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--

INSERT INTO `wp_posts` VALUES (1,1,'2010-09-01 20:28:28','2010-09-01 20:28:28','Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!','Hello world!','','publish','open','open','','hello-world','','','2010-09-01 20:28:28','2010-09-01 20:28:28','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/?p=1',0,'post','',1),(2,1,'2010-09-01 20:28:28','2010-09-01 20:28:28','','Home','','publish','closed','closed','','home','','','2010-10-24 19:06:35','2010-10-24 19:06:35','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/?page_id=2',0,'page','',0),(3589,1,'2010-10-18 05:05:11','2010-10-18 04:05:11','[caption id=\"attachment_3541\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"500\" caption=\"Mladost Supermarket \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6128.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-3541\" title=\"Mladost Supermarket \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6128.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nOn my way to my Bulgarian lesson today, I snapped a bunch of photos of Mladost.\n\nIt\'s officially fall here.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3534\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"500\" caption=\"Mladost this Weekend\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6146.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-3534\" title=\"Mladost \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6146.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThere are a few more photos after the jump and nearly two-dozen in Flickr. Check them out, okay!?<!--more-->\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3535\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"500\" caption=\"Mladost 1A Blocks in Fall\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6112.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-3535\" title=\"Mladost 1A Blocks in Fall\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6112.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3536\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"500\" caption=\"Garbage in Mladost 1A\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6116.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-3536\" title=\"Garbage in Mladost 1A\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6116.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_3537\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"500\" caption=\"Women Selling Veggies \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6118.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-3537\" title=\"Women Selling Veggies \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/img_6118.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" /></a>[/caption]','Mladost in Photos','','inherit','open','open','','3533-revision','','','2010-10-18 05:05:11','2010-10-18 04:05:11','',3533,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2010/10/18/3533-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(3602,1,'2010-10-25 04:10:27','2010-10-25 04:10:27','Well, the new blog is up and running! Until now, I\'ve glided happily along using wordpress.com. I did what I could do with it. I butted heads with it now and then and it usually won.\r\n\r\nThen about a month ago, about the time I started noticing that nearly equal numbers of people were searching Каролинка as Karolinka to arrive at my blog, I thought: I want to know more about my statistics. I want to run google analytics.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, this started a long chain of events which has brought me to here: It official, I\'m self hosting my blog.  It\'s still a work in progress but I am pretty happy with things. There are a few bits and pieces that I am still tinkering with including the photo titles but I don\'t think it\'s anything that prevents readability.\r\n\r\nThe big new addition? Well, I\'ve made a tab: Каролинка.  Right now it\'s about me and my family all in Bulgarian!!\r\n\r\nAnyhow, let me know what you think and if you encounter any problems. I\'d love to spend the day tinkering with it but I\'ve got to go to work.','A Work in Progress ','','publish','open','open','','a-work-in-progress','','','2010-10-25 04:10:27','2010-10-25 04:10:27','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/?p=3602',0,'post','',6),(4,1,'2010-09-16 01:37:37','2010-09-16 01:37:37','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/karolinkabanner.gif','karolinkabanner.gif','','inherit','open','open','','karolinkabanner-gif','','','2010-09-16 01:37:37','2010-09-16 01:37:37','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/karolinkabanner.gif',0,'attachment','image/gif',0),(5,1,'2010-09-16 01:39:09','2010-09-16 01:39:09','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/cropped-karolinkabanner1.jpg','cropped-karolinkabanner1.jpg','','inherit','closed','open','','cropped-karolinkabanner1-jpg','','','2010-09-16 01:39:09','2010-09-16 01:39:09','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/cropped-karolinkabanner1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(6,1,'2010-09-16 01:45:22','2010-09-16 01:45:22','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/cropped-karolinkabanner1.jpg','cropped-karolinkabanner1.jpg','','inherit','closed','open','','cropped-karolinkabanner1-jpg-2','','','2010-09-16 01:45:22','2010-09-16 01:45:22','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/cropped-karolinkabanner1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(7,1,'2010-09-16 01:46:50','2010-09-16 01:46:50','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/cropped-karolinkabanner1.jpg','cropped-karolinkabanner1.jpg','','inherit','closed','open','','cropped-karolinkabanner1-jpg-3','','','2010-09-16 01:46:50','2010-09-16 01:46:50','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/cropped-karolinkabanner1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(275,1,'2008-10-22 13:56:17','0000-00-00 00:00:00','I am getting very excited for Christmas and it\'s only October.  My friend Robyn who is also on a Fulbright fellowship and I are going to Vienna.  I feel really lucky to have an American friend who is also in Europe.  She is living in Budepest this year and is teaching English as well.\n\nSo the plan is to meet in Budepest--well, I\'ll meet her in Budepest and then we\'ll take the train to Vienna.  We\'ll stay for four or five days','Christmas Holiday','','draft','open','open','','','','','2008-10-22 13:56:17','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=275',0,'post','',0),(309,1,'2008-10-27 22:07:11','0000-00-00 00:00:00','As most of you probably know, I am not really a dancer and I don\'t want to harp on this but I also don\'t really know Bulgarian.  So it clearly makes sense based on these two things that I would choose to pay money to take a dance class.  Well, this is exactly what I did.\n\nI went with a friend to this really fun class--MTV dance at <a href=\"http://www.studiodancezone.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Studio Dance Zone</a>.  The website is pretty cool--one of the best I\'ve seen for a Bulgarian company.  So you should check it out but be forwarned that aside from the name of the studio and a couple of quotes the website is in Bulgarian.','Studio Dance Zone','','draft','open','open','','','','','2008-10-27 22:07:11','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=309',0,'post','',0),(6539,1,'2012-04-17 17:22:29','2012-04-17 15:22:29','I went to Ruse ages ago with my MoM and Aunt. It was June. The weather was amazing. We drank coffee on the main square, wandered around town, popped into a house museum, checked out some ruins, drank some beer on the main square and then ate dinner at an outside restaurant/cafe along the main pedestrian zone.\r\n<a title=\"Big building by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/6940143024/\"><img src=\"http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5444/6940143024_614f9ae7d1_z.jpg\" alt=\"Big building\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" /></a>\r\nWe liked the city. We took pictures of the architecture. We talked a lot about the layout of the city center with a park and plenty of cafes. My MoM and Aunt marveled at everyone\'s excellent English and the way everyone apologized for their bad English (which for the record wasn\'t bad at all). It was exactly what one hopes for from a new city--easy to get around with plenty to explore.\r\n\r\nI was charmed.\r\n<a title=\"Orange House in Ruse by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/6940153962/\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7089/6940153962_c116f5cb39_z.jpg\" alt=\"Orange House in Ruse\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" /></a>\r\nInterestingly, I haven\'t been back until this trip. I\'ve thought about it but I never made it happen. It only took me the better part of three years to get back there and I am glad that I did. The city is basically as I remember it only now it has a few more western shops along the pedestrian zone. <!--more-->\r\n<a title=\"House in disrepair  by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/6940152684/\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7211/6940152684_afa2c9e0d9_z.jpg\" alt=\"House in disrepair \" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" /></a>\r\nWhile Ruse is a little less charming in the early spring, it\'s still awfully great. Sure the signage and myriad of one way streets around the old town/pedestrian zone is a little maddening but once you\'re there, it\'s pretty smooth sailing.\r\n\r\nI really like the architecture in Ruse--even the crumbling buildings. I suspect that this is due to the influence of Western Europe given the city\'s location on the Danube. There just such a wonderful attention to detail on many of big grand old buildings. I appreciate that.\r\n<a title=\"Walking zone by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7086217941/\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7267/7086217941_a66d685a3e_z.jpg\" alt=\"Walking zone\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" /></a>\r\nWe arrived at dusk and after some zig-zagging through the neighborhood, a little swearing and a couple of lucky turns we made it to our hotel: <a href=\"http://www.cityarthotel.com/hotel.php?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\">City Art Hotel</a>. The hotel is really an excellent value for the money and more than this, everyone who worked there was so nice to us and very helpful.\r\n<a title=\"Along the main walking zone by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/6940145472/\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7125/6940145472_eeab64cf4f_z.jpg\" alt=\"Along the main walking zone\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" /></a>\r\nAnyhow, after checking in we, strolled through town at dusk-ish. There were lots of lights on adding a glow to the city. We stopped for dinner at a restaurant along the main pedestrian zone. I can\'t for the life of me remember the name of it. Probably because the most exciting part of my night was about to follow. At the restaurant, I asked in Bulgarian for a table for four, non-smoking and got it. The waitress then brought us Bulgarian menus. When I asked for two English menus for the girls who were visiting us, the waitress laughed a little said to me in perfect English (<em>of course</em>): Oh, I thought you were Bulgarian based on your Bulgarian when you came in. <em></em>\r\n\r\n<em>What?! What?!</em> My Bulgarian was good enough to fool a Bulgarian. That was nice.\r\n<a title=\"Benches in front of the theater by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7086219101/\"><img src=\"http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7208/7086219101_c3a80d2157_z.jpg\" alt=\"Benches in front of the theater\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" /></a>\r\nThe next morning before crossing over into Romania, we wandered back along the pedestrian zone. We popped into a church next to the theater and snapped up a Romania map at a local bookstore. A special shout out to the bookstore because we never would have made it through Romania without it. It\'s a little worse for the wear now but that\'s okay. We\'re home.','A quick stop in Ruse','','publish','open','open','','a-quick-stop-in-ruse','','','2012-04-17 17:22:29','2012-04-17 15:22:29','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/?p=6539',0,'post','',4),(313,1,'2008-10-28 20:47:21','0000-00-00 00:00:00','Being an American is a messy complicated thing.','america','','draft','open','open','','','','','2008-10-28 20:47:21','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=313',0,'post','',0),(535,1,'2009-01-12 11:01:45','0000-00-00 00:00:00','I just got back from my frist Name Day party.  We were celebrating the name day <span class=\"style1\">for Ivanka (of Ivan).  More or less it was like any of the parties that I\'ve been to at my landlord\'s house.  He picked me up--this time on the trolleybus because the weather has been so bad and no one wants to drive. </span>\n\n<span class=\"style1\">It was great.  I spoke the most (bad Bulgarian) I\'ve ever spoken and I had a wonderful time doing it.  I am not sure how I got to lucky to have landlords that include me in their holidays and parties eventhough I speak the Bulgarian of a three year old.  Anyhow, I knew enought to bring flowers and chocolate.  So this got me off to a good start. </span>\n\n<span class=\"style1\">Actually, I brought Anne a violet because the last time I was there I noticed that she has a few in her window and a couple on her plant stand.  I figured that I couldn\'t go wrong with that and there\'s something about bring a plant that I like a lot.  It\'s not going die after a few days--a plant has staying power. </span>\n\n<span class=\"style1\">All of this said, I\'ve got to work on my past and future tense so that I don\'t have to talk only in the present tense.  It turns out this confuses people when I use the present tense to talk about things that happened in the past.  Go figure. </span>\n\n<span class=\"style1\">\n</span>','Party for Ivanka','','draft','open','open','','','','','2009-01-12 11:01:45','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=535',0,'post','',0),(622,1,'2009-05-19 10:23:47','0000-00-00 00:00:00','Thank-you New York Times! I got a kick out of your article: <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/opinion/03brooks.html?_r=1&amp;em\">Restaurants Stop Playing Hard to Get.</a> Until I read this article, I thought that there were other reasons for the notoriously poor service in Bulgarian restaurants but now it\'s clear: they\'ve been playing hard to get.','Playing Hard to Get','','draft','open','open','','','','','2009-05-19 10:23:47','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=622',0,'post','',0),(632,1,'2009-02-06 17:30:43','0000-00-00 00:00:00','I\'ve been talking to a lot about my blog these days.  Sometimes people want to know more about blogging, others want to comment in person on something I\'ve written and then there are those who just tell me they like reading about my life in Sofia.\n\nWhat\'s interesting is that there are so many people blogging here in Bulgaria--Expats and Bulgarians alike.  And we\'re blogging in a huge number of languages.  (Oh internet you\'re amazing.)\n\nSome of these blogs you maybe be familar with given my blogroll but others are I think new.  So check these out.  There\'s a lot happening in this city and this country and I think that\'s really exciting.\n\nOh, this is by no means a comprehensive list so if you know of other good Sofia/Bulgaria blogs please use the comment section to link to them!\n\nFulbright:\n<ul>\n	<li></li>\n</ul>','Blogs about Sofia &amp; Bulgaria','','draft','open','open','','','','','2009-02-06 17:30:43','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=632',0,'post','',0),(677,1,'2009-02-16 13:27:40','0000-00-00 00:00:00','I am an \"English Teacher.\"  I was watching an episode of Law and Order last night.  One of the bad guys was using pretty bad English and I found myself correcting it in my head and making a mental note of it to explain later.  The only thing is I am not sure who I was going to explain it to later.  When I realized what I was doing I couldn\'t help but laugh at myself.  It\'s become so second nature to me that apparently I can\'t turn it off even when I am watching tv.','An English Teacher','','draft','open','open','','','','','2009-02-16 13:27:40','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=677',0,'post','',0),(789,1,'2009-03-25 18:40:45','0000-00-00 00:00:00','','Trams, tatoos and other great stuff','','draft','open','open','','','','','2009-03-25 18:40:45','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=789',0,'post','',0),(1030,1,'2009-06-26 23:05:15','0000-00-00 00:00:00','[caption id=\"attachment_1032\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Nevski in August \"]<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1032\" title=\"Nevski in August \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dsc03718.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Nevski in August \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" />[/caption]\n\nI was walking to work today and thinking about Sofia and this year.  It\'s been a really wonderful, crazy and mixed up time.  I frankly I\'m not sure that I could have enjoyed it more than I did.  Well I caught a glimpse of Nevski today and realized how lucky I\'ve been to live here in this city, to work at the First English Language School and to be able to walk down Shishman in the mornings and see the light on the church.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1033\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Nevski in January \"]<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1033\" title=\"Nevski in January \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dsc05312.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Nevski in January \" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" />[/caption]\n\nThere\'s something surprising and breath taking every time you see it.  Rain, snow or sunshine.  I realized how easy it is for me to take these things for granted especially when the uneven sidewalks or the honking traffic distracts.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1034\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Nevski in April \"]<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1034\" title=\"Nevski in April \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dsc06296.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Nevski in April \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" />[/caption]\n\nI thought: I\'m missing you.  And yes, I mean that in two ways.  First: I am missing out on seeing this beautiful thing because I am preoccupied with other things in my life--other things that seem more immediate, more important, more pressing.  And second I thought: I miss you--I am here right now, in this moment, and I miss you.  Even though I am standing only blocks away there is a piece of me already longing for you.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1035\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Nevski in June\"]<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1035\" title=\"Nevski in June 2\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/dsc09987.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Nevski in June\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" />[/caption]\n\nA piece of me that knows my year here is coming to and end and that I will not always be this close, that I will not always walk this way and that the next time I am here, it will not be the same.  I will not be the same.  But there\'s something comferting about knowing that Alexandar Nevski is there.  This place, this sight and the streets around it are as much Sofia to me as anything else.  And I find myself missing you.  I don\'t think it\'s the worst thing in the world to miss something before you\'ve gone--in face, I think it helps you appreciate it more.','Missing You','','draft','open','open','','','','','2009-06-26 23:05:15','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=1030',0,'post','',0),(1177,1,'2009-09-16 19:51:16','0000-00-00 00:00:00','It\'s been a busy couple of days.  School started yesterday.  It was a differenct kind of first day than my first day of school last year in Bulgaria at the First English Language School.','First Days of School','','draft','open','open','','','','','2009-09-16 19:51:16','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=1177',0,'post','',0),(1470,1,'2009-11-22 23:16:47','0000-00-00 00:00:00','','Me &amp; You, We &amp; They','','draft','open','open','','','','','2009-11-22 23:16:47','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=1470',0,'post','',0),(1476,1,'2009-11-25 21:54:57','0000-00-00 00:00:00','Pumpkin Gnocchi\n\n1 15-ounce can pumpkin purée\n2¾ cups all-purpose flour\nDash of nutmeg\n1⁄3 cup melted butter\n6 sage leaves, finely chopped\n1 large clove garlic, minced\nFreshly grated Parmesan cheese to taste\nSalt and pepper to taste\n\nMake the gnocchi:\n\nDrain any excess water from the pumpkin purée. In a large bowl, mix together the flour and pumpkin plus salt, pepper, and nutmeg, to make a soft dough. Add additional flour if the dough is sticky or does not hold together. Divide the dough into 6 parts, and on a lightly floured surface, roll each piece into a rope about 1 inch in diameter. Cut the rope into 1-inch pieces and roll each lightly along the floured surface. Continue using up all the dough in this fashion. Place on a lightly floured baking sheet. You can refrigerate the gnocchi until you’re ready to cook them.\n\nFor the sauce:\n\nBring a large pot of lightly salted water to a slow boil. Place the butter in a small saucepan and heat. Add the sage and garlic. Cook the gnocchi in the boiling water until they rise to the surface and float. Remove the gnocchi from the water, mix with the butter/sage sauce, and serve with grated Parmesan.','Pumpkin','','draft','open','open','','','','','2009-11-25 21:54:57','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=1476',0,'post','',0),(1923,1,'2010-01-22 13:29:36','0000-00-00 00:00:00','So, after last week\'s post <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/to-live-within-your-leva/\">To live within your Leva</a>, I\'ve gotten tons of feedback and encouragement on my blog and in person.\n\nIn the States, the following breakdown is a pretty standard recommendation for how we should spend our money each month is something like this:\n<table width=\"287\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Housing</td>\n<td>33%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Food</td>\n<td>15%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Auto–transportation</td>\n<td>15%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Entertainment and clothing</td>\n<td>10%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Debts and Savings</td>\n<td>10%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Medical and insurance</td>\n<td>10%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Misc.</td>\n<td>7%</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td></td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td></td>\n<td></td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\nThus I am wondering can I apply the same breakdown to salaries in Bulgaria to figure out how I should be thinking about spending my money in Bulgaria? My initial response to this question is that it doesn’t seem possible to use the US guidelines to budget in Bulgaria because here are the numbers I came up with based on a salary of 560 leva.\n<table width=\"287\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Housing</td>\n<td>184 L</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Food</td>\n<td>84 L</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Transportation</td>\n<td>84 L</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Entertainment and clothing</td>\n<td>56 L</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Debts and Savings</td>\n<td>56 L</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Medical and insurance</td>\n<td>56 L</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Misc.</td>\n<td>39 L</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\nThe thing is I have a hunch that housing and food cost much more in Bulgaria for a single person than the numbers I arrived at.','Bulgarian Salery','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-01-22 13:29:36','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=1923',0,'post','',0),(1970,1,'2010-02-07 22:51:58','0000-00-00 00:00:00','and Salvation Lurks just Around the Corner. The move is on the short list for the international film at the Oscars but it didn\'t make the final five nominations for the awards. Too bad.\n\nThis does not mean that you should not watch the film. In fact, it means that you should absolutely watch the film.  First because as I\'ve already mentioned it\'s a wonderful film but also because it\'s good for you.','The World is Big','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-02-07 22:51:58','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=1970',0,'post','',0),(2145,1,'2010-02-15 22:31:27','0000-00-00 00:00:00','[caption id=\"attachment_2146\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"500\" caption=\"Scott and Nick: Wine Festival VA\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/dsc02276.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-2146\" title=\"Scott and Nick\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/dsc02276.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" /></a>[/caption]','Nick and Scott','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-02-15 22:31:27','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=2145',0,'post','',0),(2180,1,'2010-02-22 18:42:47','0000-00-00 00:00:00','Thinking about visiting Sofia, Bulgaria because your friend/sister/niece/blogger Carolyn lives here? Well, you should be thinking about it if you\'re not. I mean I am thinking about it. And here\'s what I came up with 11 foods you\'d have to eat if you came to visit me in Sofia. Or 11 foods you should try if you don\'t actually know me and have me as your personal tour-guide when you visit.\n\n1. Banista. Plain comes with serine but you can also get it with spinach or pumpkin.  