TkAaCYsn0gHRpi7X7MfgukzScPVc2ySB2PzsEF3V5mLYs-TSZDWPWTywN6mbLgaF6Q8408CzxTaA/s1600/DSC_0386.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZtmYw02ZLRyQ_eaL_rwwgdlYlQR7-xsJeYqFEkzMNG-5k9QB_btuGo-hoBzRvX8TkAaCYsn0gHRpi7X7MfgukzScPVc2ySB2PzsEF3V5mLYs-TSZDWPWTywN6mbLgaF6Q8408CzxTaA/s640/DSC_0386.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At least, it didn't <i>look</i> far away</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">We eventually found ourselves in the shadow of the bridge, but discovered that we would have to climb away from the water for quite a way to catch the beginning of it. So, again haphazardly, we followed small side streets towards what we imagined was the entrance to the bridge. Eventually finding ourselves at the top of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_winding_road" target="_blank">Long and Winding Road</a> with the motorway close to us but no entrance in sight, <strike>I browbeat Carrie</strike> we decided to climb the steep, snowy hill up to the roadway.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Emerging onto the shoulder of the highway, our goal was in sight, and with about 15 minutes of daylight remaining, we decided to go for it. Alas, 10 seconds into our jaunt onto what turned out to be a maintenance-access walkway--and not, as we had thought, a pedestrian sidewalk--we were halted by frantic whistle blasts issuing from a police car. Our desire for completing our goal being outweighed by our desire not to get thrown into prison in a country whose language we spoke not one word of, we turned back, and settled for some picturesque, though disappointing, photos of the Bridge to the Other Side.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWj5wqQ0pEkkHEEP99b15tLgD9Hs6ecGV37CjnyJdcAAUgwSsrbFLeoI35fZlzi2QCgCjhe9BCBL3mAXQudb_Lr17LVygid4_t5AwJIeslRbMigmsDruYu-p0KgxBiVJ4ZGvBK6IhlX34/s1600/DSC_0420.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWj5wqQ0pEkkHEEP99b15tLgD9Hs6ecGV37CjnyJdcAAUgwSsrbFLeoI35fZlzi2QCgCjhe9BCBL3mAXQudb_Lr17LVygid4_t5AwJIeslRbMigmsDruYu-p0KgxBiVJ4ZGvBK6IhlX34/s640/DSC_0420.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Below the bridge</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGa5Wz31oj_mQLfXCI0Kcq7A3cgPICkDcLC0fHOX-WGXlVsmoY1sF30t4O3EmBDzWaM_3L5PEud4vD8XkZdmFGG-RDlp3zgKTmV89P2apiYQhDac-A9JrhPhUwYDA5Kbn1lCYvKjHccgU/s1600/DSC_0426.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGa5Wz31oj_mQLfXCI0Kcq7A3cgPICkDcLC0fHOX-WGXlVsmoY1sF30t4O3EmBDzWaM_3L5PEud4vD8XkZdmFGG-RDlp3zgKTmV89P2apiYQhDac-A9JrhPhUwYDA5Kbn1lCYvKjHccgU/s640/DSC_0426.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking across</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Steeling ourselves for the long return walk, we headed back down into town, stopping for some baklava along the way, and caught a bus back to <i>Istiklal Caddesi</i>. Walking back down the way we came, we found a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we got a three-course meal for 5 <i>lira </i>(coming out to US $2.50). We then headed back into the Old City, where we finished our day at a hookah restaurant, relaxing and getting a private show from a Turkish folk band who serenaded us until they figured out that we weren't lying when we told them we had literally no money left to tip them.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">With that, though Carrie stayed for another few days, my stay in Istanbul was over. I headed back to the bus station, barely making my bus in time, and once we were past the border crossing, I was down for the count, waking up in my seat as the bus crawled through a whited-out Sofia.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">What an awesome trip. I have seen some very cool places in my time here so far, but Istanbul is definitely at or near the top. It was an overwhelmingly positive experience in almost every way, and I am going to try to go back one more time before I have to leave this wild continent.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I will get us all caught up next time (finally!), and there is a lot to tell. So until then - </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com1Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-11682420004946718132012-01-18T23:32:00.001+02:002012-01-19T16:44:26.188+02:00Back to Bulgaria<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">All good things must come to an end, especially vacations, which seem designed, when their last moments are slipping through your fingers, specifically for the purpose of breaking your heart. And though I had two glorious weeks to squander on things that weren't really obligations as much as experiences, the time still seemed far too short.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">On a blisteringly cold <i>Münchner</i> day, bags in tow, Laura and I headed to the airport, said our goodbyes, and I, for the (how many times has it been this year?) time, hopped the country. Stepping off the plane into a blisteringly cold <i>Sofiiski</i> night, I caught a bus and eventually made my way back to my desolate, lonely, abandoned apartment, pining away for somebody to live in it after standing empty for two weeks.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I made the executive decision to spend the rest of the week getting my business back in order, and it's a good thing I did, because there was plenty of it. While in Munich, I heard back from the first of the grad schools I applied to. Things on that front didn't get off to such a hot start; the first email I received (six years after my last applications to institutions of high learning, six years after receiving packet after bulky packet in the mail, these processes have finally been digitized, truly bringing Academia into the 21st century) was my rejection letter from Michigan.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Good news was on the way, though - a few days later, I got the enormously relief-bearing email that I was in at USC,--my alma mater--no audition necessary. So I was going to Grad School.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I'm going to Grad School.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I could, at this point, delve into a theatrical account of all the anticipation and emotional ups-and-downs to which I've been subjected as the very nature of my future has changed and hung in the balance, but I won't; that would be silly and obnoxious. Or maybe I just did.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">To make what would otherwise be short, insubstantial stories even shorter, I have, as of this writing, auditions at Westminster Choir College and, to my tremendous and happy surprise, Yale. I have yet to hear back from UNT, but all things in due time, I suppose.