Pause

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.

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 ganz wertvoll; 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.

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 sine quibus non of all constructive progress: definitive order, clear organization, engaged motivation to use them to their fullest.

This is what it is to drift.

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.

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.

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.

Just know that things are the same as they never were, and that I will see you very soon. Good night.

Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, und der Tag hat sich geneiget.

Christmahanukwanzika, Part 3: Munich-Salzburg-NYE

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.

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.

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 Hofbräuhaus 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.

The Peterskirche 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 Viktualienmarkt (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:

Big City

The Frauenkirche and Rathaus, looking north

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.

Not pictured: The Korean tourists standing directly behind me, taking the exact same picture

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.

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 Salzburg 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.

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:

The scenic views,

Apparently, Anonymous is in Salzburg, too

the 961349 monuments to Mozart,

Handsome fellow.

and a museum of classical art that we inadvertently snuck into, not realizing that admission was €6.

Having absorbed all these wonders, we ventured up the hill to the Salzburg Fortress; basically, your standard castle on top of a mountain. But oh, is it scenic.

Seriously

The mountain to which we sung excerpts from Mozart's Requiem. That's right, I brought my score.

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.

The story of New Year's Eve:

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 Marienplatz, 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.

We would, in the course of our evening, make quite a few friends (including, but not limited to, a young couple from Hof, 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.

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 Landtag building, 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.

Palatial

Flying High

The Boulevard from above

At the waning of the light

Idyllic

Exhausted, we headed for home, and the next day, I was back to Sofia.

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.

The last two weeks' tale will be forthcoming tomorrow, or perhaps Sunday. Thanks for sticking with me, so far, and adios.

Christmahanukwanzika, Part 1: Munich

That's probably enough of a break, now.

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.

My bad.

The nature of my "breaks" (read: slovenly vacations) has been such that I haven't had the inclination 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:

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.

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.

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:

Even the Rathaus was dressed up for Christmas

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 glühwein, which essentially amounts to hot Manischewitz with spices and fruit. But it is delicious. And warm. And wine.

And it comes in real mugs, which you can steal!

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:

Multicolored tents as far as the eye could see

Nice to meet you

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:

NOM

And, after I fried latkes, handcrafted a menorah out of tinfoil, and read Maccabees, we celebrated Hanukkah, as well.

Happy Hanukkah, y'all

But when the fun and games were over, we got down to some srs bsns 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 Münchner Residenz, former home of the rulers of Bavaria. It is large.

Incredibly, the only shot I got, the gazebo in the Hofgarten

Across the Odeonsplatz from the Residenz is the ridiculously intricate Theatinerkirche. 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.

Also large.

So much detail

Keeping the church theme going, we also visited the Michaelskirche, 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.

If you squint hard enough, you can see on the altar a portrait of St. Michael slaying the evil that is Protestantism.

The inexplicable aforementioned sign in Serbian

As the Michaelskirche happened to be a (rather liberal definition of a) short walk from Munich's sole synagogue, 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. 

Though that got to me, I couldn't help but admire the synagogue anyway.

Impressive

The next day, armed with a combined 20 years out of practice, Laura and I headed over to the Karlsplatz to go ice skating. And I only fell once. Bam.

When those 2 1/2 hours (!) of frivolity had ended, we set off to see one more thing in the waning light, BMW Welt. 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!

All futuristic and stuff

Really kind of cool

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.

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.

The Last 10 Days (In 10 Paragraphs or Less)

I am so, so (In honor of Steve Reich's birthday yesterday: so, so, so, so, so, so, so...) sorry that this post is coming so far in arrears. Last week threw me a few too many curveballs, and as a consequence, I spent too much time having experiences and not enough time writing about them. (Wait...) But here we are, and all I can do is to give you an enjoyable and informative retrospective. So:

Last weekend started off with another Folk Festival, При шопите в Казичене ("Of the Shopi of Kazichene"). I got up bright and early to go meet Xristo, who agreed to come with me. We got to the center of town and found all manner of people, every one dressed to the nines - dancers, singers, instrumentalists, spectators. Particularly abundant were the баби (Literally, "grandmothers," these are the older women of the villages who still sing in the old style) and some (incredibly good) junior dance ensembles. We stayed and observed for a few hours, giving me my first live taste of what I came here to study. Have a few pictures:

3 баби

Super good U-14 dance troupe

In action

We headed back to Sofia where I ran some errands and hurriedly packed, because I had a flight to catch to Germany. I got to the airport with less than an hour to go before takeoff, sailed through, and made it to Vienna without incident (whew!). After a protracted layover in Vienna due to a missing crew, we finally boarded and made it to Munich 90 minutes late. And, dear Lord, was it good to see my girlfriend after nearly two months? It was.