The serine is pretty darn good but you\'d be remiss if you didn\'t try the banitsa with pumpkin as well.\n\n2. Aryan. This goes with the Banitsa. It\'s a yogurt drink.\n\n3. Boza. This also goes with the Banitsa. I don\'t think it goes as well as Aryan but Bulgarians of all ages seem to swear by it.  Frankly, you\'d be remiss in your duties as a foreign visitor if you didn\'t try the stuff.\n\n4. Now that I am the drinks to try in Bulgaria. I think it\'s important to mention that you should also give Rikya a shot.','11 Foods to Try in Sofia','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-02-22 18:42:47','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=2180',0,'post','',0),(2215,1,'2010-02-26 08:25:19','0000-00-00 00:00:00','This seems to be the project that has gotten away from me. I never suspected that anyone would be interested in what I am doing. More over, I never in a hundred years expected that I\'d have a tv crew follow me around for a the better part of a week. Things like this don\'t happen to me.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_2216\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"500\" caption=\"My silly Adventure \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/img_2110.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-2216\" title=\"CAE in Rome \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/img_2110.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nBut then again, maybe things like this do happen to me.','Living on Leva: the project that got away from me','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-02-26 08:25:19','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=2215',0,'post','',0),(2219,1,'2010-02-27 10:20:22','0000-00-00 00:00:00','','Day 5: The Wrap Up','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-02-27 10:20:22','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=2219',0,'post','',0),(2224,1,'2010-02-28 12:08:28','0000-00-00 00:00:00','Tomorrow is one of my favorite days. March 1st.','March 1st','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-02-28 12:08:28','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=2224',0,'post','',0),(2331,1,'2010-03-12 08:55:16','0000-00-00 00:00:00','Friday, Friday, I\'ve been waiting all week for you!  I am so glad that it\'s Friday. I\'ve had one of those weeks were nothing is really wrong but likewise nothing is really great. All in all, it\'s been kind of boring.','A boring week','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-03-12 08:55:16','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=2331',0,'post','',0),(3037,1,'2010-07-02 09:06:03','0000-00-00 00:00:00','This morning on my way to work, I was struck by how absurd my life is.','Ramblings','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-07-02 09:06:03','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=3037',0,'post','',0),(3191,1,'2010-08-24 17:32:31','0000-00-00 00:00:00','My old neighborhood is no longer mine.','Nostaliga &amp; DC','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-08-24 17:32:31','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=3191',0,'post','',0),(3206,1,'2010-08-26 16:13:55','0000-00-00 00:00:00','','Growing Up is Hard to Do!','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-08-26 16:13:55','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=3206',0,'post','',0),(3284,1,'2010-09-04 18:06:04','0000-00-00 00:00:00','Edgar Degas: National Gallery of Fine Arts','What&#039;s up September?','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-09-04 18:06:04','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=3284',0,'post','',0),(3374,1,'2010-09-23 05:07:38','0000-00-00 00:00:00','The Roma have been in the news recently. It started in France with the deportation/expulsion of more than 1000 Roma living in France. Most of the major news media groups jumped on the bandwagon reporting on the issue.\n<ul>\n	<li><a href=\"http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/expulsion-of-roma-from-france-a-disgrace-2078929.html\" target=\"_blank\">The Independent</a> article from Sept 14th</li>\n	<li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11323053\" target=\"_blank\">The BBC</a> was right in the thick of things with a slew of articles around the issue.</li>\n	<li>The New York Times was not to be left out.</li>\n</ul>\nThe claim seems to be that Romanian and Bulgarian Roma are living illegally in France and as such can be sent back to their home country.\n\nBack on Bulgarian soil, there\'s been some discussion of the issue but I haven\'t heard much of it. Then this article came out yesterday in the <a href=\"http://sofiaecho.com/2010/09/22/964004_parents-pull-children-out-of-school-because-of-roma-classmates\" target=\"_blank\">Sofia Echo</a> with the wordy if not telling headline: Prents pull children out of school because of Roma classmates.','Bulgaria and the Roma','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-09-23 05:07:38','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=3374',0,'post','',0),(3458,1,'2010-10-08 04:56:52','0000-00-00 00:00:00','http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/05/travel_writing_ain_t_what_it_used_to_be?page=0,1','Changing Travel Writing','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-10-08 04:56:52','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=3458',0,'post','',0),(3472,1,'2010-10-08 17:10:57','0000-00-00 00:00:00','Foreign Policy magazine has a piece on the','Is this Travel Writing?','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-10-08 17:10:57','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=3472',0,'post','',0),(3488,1,'2010-10-11 18:48:09','0000-00-00 00:00:00','','Year Three and Me','','draft','open','open','','','','','2010-10-11 18:48:09','0000-00-00 00:00:00','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=3488',0,'post','',0),(3577,1,'2008-07-11 01:57:47','2008-07-11 01:57:47','I made a Fulbright application in September 2007  to Bulgaria, in late January I found out that my application had been forwarded to country and finally in April after lots of worrying and waiting the envelope came--I\'d won a Fulbright fellowship.  I had spent the previous two weeks coming home from work or the gym and thinking to myself: maybe tonight is the night a win a Fulbright.  I\'d walk into the group house I was living in and look in my mailbox and then everyone else\'s mailboxes as well just in case one of my roommates had misplaced the envelope.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThen one night I walked in the front door sweaty and out of breath after an hour at the gym.  I could hear that the tv was on and I didn\'t see anything in my mailbox.  I hollered hello to whoever was watching tv and one of my roommates jumped up and bound around the couch with a half-envelope in hand.  I looked at the return address and the weight of the envelope and thought: I won a Fulbright.\n\nThe letter explained to me that: as a Fulbrighter, you will join the ranks of distinguished alumni of the program.  Fulbright alumni have become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, CEOs, university presidents, journalists, professors and teachers.  They have been awarded thirty-seven Nobel Prizes.   And for a moment the thought passed through my mind: what if they\'ve made a mistake and this was followed directly by: well its about time.  While all of these crazy thoughts are racing though my head, my roommate hovered over my shoulder reading the letter and enclosed materials with much more zeal than I did.  I called my parents and sent a slew of text messages to friends.  I had won.  I was moving to Bulgaria.  And I was in shock--nothing about it was real to me.  The winning was real.  I had a letter in my hand to prove it.  But the fact that I was going to pair all of my belongings down into two suitcases and a carry on, move to a country where I couldn\'t read the alphabet let alone speak the language and knew no one hadn\'t sunk in.\n\nAnd then it happened--at some point in all of this mania--I realized that I knew next to nothing about Bulgaria.  That is unless you can count what I read obsessively online at Wikipedia, travel sites, the NYT and the Washington Post, oh, and the <a title=\"Bulgarian-American Fulbright Comission Website\" href=\"http://www.fulbright.bg/\" target=\"_blank\">Bulgarian-American Fulbright Commission</a> website.  Okay, looking at that list, it actually seems like a fair amount but I didn\'t think that I knew much substantively.  So, I did what academics do and read everything I could get my hands on.  The result of which is that I am now obsessed with Bulgaria--an obsession which has actually been very easy to indulge. It is here at the intersection of Bulgaria, my life and the Fulbright that my blog now picks up.','The Background','','publish','open','open','','hello-world-2','','','2008-07-11 01:57:47','2008-07-11 01:57:47','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2008/07/11/hello-world-2/',0,'post','',0),(3578,1,'2008-07-11 01:57:47','2008-07-11 01:57:47','[caption id=\"attachment_3742\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"409\" caption=\"My Initials found at the Paris Flea Market\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/about-2/img_4203/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3742\"><img class=\"size-large wp-image-3742 \" title=\"My Initials found at the Paris Flea Market \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/IMG_4203-682x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"409\" height=\"614\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nWho am I?<em> Who am I?</em>\r\n\r\n1. I\'m Carolyn.\r\n\r\n2. I live in Sofia, Bulgaria.\r\n\r\n(3. This is a blog.)\r\n\r\nThe rest? <em>Who knows?</em>\r\n\r\nI guess I am supposed to but really how can I condense my life into a single page of my blog?! I started this blog in 2008 when I won a <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/the-fulbright-me/\">Fulbright</a>. Only thing is, I am still here and I am still writing. Now I am working at the <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/acs-and-me/\">American College of Sofia</a> and living in Mladost a neighborhood of Sofia.\r\n\r\n<strong>My Name</strong>\r\n\r\nWith a name like Carolyn you don\'t get a lot nicknames. I\'ve had two. The first was Kiki and I came up with this one when Carolyn was too hard for me to say as a baby and by the time I started preschool I was determined that everyone would call me Carolyn.  And they did. Until I turned 26 and my first Bulgarian tutor gave me the nickname Karolinka. This of course seemed was the perfect name for my blog.  But really, I am still just Carolyn. <strong> </strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Sofia, Bulgaria </strong>\r\n\r\nSofia is a really great city. There\'s a lot to do and to see. I especially like it because it\'s not outwardly beautiful. This makes discovering new things, places and activities that much cool and it makes the hunt feel that much more rewarding.\r\n\r\nLife in Sofia is in someways exactly what I expected. Completely frustrating and maddening but surprisingly rewarding. Like when Moda magazine contacted me about whether or not I\'d be interested in being interviewed for a feature they were doing on foreigners in Bulgaria. I said yes. I mean no one\'s ever asked me to be in a magazine before.\r\n\r\nMaybe you\'d like to check out <a href=\"../2010/01/27/moda-my-magazine-debut/\" target=\"_blank\">my debut in a Bulgarian fashion magazine--Moda</a> in February 2010. Yep, a fashion magazine. A Bulgarian one to boot. This was one of the first times I thought--huna, people are actually reading what I am writing.\r\n\r\nThen Nova TV a Bulgarian television station contacted me about doing a series on what a week of my life looks like.  Totally weird and funny--<em>right</em>? You can check out this series Nova TV did on my life at the end of February 2010 (<a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/day-2-nova-tv/\">Day 2</a>, <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/day-3-nova-me-the-bus/\">Day 3</a>, <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/day-4-i-dance/\">Day 4</a> and <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/day-5-the-wrap-up/\">Day 5</a>).  At this point, if you\'re not laughing right after watching this series, you probably shouldn\'t be reading my blog. It\'s not going to be a good fit.\r\n\r\nIn the summer of 2010 I was asked to write about life as a foreigner in Sofia.  It\'s totally flattering and a little nuts that the magazine thought: we\'ll ask Carolyn if she\'ll write this for us. So this <a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2010/09/10/to-be-30-in-moda-and-sofia/\" target=\"_blank\">little piece I wrote for Moda</a> came out in the fall. In September 2010, I was also featured in the Bulgarian lifestyle magazine Rouge in the features section--<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/about-2/carolyn-magazine/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3811\">Me in Rouge Magazine</a>.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, this whole thing has been kind of surreal.\r\n\r\nLets see, what else, what else? I\'m a twenty-something (okay, nearly-thirty something) American living in Sofia, traveling around Bulgaria and generally exploring the country, people, culture and food.  Now, I\'m in the process of figuring out what it means to be an expat in Bulgaria. And I am trying to learn the language but it\'s slow going. <strong> </strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>My Blog</strong>\r\n\r\nWhen I started this blog, I was doing it for me, my family (mostly my MoM and dAd) and my friends.  I was trying out a new technology and figured if everyone else was doing it why not me? Oh and it helps that I actually love to write.\r\n\r\nI never really imagined that I\'d have much of a following but I figured that it beats sending out group emails.  So if you wanted to know what I was up to, you could check but it wasn\'t like you had an email from me in your inbox every week that you felt obligated to read and respond to whether you knew what to say or not.  Thus my blog was born.\r\n\r\nSo that\'s that.  I am trying to capture snapshots of what life is like here--sometimes these are events, sometimes feelings, other times things I notice or moments that make me laugh too much not to document and share them.\r\n\r\nAm I an expert on Bulgaria? Of course not, gesh, I can hardly speak the language but for better or worse this is my city right now and I love it dearly.  It\'s a city that grows on you and one day you wake up and think: I am going to miss this place and I am not even gone yet. <strong> </strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Want More? </strong>\r\n\r\nYou can <a href=\"https://twitter.com/CarolynEmigh\">follow me on twitter</a> but I can\'t promise that in 140 characters you\'ll be wowed by my grammar, insight or wisdom but you will be able to see what\'s on my mind, what catches my eye and what makes me laugh (or want to cry). If twitter\'s not enough or not your thing, you could see what I\'m following, liking and pinning you could<a href=\"http://pinterest.com/karolinkabg/\" target=\"_blank\"> checkout my pinterest board</a>. You might also be interested in <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/\" target=\"_blank\">following me on flickr </a>where I upload tons of photos from my life in and around Bulgaria.\r\n\r\nStill not enough? Well, I am not posting my phone number or street address on the blog. My MoM taught me better than that. So leave a comment or send me an email (carolyn.emigh (at) gmail.com) and let me know what\'s on your mind. I\'ll reply.','Who Am I?','','publish','open','open','','about-2','','','2012-04-17 18:04:24','2012-04-17 16:04:24','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/about-2/',1,'page','',75),(6548,1,'2012-04-17 18:04:24','2012-04-17 16:04:24','[caption id=\"attachment_3742\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"409\" caption=\"My Initials found at the Paris Flea Market\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/about-2/img_4203/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3742\"><img class=\"size-large wp-image-3742 \" title=\"My Initials found at the Paris Flea Market \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/IMG_4203-682x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"409\" height=\"614\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nWho am I?<em> Who am I?</em>\r\n\r\n1. I\'m Carolyn.\r\n\r\n2. I live in Sofia, Bulgaria.\r\n\r\n(3. This is a blog.)\r\n\r\nThe rest? <em>Who knows?</em>\r\n\r\nI guess I am supposed to but really how can I condense my life into a single page of my blog?! I started this blog in 2008 when I won a <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/the-fulbright-me/\">Fulbright</a>. Only thing is, I am still here and I am still writing. Now I am working at the <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/acs-and-me/\">American College of Sofia</a> and living in Mladost a neighborhood of Sofia.\r\n\r\n<strong>My Name</strong>\r\n\r\nWith a name like Carolyn you don\'t get a lot nicknames. I\'ve had two. The first was Kiki and I came up with this one when Carolyn was too hard for me to say as a baby and by the time I started preschool I was determined that everyone would call me Carolyn.  And they did. Until I turned 26 and my first Bulgarian tutor gave me the nickname Karolinka. This of course seemed was the perfect name for my blog.  But really, I am still just Carolyn. <strong> </strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Sofia, Bulgaria </strong>\r\n\r\nSofia is a really great city. There\'s a lot to do and to see. I especially like it because it\'s not outwardly beautiful. This makes discovering new things, places and activities that much cool and it makes the hunt feel that much more rewarding.\r\n\r\nLife in Sofia is in someways exactly what I expected. Completely frustrating and maddening but surprisingly rewarding. Like when Moda magazine contacted me about whether or not I\'d be interested in being interviewed for a feature they were doing on foreigners in Bulgaria. I said yes. I mean no one\'s ever asked me to be in a magazine before.\r\n\r\nMaybe you\'d like to check out <a href=\"../2010/01/27/moda-my-magazine-debut/\" target=\"_blank\">my debut in a Bulgarian fashion magazine--Moda</a> in February 2010. Yep, a fashion magazine. A Bulgarian one to boot. This was one of the first times I thought--huna, people are actually reading what I am writing.\r\n\r\nThen Nova TV a Bulgarian television station contacted me about doing a series on what a week of my life looks like.  Totally weird and funny--<em>right</em>? You can check out this series Nova TV did on my life at the end of February 2010 (<a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/day-2-nova-tv/\">Day 2</a>, <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/day-3-nova-me-the-bus/\">Day 3</a>, <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/day-4-i-dance/\">Day 4</a> and <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/day-5-the-wrap-up/\">Day 5</a>).  At this point, if you\'re not laughing right after watching this series, you probably shouldn\'t be reading my blog. It\'s not going to be a good fit.\r\n\r\nIn the summer of 2010 I was asked to write about life as a foreigner in Sofia.  It\'s totally flattering and a little nuts that the magazine thought: we\'ll ask Carolyn if she\'ll write this for us. So this <a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2010/09/10/to-be-30-in-moda-and-sofia/\" target=\"_blank\">little piece I wrote for Moda</a> came out in the fall. In September 2010, I was also featured in the Bulgarian lifestyle magazine Rouge in the features section--<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/about-2/carolyn-magazine/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3811\">Me in Rouge Magazine</a>.\r\n\r\nNeedless to say, this whole thing has been kind of surreal.\r\n\r\nLets see, what else, what else? I\'m a twenty-something (okay, nearly-thirty something) American living in Sofia, traveling around Bulgaria and generally exploring the country, people, culture and food.  Now, I\'m in the process of figuring out what it means to be an expat in Bulgaria. And I am trying to learn the language but it\'s slow going. <strong> </strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>My Blog</strong>\r\n\r\nWhen I started this blog, I was doing it for me, my family (mostly my MoM and dAd) and my friends.  I was trying out a new technology and figured if everyone else was doing it why not me? Oh and it helps that I actually love to write.\r\n\r\nI never really imagined that I\'d have much of a following but I figured that it beats sending out group emails.  So if you wanted to know what I was up to, you could check but it wasn\'t like you had an email from me in your inbox every week that you felt obligated to read and respond to whether you knew what to say or not.  Thus my blog was born.\r\n\r\nSo that\'s that.  I am trying to capture snapshots of what life is like here--sometimes these are events, sometimes feelings, other times things I notice or moments that make me laugh too much not to document and share them.\r\n\r\nAm I an expert on Bulgaria? Of course not, gesh, I can hardly speak the language but for better or worse this is my city right now and I love it dearly.  It\'s a city that grows on you and one day you wake up and think: I am going to miss this place and I am not even gone yet. <strong> </strong>\r\n\r\n<strong>Want More? </strong>\r\n\r\nYou can <a href=\"https://twitter.com/CarolynEmigh\">follow me on twitter</a> but I can\'t promise that in 140 characters you\'ll be wowed by my grammar, insight or wisdom but you will be able to see what\'s on my mind, what catches my eye and what makes me laugh (or want to cry). If twitter\'s not enough or not your thing, you could see what I\'m following, liking and pinning you could<a href=\"http://pinterest.com/karolinkabg/\" target=\"_blank\"> checkout my pinterest board</a>. You might also be interested in <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/\" target=\"_blank\">following me on flickr </a>where I upload tons of photos from my life in and around Bulgaria.\r\n\r\nStill not enough? Well, I am not posting my phone number or street address on the blog. My MoM taught me better than that. So leave a comment or send me an email (carolyn.emigh (at) gmail.com) and let me know what\'s on your mind. I\'ll reply.','Who Am I?','','inherit','open','open','','3578-revision-16','','','2012-04-17 18:04:24','2012-04-17 16:04:24','',3578,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2012/04/17/3578-revision-16/',0,'revision','',0),(3579,1,'2008-07-12 19:10:02','2008-07-12 19:10:02','I\'ve been renamed.\n\nIt\'s funny because I\'ve never really had problems with my first name people read it and know it and frankly my parents planned it this way because no one ever gets my last name right on the first try.  Given the name of my blog, my first name should come as no surprise: Carolyn but my last name.  That\'s a different story and I\'ve spent my entire life correcting the pronunciation.  It\'s Emigh.  Yes. Emigh.  And it\'s pronounced: Amy--just like the girl\'s first name.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThis forces me to spell my last name before saying it because if you say it first the results can be disastrous. So I spell it, smile and then explain how to say it and then usually end up telling people it\'s Germanic (but even I can\'t help but to wonder if this is actually true).  Any how, you get used it it after 15+ years of first day of school role call it\'s been a love/hate relationship but now at age 27 I am pretty comfortable with my name.\n\nThat is until I RSVP\'d to an event in May at the Bulgarian Embassy in DC.  I called gave my name spelling both my first name and my last name.  The exchange left me a little disconcerted but I figured that it was fine when the caller on the other end of the line thanked me for calling to RSVP.\n\nI showed up to the event with a friend.  Only as soon as I saw the embassy, I became unexplainable nervous. It was a moment of pure and utter panic.  The panic turned to fear and it spread throughout my stomach.  With the embassy less than a block away, I was experiencing physically and emotionally my first taste of what I was getting myself into.  A couple of deep breaths and a fake smile plastered on my face, I walked into the Bulgarian embassy to be greeted by a metal detector and a Bulgarian guard. (As a small aside, it\'s probably worth noting here that I\'ve been to the British Embassy, the Irish Embassy, the German Embassy and the Hungarian Embassy and have never had my bags searched or walked through a metal detector).\n\nThe guard, list in hand, looked at me and my friend, said hello and then got across in halting English can you find your names on this list?  I looked at the list, still not over my earlier fear and nervousness, and realized: I can\'t read this list.  And my first thought was this is a joke.  I blinked my eyes and the list was still in size 12 font in the Cyrillic script.  Cyrillic.  It was undecipherable, the foreign letters blurred on the page and for the first time in my life, I couldn\'t find my name on the list.  And there we stood.  I looked at him, he looked at me and neither of us spoke the same language.  I never found my name on the list but eventually we got into the event (and I promised myself that I would start studying Bulgarian).  My friend still teases me that the reason we got in is because I am tall, blond and smiled at the right people.  Clearly, I am going to have to remember this technique.\n\nA week and a half later, I was learning Bulgarian.  Well really Cyrillic but I was learning.  My tutor is a friend of a friend\'s.  She grew up in Sofia and is now working on her PhD in DC and one of her most charming characteristics is that her speech is highlighted with a light Bulgarian accent and she uses the pet names of a southern-belle. In practice this means that even when she is correcting my pronunciation, making me count to 100 or conjugate verbs (again and again), she is very nice and encouraging calling me names like sweetie-pie, honey, sugar or something equally sweet even though I know that I am doing poorly.\n\nWhen I got an official letter from the Bulgarian-Fulbright Commission all in Bulgarian, I brought it in for her to help me read.  