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">What has ensued as a result of these pieces of news has been a mad scramble to prepare. I'm in a moderately precarious position - not currently engaged in choral activities, the music I need difficult to obtain in this corner of the Balkans, primitive piano skills more or less laying dormant, efforts to revive them sure to be a struggle. As I see it, I'm at several disadvantages relative to all the other applicants eying the same openings I am, and the only way I can possibly compete with them is to work harder than all of them.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">So I will.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Anyway:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">January 3rd was the day I dove, for the first time in my life, into the unrewarding, chaotic primordial swamp of tax returns - qualifying for Federal Aid means filling out the FAFSA, and filling out the FAFSA means doing your taxes, and as close to January 1st as possible. Seven (!) hours later, I emerged, mostly triumphant, having filled out the first 1040 (and Schedule C, and Schedule SE) of my life. And though it put me in the mood to unleash my accumulated wrath by devouring something unsuitable for being devoured (someone's head not being entirely outside the realm of possibility), it was another uplifting--for lack of a better word, as this subject has caused my adjectival vocabulary to fail me--sign of my impending Independence and Adulthood (Complete).</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">A few more days into the New Year, I had to bid farewell to fellow Fulbrighter Greg and his family, his grant being only a half-year affair, terminating on January 5th. We had one last ukulele-guitar-trumpet-clarinet session in the Sofia Metro, had dinner, and with that, that particular chapter of our collective stay came to a close. Come Monday morning, I was back on the research horse.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The New Year marked a slight shift in how I'll be carrying out my research. For the past four months, I've been living in the library several hours a day, studying books of venerable age and unsatisfactory readability, some in archaic Bulgarian. Now, my intention--being armed with a <strike>thoroughly basic</strike> basically thorough knowledge of my subject--is to actually get out into the field and watch Shopski Folklore being made by real people, a turning point as momentous, I suppose, as any academic shift can be. I have my attendance at several festivals lined up in the next few weeks, and perhaps a few personal interviews as well, if I can swing it. It could turn out to be, perhaps, both a good time <i>and</i> a good story.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">So my time, it now appears, is at a premium. My days, for the past week and a half, have gone something like this: Wake up, eat breakfast, shower, go to the library, head out for a coffee and some studying, come home, answer emails, go to the gym, come home again, take a shower, work on audition repertoire, <i>fin</i>, repeat. This is a positive development, if viewed the right way. I'm certainly not bored--not that I ever really have been this year-- and I've found more than enough things to fill up the whole of my day. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The flip side of this coin is the stress that comes with it. The Westminster and Yale auditions are--and will continue to be, right up to the moment they're over--big, important, nerve-wracking affairs, and I will never forgive myself if I fail to prepare to the fullest extent I can. Life Goal Mode has most certainly been engaged, Life Goals demand a lot of time.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">What has been mildly astonishing to me is that I haven't felt bad about being so busy. There <i>was</i> a time in my life when I would curse the Universe, the Establishment, or any other Power for dumping so much on me and keeping me so busy. But now, while I may not be <i>enjoying</i> having so much to do...I don't mind it so much. It's kept my mind off of petty things and given me little time to engage in some of the unhealthier habits in my life, Facebook being first and foremost among them. I am engaged and absorbed, to use affirmative, uplifting language, which, of course, we don't absolutely need to do. It's rewarding, not necessarily in an Utterly Fulfilling sort of way, but in a step-back-and-look-at-what-you're-doing sort of way. I am breaking the mental chains of my own laziness - out of necessity, yes, not quickly or efficiently, no, but it's happening all the same.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But before I devolve too much further into self-aggrandizing back-patting (which has been a regrettably common occurrence around these parts, and for that, I apologize), let me just say that there is no shortage of things I'm shooting for right now, and it feels, at once, both good and stressful.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Thus has been the substance of the weeks subsequent to my German Adventures. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Next post: The tale of my spontaneous trip to yet another wicked cool city of Europe. Keep reading! (Please?)</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com0Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-78662234455877284772012-01-13T19:42:00.004+02:002012-01-14T02:14:15.019+02:00Christmahanukwanzika, Part 3: Munich-Salzburg-NYE<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Seeing as how I may be the only Jew in the history of the world to go on a road trip specifically to go to church, I promptly inoculated myself against apostasy, upon our return to Munich, by setting out the menorah and lighting the candles for the seventh night of Hanukkah. Only after that were we able to move on to other things.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The week between Christmas and New Year's was an interesting one for the city of Munich. There was an element of anarchy to the whole thing that is generally lacking in the States, and I kind of liked it. So while Laura and I repeated in our endeavors of the first week, this time with different destinations and attractions, the city slowly disintegrated into chaos around us. Like I said, interesting.