The next day, we went on a tour of the city for a few hours. Noteworthy were the Englischer Garten, the surfers therein who were surfing in the river (!), the historic architecture in the Marienplatz, and other items of Historic Value, of which there were many. After an obscenely pleasant afternoon seeing all these things (and eating what was perhaps the most delicious pretzel of my life), we went home and changed to go to Oktoberfest. 

This rowdy, alcoholic mainstay of German culture (Wait...) was everything I had imagined (i.e. a 50,000-person frat party) and more. We started off by checking out a few of the beer tents, ended up at the Armbrustschützenzelt (I dare you to pronounce and/or translate that), had a €9 (!) liter of beer each, made friends with a group of Australians, then went in search of more fun. At our second tent, we made friends with a very nice couple from Düsseldorf who led us to a Biergarten after the tents shut down. At 10 PM. What? No matter; we managed to extend the night for quite a while after that. We somehow got lost in the woods (along with hundreds of other revelers), took two cabs and a bus, and missed our last bus home by 30 seconds. Luckily, the night buses run every hour, so we waited out in the blistering cold for 59 minutes and 30 seconds before finally getting home at 3:45 AM. Of course.

The next day was, to unabashedly plagiarize the author of a certain Text from Last Night, a beautiful one for a hangover, and Laura and I spent part of it on the lovely chore of childcare. Luckily, the kids she's taking care of are adorable, and I had a nice chance to practice my German, my command of which is similar to that of a young child. After a most welcome nap, we went out to a nice dinner at a cool little Italian restaurant somewhere in Munich (Don't ask me where anything is. I couldn't tell you).

The next day we saw a little more of Munich (including, most notably, the Frauenkirche, the Pope's old stomping grounds) and then it was time for me to fly. Though I pulled the same routine as I had on the way there (arriving at the airport in less time than was probably advisable), I made my flight, and, after another delay in Vienna, made my way back to Sofia where--surprise!--it had gotten cold in my absence.

Wednesday night was Erev Rosh HaShanah, and I spent most of the day cleaning and getting ready. Before sundown, I headed over to the synagogue with Greg, and we sat through the most disorderly High Holiday service I had ever attended. Not that it was that bad, but there was a lot of (very audible) confusion coming from the masses. But for all that, it was a cool experience, as it was my first time in an Orthodox service (other than Shabbat services once or twice), and one in the Balkans, at that. It was over in an hour, everyone wished each other L'Shana Tovah, and we went home. The next morning I showed up ready for anything, and found a rather small group for Rosh HaShanah morning. The service was a marked departure from the Conservative/Reform blend I've gotten used to in the States, but it was cool. I took the rest of the day off, as I was starting to get sick and it was an important holiday besides.

That night, I met up with a few Fulbrighters who were in town for a second round of orientation, and we went out to dinner. It was delicious Moroccan food, and I met a couple cool new people. The next day was Official Day 1 of orientation, so we spent the day in seminars, presentations, and such. That night we had a swanky reception, and we finished it off by heading to a pretentious little bar for a few drinks afterwards.

But, sick as I was, I called it an early night, and a good thing, because early on Saturday, we took a day trip to Plovdiv. Now, I had never been there, and it's a cool city. At least, the parts we saw were. We were limited to the Old City, but there was lots to see, including old Roman ruins. We had a semi-swanky lunch at a semi-swanky restaurant, walked around a little more, saw the city's mosque, and headed home. Why not some pictures?

Roman-era fortifications

One of the hills upon which Plovdiv is built

The house of Nacho Kulturata, the Culture Tsar of Plovdiv

Roman amphitheatre

That night we headed out to dinner again, got drinks afterward, and I was home in time to listen to Roy Halladay's first pitch in Game 1 of the NLDS.

Sunday was my typical lazy-productive day, with the exception of a delicious lunch of Lebanese food with Melissa, Irena, and Laura (one of the newly Sofia'd Fulbrighters, not that Laura). Taking the day mostly off set me up to get back to work this week, and thank the Lord I did, as I was starting to feel useless, having taken the whole week off. Combined with the fact that I was sick and tired, I had had a pretty Down couple of days. But, over the course of the last two days, I have successfully remounted the Productivity Horse. And now off into the hinterland I ride. I hope you've enjoyed this rambling account of a random string of days that happened to be adjacent. I will see y'all later this week.

Bonus Paragraph: WFC.