She explained that I needed this letter for my visa and for entry into the country.  Then she showed me my name as it appeared officially in the document: KAPOЛИH EMИ<span lang=\"el\">Γ</span>.  She laughed and told me that this was my Bulgarian name and that everyone would pronounce my name using the Bulgarian rules for pronunciation.  in this moment, I realized I had been renamed me.  They had unknowingly given me the last name I had just spent the previous 26 years of my life working against...telling people nope that\'s not quite right, it\'s pronounced this way... It happened so quickly.\n\nOne document with the Ministry\'s seal on it and I have a new name.  Maybe though it\'s fitting.  Now I\'ve got a new name for this new adventure.  I am not just Carolyn Emigh instead, I am a derivative, a composite. I am Carolyn translated.   It\'s a good lesson--who I am and what I know cannot be directly translated.  There is not a one to one equivalent.  So what is in a name? I am still me but inadvertently this new name has opened a space for me in Bulgaria--a space not to become Bulgarian but rather for me to see, live and experience both the the place and culture.  My tutor now calls me Karolinka (KAPOЛИHKA) and I couldn\'t be happier.  It makes me think that I might be able to make it and it doesn\'t hurt that my Bulgarian is getting better.','What is in a Name?','','publish','open','open','','what-is-in-a-name','','','2008-07-12 19:10:02','2008-07-12 19:10:02','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=5',0,'post','',5),(3580,1,'2008-07-12 20:38:50','2008-07-12 20:38:50','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/cropped-dsc00923.jpg','cropped-dsc00923.jpg','','inherit','closed','open','','cropped-dsc00923jpg','','','2008-07-12 20:38:50','2008-07-12 20:38:50','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/cropped-dsc00923.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(9,1,'2008-07-14 21:34:44','2008-07-15 01:34:44','This is all that I am taking with me when I move to Sofia: two suitcases, a carry-on and my backpack.  It means that I am frantically downsizing my life and the things that I can\'t bear to give away I am sending home to my parents.  They should expect a couple of US Postal Service flat rate boxes and two more boxes of books (thank-god for these two mailing options especially the mass media rate which makes shipping my favorite books home affordable).  What\'s not affordable however is shipping things to Bulgaria because they charge 25% of the value of the contents. So I am taking only what I can wheel and carry.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI am however soliciting suggestions and advice for this big move.  What follows is a list I\'ve put together from friends and family.  Really though I\'ve just cut and pasted from their emails.  Some are suggestions for what I should bring with me and some are what others wished they\'d had when living abroad and you\'ll quickly see that some of the suggestions are serious and some are plain funny but for the most part they all seem spot on. Oh yeah and MacGyver watch out for me --I am clearly going to be a force to be reckoned with in Bulgaria.  After making the list, I decided to add my commentary as necessary this can be found in the parenthesis.\n<ul>\n	<li>pack more warm clothes than you think you need (too bad I seem to own only one wool sweater these days in the easiest to care for of colors: cream.  I know what I am going to be buying come October).</li>\n	<li>refried beans (yes this was the sole suggestions of one of my friends and yes it was a male who gave me this advice.  I don\'t think I am going to weigh my suitcase down with cans of refried beans.  I may try to eat so many before I leave that I get sick of them for an entire year.  But, this may be a bad plan so I\'d like to apologize in advance to my roommates).</li>\n	<li>peanut butter, Oreos, Bisquick and maple syrup (Sure! nothing says America quite like these items.  I may miss peanut butter to start with but I am going to make up for it by eating lots of <a title=\"Nutella\" href=\"http://www.nutellausa.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Nutella</a>. You can also look up the delicious Nutella fact of the month at this site but even better is the Nutella locater.  Wow the closest Nutella to me right now is on Corcoran St NW!).</li>\n	<li>ziplock bags (These showed up on a lot of different lists.  Luckily the group house I live in just made a trip to Costco so I am probably packing the entire case we bought--that works out to something like two bags a day for the entire year.  Now that\'s some good consumerism.)</li>\n	<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\">silicone brush for spreading oil (or I could just use my fingers).\n</span></li>\n	<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\"> bring a copy of your computer\'s installation cds or whatever you use to fix it if it crashes (This is great advice and the cds are in my to pack pile as I write this.)\n</span></li>\n	<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\">little packs of tissue (This is important because it can double as toilet paper because apparently TP doesn\'t exist the same way in Eastern Europe as the US.)\n</span></li>\n	<li><span>bring</span> a roll or two of duct tape (I am not really sure what this is for but it seems very insightful and I probably don\'t want to imagine the situation that made one my friends suggest this. And  I do know that duct tape can fix <em>anything </em>so I\'ll give it go.)</li>\n	<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\">Sudafed, the real thing, though, you can\'t buy it any where in Russia because of the whole\nspeed thing (However, this is also now true in the US as well...gerr... illegal drugs being made with over the counter cold medicine...gerr...  So I guess this means that we are all going to be sick and under-medicated now; it\'s a shame really).\n</span></li>\n	<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\">BRING GOOD HAIR RUBBER BANDS. it\'s hard (nearly impossible) to find anything but scrunchies here (Check.  Even though I do love a good scrunchy).</span></li>\n	<li><span style=\"color:#000000;\">anti-diarrhea medicine (Absolutely. I know no where near enough Bulgarian to want to try to track down this in my first few days in Sofia.)</span></li>\n</ul>\nSo that\'s it.  These are the greatest \"to pack\" hits.  I hope that once you\'ve read this post if you have thought of anything else I should take with me that you\'ll add via the comment function.  And thanks in advance for this.  All I do these days is make list after list and I am beginning to think that I am going to leave something really important off of it.  Rest assured everyone tells me that I\'ll be able to get whatever I need in Sofia but what if they don\'t have <a title=\"Orange Tic-Tacs\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic_Tacs\" target=\"_blank\">orange tic-tacs</a>!?!','Two suitcases, a carry-on and a backpack','','publish','open','open','','two-suitcases-a-carry-on-and-a-backpack','','','2008-07-14 21:34:44','2008-07-15 01:34:44','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=9',0,'post','',3),(11,1,'2008-07-20 23:04:32','2008-07-21 03:04:32','I just got back home from a weekend wedding in Columbus, Ohio.  I had a wonderful time.  It was great to see my college friends.  I flew in on Friday morning and out today, Sunday, in the afternoon.   I studied Bulgarian on the Friday morning flight.  Now that I\'ve got two weeks until I move to Sofia, I feel like I\'ve got to get the basics down.  I\'d like to be able to buy food and cleaning supplies, understand directions and read street signs.  Then I landed in Columbus.\n\nIt\'s a strange thing to return to Columbus.  The airport really hasn\'t changed since I started flying in nine years ago when I started going to college--Wittenberg University.  There\'s a little bit more security and a couple of Starbucks but other than that it\'s the same.   So, at age 27, I got off the airplane cellphone in hand with a great leather purse and my laptop only to feel like I was 19 again.  Return does strange things to a person and it\'s even stranger to be met at the airport by the husband of one of your college sorority sisters. Strange and wonderful.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThat\'s the thing--it\'s the same people in the same city but we\'ve all spent the last five years growing up.  More or less, we look the same from the outside so it\'s easy to forget that we haven\'t been going to classes or drinking cheap keg beer for years.  It\'s easy to fall back into college patterns as well.\n\nWe drank whiskey and coke, ate pizza and went out to a bar on Friday night and then met the other Wittenberg wedding guests for drinks before the 5:30pm wedding.  The wedding itself was at a lovely outdoor amphitheater but it was hot, hot, hot.  Luckily the programs were fans and there were buckets of chilled water.  It was worth it when the bride walked in wearing her grandmother\'s dress; she looked like she could have stepped straight out of a 1920\'s fashion magazine.\n\nWhen I saw her all I could was smile (and try not to think about the sweat dripping down the back of my legs) when normally weddings terrify me.  This time it was different.   I\'ve been really scared for myself recently about moving to Bulgaria, about not knowing the language, about missing my friends and my family, about what I am going to do next and about not knowing what this next year has in store for me.  And standing there watching her walk down the isle, I was reminded that this is what life is about.  It\'s okay to be scared.  The bride is facing the same kinds of fears and I can only imagine that she is scared about the same kinds of things.  These fears aren\'t mine alone (well maybe the ones about learning Bulgarian) but frankly there\'s always something new to be learned that takes works, requires a commitment and is scary at times.\n\nSo here she is--walking down the isle, committing herself to marriage and entering into a new stage in her life--and doing it with a smile on her face while I\'ve been worrying for the last few weeks about giving my things away, moving to Bulgaria for a year and teaching English.   (What have I been thinking?!?)  Sure the move is serious and life altering but it\'s time.  After being at the wedding, It kind of makes me wish that there was a ceremony for something like this, something that helped me transition into this next stage of my life but in my case it\'s  not that easy. It\'s something that I am going to have to work out on my own over the next few weeks and months.\n\nThis said, I do owe the bride and my friends this weekend a huge thank-you: thanks for being willing to all get together for drinks before the wedding; thanks for letting me stay with you with each of you at different times over the past few years,; thanks for sharing your life stories with me and for reminding me how I fit into these even though I\'ve been absent from many of these stories since graduation; thanks for your friendship and thanks for reminding me that even though I wont be in the states this next year that you\'ll be thinking of me and wishing me the best; and of course, thanks for putting up with me since freshman year--I know that I can be a difficult friend at times.\n\nFinally, I think it\'s only fitting to end this post the same way one of my dearest friends last night said good-bye to me: I love you all the way around the world and back.  It\'s true--I think--distance and time do not matter as much we think that they do.  We\'ve been saying it for years \"I love you all the way around the world and back\" but not until she said it to me last night as her goodbye did it really sink in.  Sure, I am moving half way around the world but I am not really leaving anyone behind; I am not losing anyone or anything.  I am just embarking on a new adventure and a new stage of my life.  I wish that there was a toast or a thank-you or a ceremony that could convey all of this but there\'s not so I hope that these words are able to convey a part of what I am thinking and feeling.\n\nOh and to my friends and family reading this post: I love each of you all the way around the world and back.','One Wedding and my Wittenberg thank-yous','','publish','open','open','','one-wedding-and-my-wittenberg-thank-yous','','','2008-07-20 23:04:32','2008-07-21 03:04:32','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=11',0,'post','',5),(16,1,'2008-07-23 23:24:13','2008-07-24 03:24:13','I work with my Bulgarian Language tutor two times a week.  As I\'ve already mentioned, she grew up in Sofia and whet to college in the American South and is now working on her PhD in Washington DC. Recently I learned that she graduated from the second class of the American College of Sofia which was re-opened in the early 1990s.  In a meeting with the then principle, I was told that the school accepted 50 girls and 50 boys for each of the early classes.  My tutor went to this private high school; one of fifty girls.  I am not sure that this is something I that I can comprehend (both the level of the competition and the serious role that school plays in one\'s life).  I went to a large but strong public high school in Walla Walla, WA (well I don\'t know how strong it was academically but it was the only high school and we were great at sports which is what really seems to matter in a small farming town) and there was never any doubt that I would graduate from high school and attend college.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nIn high school, I took German and I tried very hard to learn the language but I didn\'t get it.  I didn\'t have a structure or a system for learning a new language.  English doesn\'t have cases (male, feminine or neutral cases of nous) so I didn\'t spend a lot of time memorizing the der, the die or the das.  It turns out that this makes it much more difficult to learn German when you want to start creating more complex sentences.  So when I started studying German in college--I got it.  I understood what I needed to learn and why; i understood how to study the language and what I needed to do to get it.\n\nNow that I am learning Buglarian, I am not sure how helpful the German has been.  Well beside the fact that the words for potato and cake are nearly the same in German and Bulgarian: KARTOF and TORTE.  Frankly, I\'ll take it.\n\nWhat\'s been more challenging has been learning my numbers in Bulgarian.  A couple of weeks ago now, my tutor wrote out the numbers from 1-100 and told me that I had to learn 1-20 for our next meeting.  I spent the whole weekend working on it.  I practiced again and again until I could say them perfectly and quickly.  I then looked at the numbers 20-100 and thought okay I can do this.  The numbers are constructed more or less as we do in English so for example the number 21 is said in Bulgarian \"20 and 1\" rather than \"1 and 20\" as the Germans would construct the number.\n\nWhen I saw my tutor, I was very proud of myself for doing such a good job learning my numbers. I am not talking pleased; I am talking proud--gold stars on a chart proud. Proud, proud.  She listened to me repeat my numbers and corrected the pronunciation on a couple of numbers. And that\'s okay because a number of the sounds in Bulgarian are foreign to me and I struggle to put together sounds like \"lya\" or \"rdv.\"\n\nSo, I received some praise for my work and then it happened.  She tells me: Now you are going to listen to me say the following prices and you should write down what you hear.  I thought: easy.  I\'ve got this.   But she says the first price and all I hear is mahwamah.  It was all goblidygook and I couldn\'t catch a word of what she was saying. She said it more slowly and I kind of heard numbers.\n\nI am getting better at the numbers  but it\'s one thing to memorize numbers in order or to be able to count numbers to 100 and it\'s a wholly different thing to be able to listen to and understand the prices that someone is telling you.  It\'s also much harder to be proud when you can\'t hear or make sense the numbers that someone is telling you.  I find myself reminded and humbled daily.  It\'s hard work and until recently I hadn\'t found myself in a position where I really didn\'t know something or had to learn how to do something new. Now that I am learning Bulgarian and moving to Sofia, I am learning once again to ask questions, even the silly ones, to rely on other people for answers and expertise and I am trying to remember to smile rather than to sigh with frustration.\n\nI know it\'s not easy to learn a new language but it\'s easy to feel frustrated and disipointed with yourself when your  learning the numbers and something that is so basic and fundamental in English is difficult to do.  So now I play little games with myself and practice, practice, practice as I walk to work in the morning.  I try to say all of the number that I see on my walk to work and if you make a point to look, there are a lot.\n\nThe thing is, it\'s getting better now.  I think that it\'s the practice, hearing more of the language and probably all of the awesome things that I\'ve been watching and listening to on YouTube.  Okay... maybe not but at least these pieces are entertaining.  I\'d encourage all of my friends to check out <a title=\"Bulgarian Chalga and Singer Azis\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ6pPc5LIlU\" target=\"_blank\">Azis and Chalga</a> and <a title=\"Can\'t Liba libe wib out you....\" href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LTLEVC-sfQ\" target=\"_blank\">Bulgarian Idol</a>(amazing--if this doesn\'t convince you to come and visit me, I don\'t know what will).','Learning to Count, Again','','publish','open','open','','learning-to-count-again','','','2008-07-23 23:24:13','2008-07-24 03:24:13','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=16',0,'post','',5),(27,1,'2008-07-31 13:26:50','2008-07-31 17:26:50','I\'ve been thinking a lot about packing, moving and collecting things.  I grew up in a family that saves everything.  I guess that\'s what happens when your parents run an antique store.  This means I am used to old things and never getting rid of anything because who knows when you might need that broken-thing or when you might realize that that broken-thing might have another life in it as something different-but-still-useful or something slightly re-purposed?  With this kind of thinking and saving ingrained in me from an early age (I have the sticker book, stamp collection and boxes of baseball cards to prove it), it\'s been hard for me to give my things away to friends, slight harder to give them to charity and difficult to throw things out. I know that I have to do it but it\'s still hard.<!--more-->\n\nBut it\'s been a good task:  I\'ve been reminded that I don\'t need as much as I think I do and that I don\'t need to hold on to everything.  It hasn\'t made it easier though.\n\nLet go is harder for some people than others.  I know this.  This is how my father makes a living.  He sells the things that others saved and saved--often for a life time.   It\'s because of this that these days I can\'t get out of my head an estate sale that my father managed years ago.  The owner of the house had died and her children need help with the estate and for good reason, the woman had a small three bedroom house and it was full to the brim. Every drawer, every shelf and every corner had something in it or on it.\n\nBut it\'s the pantry that I cannot forget.  She had a series of shoe boxes labeled and lined up in fairly neat rows even though none of the boxes where exactly the same size.  On the outside of each box she had written what was inside.  The boxes read things like: rubber bands, paper clips, pencils and tape.  If you looked inside sure enough there would be the rubber bands from every newspaper she received in the last 20 years--crumbling green rubber.  This woman clearly never got rid of anything.   I couldn\'t imagine what one little old woman was ever going to do with this many rubber bands but she had them stored away and clearly labeled.  They were there if she needed them.\n\nAnd then there was the box that has been haunting me since I started packing my things up a couple of weeks ago.  This shoe box read: sting too short to use.\n\nYes, string too short to use.  Part of me expected that it was a joke but looking around her home I knew that it was real.  The box had in it hundreds of little pieces of string.  Some were a couple of inches long others shorter but just as she had written on the box they were all unusable.  Still something compelled her to save them.  All of them. She knew they were too short to do anything with but she couldn\'t stand to throw them out.  Maybe it was because she grew-up during the depression or maybe it was something else but that box of sting is now unforgettable.\n\nSo as I have filled up boxes with books, a quilt and photos, I\'ve been thinking a lot about this woman and her box of string and what compels us to save things that we know and admit freely are useless.  Given the state of this woman\'s home, I think that she may have had a real problem, an actual compulsion but for me natural instinct is to save things.  There is comfort in knowing that you have certain things--things that make an otherwise white and beige room in a group house feel like home or things that remind you friends.  Then there is the other stuff not useless but also not necessary and  I\'ve caught myself thinking: what if I need this later? But then I have to remind myself, the thing is, I won\'t need that later and if I do, I can find it or something like it.\n\nI am not saying that I didn\'t send some crazy stuff home, stuff that when I get back from Bulgaria I will probably wonder why I thought that I needed to send it to myself and store it at my parents house. Now, I am trying to mindful.  I\'ve given or thrown away the useless things because at the very least I don\'t want strangers going through my things years from now and wondering why I saved my own version of \"a box of string too short to use.\" But frankly, there is something reassuring in knowing that you can give away and get rid of not only the\" string too short to use\" items but also the practical useful things and still be okay.\n\nThat and I am moving to a fully furnished one-bedroom apartment in Sofia.','String: Too Short To Use','','publish','open','open','','string-too-short-to-use','','','2008-07-31 13:26:50','2008-07-31 17:26:50','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=27',0,'post','',1),(33,1,'2008-08-05 12:26:45','2008-08-05 16:26:45','I couldn\'t go to sleep last night.  It was kind of like when you are little and you know that Santa is coming and the next morning it will be Christmas.  So you lie in bed a little anxious and a little bit excited and can\'t fall asleep because your are too busy thinking about what kind of presents you are going to get.  Then this morning I woke up at 6:45am and was ready to go.   I am staying with friends right now so I tried to stay in bed for a long as possible.  But eventually, I got up made the bed, folded my laundry and went out to a great local coffee shop for three coffees.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nBy 9am, I managed to spill my coffee on the carpet of their new apartment and part of their couch (sorry about this).  And by 9:30, I had said good-bye to one of my long time friends who stopped by on her way to work and at 10am I had finished packing my bags and my carry on.  Then I took one final box to post office and now here I am watching tv at my old group house, using the internet and writing this post.\n\nI am sure that in two hours when I have to haul both of my bags downstairs in the 90 degree DC heat and realize that yest in fact it\'s real and I am moving to Sofia I will be a little bit more nervous but right now I am mostly excited to see what this next year will hold.  So it\'s not quite like Christmas because I don\'t get to open all of my presents all at once and pick out the ones I want to play with and return the clothes that don\'t fit but at the same time it\'s not unlike Christmas day.  Friends and family have wished me well, I have some new things to take with me and I am looking forward to this new year of my life and finally stepping foot in Bulgaria.\n\nIt\'s real.  I am finally moving and my to-do list is all but done.\n\nShortly, I am going to upload this post and leave the group house I\'ve been living in for four years. I\'ll lock the gate behind me and when I give my keys to this house to my friend to return to my roommates, I can cross the last item of my list.\n\nDon\'t worry I\'ll be back and I\'ll post an update to my blog in the next few days recounting what I can only imagine is going to be an adventure.  Lufthansa is on strike right now and if I don\'t make my flight I hope that I\'ll be able to get through to my landlord\'s son who is meeting me at the airport.','It&#039;s real.  I am moving.','','publish','open','open','','its-real-i-am-moving','','','2008-08-05 12:26:45','2008-08-05 16:26:45','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=33',0,'post','',1),(39,1,'2008-08-07 11:15:28','2008-08-07 15:15:28','','crazy-car','','inherit','open','open','','crazy-car','','','2008-08-07 11:15:28','2008-08-07 15:15:28','',37,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/crazy-car.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(40,1,'2008-08-07 11:17:15','2008-08-07 15:17:15','This is just one great example of the parking situation on my block.  I guess that you take what you can get regardless of if it is on the sidewalk or not and whether or not you\'ll be able to get your car out later.','crazy-car-1','Car parked on the sidewalk on my street','inherit','open','open','','crazy-car-1','','','2008-08-07 11:17:15','2008-08-07 15:17:15','',37,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/crazy-car-1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(41,1,'2008-08-07 11:25:03','2008-08-07 15:25:03','Car parking all willy-nilly on the sidewalk on my street.  Parking spots are hard to come by.','crazy-car-11','Car on the sidewalk.','inherit','open','open','','crazy-car-11','','','2008-08-07 11:25:03','2008-08-07 15:25:03','',37,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/crazy-car-11.