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The day after we got back, we went to see the Munich Camerata perform a concert of music for chamber orchestra--Vivaldi, Handel, Telemann, and the like--courtesy of Laura's host family, the tickets being their Christmas present to her. It was a nice affair, the music was good, and we were, of course, dressed to kill. Spurning the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofbrauhaus" target="_blank"><i>Hofbräuhaus</i></a> for dinner, we settled on a small, hole-in-the-wall indigenous restaurant, and there we began to hatch our plans for the coming week.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The<i> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter%27s_Church_%28Munich%29" target="_blank">Peterskirche</a></i> in Munich has the cool distinction of having a balcony at the top of the church to, affording spectacular views of the city and beyond, to which you can climb. So one cold, overcast winter day, after visiting the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktualienmarkt" target="_blank">Viktualienmarkt</a></i> (a large, outdoor, year-round food market the likes of which you would not believe - exotic and quotidian food both exerting their inimitable power over helpless passersby), we each paid our euro and climbed the long, long staircase to the top, pausing only to allow the odd gaggle of rude American tourists to shove past us, and, occasionally, to photograph some of the best graffiti therein. When we got to the top, we were rewarded for our efforts:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEfTjyVM5vFXi3bzcjyT5PnPXpf7tP9XSeaqow3HBbWy_ZMWebXT7Mc8j1DGNQSOWSQMIeIG1Q4jDqwtR8b8bXHsGlxMR5Zi9FcWZWz2WUKoM4QuJX3v5XC3ZaWVzn96mkeWPrVG_dtcE/s1600/DSC_0391.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEfTjyVM5vFXi3bzcjyT5PnPXpf7tP9XSeaqow3HBbWy_ZMWebXT7Mc8j1DGNQSOWSQMIeIG1Q4jDqwtR8b8bXHsGlxMR5Zi9FcWZWz2WUKoM4QuJX3v5XC3ZaWVzn96mkeWPrVG_dtcE/s640/DSC_0391.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Big City</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcn_zE23Q9h2MKCWkHS6Kb1dlqywASqmfVWzdKsrCyi-T6eA5NMC6Qe0s4NZTjpvR7L_7XmkVPF4T5UBNLiHBPPZT6xeIUPfITgcQKQRWbUTRABtroi1yq9FpKbnjoNLimyBW-pAc6Eqo/s1600/DSC_0429.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcn_zE23Q9h2MKCWkHS6Kb1dlqywASqmfVWzdKsrCyi-T6eA5NMC6Qe0s4NZTjpvR7L_7XmkVPF4T5UBNLiHBPPZT6xeIUPfITgcQKQRWbUTRABtroi1yq9FpKbnjoNLimyBW-pAc6Eqo/s640/DSC_0429.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The <i>Frauenkirche</i> and <i>Rathaus</i>, looking north</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">That scenic experience behind us, and thwarted in our attempt to secure a steak dinner (a long and harrowing tale that is still too raw upon my heart to relive), we headed over to the North Gate of the city.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrEj5CXnQ_9V69VTBEktrJB3WgZZWpM49oYHroeyJx9WysAAgqXmr-2_klyrNClCmIhtY3w1_5zVOCdxCu8wWgQcshhWXZsu6mO1Q5olOrBMztHvGKb-vtSkBKDgqAJoPjCiPBCXUOF2c/s1600/DSC_0482.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrEj5CXnQ_9V69VTBEktrJB3WgZZWpM49oYHroeyJx9WysAAgqXmr-2_klyrNClCmIhtY3w1_5zVOCdxCu8wWgQcshhWXZsu6mO1Q5olOrBMztHvGKb-vtSkBKDgqAJoPjCiPBCXUOF2c/s640/DSC_0482.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not pictured: The Korean tourists standing directly behind me, taking the exact same picture</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">This particular week, in truth, turned out to be a bit less productive and a tad more lazy than the previous one. While we did see some cool things in addition to the ones you see above, and we did eat at some places I would not have expected (including a ridiculously good Mexican restaurant that, to my utter delight, uses real jack cheese on their burritos, something that is apparently rare here in Europe), the memory thereof is now so hazy with its distance in the past that I can't quite remember specifics. What is essential to the tale is that we spent the week having cultural experiences and planning our New Year's. So when the weekend rolled around, we were prepared.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">One of the better impulse decisions we made on this trip (and one of the better ones I have ever made in my life) was to take a day trip to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salzburg" target="_blank">Salzburg</a> the day before New Year's Eve. It was a confluence of circumstances that made this possible: It's only a two-hour train ride from Munich, it is right across the border from Germany, and Bavarian Transit offers a round-trip, multi-person ticket for €29. Why not go? we asked. No reason, we replied. So let's go, we resolved. We went.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The train ride was comfortable enough (train travel in Germany is, I can say without fear of reprisal, far superior to its counterpart in Bulgaria. Ah, the wonders of a high-income economy), but when we got to Salzburg, it was cold, with a capital COLD. Braving the elements--including hail-like snow--like the determined tourists we were, we set out and saw a great many wonders of the city:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The scenic views,</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxOPrdcq3URMRRuHVkN9xAXkeoU9TWupy0_6eMQoCwNe_veEOL4DRFjgnDwRO5DT_8ADzBhuiSJ2LeRBNxvPihb11gMLzA8O7a3kPowrcvmjJF590TBiBfbBh7t89FC-qC0EZzUZpMev8/s1600/DSC_0494.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxOPrdcq3URMRRuHVkN9xAXkeoU9TWupy0_6eMQoCwNe_veEOL4DRFjgnDwRO5DT_8ADzBhuiSJ2LeRBNxvPihb11gMLzA8O7a3kPowrcvmjJF590TBiBfbBh7t89FC-qC0EZzUZpMev8/s640/DSC_0494.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apparently, Anonymous is in Salzburg, too</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">the 961349 monuments to Mozart,</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjonruHR5iYv7Qqkqf9nn_4gPw3HMogCSbT_cJP-P6pKc2Qo7FPk0tz5mHwYUkrBgWGq0jzjXJphZ848GQcKkIXFiHwUoBTC1ivkBzpzR0AOCpGpdFSSVLPuZDQPhpsjmMHQrPq20_2WdY/s1600/DSC_0536.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjonruHR5iYv7Qqkqf9nn_4gPw3HMogCSbT_cJP-P6pKc2Qo7FPk0tz5mHwYUkrBgWGq0jzjXJphZ848GQcKkIXFiHwUoBTC1ivkBzpzR0AOCpGpdFSSVLPuZDQPhpsjmMHQrPq20_2WdY/s400/DSC_0536.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Handsome fellow.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">and a museum of classical art that we inadvertently snuck into, not realizing that admission was €6.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Having absorbed all these wonders, we ventured up the hill to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohensalzburg_Castle" target="_blank">Salzburg Fortress</a>; basically, your standard castle on top of a mountain. But oh, is it scenic.