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(37,1,'2008-08-07 13:13:01','2008-08-07 17:13:01','Life on my own: I am living for the very first time all by myself in a one bedroom apartment but more than this I am living for the very first time abroad. I\'ve just started day two and so far so good.\n\nMy landlord and his wife met me at the <a title=\"The airport you will use if you fly into see me.\" href=\"http://www.sofia-airport.bg/default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Sofia airport</a> yesterday but I thought that I was meeting my landlord\'s son who speaks a little bit of English but then his parents were there greeting me. It turns out that the son had a work project that he couldn\'t leave so his father found me and said \"Karoleen\" not quite Carolyn or Karoline and told me he was Emil\'s father. Then his mother appeared and here\'s the great part neither one really speaks English and get this after 6 weeks of Bulgarian lessons I don\'t really speak Bulgarian.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThis however wasn\'t one of the things I had anticipated worrying about. I had been pretty nervous about getting to Sofia but not the language thing. In my mind I was worried about my plane being a little bit delayed and I wasn\'t really sure about my visa or passing through customs but everything went off without a hitch and my bags (50 pounds each) arrived as well. So here I was with two monster suitcases, a stuffed full backpack and an LLBean canvas total (size large) full of teaching materials that at some point before I actually started carrying the bag through airports I thought was a good idea to bring with me.  I think that there must have been 30 pounds in books and print materials but what\'s a girl to do? I didn\'t want to disappoint my students.\n\nAnd this is how my adventure in Sofia began with four huge bags, two parents who don\'t speak English and I haven\'t really slept in 20 plus hours. And then I surprise myself: after spending three hours in Munich and another two on an airplane listening to everyone around me speak German, I say something in German and it turns out that I can communicate better with my landlord in German than in English or Bulgarian.  <em>(So for those serious readers of my blog you\'ll remembering me moaning that my college German wasn\'t going to help me.  Well, I take back what I wrote--learning German was actually pretty helpful in this mixed up situation.)</em>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_41\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"200\" caption=\"Car on the sidewalk. \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/crazy-car-11.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-41\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/crazy-car-11.jpg?w=200\" alt=\"Car on the sidewalk. \" width=\"200\" height=\"267\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nWe walk to the car and just barely get my things and ourselves in what I think is a tiny <a title=\"The one I rode in was white\" href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelwardphotos/243140755/\" target=\"_blank\">Fiat</a> and from here we drive into Sofia.  The city is a strange mix of new buildings and crumbling old ones but frankly, there was too much to take in at once.  The driving was great.  No one driving pays much attention to things like right of way and people park in the streets however they want.  I guess that they don\'t give our parking tickets like they do in Washington DC but a DC meter maid would have a day in my neighborhood alone.  Hopefully the picture does a decent job illustrating this.\n\nThe apartment is great too.  I was surprised by a couple of things.  First, you can\'t flush your toilet paper down the toilet.  The pipes are old and can\'t handle it.  But after 20+ hours of jet lag and my in ability to read the sign on the bathroom door in Cyrillic, I forgot and tossed in the tp and as soon as I did it I thought, hey that sign must say something about toilet paper.... awesome (and yes, I had to get it back out).  Aside from this, I had hot water/language issue with the hot water heater.  It turns out there is a switch that the water heater is on.  Zero is off and one is on.  When it was explained to me, I didn\'t understand what the switch was for but I understood that it was important to not leave it on for more than two hours at a time.  This said, I figured the smart thing to do was to leave the switch off.  The problem is that means you also don\'t get to take a hot shower (and it\'s your own fault).  I know what\'s going on now but at one point, I thought: gosh it\'s going to be a long year if I always have to take cold showers.\n\nThen this morning my landlord and his wife came back to the apartment with two plants which they keep calling (Blumen--flowers in German), two new rugs for the hardwood floors in the bedroom and to show me Aleksander Nevski church.  This the son of my landlord claims is the largest orthodox Christian church in the Balkans.  It is a beautiful church and has a crypt full of old alter pieces, icons and paintings of the saints and the church.  But before we could see the church we had to stop for cafe and torte (yep that\'s Bulgarian for coffee and cake). I\'ll be going back to the church on my own at some point because I didn\'t get enough time.\n\nMy landlord was very happy to rush through and point out the dates of all of the paintings.  I think to prove how old the pieces are and what a rich history Bulgaria has.  It was much, much less about the art.  It was however a great introduction to the church and the artwork. This concluded with a super-speed walk by Sofia University and through a huge park and ended at an outdoor cafe where we met up with the landlord\'s wife and son.  I had a Coca Cola from a glass bottle with a straw.  Wow.\n\nThis afternoon, I walked to the Fulbright office.  It was a little bit hard to find because the buildings on the street aren\'t very well marked but I asked a couple of people and luckily the card I had was in both English and Bulgarian so I got pointed in the right direction pretty quickly.  Everyone at the office was so nice to me and I got a number of questions answered so that was great.\n\nAfter this meeting, it was clear that I should go and get my cellphone up and running.  I chose the Bulgarian company <a title=\"My GSM company \" href=\"http://www.mtel.bg/checkpoint.php\" target=\"_blank\">Mtel</a> in about the same way I chose Tmobile in the states: the names are clever--you know exactly what you are getting, there was store close to my apartment and I liked their colors.  I took my American phone with me-- I had the unlock code from Tmobile.  It was pretty straight forward and now I have a fully functioning phone. The one funny thing is that everyone calls their cellphones GSM and yesterday I had no idea what my landlord was talking about.  I get it now but this GSM thing is not going to be cheap.  So friends in the US don\'t you dare call me--just set-up <a title=\"Get Skype Silly!\" href=\"http://www.skype.com/intl/en/\" target=\"_blank\">skype</a> instead (and for those of you worried that it\'s too hard or something silly like that just know this, I set it up on my computer all by myself and you guys know how good I am at technology).\n\nOkay, this is for me today.  I am off to find some beer to buy.','My Apartment','','publish','open','open','','my-apartment','','','2008-08-07 13:13:01','2008-08-07 17:13:01','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=37',0,'post','',0),(46,1,'2008-08-07 13:28:38','2008-08-07 17:28:38','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cropped-dsc02845.jpg','cropped-dsc02845.jpg','','inherit','closed','open','','cropped-dsc02845jpg','','','2008-08-07 13:28:38','2008-08-07 17:28:38','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cropped-dsc02845.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(47,1,'2008-08-07 13:29:53','2008-08-07 17:29:53','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/dsc02845.jpg','dsc02845.jpg','','inherit','open','open','','dsc02845jpg','','','2008-08-07 13:29:53','2008-08-07 17:29:53','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/dsc02845.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(48,1,'2008-08-07 13:33:18','2008-08-07 17:33:18','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cropped-house-across-the-street.jpg','cropped-house-across-the-street.jpg','','inherit','closed','open','','cropped-house-across-the-streetjpg','','','2008-08-07 13:33:18','2008-08-07 17:33:18','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cropped-house-across-the-street.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(49,1,'2008-08-07 13:39:27','2008-08-07 17:39:27','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/house-across-the-street-1.jpg','house-across-the-street-1.jpg','','inherit','open','open','','house-across-the-street-1jpg','','','2008-08-07 13:39:27','2008-08-07 17:39:27','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/house-across-the-street-1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(50,1,'2008-08-07 13:40:11','2008-08-07 17:40:11','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cropped-house-across-the-street-11.jpg','cropped-house-across-the-street-11.jpg','','inherit','closed','open','','cropped-house-across-the-street-11jpg','','','2008-08-07 13:40:11','2008-08-07 17:40:11','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cropped-house-across-the-street-11.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(51,1,'2008-08-07 13:41:26','2008-08-07 17:41:26','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/house-across-the-street-22.jpg','house-across-the-street-2.jpg','','inherit','open','open','','house-across-the-street-2jpg','','','2008-08-07 13:41:26','2008-08-07 17:41:26','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/house-across-the-street-2.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(52,1,'2008-08-07 13:42:26','2008-08-07 17:42:26','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/house-across-the-street-21.jpg','house-across-the-street-21.jpg','','inherit','open','open','','house-across-the-street-21jpg','','','2008-08-07 13:42:26','2008-08-07 17:42:26','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/house-across-the-street-21.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(53,1,'2008-08-07 14:10:29','2008-08-07 18:10:29','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/house-across-the-street-22.jpg','house-across-the-street-2.jpg','','inherit','open','open','','house-across-the-street-2jpg-2','','','2008-08-07 14:10:29','2008-08-07 18:10:29','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/house-across-the-street-22.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(54,1,'2008-08-07 14:56:25','2008-08-07 18:56:25','http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cropped-dsc02855.jpg','cropped-dsc02855.jpg','','inherit','closed','open','','cropped-dsc02855jpg','','','2008-08-07 14:56:25','2008-08-07 18:56:25','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cropped-dsc02855.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(56,1,'2008-08-08 21:31:20','2008-08-08 18:31:20','I woke up late this morning--11:30am to be exact so after almost exactly 12 hours of sleeping I figured that I had better drag myself out of bed.  It\'s pretty incredible actually because I think that the pillow that came with my furnished apartment might actually be made out of rocks.  After the first night, I thought (and kind of still do) that my bed is going to make me become a back-sleeper whether I want to be or not.  This morning I woke up determined that I was going to buy a new pillow and amazed that I could sleep so long.\n\nThe problem is the only people I know in the city right now are my landlord and his family and the Fulbright coordinator.  I didn\'t want to ask my landlord or his wife where to buy a pillow because they have been very helpful and accommodating and I didn\'t want them to think that I wasn\'t grateful--sometimes you just need a softer pillow.  So I emailed the Fulbright coordinator about my search for a pillow.  I had to.  I had no idea where to buy one.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI\'ve walked around the city center where I am living a fair amount over the last couple of days. There\'s a lot to see and tons of storefronts but the mainstays down here are: restaurants, coffee shops, little grocery stores (magazine in Bulgarian ), pharmacies (apteka in Bulgarian but a word that should also be familiar to my German speaking friends), cellphone shops (the strange thing is that every corner seems to have one or more and there are only three cellphone companies which means that I have no idea how the city center can support so many), clothing stores and lots of American fast food.  But i had never seen a store that looked like it might sell pillows.  My Fulbright coordinator emailed me back and told me that she thought there were two on a street not far from me.  There were.  I walked into the first one but they seemed to only sell bathrobes, comforter sets and towels.\n\nLuckily one of the girls in the shop spoke English and I told her I was looking for a pillow.  She said 80x80? I am not great with the metric system but I knew that was going to be too big.  She told me that they also carry the smaller Italian size (which for the record is still larger than the standard American size). But the pillows are all stored in the back room.  So even though the store was small I never would have looked in and thought oh, here\'s a store that sells pillows.  I ended up with one of the Italian sized pillows filled with down.  It was only 10 lev more than the other pillow and much, much nicer.  In hindsight, I am pretty sure that I paid too much for it but it is a really nice pillow and the pillowcase I picked out is a nice shade of pink.\n\nDon\'t worry, I was able to rationalize the purchase on the way home with my \"less than a dollar a day theory.\"  The theory works this way: if you like something but are worried that it might be too expensive, you have to justify the expense.  The way to justify buying the item is to see if you can you can divide the price by the number of uses it takes for the item to be less than a dollar a day.  So for example, if you want to buy a $100 pair of jeans and you think you will wear them two times a week you can justify the purchase.  But it\'s much harder to say justify the cost of a $200 dress for a wedding if you don\'t have other events to wear it to.\n\nSo you\'ll be happy to know that I am now rationalizing my purchases in Levs as well.  For the pillow, it takes only a little more than a month for the pillow to dip below the 1 lev a day mark.  But just for the record, even after justifying this purchase with \"Carolyn-Math\" the thought that I might have paid too much was also reinforced in the store.  This happened after completing my purchase when the salesgirl gave me a brochure for their <a title=\"My new pillow is from here.\" href=\"http://homestudio.bg/\" target=\"_blank\">website</a>.   Yes, their website.  The store isn\'t any bigger than a small-Starbucks and they\'ve got a website. Oh well it\'s a great pillow and \"quality\" as I was told more than once in the shop this afternoon.\n\nI walked straight home with my extra-large pillow and then made a list of the other things on my to-do list.  This included taking my garbage out, buying toothpaste, sitting in the park for a little bit, washing some dishes and making sure that I am still on for lunch tomorrow with my landlord and his family.  It\'s a hard life, I know.\n\nMaybe harder than you think. After buying my awesome pillow, I walked out of my house with a small bag of garbage and looked up and down the street.  I couldn\'t see a dumpster on my block anywhere.  I then remembered my landlord almost hitting one when he parked near the apartment when he picked me up at the airport.  So I walked that way and up and down two blocks without finding a dumpster.  And the more and more I walked around with this garbage, the more I am beginning to feel like the crazy garbage lady.  I tell myself one more block and if you don\'t find it you\'ll take the garbage back up to your apartment.  You\'ll go to the park and on your way home you\'ll identify a dumpster, go in and get your garbage and then take it to the dumpster.\n\nThere was great people watching at the park but, of course, I couldn\'t get the garbage thing out of my head.  On my way to the park, I stopped for a bottle of water and when I came out of the shop there was a woman climbing out of a large dumpster--an off-kilter reminder that I couldn\'t find my own dumpster. Then at the part there was a man with one arm and a bag and he was going through the garbage cans in the part looking for glass bottles.  As a Peace Corps friend explained last night, there is a deposit on beer bottles.  After an hour of sitting in the park eating a large cup of fresh red-raspberries (<em>note: what follows is a huge sidetrack or rambling which I fully recognize and am now going to indulge in...</em>I ate the raspberries without washing them.  Oups but for the record, all of the other little kids were eating  them without washing them...so I hope that I\'m okay.  Don\'t worry they were a great deal for only a lev and I haven\'t experienced any ill side effects yet. ) I decided that it was time to walk home.  And that\'s when I saw it! A dumpster only a block and half away from my house.  Yes, yes, yes!!\n\nI went straight up to my first floor apartment (which is as all good Euro-philes know actually the second floor if we are counting American-style) and took my garbage out.  All of this really hard work, required that I take a nap which I took.  Now I\'ve just made dinner and am writing up this post.  It\'s been a good day in Sofia and shortly, I am going to do my dishes and go to bed.  I\'ve got a new pillow to break in!\n\n<em>Do Skoro! </em>','Sightings: out and about','','publish','open','open','','sightings-out-and-about','','','2008-08-08 21:31:20','2008-08-08 18:31:20','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=56',0,'post','',2),(65,1,'2008-08-09 20:58:21','2008-08-09 17:58:21','','coffee-machine','Kafe Machine','inherit','open','open','','coffee-machine','','','2008-08-09 20:58:21','2008-08-09 17:58:21','',64,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/coffee-machine.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(66,1,'2008-08-09 20:59:43','2008-08-09 17:59:43','','lamp','Pink &amp; Yellow Lamp','inherit','open','open','','lamp','','','2008-08-09 20:59:43','2008-08-09 17:59:43','',64,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lamp.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(67,1,'2008-08-09 21:00:38','2008-08-09 18:00:38','','carolyn-and-her-pillow','Me &amp; My Pillow','inherit','open','open','','carolyn-and-her-pillow','','','2008-08-09 21:00:38','2008-08-09 18:00:38','',64,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/carolyn-and-her-pillow.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(64,1,'2008-08-09 21:04:58','2008-08-09 18:04:58','When I started this post it originally read: I am going to lunch in 40 minutes so this is going to be a quick post today but by the time I actually post to my blog it\'s 9:30 at night.  I just had a 7 hour lunch which was amazing and makes me want to learn to speak Bulgarian that much more.  Anyhow, what follows is a list of my three favorite things in my apartment.  There are of course others things that I am happy about but these don\'t make the list because they aren\'t really things like the items that follow.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_65\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Kafe Machine\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/coffee-machine.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-65\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/coffee-machine.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Kafe Machine\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\n1. The coffee machine in my kitchen which is actually larger than my stove/oven.  You\'ll see that the machine has options in Bulgarian.  They are all great.  For coffee, you can have espresso or a coffee with espresso and a little bit of water so that it\'s slightly larger than the espresso.  My landlord kept calling this \"espresso normal\" but the button on the machine says: \"kafe delgo.\" I\'ve had both and like them both.  I am not sure that I can tell the difference.  The most important thing is to use exact change which I think the sign says in Bulgarian and in English.  So being the coffee lover I am, I am keeping .20 lev on top of the coffee machine in a little dish so that I can drink coffee as necessary.  The best part is that the coffee is strong enough that I\'ve only been drinking one cup.  This is pretty incredible for me. The machine also makes tea and steamed milk.  I am not sure how the steamed milk thing works or where the machine gets the water to make the espresso but it\'s delicious so I haven\'t spent much time worrying about it.\n\n<!--more-->\n\n2. This great square lamp on my bedside table.  At first when you\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_66\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Pink &amp; Yellow Lamp\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lamp.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-66\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/lamp.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Pink &amp; Yellow Lamp\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nturn it on, it looks like this big square that lets out a little bit of pink and yellow light.  Then after a little bit the inside part of the lamp starts turning and the room is lit up with pink and yellow light.  I don\'t think that it showed up very well in photo.  That and it\'s day time when I took the photo but my landlord was really excited to show me the lamp.  So I turn it on at night when I am turning off the lights in my apartment and making sure that the multiple locks on my front door are locked and that all the windows are closed and locked and by the time I am done brushing my teeth the lamp is spinning light all over my room.  The one down side of the lamp is that it\'s not bright enough to read by.  But I am not sure that I would actually want to read a book by pink-lamplight anyway so I guess it\'s not that big of a deal.  All of this said, it\'s pretty cool and very funny and wish I knew how old it was.\n\n3.  My new pillow.  I am sure that you guys are all dying to see the pillow after my extensive post on it yesterday.  I know, I know, that post really had you on edge and you\'ve been wondering since you read it: how is it? I am happy to report back--wonderful.  It was\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_67\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Me &amp; My Pillow\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/carolyn-and-her-pillow.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-67\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/carolyn-and-her-pillow.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Me &amp; My Pillow\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\neverything I could hope for.  And now if I could only get over my jet lag and fall asleep at a normal hour that would be great.  At least now I can\'t blame my inability to fall asleep on my rock hard pillow.\n\nSo these are my three favorite things about my apartment.  Additionally, I have to say it\'s amazing to be able to open my refrigerator and look in and see everything easily.  After living in a large group house for the last five years of my life, I forgot that it\'s possible to think oh I want some juice, open the refrigerator door and, bam, there it is.  No hunting or searching required.  Also, there\'s no need to pull everything in the fridge out looking for leftovers.\n\nI am also extremely grateful that my apartment came internet ready.  I am not sure that all of you are now that I am blogging obsessively about Sofia but that said, let me know if you have any requests or topics you would like me to write on in the future.  I can\'t promise anything but I\'ll try.  Oh and I am off to Tryavna for two weeks so I\'ll try to post but I am actually going to be more busy than I have this week.','A Few of My Favorite Things','','publish','open','open','','a-few-of-my-favorite-things','','','2008-08-09 21:04:58','2008-08-09 18:04:58','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=64',0,'post','',5),(76,1,'2008-08-11 19:18:17','2008-08-11 16:18:17','I arrived in Tryavna last night.  We were scheduled to meet everyone in a hotel in Sofia outside of the city center and when I asked the Fulbright coordinator how I should get there she told me to take the bus.  I was nervous about this but figured I would leave early and if I got lost or had a problem I would have plenty of time to figure out what I\'d done wrong.  Well, I told my landlord and his family this and they said, no, no, no. We\'ll take you. So on Sunday afternoon at 4pm my landlord and his wife showed up for me.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI had two bags this time and a small bag of groceries that I hadn\'t eaten but I needed to turn my refrigerator off for the two weeks I would be gone.  I had written a thank-you note for the lunch th day before part in Bulgarian and part in English and in the bag of groceries I had written on a slip of paper that the eggs were hard-boiled.  I can\'t even describe the response I got from this small act.  But it included a lot of bravos and smiles and hugs.  The funny thing was that I more or less looked things up in a small handbook but I wanted them to know how  thankful I was for having me to lunch the day before and taking me to the hotel.\n\nWhen we got to the hotel, I was glad that my landlord had offered to drive me.  I think it would have been difficult for me to find on my own.  I would have found it but I don\'t think it would have been easy.  My landlord is so nice and helped me carry my things over and it felt like he was dropping me off for summer camp or a field trip.  He spoke for a little bit to the Fulbright program coordinator who was there and when he was satisfied with the answers he kissed me on both cheeks and went back to his car.  There is something nice in knowing that someone is looking out for you.  I feel very lucky to have a landlord who is much more than just a landlord.\n\nThe bus ride to Tryavna was three hours long and pretty painless as far as bus rides go.  I met a number of interesting people from all over and Europe and Eastern-Europe.  One of the things that amazes me (but probably shouldn\'t) is how good everyone\'s English is.  Sure there are some great accents and I\'ve played a couple of games of \"guess which word I am reaching for-or have momentarily forgotten\" but wow.  It embarrasses me that I don\'t know more languages.  I would also like to prove that I am not a stupid American who doesn\'t know another language but I haven\'t had the opportunity to show off my German.  Not that I could actually show off in German but I can put together complete sentences which is much more than I can say for my Bulgarian right now.  This said, it just makes me more and more determined to learn Bulgarian.  I can\'t wait to get back to Sofia and start taking classes.\n\nOne of the best parts is that I\'ve been here for less than 24 hours and already I\'ve had some great discussions with people... about Europe, about politics, about travel, about family and even about relationships.  I walked into town this morning with two girls from my program. I went mostly to see the town and they wen to change money, get some cold medicine and to have coffee.  I tagged along.\n\nWe walked through the town which is admittedly not very big.  One of the girls saw a Christian Orthodox church and wanted to go in; she wasn\'t Orthodox but wanted to see it.  The other woman was Christian Orthodox and walked through the church kissing saints.  What was interesting was that after she went through this ritual she told me that she can\'t remember the last time she went to church.  She explained to me that in the Christian Orthodox church only the elderly get to sit on the edges of the church and that men and women stand on separate sides during the service.  Wow, I am learning a lot and getting to see a lot!\n\nWe then paid to see the church museum--a number of old Icons.  These were beautiful.  The colors were still vibrant, well, for the most part.  I was struck by the way the icons seem so simple and flat in terms of craft upon first looking at one but then the detail emerges.  Not the kind of details like facial features or folds in a robe but the small details that explain who this saint was and what made him or her a saint--animals, children or the like.  On the second floor the museum, the floor was rickety and the steps uneven.  In the US, people wouldn\'t have been allowed up there but there were more icons and you could get a sense of how really old the building was.  The floor planks were 8 or 10 inches wide and on the way down the stairs you could see where others had worn down the stairs by walking there time after time.  It was such an unsuspecting church and the museum was well worth the 1 lev that it cost to see.\n\nAfter this, we had coffee at a local cafe and as the girls put it the coffees were nearly free.  Our bill for the three of us was less than 3 leva--which is much less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks for anyone who is counting. We talked about places to travel in Europe and now I am very excited to travel and to see Europe.  So I have plans to make serious travel arraignments when I get back to Sofia.\n\nMore on all of this later, I\'ve got to run to dinner.','First Day in Tryavna','','publish','open','open','','first-day-in-tryavna','','','2008-08-11 19:18:17','2008-08-11 16:18:17','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=76',0,'post','',3),(81,1,'2008-08-13 17:02:10','2008-08-13 14:02:10','<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/box-wine.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-104\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/box-wine.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"219\" /></a>Quick update: Robyn, et all, I just about lost it on Monday night when at one of our formal dinners, the hotel were serving box wine.  Bulgarian boxed wine!  It was great fun to see this.   There was both red and white wine but the white I think was better than the red.  The red wasn\'t very deep but the white was crisp and smooth.  I however have no idea what the names of the wine were.  I think I am going to work on getting to know Bulgarian wine over this next year.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nAlso, I\'ve never felt so blond in my entire life.  I would say that I am really a dirty blond but here in Bulgaria, I am a blond, blond.  It\'s very strange.  A lot of the girls dye their hair but these are colors like kind of red or a little bit blond but noticeably dyed.  But the lucky thing for these girls is that they are also much more tan than I am.  I\'ve been an SPF 45 girl my entire life.  So here I am blond and pale.  Don\'t worry even though we have a pool at the hotel I am not going to be tanning.\n\nSince this now seems to be an update about wine and me I\'ll add one more of my favorite discussion topics: boys.  In the two days here so far, I\'ve had a lot of time to gossip with the girls here about boys.  They\'ve confirmed what I really already knew--which is that 20 somethings are the same the world over.  Sure I know that this a sweepingly broad statement and that it\'s actually really unfair to say but it\'s nice to know that it\'s not just guys in the United States who would like to keep things casual if they can and it\'s nice to know that everyone worries about friends who rush into marriage, and it\'s nice to know that, just like in my group house, everyone teases each other about crushes and boyfriends and girlfriends.','Box wine in Bulgaria','','publish','open','open','','box-wine-in-bulgaria','','','2008-08-13 17:02:10','2008-08-13 14:02:10','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=81',0,'post','',3),(84,1,'2008-08-15 13:12:24','2008-08-15 10:12:24','I watched the Bulgarian-US men\'s volleyball game last night.  The game was announced, of course, in Bulgarian.  I understood the scores as the were announced and not much else. And one of the major things that stood out to me during the two and a half hour match was the fact that there was not a single commercial or advertisement during the entire game. Rather than switching over to a commercial as I am sure that we did in the US (that is if the game was even broadcast in the US), the cameras zoomed into the huddles.  This resulted in some awkward camera angles--sometimes over players shoulders, sometimes up people\'s legs and occasionally  over the shoulders of coaches to see their clipboards.\n\nAs I am sure most of you know, I am not a huge sports fan. I usually go to Nationals baseball games and cheer for baseball or Hoya\'s basketball games and cheer for basketball.  My natural inclination was to cheer for volleyball but given how serious the Bulgarian fans were to do so seemed disingenuous.  As a result, I sat there surrounded by cheering Bulgarians and clapped when the US played well.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nAnother thing that stood out about this game was that for the most part this week, everyone communicates to each other in English.  Sure there are times that people slip into their native languages, but everyone returns to English.  However during the game, the Bulgarians spoke Bulgarian.  They yelled at the tv in Bulgarian and they cheered in Bulgarian.  And they swore in Bulgarian.  It was great fun.  I am not so sure it was as much fun for the Bulgarians but it was great fun for me.\n\nAs you probably already know, America won.  It was an exciting game.  Bulgaria won the first set and then the Americans won the next three (if that\'s even the right language to use to describe the volleyball match--I don\'t know because I couldn\'t understand the announcers).  It was pretty close throughout the sets with lots of back and forth which made it that much more exciting (if you want, you can check out the stats <a title=\"Men\'s Volleyball\" href=\"http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/VO/C73/VOM400A09.shtml#VOM400A09\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>).\n\nBut thing that stands out to me now writing this post is how much more important winning the game was to my Bulgarian friends.  At one point, a girl wearing a dress in the colors of the Bulgarian flag told me: you have hundreds of chances to win medals but this one matters to us.\n\nIt got me thinking after the game about what she actually meant.  And the fact that I\'m taking a two week class focusing on Bulgarian History and Culture seriously influenced this thinking.  Bulgaria as you may or may not know has a long history of being under foreign rule and domination--first with five centuries of rule under the Ottoman Empire and later under the wing of Russia (yes I know that I have now over simplified this but I figured that this may not be the place to repeat everything I learned in my three hour class on Bulgarian history).  The pattern this forms I think is clear: little states are at the mercy of the will of big states.\n\nAs such, this volleyball game was more important to the Bulgarians than it was to me.  What was literary at stake was a gold medal sure but what was also at stake was beating a super-power like America. But I didn\'t put this all together until the last set and by then it was too late to switch my alliances and to cheer for Bulgaria. When the US won, we all moved to dinner.  Everyone was deflated. The Bulgarian flag dress came off and the mood was more somber--the big guys had won again. But there had been a chance especially in the beginning that this might not be the case making the loss that much harder to stomach.\n\nThis experience exposes an issue and a set of questions that I am going to have to think about and work through during this next year.  I can\'t help but wonder: what does it mean to me to come from a country that has the advantage of size, power, politics and economics?  and how can I negotiate this privilege? how do I talk about this to other people and how can I reveal the nuances and contradictions inherent in being an American? Clearly, I don\'t have the answers to these questions yet but this is something I am beginning to think about and work on.\n\nBut don\'t worry, Bulgaria is not out of the competition for Men\'s Volleyball--the lost was just a set back.','Bulgarian-US Men&#039;s Volleyball','','publish','open','open','','bulgarian-us-mens-volleyball','','','2008-08-15 13:12:24','2008-08-15 10:12:24','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=84',0,'post','',4),(99,1,'2008-08-21 14:33:50','2008-08-21 11:33:50','Me being painted in Tryavna square by our Fulbright artist.','Painting Tryavna','','inherit','open','open','','cae-painted','','','2008-08-21 14:33:50','2008-08-21 11:33:50','',90,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cae-painted.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(100,1,'2008-08-21 15:04:35','2008-08-21 12:04:35','','A few lines','','inherit','open','open','','words-1','','','2008-08-21 15:04:35','2008-08-21 12:04:35','',90,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/words-1.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(90,1,'2008-08-21 15:08:26','2008-08-21 12:08:26','I\'ve been in Tryavna a little over a week now.  Thus far, I have more to say about the experience than I\'ve had<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cae-painted.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-99\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/cae-painted.jpg?w=213\" alt=\"\" width=\"213\" height=\"300\" /></a> time to write about it.  So here\'s a quick update: I\'ve been out almost every night this week and can confirm that men and women living in the Balkans take their drinking seriously.  It\'s a pretty standard that the students at the conference don\'t get around to going out into the town until 11:30 or 12 at night and will stay out until 4am.  I however am not yet acclimated to this schedule and am usually home by 2 or 2:30 in the morning. I expected that this would be the case when I moved to Bulgaria but what I didn\'t expect was that I was going to participate in a live art performance in Tryavna.\n\nIn many ways, I guess this is why I moved here--to push myself and to test my understanding of myself--because I never imagined I would end up lying in the town square in the small town of Tryavna having a Bulgarian word painted on my body.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nBut maybe I should start at the beginning.  One of the other Fulbright scholars here is an artist and on the first night of the program he was trying to explain to a group of students what kind of art he does.  He does installation art and he has also started engaging in performance art.  Students seemed to be having a hard time  imagining what his art looked like and were asking him lots of questions about this and wanted to see his work.  He suggested a viewing of some photos of his art.  Later students began to ask him about putting together a performance piece of their own.\n\nAs a group, what we came up with was a performance that used the body to tell a story--a story that we created in collaboration.  This story was passed from person to person and each wrote only one sentence.  I\'ll post this to the blog in the next few days.  For the performance we wrote the story on our arms in English and then in our native language.  The question remained what to write on our bodies.\n\nThis was more difficult because the tendency was to write a \"sentence\" that was nice, warm, friendly--in other words trite and not unlike a hallmark greeting card. In the early versions, there was no tension, there was no pull in the writing and there was no play of ideas.  There was nothing sticky and nothing that grabbed the reader.  This was until we decided to ask for everyone to write one word on a slip of paper that was their response to the word hatred.\n\n<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/words-1.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-100\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/words-1.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>The result of this was much more interesting and we played with these words to create a working poem.  This was written first in English and later in Bulgarian when the decision was made that our audience would be more comfortable reading in Bulgarian than in English.  The piece pushes at issues of hatred and misunderstanding addressing both causes of this hatred and reactions to hatred.\n\nAnd then on Saturday night, we walked into the town clad in white tee shirts and sandals.  I wasn\'t nervous about the performance until then and standing outside of the square in little more than my swimsuit I realized that I was going to be exposing myself in a way I never have before.  I was turning myself into an object by inviting others to read my body.  Luckily the atmosphere was charged by the nervous energy of some and excitement by others and the result was a feeling of carnival.\n\nA little after 9pm twenty-six of us, barefoot, walked out onto the square in one long line.  We created a small stir and when the first person lay down to be painted with a mix of chocolate and blueberry sauce ice cream topping a serious crowd began to gather.  I was sixth in line and had a good vantage point to watch the painting.  It took between two and three minutes to paint a person and the line stood until a whistle was blown indicating that it was time for the next person in line to lie down. And I stood there and waited for my turn.\n\nIt was clear that no one knew what to make of us at first but by the fifth person the crowd had grown in interest and when the artist made a spelling mistake leaving out an L the crowd corrected him and he squeezed it in.  They were helping him even though they had no idea where the painting was going or what kind of a story he was telling and creating.\n\nThen it was my turn.  I don\'t really remember how I lay down on the cobble stones.  Instead what I remember is the sensation of the rocks in my back; it was night but the stones were still warm.  This was countered with the coolness of the ice cream topping being painted onto me and the sea of faces trying to make out the word that was being painted on my body.  The word I learned later was: overground.  So I lay there trying not to shake and trying not to make eye contact because I wasn\'t sure what I would do if I did. It was scary to lie there. My body open to everyone to read, to view, to interpret and to inspect.\n\nI am not sure how long I was lying on the ground but a some point, I became aware of a little girl standing by my head looking at me.  Her mother was there talking to one of the Bulgarians who was documenting the performance.  She was asking about the project and about what we were being painted with.  The Bulgarian told her and she she laughed and told her small daughter.  The little girl came closer to me and I tried to say hello to her in Bulgarian.  Her mother said to say hello back but she didn\'t.\n\nAt this point, I knew exactly what she wanted so I took my index finger and dipped in some of the \"paint\" on my body and held it up to the little girl.  She licked the sauce off my finger. I didn\'t expect this.  I am not sure why but I expected that she would put her finger in it to taste it but I didn\'t expect that this little girl who wouldn\'t say hello to me would just lick the topping straight off of my finger.\n\nIt was a strange moment of intimacy with this little girl who was too shy to say hello licking my finger.  After tasting the chocolate-blueberry topping, her smiled revealed that until she had tasted the sauce that she didn\'t actually believe her mother: she didn\'t believe that we were grown-ups lying on the ground being painted with ice cream toppings and in a similar way, I didn\'t believe it until then either.  I didn\'t believe that I could travel to Bulgaria, begin making new friends in a country where I didn\'t know the language and somehow find myself in the town square wearing very little in order to have a Bulgarian word painted on my body in chocolate sauce.\n\nI spent a long time lying on the ground. Probably close to an hour if not more and while lying there I was struck by the way perspective changes.  I am used to being among the tallest in a room and here I was looking up into the faces of everyone around me--some came down the line reading each body and then hurried on to the next avoiding making eye contact, others stepped over us as if we were not really people at all, some took pictures of each of us moving down the line, while others stopped and spoke to us about what we were doing.  One woman, a Spaniard, spoke to everyone.  She, I learned, had spent time in Washington DC at the Spanish Embassy.  She was interested in what we were doing and was familiar with the Fulbright program.  But in the end, all I could do was to lie there, to watch people and to sometimes respond to people.  For the most part, I lay there thinking about the experience. It was good for me.\n\nIt was good for me to challenge myself, to do something that I wasn\'t a 100% comfortable with and to share of myself with other people.   Ultimately, I don\'t know what the response of the Tryavna community was but I do know that the performance pushed the participants to test ourselves and to think about, question and name what hate means. What follows are the lines that were written on the participants\' bodies--first in English and next in Bulgarian.\n\n<em>English:</em>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">INTENSE PASSION FOR EASY PROFIT</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">OVER-GROUND LUST FOR PINK INDIFFERENT SMILES</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">PEACE SUFFERS OBSESSED WITH PAST AND VIOLENCE, PAIN, JEALOUSY, DISCRIMINATION</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">WAR MACHINE, BLAH-BLAH-BLAH</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">UNFAITHFULL OTHERS FIGHT HORRIBLE STUPIDITY</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em>Bulgarian: </em></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">СИЛНА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">СТРАСТ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ЗА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ЛЕСНА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ПЕЧАЛБА</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">НАДЗЕМНА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ПОХОТ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ЗА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">РОЗОВИ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"><span> </span></span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">БЕЗРАЗЛИЧНИ YСМИВKИ</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">МИРЪТ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">СТРАДА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\">, </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ОБСЕБВAН</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ОТ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">МИНАЛО</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">И</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">НАСИЛИЕ</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">БОЛКА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\">, </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">РЕВHOСТ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\">, </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ДИСКРИМИНАЦИЯ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\">, </span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ВOEННА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">МАШИНА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\">, - </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ДРЪН</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\">-</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\"> ДРЪН</span></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">НЕВEРНИТЕ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ДРУГИ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">СЕ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">БОРЯТ</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">С</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">УЖАСЯВAЩАТА</span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;\" lang=\"RU\"> </span><span style=\"font-size:9pt;font-family:&quot;\" lang=\"RU\">ГЛУПОСТ</span></p>','Tryavna: Art Performance','','publish','open','open','','tryavna-art-performance','','','2008-08-21 15:08:26','2008-08-21 12:08:26','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=90',0,'post','',5),(104,1,'2008-08-21 15:20:00','2008-08-21 12:20:00','','Box-wine','','inherit','open','open','','box-wine','','','2008-08-21 15:20:00','2008-08-21 12:20:00','',81,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/box-wine.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(106,1,'2008-08-22 14:22:18','2008-08-22 11:22:18','For a number of years in DC, I didn\'t eat meat.  Then my roommates wore me down and I started eating meat (it\'s pretty hard to say no to my two male roommates and between the two of them they are pretty good with a grill and fryer and anything that was once breathing).  When I found out I was moving to Bulgaria for the year, I started looking into the local cuisine and found out that the diet is heavily meat based.  Sure there are some meat free dishes but even these aren\'t necessarily meat-product free so I decided to start eating meat more seriously.\n\nDon\'t worry though, MoM, I am still eating plenty of veggies--mostly these days in the form of tomatoes, cabbage and cucumbers (yes cucumbers and for those of you who know me, you\'ll know this is a big deal because I don\'t eat cucumbers.  I think in the last two weeks I\'ve eaten more cucumber than in the previous 26 years of my life).  The interesting thing is that I haven\'t seen a single leaf-lettuce or spinach salad in the last three weeks.  I am going to miss those soon.\n\nI am sure at this point you are wondering to yourself: where is this post going? Well I\'ll tell you.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nEarlier this week I was walking up the steep hill before our hotel and I saw a big brown chicken in the road.  I decided that I was going to chase it out of the road because cars come up the hill and around the bend pretty quickly and I didn\'t want it to be hit.  That and I have never had the chance to chase a chicken before.  Well, I told my roommate who is pretty quick on her toes what I was going to do and while I am running up the hill she is recording the whole scene with the video camera in her cell phone.\n\nBefore viewing said video, please note that no animals were hurt during the filming of this clip and probably you shouldn\'t try this at home (well especially in the United States as I think that this would be difficult thing to try because we don\'t have very many chickens out wandering around). Also, I did not eat this chicken even though the title of my post may suggest this.\n\n[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9djNPxtHg5Y]','Carolyn: Chasing Lunch','','publish','open','open','','carolyn-chasing-lunch','','','2008-08-22 14:22:18','2008-08-22 11:22:18','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=106',0,'post','',2),(111,1,'2008-08-26 19:17:39','2008-08-26 16:17:39','I am back in Sofia and settling in nicely.  On Saturday night, I went out with a group of friends from the <a title=\"Fulbright \" href=\"http://www.fisi-bg.info/\" target=\"_blank\">Fulbright International Summer Institute or FISI</a> for short (this is the program I\'ve been on for the last two weeks in Tryavna).  And, I had my first two house guests which is not bad for a one bedroom apartment--I had some hot water problems and the internet went out so I probably wont make it on any \"best bed and breakfasts in Sofia\" lists but that\'s okay.  And for the record, the problem was of course me and not the apartment and I\'ve got it all worked out now. In other words, this means that it\'s safe for my friends and family to come and visit.\n\nThen I spent Sunday saying good bye to all of my new friends from FISI. It was strange to say good bye to everyone over two days--friends from Romania, Croatia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Albania, Lebanon and Azerbaijan to name a few countries--and then to find myself at dinner with a group of Bulgarians and me, the American.  