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicHlnKsjinqlnaKNP7n_W7SfGGx2RwqAQ_bNt0vfvY7JaX8kHKzxqUDI0WTsizXUa1ECBtayspfQRGhkJELV6vWdHlkCtfQLRNpiJYPwERo-NMA4n0CHg3Pyvu_HAutMNx7Vp7ewJNd-A/s1600/DSC_0651.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicHlnKsjinqlnaKNP7n_W7SfGGx2RwqAQ_bNt0vfvY7JaX8kHKzxqUDI0WTsizXUa1ECBtayspfQRGhkJELV6vWdHlkCtfQLRNpiJYPwERo-NMA4n0CHg3Pyvu_HAutMNx7Vp7ewJNd-A/s640/DSC_0651.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seriously</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJINHDbwEN2PtdfFo3Dm7R80QsBvpReAJCwgH5BVBrYkMOvRvNQ3o9T9WMVzBQsXEVWIJE39UZn-gIEhaTq37kOq4xKFIiYQnPbyrQY-a0otWfM_b4U3jJbNm01W-1r4rdtCA134d6q4/s1600/DSC_0688.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIJINHDbwEN2PtdfFo3Dm7R80QsBvpReAJCwgH5BVBrYkMOvRvNQ3o9T9WMVzBQsXEVWIJE39UZn-gIEhaTq37kOq4xKFIiYQnPbyrQY-a0otWfM_b4U3jJbNm01W-1r4rdtCA134d6q4/s640/DSC_0688.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mountain to which we sung excerpts from Mozart's <i>Requiem</i>. That's right, I brought my score.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Did I mention it was cold? Well, let me mention it again, because we were eventually forced to take refuge in a Chinese restaurant and subsequently forced to order dinner while waiting for the hour to come when we could catch our train. Salzburg, for all its visual virtue, is not a very big town, and we were sufficiently cold to decide that we didn't really need to see too much more of it. So we passed our time in the marginally-warmer-than-the-elements restaurant, caught the train, and returned to whence we came.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The story of New Year's Eve:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">In the course of our down time of the previous week, we had entertained many possibilities for how to spend our New Year's, including our original plan of going to Vienna (nixed for lack of money), outdoor concerts (nixed for lack of clothing warm enough to withstand several hours of intense cold), and a Goth Club (nixed for lack of eyeshadow and tight jeans). We eventually settled on a run-around-in-the-streets, make-it-up-as-you-go plan. We began our evening innocently enough with a big, cozy pasta dinner, and for comedic effect, I'll simply fast-forward to the part where we stood outside in the rain, fireworks going off six feet behind us (and in front of us, and on either side of us), pyrotechnics bouncing off windows in the <i>Marienplatz</i>, yelling at--and being yelled back at by--a group of drunk Italians, asking strangers to take our picture, shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other people. And thus we spent the first minutes of 2012.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">We would, in the course of our evening, make quite a few friends (including, but not limited to, a young couple from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hof,_Germany" target="_blank">Hof</a>, a 26-year-old Cheshire lad who was leading a pack of girls from North Carolina, and several odd Frenchmen), be paid into a club by two of them at 2:30 AM, leave at 3:00, join the innumerable, inebriated, incoherent crowd on the subway at 4:00, and be forced take a cab back home after the subway dumped us off with nary a bus in sight. But all in all, a satisfying way to spend New Year's Eve in Europe.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">New Year's Day 2012 dawned warm and overcast, and as it was my last day in Germany, we decided--along with half the city of Munich, since there is apparently nothing else to do on January 1--to take an easy walk around the city, which gave us the chance to see a few more things that we had theretofore missed. We finally got around to see the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilianeum" target="_blank"><i>Landtag</i> building</a>, as well as another Gothic-y church that I had been wanting to see up close. The word(s) of the day was (were) taking it easy, and this we did, not having the energy to do much else.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBEEtScrSte8yfHJK8IUx94HeAUTfTo7fzEUfj2iZwMfX9htV8oXgeW4to0y3WPhHzKpQVxtUQNG4Xp3Z2tSIEkg0rbNEFJXPSnr11gHvXbUBIKIEnsD1dJq57wvn2ypanFCCdrcUEako/s1600/DSC_0742.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBEEtScrSte8yfHJK8IUx94HeAUTfTo7fzEUfj2iZwMfX9htV8oXgeW4to0y3WPhHzKpQVxtUQNG4Xp3Z2tSIEkg0rbNEFJXPSnr11gHvXbUBIKIEnsD1dJq57wvn2ypanFCCdrcUEako/s640/DSC_0742.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Palatial</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEickhITLVKa5rv00N4aLySSYnwgXQuVRu38BOvYK8t6m_tzsfhxz9y1g7jcwPkMKHvDfSWQesnmLcpu4opS-1wDr9bXZi4QkKUKl6k9NFp7gmpZQ74Q8H3heY5WiUccxXycXtxrRel__fI/s1600/DSC_0743.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEickhITLVKa5rv00N4aLySSYnwgXQuVRu38BOvYK8t6m_tzsfhxz9y1g7jcwPkMKHvDfSWQesnmLcpu4opS-1wDr9bXZi4QkKUKl6k9NFp7gmpZQ74Q8H3heY5WiUccxXycXtxrRel__fI/s640/DSC_0743.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flying High</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7XvmPgyjRZyTWgSpdPbsqfpStDIh7xaF0g0CdhpOswesUKvVxzICuRoKKEk2rC4z-SrjwsdrCtaB4k8nqJ5q_4yj_Y5SSLFd72AK4SuYHQMy2Q1dBg9HsTPfYvb5qHnBi9xAl1rm0u1M/s1600/DSC_0754.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7XvmPgyjRZyTWgSpdPbsqfpStDIh7xaF0g0CdhpOswesUKvVxzICuRoKKEk2rC4z-SrjwsdrCtaB4k8nqJ5q_4yj_Y5SSLFd72AK4SuYHQMy2Q1dBg9HsTPfYvb5qHnBi9xAl1rm0u1M/s400/DSC_0754.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Boulevard from above</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw8dPkylbisAqr40gL45IOJfG6Ak2L90knE_BRwDPw8sHuJaQugnj8E08G75R9Sd6JK8hkbVpGjyQjz2SIxJOSbWrXBerHjFGQJRScLMRpGAsN7shlwmY1RPCUOkikCPcyPZ_EHQ-U-lw/s1600/DSC_0779.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw8dPkylbisAqr40gL45IOJfG6Ak2L90knE_BRwDPw8sHuJaQugnj8E08G75R9Sd6JK8hkbVpGjyQjz2SIxJOSbWrXBerHjFGQJRScLMRpGAsN7shlwmY1RPCUOkikCPcyPZ_EHQ-U-lw/s640/DSC_0779.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the waning of the light</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_aKjpHFSbgkzmGW_5NFevQxy4DvtFTrnl4OV18sqNkWflvgcIDzmVnInQzDfDy49oL-PC4LxV88J02xtqlnHgo3p7YmAs4Cd-h53unq6mxvZ_QDhxoZ80OPKA_WDgH2UHIbk4aPbYPHA/s1600/DSC_0791.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_aKjpHFSbgkzmGW_5NFevQxy4DvtFTrnl4OV18sqNkWflvgcIDzmVnInQzDfDy49oL-PC4LxV88J02xtqlnHgo3p7YmAs4Cd-h53unq6mxvZ_QDhxoZ80OPKA_WDgH2UHIbk4aPbYPHA/s640/DSC_0791.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Idyllic</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Exhausted, we headed for home, and the next day, I was back to Sofia.