I realized at this dinner that I am going to be here for a year.  I said good bye one by one to my new friends and now here I am.\n\nThe great thing is that I have more friends then when I moved to Sofia (thanks to FISI and the wonderful students there), I know more Bulgarian than when I stepped off the airplane three weeks ago, and I finally feel like I am settling into this city.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nLuckily, I went straight from the Fulbright program to intensive Bulgarian language classes otherwise I am not sure what I would have done with myself and I probably would have ended up being lonely. Instead, I am taking language classes Monday-Friday from 9am-12:15pm for the next three weeks.  I am in the beginners class, which is just fine with me, but I should publicly praise my Bulgarian tutor in DC because at least the first two days have been review and I have been told that I have a good accent by my teacher a couple of times! (Also by taking this language class, I am also able to take Bulgarian folk dance classes two days a week at the school for free.  This I am sure will shortly make into it\'s own blog post.)\n\nThe Fulbright signed me up for the classes so I didn\'t really know what I was getting myself into.  The only information I had on the first day was the name of the school and the address.  I got there about an hour early because I was terrified of using public transportation and I didn\'t want to be late on my first day.  Today when I took the bus to my class I figured that I would try to be 15 minutes early--still I arrived at the school 30 minutes early.\n\nI think that it is because the public transportation system isn\'t, gasp, too difficult to use.  I fully realize that because I\'ve written this I will probably never be able to use the public transportation system successfully again but I\'ll have to take that chance.\n\nSo here\'s the thing, it took me forever to figure out the bus system in DC and not even the metro was intuitive to me to begin with, so I assumed that the public transportation system would be even more complicated in Sofia seeing as I can\'t read Cyrillic very quickly and my Bulgarian is pretty elementary.\n\nAll I really knew before my first bus ride was that I had two options one was to buy a pass for the month and the other was to buy individual tickets.  I decided that I would buy a pass but then had no idea where to buy one of these.  It turns out however that there are kiosks that sell these but I guess that in some places you can also buy individual tickets from newspaper stands or from the driver on the bus.  I now have a month pass for the bus, the tram and the trolley but don\'t ask me what the difference is between the tram and the trolley because I don\'t know.  All I know is that they are marked differently on my map and I purchased a pass to use all three.\n\nThe great part is that my city map has all of the lines marked and shows you which number bus you need take to get where you want to go but more than this, there are predesignated stops and the map shows you exactly where these are.  This means that for someone like me who barely knows which way is up and struggles to read Cyrillic you can just count the number of stops before yours and then on the bus you just have to pay attention to how many stops have been made and you don\'t have to worry about ringing a bell to signal that you want off at the next stop.  This was one of the most difficult things for me in Washington DC because if you don\'t know the city and you don\'t know the what the streets are before your stop how are you supposed to know when you should pull the cord to ring the bell to get off at your stop?!\n\nI guess that the downside of this is that there are fewer stops so you\'ve got to know where you want to get off and if you accidentally ride through your stop, you\'ll have to walk a long way back to your stop.  But I also have a hunch that having designated stops means that the route can move along more quickly because not everyone is ringing the bell to get off the bus each block.  It\'s probably worth noting here that even though the bus riding in Sofia seems to be pretty straightforward there are absolutely some this-country-used-to-be-socialist differences (well compared to the US).\n\nOne difference is that the buses appear much older and while they seem to run just fine, they appear to be on the brink of breaking down.  Another difference is that there is nothing handicap accessible about these buses--good luck to you if a 12+ inch step is too much for you because I have no idea how you will get on the bus. Finally, one of my favorite differences is that the bus doors open and people stream out of all of the doors and then everyone waiting for the bus rushes on.  This is clearly because if you don\'t hurry you run the risk of being left behind or alternately stuck on the bus unable to get off at your stop.  And let me tell you, when the bus doors and tram doors shut--they shut.  It is not like an elevator where if your arm or leg was in the door the doors wouldn\'t close.  These will clearly close on anything and you don\'t want to be near them when this happens.\n\nThe other exciting thing about the public transportation system here compared to the US--specifically Washington DC--is the fact that as a passenger you more or less ride on the honor system.  Unlike in DC where you must either pay for your ride, show a transfer slip or a bus pass, you just climb on the bus in Sofia.  Clearly, you are supposed to pay and this means that you either have a valid pass or you have your ticket and you\'ve stamped it/punched in on a machine on the bus/tram/trolley but unlike the US you don\'t show it to the bus driver upon entering the bus (see above for my description of getting on and off the bus and you\'ll understand why). Instead there are people who ride, undercover, on the bus and their jobs are to check to make sure that you\'ve paid to ride the bus.  If not, they will fine you on the spot.\n\nThe same goes in Germany and when I was there a few years ago, I was told that Berliners joke that the likelihood is that an agent will only check for your ticket once a year so after you\'ve been checked you\'re safe for the whole year.  I, of course, managed on my first day in Berlin to have my ticket checked on both the subway <em>and</em> on the bus--something that seems to be both highly unlucky and highly unlikely.\n\nSo didn\'t come as any surprise to me that on my first trip on a bus in Sofia, an agent checked the entire bus.  Luckily, I am too scared to ride without a pass but others were not as lucky and received, I think, automatic fines of 7 leva.  A fine of 7 leva isn\'t so much, but I have to say that the whole thing is a little bit scary--even when you know you have pass.  I think that this sense of being scared is probably compounded by the fact that you don\'t actually know what the agent is saying besides something about a ticket and she is wearing normal clothes with a shiny gold badge around her neck which she later tucks back into her jacket making it invisible.\n\nI was a little bit surprised to be scared by this check.  But looking back I think that it was a mix of things that got to me the issue of an authority figure, the possibility of a fine (if I didn\'t buy the right pass) and not understanding what the agent is saying, but I think that there is something deeper at work as well.  It\'s this sense that you don\'t know who on the bus is merely a rider like you or alternately who has authority on the bus because everyone looks the same.  But the fact is, we are not all the same; even though on the surface, everyone seems to pretend that this is the case.  What stood out to me, was the fact that no one was really bothered by this check.  Everyone begrudgingly showed their proof of payment or paid the fine.  It was routine, everyday, expected.\n\nFor me, this standard check was anything but standard and made me think about issues of authority.  In the states, nearly all of our authority figures are clearly marked with specific and recognizable uniforms and insignia and even as a small child, I knew who these people were and what their role in our city was.  The difference is that these men and women were public figures and as a result, I wasn\'t afraid of them because they were known to me. This experience reminded me that it\'s easy to be afraid of what or who you do not know but in looking around the bus at the other passengers, I realized that this check was just a part of life.  It was known to them and they were not phased by it but still it gave me pause.\n\nAll of this said, it\'s clear to me that this system works Sofia.  So all I have to do is to get used to the system and keep my fingers crossed that the public transportation gods continue to smile on me.','Settling into Sofia','','publish','open','open','','settling-into-sofia','','','2008-08-26 19:17:39','2008-08-26 16:17:39','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=111',0,'post','',8),(116,1,'2008-08-29 19:21:15','2008-08-29 16:21:15','I\'ve been watching the news this afternoon--the BBG that\'s not to be confused with the BBC as these are two different things.  The BBG is the Bulgarian Broadcasting something or other which starts with a G.  If I knew more Bulgarian I could probably tell you what the G stood for but for right now, you\'ll just have to trust me or maybe you\'ll get lucky and one of my new Bulgarian friends will read this and post the answer.  Anyhow, this post isn\'t actually about the BBG it is really about Barack Obama in Bulgaria.\n\nOkay, he\'s not even in Bulgaria.  Actually, I am not even sure that he has ever stepped foot in Bulgaria but that doesn\'t really matter.  He\'s here. He\'s all over the news and he looks great.  I have been watching clips of him at the convention and listening to speeches on YouTube and I can\'t help but to think wow. Even watching BBG, I am impressed and I don\'t know what the news commentary is but he looks like presidential material to me. And I am strangely proud of him.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThe thing that stands out to me after the last two weeks in Tryavna is how much my vote counts.   What has become clear to me is that I am not just voting for myself.  I have one vote--one vote in Washington State.  A vote that I expect will count much more in Washington State than my vote in Washington DC would have counted.  But for the first time, I am not just voting for myself. In the past, I thought one vote, one man probably because this is what our high school civics class teaches us and later college courses reinforce this.  But after talking with and listening to all of these really smart and well informed Bulgarian and more generally European college students about the US elections it became pain to me that these were people who knew as much as or more than many of my friends in the states about the upcoming election even though they don\'t even have a vote.  They care deeply about the outcome of the election and in fact have a serious stake in the election but don\'t have a vote.  As a result, I have been reminded over and over how important my vote is.\n\nI was thrilled to vote in my first presidential election at 19 and felt great responsibility in this vote but it didn\'t matter much.  George Bush won the election.  I voted a second time four years later once again against Bush and was disappointed a second time.  But this disappointment stop me from voting in the next elections. I am looking forward to these and to seeing what kind of (hopefully new) direction we decide to take the country.\n\nI know that this will not come as a surprise to anyone but this election matters not only domestically but also internationally and it seems like everyone is paying attention. I know that I shouldn\'t be surprised by how much my peers in Bulgaria know about the election and specifically about Barack Obama but I have to admit that at times I am.  I consider myself a \"Barack-o-phoile\" and that makes this whole thing that much more interesting to me.  I love to hear what other people think and I was especially interested in the responses to Joe Biden being named Barack Obama\'s running mate.  When it was announced, many of the twenty-something students I was discussing this with had assumed that Hilary Clinton would be named the Democratic vice presidential candidate.  I think they assumed this more because of her name recognition than an understanding of the political system in the United States.\n\nThis reminded me however that no one really understands this screwy election system that we have in the United States and this certainly includes both Americans and foreigners.  It makes me wonder if I really get <em>it</em> and how competent I will be in the fall explaining the up coming election to my high school students.  This worry is, I think, unfounded but it has sent me to both the New York Times and the Washington Post trying to keep up with all of the campaign election news.\n\nGiven the fact that it is not yet September I can only assume that more posts on this topic are sure to follow and I\'d love to hear what others think seeing as this is the first presidential election I will not be in the states for. If nothing else, I know that for sure that in November, I\'ll be casting my one vote not only for myself but also for all of these who are vote-less and thus voiceless here in Bulgaria. I can only hope that my small campaign donation to Barack Obama and my absentee vote in November will make a difference.','Obama in Bulgaria','','publish','open','open','','obama-in-bulgaria','','','2008-08-29 19:21:15','2008-08-29 16:21:15','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=116',0,'post','',1),(128,1,'2008-08-31 20:59:21','2008-08-31 17:59:21','Today has been a great day.  I woke up about 8am and had breakfast.  Then I uploaded a number of photos to Facebook and wrote on some friends walls.  I studied some Bulgarian and then took an early afternoon nap.  Today is my first day \"off\" in quite awhile.  I feel like I\'ve been going, going, going for months now.  Tryavna was great but busy and the last week of intensive Bulgarian lessons has left me exhausted in the afternoons.\n\nSo today was perfect.  The only thing that would have made this day better would be a Law &amp; Order: SVU marathon.  Law &amp; Order especially Law &amp; Order: SVU is the perfect for an afternoon of mindless tv watching.  There is excitement in each episode but the story line is pretty fool-proof.  A bad thing happens to a woman, a child, or someone elderly and the case is sent to SVU where Oliva and Elliot are put on the case.  They track the bad guy down and then comes the law part where usually a satisfactory conclusion to the case presents itself.  Although, this is not always the case.  While this boilerplate description makes the tv show sound too simplistic to be interesting, it is just the opposite.  The drama in catching bad guys is what makes it not only watchable but addictive.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nInstead, I\'ve been watching reruns of The OC dubbed over in Bulgarian.  It\'s really not the same at all.  I think it\'s a shame that the Saturday and Sunday marathons of Law and Order haven\'t caught on here in Sofia.  Well come to think of it, they may have seeing as I don\'t have cable and only get five channels but that is beside the point.\n\nWhat I am really interested in why all of our worst tv has been dubbed into Bulgarian and in many cases is advertised heavily in public.  The OC is pretty bad but earlier this week, I saw that the tv show Cheaters is on from 5-6pm everyday (or at least that\'s what I think I saw seeing as I am not super quick at reading Cyrillic).  So here\'s the summary: I\'ve seen Cheaters, Wife-Swap, Monk, Spin City, So You Think You Can Dance, and even the show Gay, Straight or Taken which I can only imagine had a very short shelf life in the United States.\n\nThe reality tv shows Americans at our worst.  There is no nuance.  All of the people become extremes--caricatures of themselves.  This hyper-characterization is laughable in the United States but it\'s down right embarrassing here in Sofia. The problem is that there is nothing \"normal\" for a foreign viewer to use as a baseline to help them understand and make sense of both the drama and humor of an individual tv program.  This is not to say that I believe that the viewer is stupid--because I don\'t believe this.  I just wonder how the foreign viewer actually makes sense of and digests this trashy American culture.  These shows are a part of American tv culture but they are not the only thing; yet they seem to make up the majority of the dubbed American tv shows.\n\nI guess it\'s worth asking the question is a show like Law and Order or Sex in the City any better than these low-brow reality television shows? And I don\'t think that there is an easy answer.  These show seems to be more nuanced and there seems to be more character development but again these are tv shows and they are designed to be funny enough, salacious enough and dramatic enough to keep the viewer coming back for more in just the same way that the reality television shows do.  So this is what we are selling in the United States and exporting all over the globe--American style drama that feeds on sex and violence.  Is this what America is about? Yes and No but of course it is more complicated than this because it\'s not like we even have a single America that we can talk about but we seem to be doing a pretty good job exporting a single idea of who we are and what we care about.\n\nIs this who I am? And is this what I care about? Well, no.  I am more than these images and these basic narratives but it seems clear that these stories are a part of what has shaped and influenced me.  This said, the students I met at FISI, know these stories.  For example, one night before going out, a friend said to me look at your blond hair, you must have been prom queen. Needless to say, I was not prom queen or homecoming queen or anything of the sort in high school but in a sea of brown hair mine stood out and as an American it has been reinforced over and over again in more movies and tv shows than I can count that the pretty All-American blond haired, blue eyed girl will be prom queen.  I know that when she told me this, she meant it as a complement and I took it as one.  Maybe I am wrong, but I don\'t think anyone in the United States would make the same assumption about me.\n\nThis is why I can\'t help but think, wonder and worry about which America my students are going to be familiar with.  As such, I think I may come as a disappointment to them but I hope that I also surprise and challenge them to think about how we create and are created by the culture we live in.  I was not prom queen and for that I am glad.   But I did go to high school and from there to college and I\'ve watched more episodes of Law and Order: SVU than I can count so I hope that these credentials will help me talk to my students about American culture and in the process teach them some English as well.\n\nAs for the SVU marathon, I know that Monday is Labor Day in the States and I am sure that there will be a marathon so I hope that someone will be watching for me and I hope that you get to see an episode you\'ve never seen before.\n\nI guess I\'ll end on this note, these days, I would be happy to could catch an episode dubbed in Bulgarian because I am sure that this would help my Bulgarian immensely but seeing as this isn\'t an option currently, I guess that catching up on exported American tv isn\'t such a bad thing to do.  (Oh and it turns out that I can actually understand a very, very small amount of what people are saying in Bulgarian!!)','What I wouldn&#039;t give for a Law &amp; Order Marathon','','publish','open','open','','what-i-wouldnt-give-for-a-law-order-marathon','','','2008-08-31 20:59:21','2008-08-31 17:59:21','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=128',0,'post','',1),(131,1,'2008-09-01 18:50:46','2008-09-01 15:50:46','I pay for everything in cash in Sofia.  Here there is really no other option.  It\'s made me realize a few things: 1. Having a debit card means that you don\'t have to think about money and 2. Paying in cash is more complicated than I remembered.  This said, I think that the last time I had to pay for everything in my life in cash was when I was about 14 years old.\n\nBack then, I had a pretty serious baby-sitting circuit and I earned something like $6 an hour meaning that I could make oh $30 in a night if I was lucky.  At at 14 years old this was a pretty big deal.  Also, my personal expenses at this point were very low seeing as my mom and dad didn\'t charge me rent and they fed and clothed me.  So I saved some for summer camp, spent some on clothes and the rest well there wasn\'t much left after that but I imagine it went to movies and other such things.  Back then my biggest worry was whether I\'d have enough money for sales tax-- I wasn\'t very good at calculating this in my head.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI can\'t remember for sure but I think I must have been about 16 when I got my first checking account and I was excited to be able to write checks.  Again, I don\'t think I wrote very many checks but there was security in having them and knowing if you didn\'t have enough cash in your wallet for something you could always write a check.  I more or less used this mentality all the way through college: don\'t spend unless you have to and the only thing you can put on your credit card are airline tickets home.\n\nAnd then shortly after I graduated from college, the internet changed banking and spending in America.  I didn\'t have to worry about having cash or carrying around a book of checks because I could use my debit card on anything from an Americano at Starbucks, to passes for the Metro, to groceries and even bar tabs.  The only things that definitely required cash still were taxi cabs and cover charges at bars and it was easy to have cash on hand for these limited expenses and because I paid a majority of my bills online, I rarely wrote checks. It\'s truly not an exaggeration to say that I wrote one a month for rent and once in a while checks to my roommates for bills.  When I ran out of the 50 free checks that my bank \"gave\" me for banking with them, I was annoyed to learn that the minimum I could buy was 100.  I thought I am never going to use all of these and I was right.  I shredded the reminder when I left DC.\n\nI understand that for some people this move to electronic banking is difficult because one can loose a sense of the value of money.  The argument is that by paying for things in cash, you are forced to hand over your hard earned dollars and that this makes you more aware of how you are spending your money.  I however found it to be the opposite.  It was easy for me to track my spending because I could log into my bank account and see all of the purchases I made in a day, in a week and even in a month.  I knew when I was stopping by my neighborhood Starbucks too many mornings or when I was spending more on groceries than normal.  I didn\'t have a budget per-say but I had limits and it was easy to see when I had reached them.\n\nNow, I\'ve found myself once again in a cash economy and it\'s hard to get used to.  I spend a little bit here and a little bit there and it adds up but I can\'t remember what I spent it on or how much I spent.  And recently, the old fear has resurfaced: will I have enough for that? This is a real fear because I don\'t want to carry too much cash around but I also don\'t yet know what things cost which makes it hard to determine whether or not I have enough cash for the purchases I want to make.\n\nFor example, shampoo and conditioner seem to cost about what they do in the States ($4-5).  Fruit, veggies and beer seem to cost much less and taste much better than in the US. This week among other things, I purchased 4 plums for .20 Lev or something like $0.15, a hearty chunk of cheese for $2 and 500 ml of imported beer for $1 or Bulgarian beer for $0.75.  But then I went to buy contact solution (which I was warned would cost more in Bulgaria) and was charged 19 Leva for it--or something like $16 American Dollars!! This seemed like highway robbery. The funny thing was when I got the box home and opened it inside was the contact solution and a new lens case which I\'ve always had to buy extra in US so maybe it\'s not such a bad deal after all.  It just means that I am still trying to figure this cash economy thing out.\n\nBut by far the most exciting thing I\'ve paid cash for is my rent and my security deposit.  I don\'t usually talk specifics on things like rent or a deposit but this is so good I can\'t not.  The rent on my apartment is 600 Leva as was the deposit.  [On a side note: for those of you who think that this might be high I can assure that it is not.  I\'ve learned from the Fulbright office that rents in the city center (where I am) usually start at 400 Euros and that this does not necessarily guarantee a furnished apartment (which mine is).  My rent in Euros would be something like 300 Euros a month so I think that I am getting a pretty good deal.]\n\nSo when it came to paying for my rent and for the deposit, I had to do so in cash.  Already thhis is kind of a challenge because my bank only lets me withdraw 400 Leva a day so it required some planning ahead.  What I wasn\'t prepared for was that at some ATMs you get your cash in 10 Leva increments.  This is, for the record, so much cash that it was impossible for me to close my wallet after I had it shoved in.  Luckily the next day, I found a second ATM that gave me cash in 20 Leva increments.  This is much more manageable and after the first ATM, I imagined myself handing over piles of 10 Leva bills to my landlord and that was almost too embarrassing for words.\n\nOh yeah and there would be no way to explain to him why I was paying all in 10 Leva bills because I don\'t actually speak the language yet.  I am glad though that money is money and when I handed him the inch thick stack of 10 and 20 Leva bills that he didn\'t laugh at me.  Instead, he counted it, shook my hand and took me downstairs to label my mailbox.  Cash is after all just cash and it spends the same way--no matter the denomination. <em>(That and no one ever seems to have change for anything no matter the denomination so it\'s probably better in the long run to have lots and lots of 10 Leva bills and my lucky landlord now does!)