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It was a rather nice trip, and a monumentally satisfying two-week hiatus from all the stress I had been accumulating. I was glad to have the time and the experiences. All of them.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The last two weeks' tale will be forthcoming tomorrow, or perhaps Sunday. Thanks for sticking with me, so far, and adios.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com1Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-53810995607660002712012-01-12T00:11:00.001+02:002012-01-12T00:12:42.890+02:00Christmahanukwanzika, Part 2: Leipzig<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I love <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach" target="_blank">Bach</a>. Bach-y Bach Bach.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It hasn't always been that way. But in college, once I was exposed to more of his music, I grew to like it. And then love it. The man was undeniably a genius, contending with some of the other giants of our Western Classical idiom for the completely arbitrary and subjective title of Greatest Composer Ever. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">He knew how to put some notes together.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Which is why, whilst in Germany, Laura and I unhesitatingly took the chance to travel to pay our tribute to The Man. After a six-year tenure in Köthen, Bach moved to Leipzig in 1723, directing the choirs at, and composing for, several of the city's numerous churches. His home base, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Thomas_Church,_Leipzig" target="_blank">Thomaskirche</a>, still regularly programs his music, and since 1950 has housed his remains. Of course we were going to go. And what better occasion than <i>Weihnacht?</i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Waking up altogether earlier than we had grown accustomed to, burdened with bags of food to be consumed over the course of the weekend, we made our way to the Munich central station on Christmas Eve morning. Our train travel went off without a hitch, and six hours later, we made it to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig" target="_blank">Leipzig</a>.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Upon leaving the Leipzig central station, we found the appropriate tram and took it over to the stop that should, in theory, have been right next to our hostel. After getting lost down some questionable alleyways in a desolate, not-exactly-well-lit, abandoned part of town, we began to feel a little nervous, but we eventually found the appropriate door. Exhausted from the double ordeals of traveling and feeling nearly certain we were about to be mugged, we paused to catch our breath, Skype our families, and get settled in. We finally ventured out at 9 PM and headed over to the Thomaskirche for a service that would, disappointingly, turn out to be nothing more than a Christmas play, although hearing the whole story in German was not an uninteresting experience. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Knowing that there would be a Midnight Mass (one that actually took place at midnight, something I've never witnessed in the States), we stayed after the play was over, which was definitely worth it - we were rewarded with a manageably short (given the lateness of the hour) all-chant service featuring the Thomanerchor, the boys' choir that Bach himself directed nearly 300 years ago.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Though the night was freezing, and we again found ourselves having to walk for a bit longer than was comfortable through what proved to be another scary section of town, we made it back to the hostel alive and in one piece, slept for all of six hours, and got up early to get to the Christmas morning service (again, something I've never experienced in the US) back at the church.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">On the program for Christmas morning? Cantata #1 from Bach's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weihnachtsoratorium" target="_blank"><i>Weihnachts-Oratorium</i></a>. And it was good. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Being churched out for the moment, we went out to see Leipzig and to try to have some semblance of a normal Christmas. We made friends with some rather large Christmas trees, </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2BtM5Xdl7cDCyGjVryCDtOsn_WrELMrXXrgX6nd4fWbBSDRXSuS4xHU8R8nCZD52fOGQQgP4roB3E2QrcnZEmyC7Wbop3852DDoWYM24tVvouzG08uwHC9xaRhinpo8xvFIbprRErMTo/s1600/DSC_0277.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2BtM5Xdl7cDCyGjVryCDtOsn_WrELMrXXrgX6nd4fWbBSDRXSuS4xHU8R8nCZD52fOGQQgP4roB3E2QrcnZEmyC7Wbop3852DDoWYM24tVvouzG08uwHC9xaRhinpo8xvFIbprRErMTo/s400/DSC_0277.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was bigger than it looks</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">saw Leipzig's enormous City Hall,</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJcFs3N-8K9mYu2rc1y__Jm8-k8y9cnwn3Cg-Ouk-lXsJsuwy-QadWfZYS43YuuddChGX_Dd4gUW6V3_F2dozJcbkT745zNLgYvek-jGNDnJyhE-VmuSWUHNfgrrXY6-q2VSFdvIL2Mw4/s1600/DSC_0297.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJcFs3N-8K9mYu2rc1y__Jm8-k8y9cnwn3Cg-Ouk-lXsJsuwy-QadWfZYS43YuuddChGX_Dd4gUW6V3_F2dozJcbkT745zNLgYvek-jGNDnJyhE-VmuSWUHNfgrrXY6-q2VSFdvIL2Mw4/s640/DSC_0297.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also bigger than it looks</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">the <i>Gewandhaus</i>,</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcKhpKj5fS6DXH4nDI1wW7RCMfUYhcj2vQQTQDLcRX8nWdtX8e0UQJkHgWOo7436Lkslc9yoegWDxZLD9VFHblQrkQ5VyZdrpHk6anMptv9glk3RI4QkS2m_zhsU2-GV_2jFgLwB1dfMk/s1600/DSC_0310.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcKhpKj5fS6DXH4nDI1wW7RCMfUYhcj2vQQTQDLcRX8nWdtX8e0UQJkHgWOo7436Lkslc9yoegWDxZLD9VFHblQrkQ5VyZdrpHk6anMptv9glk3RI4QkS2m_zhsU2-GV_2jFgLwB1dfMk/s640/DSC_0310.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nice.</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">and opera.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdVSQOBOMCbESbBaal7NraWguUwuuSBC4WsLK8C1WCoWdroHopvymJPSIQ3175d8S_aD0GuR_nymjQi2-2K97eO9tSVkkswBbyZnZOLR-hjPFWCh1mfC_bhlHTRmtw93OdQoxEHCDBmc8/s1600/DSC_0308.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdVSQOBOMCbESbBaal7NraWguUwuuSBC4WsLK8C1WCoWdroHopvymJPSIQ3175d8S_aD0GuR_nymjQi2-2K97eO9tSVkkswBbyZnZOLR-hjPFWCh1mfC_bhlHTRmtw93OdQoxEHCDBmc8/s640/DSC_0308.