</em>\n\nSo I guess it\'s official now.  I have the keys to my apartment, a mailbox and a lease and today starts the first day of my next 10 months in Sofia, Bulgaria as a Fulbright Scholar.','Cash-Money!','','publish','open','open','','cash-money','','','2008-09-01 18:50:46','2008-09-01 15:50:46','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=131',0,'post','',2),(136,1,'2008-09-04 19:51:28','2008-09-04 16:51:28','I\'ve got a long list of to-dos in my life and because of this I try to do at least one thing of this list a day.  In the US, this would be a silly goal and I would be frustrated with myself if I could only do one thing of my to-do list a day.  Here however, I\'ve learned one thing is about all you can expect.  Today was my day to meeta with the lawyer hired by the Fulbright to help Fulbrighters in Sofia make their visa extensions and apply for the Bulgarian ID card--the Litchna Karta.\n\nEven to get to this step has been a lot of work.  First, I had to get a signed copy of my lease.  One would think: not too hard but this turned out to be a little more work than I imagined.  My lease was in both English and Bulgarian so it is something like seven pages long and at the end of the seventh page it says that if for some reason the lease has to be examined in court the Bulgarian side will take preference.  Well of course this makes sense but I am not going to sign something if I am not sure that the Bulgarian says more or less the same thing as the English so I took to the Fulbright office to have the coordinator read it and make sure.  Luckily it was the same.\n\nThen the day I thought I was paying the rent and the deposit my landlord came over and read through the whole thing to me in Bulgarian and kept asking me in Bulgarian: razbirash li? do you understand? Well, yes, kind of.  Finally his son came over and did some translating and my landlord, his father, was satisfied that I understood what I was signing and took my money and signed the lease.  While this may have been kind of a pain, the thing I have to remind myself is that no landlord in the US would be so nice or concerned that I understood what I was signing.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nSo with lease in hand, then I could go to the police and register as a foreigner living in Bulgaria.  I decided that I was going to need to take a Bulgarian speaker up with me for this and I was glad that I did.  Because first we went to the police station to register but it turns out you do this in another building that is about five blocks away and hidden behind another building.  Here, it turns out that you have to fill the form out twice.  One copy for you and one for the station.  The form is in both Bulgarian (Cyrillic) and in English.  I understand that this is an improvement from the past when the form to register as a foreigner living in Sofia was only in Bulgarian.  But, after filling out half of the form in English, which seems reasonable, considering the form is in English, my friend thought to ask and we were then told to fill the form out in Bulgarian.\n\nSo, I sat next to her on a bench while she filled the forms out for me. Twice. My paperwork was approved by a rather surly looking Bulgarian behind a glass window and the man who was helping us originally came out from behind the window to give me a large brochure on Sofia.  It was very pretty but of course, in Bulgarian. He was very proud to give it to me so in my best Bulgarian I said merci.  Okay just kidding, I said: blagodarya which is thank-you but for the record, merci is also totally acceptable (one of my language text books says merci translates as thanks, a French loan word) but really you\'ll hear people using it every where.\n\nAll of this brings us today, the day I had to meet with the lawyer to make my visa extension and then apply for my litchna karta.  I have to do all of this because the Bulgarian government will only issue me a 90 day travel visa with the option to extend my stay with the visa extension.  I understand that this is because the US government makes it equally hard for Bulgarians to apply for long stay visas--somehow I knew this was the US government\'s fault.  I know, safety, safety, safety but really why do we have to make everything so long and complicated that other governments feel obliged to do the same?!?!? (Insert sigh here.)\n\nAnyhow, the lawyer was great and I was glad I decided to take some extra passport photos with me to Bulgaria from the US and happy that I took these with me to the meeting.  She looked over all of my documents, made photocopies, asked me to write on a pad of paper answers to some of the questions on the two different application forms (one for the visa extension and one for the litchna karta). The paperwork took less than 30 minutes to do but it would have been impossible for me to fill out because both of these forms were in Bulgarian and had to be filled out in Bulgarian.\n\nThe one question that she told me couldn\'t help me with but she could give me a calculator for was to figure out my height in cm.  Uh.  So, I don\'t this and I don\'t even know what the conversion factor is (why didn\'t I pay more attention in high school science?).  What I know is that I am 5\'11\" and that my dad had hoped that one day I might be 6 feet tall because that would give me extra advantage playing basketball or rowing but we all know how that turned out--I\'m not 6\' tall.\n\nI did a little math and figured outed that I was 71 inches tall.  Then all I had to do was figure out how many centimeters where in an inch.  I guessed on my first try 3cm to an inch but this math resulted in me being over to meters tall.  This was too much and I confirmed that by calling another Fulbrighter to see if she knew what the conversion rate was.  She didn\'t know but she confirmed that a meter stick (or 100 cm) was taller than a yard stick (or 3 feet). So I figured that I\'d better guess a height that was under 200 cm.  I guessed that I was 175 cm tall.  The lawyer thought that wasn\'t unreasonable.  So in Bulgaria I am now officially 175 cm tall. Not bad.  Especially not bad when I got home and looked up the conversion: about 2.5 cm per inch and at 71 inches tall I am really 180 cm tall but really what\'s 5 cm here or there? Considering, I feel pretty good to only be 5 cm off.\n\nWhat was amazing was that it took longer to walk to the office to apply for my visa extension that it did for the extension paperwork to go through.  The lawyer send me with one of her assistants and in something less than five minutes and 13 Leva later, this part of the application was completed.  Then we had to stand in another longer line and once at the front of this line the woman looked at my paperwork, looked at my passport and visa and then gave me a number and told me to come back in seven working days.  I guess at this point, I\'ll be able to submit my paperwork for the litchna karta and it will be like I am almost a real person here in Bulgaria and  I won\'t have to carry my passport around as ID!  Wow, what a day.\n\nOf course, there are still a number of steps for me to take to get my ID card but I\'ve gotten good at breaking down my to-dos into smaller to-dos so that I can feel like I accomplished something each day.','Visa Extension and Litchna Karta','','publish','open','open','','visa-extension-and-litchna-karta','','','2008-09-04 19:51:28','2008-09-04 16:51:28','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=136',0,'post','',1),(139,1,'2008-09-08 15:25:51','2008-09-08 12:25:51','I met some Fulbright-Bulgaria friends for dinner at this Moroccan restaurant <a href=\"http://annette.bg/index.php?p=contact&amp;hl=en_US\" target=\"_blank\">Annette</a> this week (and for those of you learning Bulgarian along with me or those of you who wonder why I titled my post as I did PECTOPANT is the Bulgarian word for restaurant). I was really looking forward to eating something other than Shopska Salad--a girl can only have so much of this before the novelty begins to wear off and it\'s beginning to wear off--and I was looking forward to spending time with people outside of my intensive Bulgarian language class.\n\nI didn\'t have a hand in picking the restaurant but the email I got with the address and map showed that the restaurant was no more than six or seven blocks from my apartment and this seemed like an auspicious start.   The website was beautiful and the menu online looked great.  I thought going through the website: I\'d better not wear what has become my standard uniform--layered tank tops--in the Sofia heat (it\'s been between 83-93 degrees the last couple of weeks) to the restaurant.  So I got a little bit dressed up and walked over to Annette.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nIt was easy to find and first appearances did not disappoint.  Inside, there were low tables, the lighting was spot on--not to dark not to light and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.  Standing outside, I caught myself thinking: oh, this restaurant is in Sofia? It looks like it could belong just as easily in an expensive stretch of Georgetown only the menu revealed much lower prices.\n\nOur group was sitting on the patio behind the restaurant.  This was definitely not as nice as inside but the ambiance out here was nice as well.  It certainly helped that none of the tables were too close together and that there was a little breeze in the air.  The great thing about this was that the noise from other parties at the restaurant was never overwhelming and the patio didn\'t feel overly crowded even though there were eight or ten different groups eating outside.\n\nBut, looks can be deceiving.  The well manicured facade was covering for extremely disappointing service the night I was there.  It\'s not as if I was expecting top-flight service but I was expecting service. For the first forty-five minutes at the restaurant our table of eight had only one menu and only after going to the bar was one of the Bulgarians able to get a second menu.  A waiter didn\'t come to our table for a full 60 minutes and at that point we were ready with both our drink orders and our dinner orders.  We didn\'t want her to go away and not come back for another 60 minutes.\n\nAfter this, it wasn\'t much of a surprise that our food took longer than it should have to arrive at the table but what was a surprise was that one of our group didn\'t receive her dinner.  When she inquired about it the waitress said something to the effect of: oh we\'re out of that tonight and then offered to get the menu again. Really, you are out of a dish and couldn\'t have conveyed this sooner? I had never seen anything like this was found it both completely unexpected and completely unacceptable.  Poor service is one thing but not receiving a meal for someone at your table is a wholly different thing.\n\nShe was clearly angry and hungry and the question then becomes what do you do? Does everyone at the table sit and wait for her to order and for her new meal to be prepared? do you share your dinner? or something else? Well we ended up sharing our dinners with her but it wasn\'t the same and it clearly impacted our ability to enjoy our meal.\n\nThis said the food we did receive was well cooked and very flavorful.  I had the chicken skewer served over pita, cucumber and yogurt.  The pita was disappointing--store bought I think--but the spices used on the chicken added an unexpected depth to the chicken and the chicken was cooked through with nice grill marks but not overcooked. This said, I don\'t think that I would have this dish again because the pita was only so-so but there were other dishes featuring the same grilled chicken with other sides and I would definitely try one of those dishes in the future.\n\nAt my table, people ordered a variety of different things.  The veggie couscous was beautiful with plenty of colorful vegetables and served with a side of broth.  But I think that by far the best dish was a quiche served with five different salads.  This is the kind of dish that will satisfy your curiosity about Moroccan food by giving you a sample of a lot of different textures and flavors. Two people at our table ordered the Moroccan meatballs and while they said they were good, they got exactly that a bowl of grilled meatballs--nothing more and nothing less.  So be forewarned and considering ordering a salad to go along with this dish, if you think you want more than just meatballs.\n\nLuckily for me the conversation made up for the poor service and I had a great night but I think that a mishap like ours could have easily spoiled another person\'s night.  The problem is that I am not sure where the blame should be placed--maybe it was our waitress but maybe it was the kitchen or maybe it was something else--I guess that I\'ll probably give the place another shot at some point in the future because it does have such a  charming atmosphere and I did like the food but I wont go in expecting too much and then I can\'t be too disappointed.\n\nAll in all, it\'s too bad really because had the service been half as nice as the website then I would have been extreamly satisified with the resturant Annette at 27 \"Angel Kunchev\" Street.','PECTOPAHT: Annette','','publish','open','open','','pectopaht-annette','','','2008-09-08 15:25:51','2008-09-08 12:25:51','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=139',0,'post','',0),(147,1,'2008-09-08 20:39:29','2008-09-08 17:39:29','This is a list of the numbers 1-101 in Bulgarian. I made this after seeing how many people came to my blog looking for this information.','learning-to-count-1-to-101','Numbers 1-101 in Bulgarian','inherit','open','open','','learning-to-count-1-to-101','','','2008-09-08 20:39:29','2008-09-08 17:39:29','',16,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/learning-to-count-1-to-101.doc',0,'attachment','application/msword',0),(148,1,'2008-09-08 20:43:15','2008-09-08 17:43:15','Here\'s a list of the numbers 1-101 for everyone who has come to my blog looking for this information.','learning-to-count-1-to-1011','Count to 100 in Bulgarian','inherit','open','open','','learning-to-count-1-to-1011','','','2008-09-08 20:43:15','2008-09-08 17:43:15','',16,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/learning-to-count-1-to-1011.doc',0,'attachment','application/msword',0),(149,1,'2008-09-08 21:41:14','2008-09-08 18:41:14','I noticed recently in my blog stats that everyday people were coming to my blog by searching phrases like \"counting to 10 in Bulgarian\" or \"1-100 Bulgarian\" or \"Bulgarian + numbers + counting.\"  The blog post that they were ending up at was an early one titled \"<a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/learning-to-count-again/\" target=\"_blank\">Learning to Count, Again\"</a> but it didn\'t actually have any of the information people were looking for in terms of learning how to count in Bulgarian.  So this evening I decided to google some of the search terms that people used to get to my blog and some of my own.\n\nFirst, I was surprised how early my blog showed up in the search engine and second, I really couldn\'t find a good list of Bulgarian numbers 1-100 in English online.  It made me feel bad that people were coming to my blog looking for information and instead they were finding my ramblings on learning Bulgarian.  Second, I couldn\'t see any reason that the numbers 1-101 in Bulgarian are protected in anyway so I am publishing a list of the numbers 1-101 as I learned them thanks to my great tutor in Washington DC. I can only assume that the reason the numbers aren\'t up in Bulgarian-English, and I know this will come as a shock, is that Bulgarian isn\'t widely taught in the United States. (This said, to my new Bulgarian friends and native speakers: if you see a mistake in the list...gasp... let me know and I\'ll fix it asap!)\n\n<!--more-->\n\nA couple of things: I only wrote out the numbers in Cyrillic 1-10 mostly because I am lazy and I wasn\'t sure if people were really interested in seeing the numbers written out in Cyrillic (well, because if you don\'t read Cyrillic, then it wouldn\'t be very helpful for you).  Also, you\'ll see that there are two columns with the numbers written out using Latin letters and English pronouncation.  The first column is the \"standard pronouncation\" or the formal pronouncation so I felt like I had to include it if only to show that I know there are two ways to say the numbers in Bulgarian.  It\'s important to note that you\'ll see that the numbers 1-10 are more or less the same and then with the numbers 11 to well however far you can count are pronounced in two ways.  The first way is the standard way and the second way is colloquial. The colloquial form more or less simplifies the pronouncation of the word and in almost all cases drops the pronouncation of the \"t\" at the end of the numbers past 10.\n\nHere\'s the thing, it is probably important to study the standard pronouncation because the makes clear how numbers are formed in Bulgarian.  For example, the number 11 is constructed in a pattern like <em>one and ten </em>or in Bulgarian edinayset--the construcion is something like edin-i-deset and for 12 the number is dvanayset.  After 20, the construction follows the same pattern <em>twenty and one, twenty and two </em>and <em>twenty and three</em>... or in Standard Bulgarian dvayset i endo, davyset i dve and davyset i tri and in colloquial dvaysno, dvayzdve and dvayztri. But I\'ve found it equally important if not more important to be familiar with the colloquial form because this is what everyone (I can\'t emphasise this enough--everyone) in shops, stores and markets use.\n\nNot that knowing the colloquial will make it that much easier seening how fast everyone talks.  But if you\'re blond and blue eyed and clearly not Bulgarian and say: molya? when you don\'t understand the price someone has just said usually who ever you are talking to will repeat the number again more slowly.  Oh and only once, I have not been able to understand and after a couple of molyas over the price of tomatoes I took out some change and and the older man at the vegetable stand took .45 Lev.  Oh, \"chetirseipe.\"  <strong>Right</strong>--how was I supposed to get that?!\n\nOkay and the moment you\'ve been waiting for, a link to the chart I created, <a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/learning-to-count-1-to-1012.doc\">learning-to-count-1-to-101</a>\n\nSee, I am learning Bulgarian!','Bulgarian Numbers 1-101','','publish','open','open','','bulgarian-numbers-1-101','','','2008-09-08 21:41:14','2008-09-08 18:41:14','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=149',0,'post','',5),(157,1,'2008-09-09 22:06:58','2008-09-09 19:06:58','I left my Bulgarian language class really angry today.  It\'s the last week of class and our teacher has been telling us that we will have to take a test and that if we pass then we\'ll get a certificate of completion.  She is very nice and keeps telling us that it will not be a problem. So until today I\'ve been thinking: no problem.  I\'ve been practicing on my own: working on conjugating verbs, asking questions, and answering these questions.  I\'ve been filling in my workbook and have been reviewing my class notes.  I haven\'t had much else to do so I\'ve spent a lot of time working on my Bulgarian.\n\nThen after our break this morning, we came back to class and she gave us a copy of the test.  Yes she gave us a copy of the test before we are going to take it.  This was a surprise to me because I\'ve never received a copy of a test before I was supposed to take it.  That\'s the thing about a test, it\'s supposed to test your knowledge of a subject or topic area and what you know.  <em>What you know</em>.  And how do you know what you know and what you need to work on if you\'ve already seen the test?\n\n<!--more-->\n\nHowever the bigger surprise came when I looked at the test and I couldn\'t even read the directions.  This, of course, does not bode well for actually taking the test because it meant that I didn\'t know what I was supposed to do in each section.  This alone is a scary realization and I don\'t like the feeling of not knowing what I am supposed to know.\n\nAnd that\'s when things got even stranger.  Our teacher talked us through the entire test.  She told us what was expected for each section and then she had us work through every section.  We read each section out loud, we answered all of the questions multiple times, she explained all of the vocabulary that was new and in 10 minutes she tried to explain articles in Bulgarian--something that we never discussed in class before they appeared on the test (and which cannot be explained in 10 minutes). I can honestly say that I\'ve never prepared to take a test like this before and the longer I sat there with the test I am supposed to take tomorrow the more and more frustrated I became.\n\nI couldn\'t help thinking if our teacher knew what the test looked like, why didn\'t she structure our classroom time to prepare us for this? Or did she think that the test didn\'t really matter? Did the test matter or not?\n\nI thought that the test mattered so that we could move on to the next level--the intermediate course.  I don\'t want to be placed into a course I am not prepared for because I saw the test before I took it.  I wanted to pass the test because I had mastered the material.  I didn\'t want to pass the test because the whole thing had been explained to me.\n\nLooking at the test, it made me feel like I had been wasting my time for the last two weeks.\n\nNow, I guess the question remains, is it better to be able to answer questions on a test or to be able to ask, understand and answer questions, to be able to talk about yourself, to be able order food and to be more comfortable in the spoken language? The test suggests that it\'s more important to know the grammar of the language but our teacher focused on conversation rather than grammar and as such, I think I would have been lucky to answer 50% of the test correctly without her going through the test ahead of time.\n\nBut it\'s not as if I haven\'t been learning things for the last few weeks, we simply haven\'t been studying or working on the skills covered on the test. And as a good student, I find this maddening.  I like to study, I like to learn new things and I like to ask questions and these are the skills that have served me well and carried me through me school.  It just turns out that these skills aren\'t going to help me on this test.\n\nInstead, we went through question by question the entire test and I now know everything on the test and all of the correct answers.  The only thing I have to do is make sure that I can spell correctly in Bulgarian.  So when I take the test tomorrow what is this a test of? My short term memory? My ability to listen? My Bulgarian? Hard to say really.\n\nSo we spent the second half of class or about 90 minutes \"preparing\" for the test tomorrow and I left class angry.  Angry that we spent 90 minutes of our time preparing for what seems like a pretty pointless test seeing as it doesn\'t cover the material we worked on the last couple of weeks.  Angry that our teacher thought that this was an acceptable way to help us prepare for the test.  Angry that I hadn\'t learned what was on the test.  Angry that this was my introduction to academics in Bulgaria.\n\nBut by the time I got home, I couldn\'t help but wonder if my anger was misplaced. I didn\'t know what to think.  My anger at the test, my expectations for the course and my understanding of what school (and a test) is and is not is grounded squarely in the American tradition.  I was angry because I didn\'t understand what was going on with the upcoming test.\n\nI didn\'t and still don\'t have a frame to understand what is actually happening with the test but my hunch is that it is important for us to pass the test not only so that we can be promoted to the next level but also so that it reflects well on our teacher.  It seems that it doesn\'t matter so much what we know as long as we give the right answers on the test and that runs counter to everything I\'ve ever know about how school works.  But our teacher had no qualms about this method of instruction so here I am sitting at my computer wondering how it got to be this way.  And I can\'t help but wonder how this method of instruction has trickeled down to the high schools in Bulgaria? What are the expetations at my school and what are my expetations and how will I figure out how to balance these two when I can\'t seem to get over my anger at the test tomorrow?','Final Test: Bulgarian Language Class','','publish','open','open','','final-test-bulgarian-language-class','','','2008-09-09 22:06:58','2008-09-09 19:06:58','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=157',0,'post','',5),(161,1,'2008-09-10 20:44:26','2008-09-10 17:44:26','','learning-to-count-1-to-101','Counting in Bulgarian','inherit','open','open','','learning-to-count-1-to-1012','','','2008-09-10 20:44:26','2008-09-10 17:44:26','',149,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/learning-to-count-1-to-1012.doc',0,'attachment','application/msword',0),(164,1,'2008-09-11 21:38:51','2008-09-11 18:38:51','I\'ve been overwhelmed with the amazing coffee I\'ve had in Sofia.  The best part is not a single cup of it has been from Starbucks (and even if I wanted it, I couldn\'t get it. There\'s not a single Starbucks here and really why would you go when the other options are superior).  The thing is in the states, I am a serious coffee drinker but here I can\'t even keep up.\n\nLast winter, I wrote a piece for a friend\'s blog on my love of the Americano.  I wrote about being disappointed one morning standing in line at my local coffee shop. Disappointed when a tall good looking guy ordered a grande vanilla latte with whipped cream.<span> </span>The point was that the drink you order says a lot about you--sometimes in a good way and other times, well it’s revealing in the way you don’t want anyone to catch you watching reality tv.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI continued on in the post to explain that it\'s because of this, I drink Americanos in the states.<span> </span>It is, I think, the perfect drink: simple and strong.<span> </span>Espresso and water.<span> </span>You can add milk or sugar to it if you want but if the drink has been made with good beans, a clean machine and someone who knows what she’s doing—you don’t have to add a thing.<span> </span>It’s good just the way it is.