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Majestic</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Our Christmas dinner? Indian food, if you can believe it, at a nice-ish place in the middle of town. Full of this unconventional Christmas dinner, we went home, Skyped our families some more ('tis the season, you know), and went to bed.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Our last day in Leipzig once again dawned a bit earlier than was preferable, and we manically packed to check out of the hostel, culminating in Laura's throwing the remainder of our payment, in cash, through the retractable window of the hostel's office's door. Waving our arms like maniacs in front of the oncoming tram in an effort to get it <strike>not to run us over</strike> to stop and let us in, fortune, and the tram's driver, smiled on us, so we were able to get to the Thomaskirche on time for the service. This morning's music was Cantata #2 from the <i>Weihnachts-Oratorium</i>. After it was over, the church silent, and the people gone, I finally got the chance to (metaphorically) kneel before The Man.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtVIt6IZzSXnWOPqxhBCgvPhZv66Llvr-K-CfGKWb6fXnF-qIPZdC7B1u0UClPi5tvdKu5E7terHyqsMQZt4icxL2Dl3dR0xzhqQjw6_S3Gfa9yAcgTJMTM6XYpFFNvOK_8I0DGB1m34/s1600/DSC_0312.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFtVIt6IZzSXnWOPqxhBCgvPhZv66Llvr-K-CfGKWb6fXnF-qIPZdC7B1u0UClPi5tvdKu5E7terHyqsMQZt4icxL2Dl3dR0xzhqQjw6_S3Gfa9yAcgTJMTM6XYpFFNvOK_8I0DGB1m34/s400/DSC_0312.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There he is </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZlSBF6_IaSfFEfIQgA5IcCYzcq08VbnR_51J-skP7vLQw47-e-MlEAHVyvLDbVX0gt_zKiuXVRJFWT66ZvllxFu1OT8hUlDumJxFN4g8_h0aeVenuusqKIEiFaHUbXyBRA95Q5PvMq50/s1600/DSC_0316.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZlSBF6_IaSfFEfIQgA5IcCYzcq08VbnR_51J-skP7vLQw47-e-MlEAHVyvLDbVX0gt_zKiuXVRJFWT66ZvllxFu1OT8hUlDumJxFN4g8_h0aeVenuusqKIEiFaHUbXyBRA95Q5PvMq50/s400/DSC_0316.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The rest of the church was cool, too.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">My homage paid, we set off into Leipzig to see a few more things before it was time for us to leave. Cool, serious things included the <i>Mendelssohn-Haus</i>,</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxn9EhJaAcvLuhO3Jo0c-HNa2bK8ereOKs8rYtj60or9j9eQg7GLI3-QJXmhwGjIwZbcpcashUA2rg80fl33yNbmwac6iMpown3kKGkQU5x3zsZ0WSzpD7-TE7boSJQ6QWQsMWp-6FFMs/s1600/DSC_0332.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxn9EhJaAcvLuhO3Jo0c-HNa2bK8ereOKs8rYtj60or9j9eQg7GLI3-QJXmhwGjIwZbcpcashUA2rg80fl33yNbmwac6iMpown3kKGkQU5x3zsZ0WSzpD7-TE7boSJQ6QWQsMWp-6FFMs/s640/DSC_0332.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who knew he lived in a mansion?</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">the rebuilt <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulinerkirche,_Leipzig" target="_blank"><i>Paulinerkirche</i></a> (an interesting note about the <i>Paulinerkirche: </i>It was originally constructed in the 1400's, survived World War II--not something many buildings in Germany can claim--and was then tragically demolished by the Communist government of East Germany in 1968. Who would do that? A replica of it--what you'll see below--began to be constructed three years ago, except that this incarnation of it is completely fronted by glass, top to bottom. Ridiculous),</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj06ZU5_f721JQ9X4F78tgSAYC8clFiDBbRSDjyY5pPECGexKhg2_SrS9ZmnU4h7fOX0HIZw_S2i-bkDMrdJcyRC93eijGTv698fIT9gh5UJBKt-1L0R_-lLJeUW6vIguVHn0b5IJlqhs8/s1600/DSC_0338.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj06ZU5_f721JQ9X4F78tgSAYC8clFiDBbRSDjyY5pPECGexKhg2_SrS9ZmnU4h7fOX0HIZw_S2i-bkDMrdJcyRC93eijGTv698fIT9gh5UJBKt-1L0R_-lLJeUW6vIguVHn0b5IJlqhs8/s640/DSC_0338.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How cool is this?</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">and a museum documenting the history of East Germany from the end of the war up through reunification, which was fascinating, chilling, and insightful, all at the same time.<br />
<br />
Slightly wackier things that we saw included an abstract monument to philosophy</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaz734BO0Vfmke9dIXOjN52Z8QKReztsVax_gXJAbAhsYDYDcXWinmvluOeksZawFvdM99ACW1EBECWn7BmPHi-M-eJhiDSWBoLvK9jTedI7BAeyh1pdelVzX0W-KDr0wZSK_zOYP0r6I/s1600/DSC_0324.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaz734BO0Vfmke9dIXOjN52Z8QKReztsVax_gXJAbAhsYDYDcXWinmvluOeksZawFvdM99ACW1EBECWn7BmPHi-M-eJhiDSWBoLvK9jTedI7BAeyh1pdelVzX0W-KDr0wZSK_zOYP0r6I/s640/DSC_0324.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, those are naked dudes holding power tools</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">and an office building that looked unsettlingly like a face, right down to its beady little eyes, doubling as windows.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFzzYBvYYHFzdy1BPf1tP7xqvhUHhchJ2Pmt2-nm9ezRVzz5b3r-KaOOddKn4NgEbQ2Yy8mCotejX6IiYgTlIScKb6VPq9rttq3H3tQzhTVe8mlwJXrzYtHPCUhwJipkVMAfV1BfMrBQ/s1600/DSC_0331.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFzzYBvYYHFzdy1BPf1tP7xqvhUHhchJ2Pmt2-nm9ezRVzz5b3r-KaOOddKn4NgEbQ2Yy8mCotejX6IiYgTlIScKb6VPq9rttq3H3tQzhTVe8mlwJXrzYtHPCUhwJipkVMAfV1BfMrBQ/s640/DSC_0331.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A little creepy</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">At four o'clock, our driver--as we had booked a rideshare--came and picked us up, whisked us down the <i>autobahn</i> at 180 kmh (!), and dropped us off safely back in Munich, all for the low, low price of €20. And so ended our Christmas Getaway.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">It was, by far, the most unusual Christmas I've ever had (not that I make a habit of observing it, though my life has somehow conspired to always put me in the position to do so), but a fun and satisfying one. The one thing I had really wanted to do, I did, and though neither of us could be with our families for it, Laura and I got to spend it together. All in all, a good trip.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Tomorrow we'll conclude our whirlwind tour of my vacation, glossing over many important details, as has been, and must continue to be, my custom herein. Thanks for reading, and I hope to continue not to completely disappoint you. Until then -</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com1Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2273118606186481295.post-14513133816001404892012-01-11T01:42:00.003+02:002012-01-12T00:13:31.642+02:00Christmahanukwanzika, Part 1: Munich<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">That's probably enough of a break, now.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Despite my best intentions, and promises that a dark, troubled corner of my mind knew it probably wasn't going to keep, I have once again failed to bring you the bolging you thirst for and deserve.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">My bad.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The nature of my "breaks" (read: slovenly vacations) has been such that I haven't had the <strike>inclination</strike> time to write while they're happening for reasons including, but not limited to, having too much fun, relaxing, refusing to think about anything remotely of import, willful irresponsibility, and gross negligence. But, here I am, back in Sofia for over a week, and I've continued to leave you hungry. But here, come in out of the cold, have something to drink, and lose yourself in the latest of my yarns:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">I flew to Munich on the 19th, where I was greeted by subzero (Celsius) temperatures and a blanketing of snow. As it happened, Laura and I would continue to be snowed on almost continuously for the next two weeks.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The first part of my visit will best be described as the misshapen hybrid between a week of pure vegging, pre-Christmas festivities, and a cultural walking tour of Munich. In light of the fact that descriptions of my lazy-day activities would probably not make for very gripping storytelling, let's skip right to the second item on that list.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">One of the primary draws for me to come to Germany for Christmas (besides the presence of my beautiful girlfriend) was simply how the Germans do Christmas. A bunch of the holiday traditions we have in the States either come from the Germans or have been completely outdone by them, and they even have a few that we can't even touch. I present into evidence as Exhibit A the phenomenon of Christmas Markets:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgndCHnEY8uoKKw2Zz9Srm7hvwazVEQgjo6Q6M_RJJ5qmDKZIQNtmHowKs0ESfVyahPAT5t_FUJzgm4d3_JMHenJRSOTgwi1Wq0WgEwK37vO146b-YiLtzc3lSsOCiQXKn99emgIw9n5zo/s1600/DSC_0059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgndCHnEY8uoKKw2Zz9Srm7hvwazVEQgjo6Q6M_RJJ5qmDKZIQNtmHowKs0ESfVyahPAT5t_FUJzgm4d3_JMHenJRSOTgwi1Wq0WgEwK37vO146b-YiLtzc3lSsOCiQXKn99emgIw9n5zo/s640/DSC_0059.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even the Rathaus was dressed up for Christmas</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">These markets, which, in some instances, can take up 1/10 of a square kilometer, are vast expanses of tents selling all kinds of food, toys, souvenirs, kitsch, and the ubiquitous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluhwein#Gl.C3.BChwein" target="_blank"><i>glühwein</i></a>, which essentially amounts to hot Manischewitz with spices and fruit. But it is delicious. And warm. And wine.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq2sLsMImIK-Q6QriO4PJaXLtagnOwQAWBZKwv5K-JYjEtuJ7cGrD16YAp639lzERtE9dCBPvk5P1ZRpRGbiNhS5K8FoIODBdvcIG-LKnqevgIm07kRkgWHuK84MdsOYz8BoPuoTKoOB0/s1600/DSC_0057.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq2sLsMImIK-Q6QriO4PJaXLtagnOwQAWBZKwv5K-JYjEtuJ7cGrD16YAp639lzERtE9dCBPvk5P1ZRpRGbiNhS5K8FoIODBdvcIG-LKnqevgIm07kRkgWHuK84MdsOYz8BoPuoTKoOB0/s400/DSC_0057.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And it comes in real mugs, which you can steal!</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">We spent a disconcerting amount of time hanging around these markets, paying exorbitant prices for food and drinks, partly because of the atmosphere, partly because of the crowds, and partly because of the ridiculous nature of some of the larger ones such as Tollwood:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9fm66hQBf-kPQjjXj1rNZ3T2-9YeIN91q6c9xIj9H9Zc2L_m7Mo7iNQlH9TQUzWr1Xc8AgjZnIrtFjz6NalH_G-CN2ISUmjkwYtdqViEcb4ZRqkB8jS-OVXIHmHDb5ruxF-uUXHb4lWM/s1600/DSC_0140.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9fm66hQBf-kPQjjXj1rNZ3T2-9YeIN91q6c9xIj9H9Zc2L_m7Mo7iNQlH9TQUzWr1Xc8AgjZnIrtFjz6NalH_G-CN2ISUmjkwYtdqViEcb4ZRqkB8jS-OVXIHmHDb5ruxF-uUXHb4lWM/s640/DSC_0140.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Multicolored tents as far as the eye could see</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nice to meet you</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">However, on my third day there, instead of hanging out in the freezing cold for hours at a time, we decided to make comfort foods in honor of the season:</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimf9jkPL4SMVy4CtuKhpomVNF77jP8HcLSN4hT2GnuV3hVwNxq-zGSeGxTbi628N3ZRPs5MduWb728fm7rybJhduPgbXg-rIDq_nn0r0doEbJIYT5jrpAFxHcgUmfmCtmwD1eAcnJWJZE/s1600/DSC_0104.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimf9jkPL4SMVy4CtuKhpomVNF77jP8HcLSN4hT2GnuV3hVwNxq-zGSeGxTbi628N3ZRPs5MduWb728fm7rybJhduPgbXg-rIDq_nn0r0doEbJIYT5jrpAFxHcgUmfmCtmwD1eAcnJWJZE/s640/DSC_0104.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">NOM</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">And, after I fried latkes, handcrafted a menorah out of tinfoil, and read Maccabees, we celebrated Hanukkah, as well.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPoOy0MvjbQzg_ERc84UL1hpb_bqF42GK2-scZT989sq73X2H_61hsy-QSV_QBq0ws6331C6n4Sp4zfQWzW_4HdfPI9Z80FPG3YCzUNYYPa-DOtGpYk8H8kf0Eb7Vkj36EIOfV9Wc1cik/s1600/DSC_0095.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPoOy0MvjbQzg_ERc84UL1hpb_bqF42GK2-scZT989sq73X2H_61hsy-QSV_QBq0ws6331C6n4Sp4zfQWzW_4HdfPI9Z80FPG3YCzUNYYPa-DOtGpYk8H8kf0Eb7Vkj36EIOfV9Wc1cik/s640/DSC_0095.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Happy Hanukkah, y'all</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">But when the fun and games were over, we got down to some <strike>srs bsns</strike> cultural activities. We made a list, checked it twice, and decided there were 23487645986 things we needed to see in Munich while I was there. We decided to start at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Residenz" target="_blank"><i>Münchner Residenz</i></a>, former home of the rulers of Bavaria. It is large.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuAm6Kn6wvp-38iLtM1t836T7TYH30Hv64YvwS-FCpv2MYJT4Fm1TbksHxTyZh1OFJn6MOhjC1zeOpXGl8emRM-YdNOrDrYu8GbW3GbZ0Ds2kmcpMyTpLbA0dw2PLGRNxezfmy_drRo9s/s1600/DSC_0014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuAm6Kn6wvp-38iLtM1t836T7TYH30Hv64YvwS-FCpv2MYJT4Fm1TbksHxTyZh1OFJn6MOhjC1zeOpXGl8emRM-YdNOrDrYu8GbW3GbZ0Ds2kmcpMyTpLbA0dw2PLGRNxezfmy_drRo9s/s640/DSC_0014.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Incredibly, the only shot I got, the gazebo in the <i>Hofgarten</i></td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Across<i> </i>the<i> Odeonsplatz</i> from the <i>Residenz</i> is the ridiculously intricate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatine_Church,_Munich" target="_blank"><i>Theatinerkirche</i></a>. Almost completely destroyed in the war, it has been rebuilt to be more or less an exact replica of how it once was. And boy, it once was.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6X_CeVC1YY3MUXX9TvLyuR75LHABxnUl5zdls0hS9ClLL1yA6FdyMGTY-SeClf-MYfzvd1mZQsevNeRRqD4u0r2zAEbvlVd5UcU1AwwlXCBpEoQ2iDY2nzqDrIc0HcNxRUuKss9G-ddQ/s1600/DSC_0030.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6X_CeVC1YY3MUXX9TvLyuR75LHABxnUl5zdls0hS9ClLL1yA6FdyMGTY-SeClf-MYfzvd1mZQsevNeRRqD4u0r2zAEbvlVd5UcU1AwwlXCBpEoQ2iDY2nzqDrIc0HcNxRUuKss9G-ddQ/s640/DSC_0030.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also large.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJPGaDluCQH8iJ9-KMm4whwDs6519ooj49lZjhE5AXPV6N7dM1kWL5xilDFz2L3xBuYupbB_m_43ZoeXskBOdwORunmym_rapcx7T3_5LN90tjKAu46pcU1EXiTj9fRjiw4OcxGRqgOhY/s1600/DSC_0039.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJPGaDluCQH8iJ9-KMm4whwDs6519ooj49lZjhE5AXPV6N7dM1kWL5xilDFz2L3xBuYupbB_m_43ZoeXskBOdwORunmym_rapcx7T3_5LN90tjKAu46pcU1EXiTj9fRjiw4OcxGRqgOhY/s640/DSC_0039.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So much detail</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Keeping the church theme going, we also visited the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael%27s_Church,_Munich" target="_blank"><i>Michaelskirche</i></a>, this one, interestingly enough, a Jesuit church (What's that?). And also quite magnificent. The interior of the church looked familiar, as it bore a striking resemblance to another St. Michael's - the Serbian Orthodox church we visited in Belgrade. And upon leaving, we found a sign asking us to shut the door - in Serbian. While there is obviously a connection, I have nary a clue as to what it could be.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-GcoMmzpkNq4uCvSQvb_NpZ2XLGzvfLeyZYb-Qad9QsezovCzqnpKTZbv2f4gjqQpl5kZpjP6VcZKvJFCOoUdo5aJx-qSd6fnJjXfC1RR_xq9GXFYFzJ86jt0puZpM2qIIiKSvmeEa-w/s1600/DSC_0078.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-GcoMmzpkNq4uCvSQvb_NpZ2XLGzvfLeyZYb-Qad9QsezovCzqnpKTZbv2f4gjqQpl5kZpjP6VcZKvJFCOoUdo5aJx-qSd6fnJjXfC1RR_xq9GXFYFzJ86jt0puZpM2qIIiKSvmeEa-w/s640/DSC_0078.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you squint hard enough, you can see on the altar a portrait of St. Michael slaying the evil that is Protestantism.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ8VcQMqHFrCyoWQAjIBZAfHC9eH-ZKw3IJupTQHvfsl3d1tdOd0jjh2Ux-7mUKUE-KkezLlzJUj652CLw-4J3HVVzk5q7HUzFBv_jPFVUzZNDlCRScnEbfsioFY8PJ_GM_LKwM204ggE/s1600/DSC_0091.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ8VcQMqHFrCyoWQAjIBZAfHC9eH-ZKw3IJupTQHvfsl3d1tdOd0jjh2Ux-7mUKUE-KkezLlzJUj652CLw-4J3HVVzk5q7HUzFBv_jPFVUzZNDlCRScnEbfsioFY8PJ_GM_LKwM204ggE/s640/DSC_0091.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The inexplicable aforementioned sign in Serbian</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">As the <i>Michaelskirche</i> happened to be a (rather liberal definition of a) short walk from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohel_Jakob_synagogue_%28Munich%29" target="_blank">Munich's sole synagogue</a>, and as it happened to be the second night of Hanukkah, we took the stroll, detouring only briefly into the German equivalent of REI. To our disappointment, the entrance is barred to non-Jews. This is something that I can begin to understand in a place with a history such as Germany's, but something I found a little distasteful nonetheless. Judaism is supposed to be welcoming. It's supposed to be inclusive. I've never encountered a congregation that didn't welcome Gentiles among it, so long as they respected its traditions and beliefs. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Though that got to me, I couldn't help but admire the synagogue anyway.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXS946x1SG_f7-W2S5xa47FeAj0zTxQfW7qIelBg_OOeiEDtB0qnppa-4YEvnZ331kyGJ1ZJboxpqfqWIrTeZzkG0rxl34d61A1nX06GzvMXndUE6CvYcIIiP_kVcrnds9-ybiSO0KawY/s1600/DSC_0093.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXS946x1SG_f7-W2S5xa47FeAj0zTxQfW7qIelBg_OOeiEDtB0qnppa-4YEvnZ331kyGJ1ZJboxpqfqWIrTeZzkG0rxl34d61A1nX06GzvMXndUE6CvYcIIiP_kVcrnds9-ybiSO0KawY/s640/DSC_0093.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Impressive</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">The next day, armed with a combined 20 years out of practice, Laura and I headed over to the <i>Karlsplatz </i>to go ice skating. And I only fell once. Bam.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">When those 2 1/2 hours (!) of frivolity had ended, we set off to see one more thing in the waning light, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Welt" target="_blank"><i>BMW Welt</i></a>. BMW standing for Bavarian Motor Works, and Munich being the capital of Bavaria, where else would it be? It was pretty cool, with exhibitions of new and concept cars, interesting little diagrams, and even interactive demonstrations. Before I begin to sound like a walking advertisement for it, I'll stop. But here! Pictures!</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All futuristic and stuff</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWVy2kEn5ernkusHUXhjQSGgbnxny9BFsX9mxEJ0X8Hl7UYeAWazN0KrJ_B0wlNY9YoqL_ZmLNP6-yH1D80CEc1k-A1ev9tk7MDD4DLJo-Npvk3qjkUUEIcExqy-6YdiupqKqdEh9LG0I/s1600/DSC_0234.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWVy2kEn5ernkusHUXhjQSGgbnxny9BFsX9mxEJ0X8Hl7UYeAWazN0KrJ_B0wlNY9YoqL_ZmLNP6-yH1D80CEc1k-A1ev9tk7MDD4DLJo-Npvk3qjkUUEIcExqy-6YdiupqKqdEh9LG0I/s640/DSC_0234.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Really kind of cool</td></tr>
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">That will bring an end to my first yarn about how I got to Munich and spent the first four days running around doing all sorts of cool things in an effort to justify my presence there.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;">Give me a day or so to catch my breath after all this heavy typing and I'll spin you another one about how we made a pilgrimage to Leipzig for Christmas weekend to pay our tribute to Bach and hear all sorts of his music. Read fast.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11245817874177809952noreply@blogger.com1Sofia, Bulgaria42.6964917 23.32601060000001842.4542957 23.01228710000002 42.9386877 23.639734100000016