<span> </span>This is way I am a firm believer that people who don’t like coffee just haven’t had a good cup (or they have bad taste but that’s another problem—one I can’t do anything about).<span> </span>\n\nI\'ve been in Bulgaria for six weeks and not once have I missed my Americano, not once have I longed for a Starbucks and not once have I had to add milk to my coffee (not that there is any available).  I am living in a coffee crazy country and it shows.  There is simply no need for any of these things and the choices are uncomplicated and straight forward.\n\nThere is the cafe espresso--a small strong coffee which you can add sugar to or not.  This is usually followed by the long coffee--something that I think is the smaller cousin of the Americano.  I tend to order one of these two drinks.  Mind you they are much, much smaller than the \"short\" size at Starbucks (which yes they still serve it\'s just not on the menu, you have to know to ask for it) but much, much cheaper.\n\nIn my neighborhood outdoor cafe, I can get a coffee espresso (or a long coffee) and a bottle of water for 1.80 leva and in a shop on my block the total is slightly more 2.10 leva.  Out of the coffee machine in my kitchen the prices are almost nothing--.20 leva--the only problem is that you\'ve got to have exact change which is more of a challenge than I like to admit (see my earlier post on the cash economy).  And at school, they are making a killing on me.  I\'ve gotten in the habit of having a coffee when I arrive before my language class and then again during the break.  At .40 leva a cup times two a day for most days that we\'ve met the school is going to have a maximum of 12 leva of mine by the time the classes are over.\n\nThe thing is 12 leva wouldn\'t even support my weekly Americano habit in the US.  I can\'t help but wonder, how did I get so lucky to find myself for a year in a country that is committed to caffeine?!\n\nIn Washington DC, my friends and I used to joke that the Starbucks were strategically placed to draw you in.  The first one you can resist, the second one makes you think that a cup of coffee would be nice and if the third one in 8 blocks doesn\'t pull you in the fourth one will. And once you get in the habit it\'s that much harder to sit at your desk and slog through emails out it.\n\nHere, it\'s worse, much worse. And I love it all the more for that.  There are no Starbucks but on every block there is a cafe selling coffee and offering place to sit down and in nearly every building I\'ve been in there a coffee machine dispensing plastic cups to take your coffee on the go. There\'s no advertising--just the smell of coffee and everyone with one in hand.  I\'d like to think that I am not one to follow the crowd but it\'s impossible not to have a cup or three a day.\n\nI can\'t justify it and I am not going to try to.  Just know that if/when you come to visit me, you\'ll be indulging with me in my new coffee habit. Oh and if you don\'t come to visit me but plan on seeing me upon my return--give me a week or two I am going to be suffering from serious caffeine withdraw!!','Starbucks in Sofia','','publish','open','open','','starbucks-in-sofia','','','2008-09-11 21:38:51','2008-09-11 18:38:51','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=164',0,'post','',0),(171,1,'2008-09-14 12:22:02','2008-09-14 09:22:02','I found myself thinking about the Fulbright application process this morning.  Over the last four years, it\'s been kind of an obsession of mine--or it was for four years at Georgetown University where I worked in the Office of Fellowships as the Associate Director and served as the university\'s Fulbright Program Advisor.  I found myself thinking about the Fulbright because I realized that Friday, September 12th was the internal application due date for applications on campus.  I know this because I set the application due date a year and half ago.\n\nHere I am on my own Fulbright fellowship, six times zones away from Washington DC and I am worrying about the application process.  I think that it\'s become routine for me.  This is what the fall is about when you work in an office of fellowships and scholarships--lots of questions, a fair amount of worrying, 100s of letters of recommendation to manage, large doses of disappointment (the kind of disappointment that breaks your heart) and a couple of successful candidates.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nStatistically speaking, it is pretty incredible that students actually win these fellowship for post-graduate study or research.  This is because the odds are stacked against a student actually winning a fellowship.  There are 32 Rhodes Scholarships, 40 Marshall Scholarships, 12 Mitchell Scholarships and something like 1400 Fulbright Fellowships a year.  Given the number of students graduating from college each year, it\'s hard to imagine that it\'s possible that students can actually win these scholarships but they do.\n\nThe question is: what I am I doing worrying about Georgetown\'s current applicants if I am happily on my own Fulbright fellowship? In part, it\'s because I\'ve been working with this group of applicants for the last year helping them prepare for the application process, I am invested in them and I want them to be successful. Moreover, I\'ve only been here for six weeks and already I\'ve realized that this experience is about so much more than me teaching English at the First English Language High School in Sofia.  As a result, I want as many of my Georgetown students as possible to have access to similar experiences.\n\nHowever, I fully recognize that the application experience is also about disappointment.  Last year, I think that over 6,000 people applied for something like 1,400 Fulbright fellowships.  Roughly this means that 1 in 6 people won grants but it also means that of these six people five did not win grants.\n\nI know this disappointment both personally and professionally.  As a graduating senior from Wittenberg University, I made a Fulbright application to Germany to research images of women in the media.  I was recommended to country but was ultimately named an alternate.  I graduated in May unsure what I was going to do next with the cutting sense that the four years I spent studying German in college had been pretty pointless. I was unprepared for this loss and the disappointment that came with it.  I was graduating with both university honors and departmental honors; I had been editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper for a year; I was used to success.  All of this success seemed like nothing in comparison to not winning a Fulbright. Disappointment like this isn\'t easy to overcome.\n\nProfessionally, Ive seen the same in many of my students.  In fact, watching students manage to navigate and negotiate their own disappointment isn\'t much easier than when I had to deal with my own years earlier.  There isn\'t much that you can say or do to help ameliorate this kind of disappointment.\n\nThis kind of deep disappointment makes you question who you are, what you know and what you are doing with your life.  In many ways, the fellowship process sets you up for either great highs or great lows.  There is no in between.  This is because you can\'t go into the process thinking that you wont win because well you will not win.  You have to make the application believing that you can be successful--you have to believe wholeheartedly.  The result is that the hurt is doubly bad then if you are unsuccessful.\n\nIt certainly doesn\'t help that the major fellowships require somewhere between three and eight letters of recommendation.  So a loss often makes students feel like they\'ve let down not only themselves but also anyone who has invested time in helping support them in their fellowship bid including faculty letter writers, members of interview committees, friends, family and even staff in the fellowship office. In reality, this is far from the case but it\'s hard not to imagine that you\'ve let down everyone around you, when you feel so incredibly let down yourself.\n\nMore than once, I\'ve had students tell me that they are sorry that they didn\'t win (I know you are, I am too). But in telling me this, they also seem to be apologizing to me for not winning (something that is, of course, completely unnecessary).  Yes, I want each of my students be successful in their fellowship bids but my own disappointment has taught me that it\'s okay not win--it just takes time to realize this especially if this is your first serious disappointment, as it was for me.\n\nNow here I am, five years after graduating from Wittenberg University, living in Sofia and preparing to start teaching English on a Fulbright fellowship.  I didn\'t know when I made the first application how my life would continue to be influenced by the Fulbright.  I didn\'t know that the experience would drive me to help nearly 50 other people win Fulbright fellowships before I finally won my own.  I didn\'t know if I could bear making another application.\n\nI didn\'t know how much disappointment I could actually take but what I did know was that this experience advising students and working with them on their applications motivated me to apply again and for this I am grateful. Luckily, this time around I didn\'t have to test my capacity for disappointment but it was there, lurking.  It would have been easier to make sense of and to deal with this time around, but it wouldn\'t have hurt any less.  This is, I think, one of the things that applying for competitive fellowships teaches most of us--that we have a great capacity for disappointment <em>and</em> that not winning a fellowship is by no means the end.','Fulbright Applications','','publish','open','open','','fulbright-applications','','','2008-09-14 12:22:02','2008-09-14 09:22:02','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=171',0,'post','',11),(188,1,'2008-09-15 21:56:28','2008-09-15 18:56:28','','First day of School','','inherit','open','open','','dsc03567','','','2008-09-15 21:56:28','2008-09-15 18:56:28','',185,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03567.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(189,1,'2008-09-15 21:59:15','2008-09-15 18:59:15','','Children on the First Day of School','','inherit','open','open','','dsc03565','','','2008-09-15 21:59:15','2008-09-15 18:59:15','',185,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03565.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(190,1,'2008-09-15 22:00:43','2008-09-15 19:00:43','','Cheerleaders','','inherit','open','open','','dsc03576','','','2008-09-15 22:00:43','2008-09-15 19:00:43','',185,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03576.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(185,1,'2008-09-15 22:07:27','2008-09-15 19:07:27','[caption id=\"attachment_189\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Childern at First English Language School\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03565.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-189\" title=\"Children on the First Day of School \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03565.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nToday was the first day of school in Bulgaria.  I love the first day of school.  I love buying new pens and pencils, I love role-call and learning who is in your class, I love figuring out which color of notebook I want to use for each class, I love opening a textbook for the first time and I even think that I love chalkboards. Okay, frankly, I just love school.  But I especially love the excitement of the new school year.  However, the first day of school that I know from the states cannot compare to the first day I just participated in here in Sofia.\n\nI left to my school this morning early because I was told that the buses and trams would be crowded with school children.  This was pretty good advice.  I was also to expect that students would be bring their teachers flowers--they were.  It was amazing to see little girls and boys with flowers and older high school age children also with flowers for their teachers.  One boy especially caught my eye, he was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and had the hood pulled up; he was listening to music because I could see the cords going into his hood; he was skinny and in the US I would describe him as disaffected.  He also had a compact bouquet of flowers--in pink and white.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nBy this point, it was raining pretty steadily.  Admittedly not a great way to start off the year but what are you going do?  Anyhow, I got to the school pretty early but even then there was already a large crowd of students and parents forming and when I went to the front door there was my favorite guard turning people away from the school.  After my first run-in with him, I thought great... but I smiled at him, he smiled at me and let me in.  Phew. I wish I could have a real conversation with him but I guess that right now I am doing what I can do.\n\nSo I went to the teacher\'s room to confirm my schedule and was glad that I did.  It\'s changed a little bit.  Now on the first week I am teaching on Thursday mornings and on the second week, I am teaching on Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays but don\'t worry I am not working whole days.  I was proud of myself to be able to figure this out on my own because the schedule was all in Bulgarian (good thing I know my days of the week!).\n\nAt 9 am, the program got started.  I enjoyed this a lot.  It turns out that the<a href=\"http://www.fels-sofia.org/\" target=\"_blank\"> First English Language High School</a> also shares some of the physical space with an elementary school. This means that there were lots of really little and really cute little kids in their new school clothes holding flowers and umbrellas.  The highlights of the program were as follows:\n<ol>\n	<li>the high school band opens.</li>\n	<li>then the national anthem.</li>\n	<li>some talking in Bulgarian.</li>\n	<li>children of different ages sign (what I think must have been traditional Bulgarian folk songs).</li>\n	<li>a group of high school girls sang this strangely recognizable song which turned out to be Hanson\'s Mmm-Bop.  I however didn\'t catch on until the refrain of mmm-bops.</li>\n	<li>more talking.</li>\n	<li>then out come the cheerleaders and everyone is really excited for this.  I was too.  Especially when they started doing their routine to a techno piece--silly me thinking that cheerleaders could only dance to country; it must be that\'s what cheerleaders who go to high school in eastern Washington dance to.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_190\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Cheerleaders \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03576.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-190\" title=\"Cheerleaders \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/dsc03576.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]</li>\n	<li>shortly after this all of the little children start filling into the school based on their grade.  Everyone cheered for the first class and they were so cute.  This is what the first day of school should be about, always--being excited to go to school and to start learning.</li>\n	<li>about this time, the older students started throwing chunks of carrots.  I learned later that these carrots were aimed at the 8 graders but while it was happening it seemed very random.  It was very strange.  I\'ve never seen anything like it.  The teachers looked annoyed but no one did anything to stop it and I hoped that my umbrella would provide ample coverage if people started throwing carrots at me. Luckily, they didn\'t.  I guess that this \"tradition\" has something to do with the 8th graders the youngest students in the high school being new--like baby rabbits.  Sorry I don\'t know more about this.</li>\n</ol>\nAfter this, the program was more or less over and while I stood in the rain trying to figure out what to do next one of the English teachers came up to me and told me that all of the teachers would be going into the school to celebrate the new school year.  Alright.  I made my way into the high school.  The little kids were inside and all of the high school students were outside talking, catching up and joking around. In the teacher\'s room, it\'s about 10:30 in the morning and there was lots of food, soda and chocolate out on the table.  Everyone was catching up and I observed everyone--I am \"the Native Speaker\" (as the principle always introduces me) and I think that I might make people nervous to talk to me.\n\nAnyhow, then came the last thing I was expecting.  After what I think is another welcome back to school, best wishes to you for the upcoming year and other encouraging words kind of speech, it turns out to be a toast.  Also on the table, but I haven\'t noticed them, are bottles of whiskey, vodka, gin and boxes of wine.  So everyone has a drink, we say a number of Na\'zdraves (that\'s cheers!) and then everyone sits around eating and drinking for the next couple of hours.\n\nAt first I wasn\'t sure who I was going to talk to but then this older man who teaches Computer Science invited me over to sit next to him and we started talking.  His background is math and physics--he was really interesting.  He has a PhD in Physics and some great stories about using early computers in the 1970\'s where you still had to make cards that where whole punched for the computer to \"read.\"  And luckily for me, once I was talking to him it was much easier to talk to the other teachers.\n\nTwo women that I talked to were especially fun--they wanted to know how old I was and if I was married (Zhenena li ste?).  The result of this was that one whole end of the table of women in their 40-60\'s started telling me about how pretty I am, how nice Bulgarian men are and that they were sure I could find someone--but that I should know he wont be rich.  There is something strangely reassuring to know that women of this age all ask the same questions and worry about the same kinds of things--not that I am in a hurry to get married.\n\nI left the school at about 12:30pm having eaten a huge amount of homemade banichka (this was amazing and I am sure amazingly bad for me but I am still determined that I need to learn how to make this), a slice of cake, peanuts and pretzels, a piece of this beautiful bread which I can now not remember the name of and lots of chocolate.  At one point, I tried to turn down eating a piece because I had a drink in one hand and a chunk of banichka in the other and the teacher but the wrapped piece of chocolate in my blazer pocket!\n\nI took the trolley-bus home and thought I would post right away about my first day of school.  Instead, I promptly fell asleep on the couch.  I am not used to having two drinks in the evenings let alone at 10:30 in the morning.\n\nAll in all, I can\'t imagine a better way to start my year teaching at the First English Language High School.','First Day of School!','','publish','open','open','','first-day-of-school','','','2008-09-15 22:07:27','2008-09-15 19:07:27','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=185',0,'post','',12),(195,1,'2008-09-16 22:17:50','2008-09-16 19:17:50','I thought I was having a no-good, ugly-rotten day today.  I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning even with my alarm clock beeping and beeping.  My faucet in the bathroom drips and drips and after brushing my teeth I couldn\'t get it to stop.  Then I went to make coffee and I didn\'t have .20 Leva for the coffee machine in my kitchen and it requires exact change... of course.\n\nI called the Fulbright lawyer about my visa extension application and she asked if we could meet tomorrow at 9:30 because the next step will take much more time and I\'ll have to wait for at least an hour while they have my passport.  Sure, I\'ll be there.  But what I wanted to add was: I hope.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThen I went to school.  I didn\'t have to go but I needed a more clear idea of what I was actually going to to be teaching this year.  I double checked my schedule to make sure that I\'d written it down correctly.  And then I tried to talked to my supervisor.  When I knocked on her door no one answered and it was locked.  Not that I had an appointment or anything.  Luckily, another English teacher had shown me where the library was so I went down there to look through some English Language text books.  The librarian didn\'t speak English--not that I should be surprised by this.  So I read through a couple of chapters and took some notes and after maybe a half an hour the librarian made it clear to me that I had to leave.  Great.  Now I am being kicked out of the library and I didn\'t know why.  Isn\'t there a rule against this?\n\nWell, I decide that I am going to go and see the principle.  It turns out the librarian had the same idea.  Somehow, all the way down the hall I am in front of her but she ends up in the principle\'s office before me.  So now I am waiting some more.  It\'s this point, that I realize that I am having a no-good, ugly-rotten day today and it kind of makes me want to cry.  But I think there\'s a rule against that so I try really hard not to and I succeed.\n\nWhen I get to talk to the principle, she is very nice to me and answers a lot of my questions about what exactly I am going to be teaching this year.  Then she tells me that today the 8th grade teachers are meeting with their classes at 1pm and that I should introduce myself to each class.  Okay.  I can do this.  It seems a little bit strange just to march into another teachers class but the principle has told me to so I decide it will be alright.\n\nSo I went across the street and had a coffee, a banitsa with cheese and bottle of water.  Things looked better after that.  I am not sure but I think that this trio maybe be a magical combination.\n\nBack at the school, I introduced myself to each of the 8th grade classes.  They are so young and were so cute.  I am excited to start teaching them.  I did however get a few blank looks and I am now a little worried that I talk to fast and that students may not tell me to slow down because they don\'t want to be rude.  I guess, I\'ll just wait and see; it may be a different story when their supervising teacher isn\'t in the room.\n\nAnyhow, that went well and from here I think my day started to turn around.  I went on search for an iron and a hair-dryer and I found both for good prices.  I am going to be a new person starting tomorrow--my clothes will be neat and well pressed and my hair will be, hopefully, less disheveled looking.  I also think it would help if my bangs looked a little neater but the last time I gave my bangs a trim out of desperation before a job interview I ended up having to change the side I part my hair on because I didn\'t do it right... so I am going to wait this out a little longer.\n\nThen I stopped by the Fulbright office and had a great chat with the coordinator and on my way out of her office I stopped at a magazine stand looking for a copy of this English language magazine published in Sofia on life, culture and politics in Bulgaria called <a href=\"http://www.vagabond-bg.com/?page=guide&amp;sub=33&amp;open_news=406\" target=\"_blank\">Vagabond</a>.  So I bought a copy of this.\n\nAt some point in all of this, I realized I think that fall is coming and I stopped working about what I was going to be teaching this year and started paying attention to the way the city is slowly changing--it\'s not summer any more.  I got home and dropped of my hair-dyer and iron and went out to the local market.  There are still lots of summer veggies but this time I also saw more squash and fewer fresh raspberries.  It\'s funny how the seasons change and one day you open your eyes and think hey, it\'s getting colder.  Certainly it doesn\'t help that it\'s been raining on and off for four days, so I don\'t really know for sure that it\'s fall but is doesn\'t feel like summer any more either.\n\nI made a great dinner for myself a spin on this <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/health/nutrition/04recipehealth.html?ex=1236225600&amp;en=1f4057d140508efb&amp;ei=5087&amp;WT.mc_id=HL-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M060-ROS-0908-PH&amp;WT.mc_ev=click&amp;mkt=HL-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M060-ROS-0908-PH\" target=\"_blank\">great recipe from the NYT</a>.  I have to say that I didn\'t know eggplant could taste so good.  To my foodie roommates in DC, I couldn\'t follow the recipe a 100% because I couldn\'t find any celery (well I didn\'t look) or capers (which I did look for) so I put in some green pepper and some extra green olives and viola it was done and delicious.  I even cut a whole onion without crying--the first time in years I have been able to do that.\n\nAnd when I realized this, I thought: I guess this wasn\'t such a no-good, ugly-rotten day after all.\n\nThen the best thing that\'s happened to me in a long time happened.  Beer in hand, I switched on the tv after dinner and there it was: the music was just queuing for Law and Order: SVU <em>and </em>for the first 30 minutes I thought it was an episode I\'d never seen before. Well, it turns out I\'d seen it before but in Bulgarian it was like new.\n\nSo there you have it, I spent the whole day worrying about what was new to me, what was unknown, what was a surprise and in the process making myself anxious and unhappy (it\'s not every day I think that I am have a no-good, ugly-rotten day, you should know) when what I could have been doing was embracing the new and the unknown.   I did come here for a new adventure after all.\n\nAnd now, I am going to bed.','Today','','publish','open','open','','today','','','2008-09-16 22:17:50','2008-09-16 19:17:50','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=195',0,'post','',4),(201,1,'2008-09-17 18:44:28','2008-09-17 15:44:28','I just had my first \"Real Conversation\" in Bulgarian!! I conjugated verbs and everything.  It was amazing.  My landlord came over to give me the receipts for internet, water, electricity and the like and I was able to communicate to him that water heater seems to be dripping.  Okay it helped that I could show it to him and that he is patient but it was great to know that I can talk to other people in Bulgarian.  I didn\'t even have to use that much German with him today.  Wow!\n\nI know that this is a little triumph but it\'s enough for me (for today anyhow).  It reminds me that I am actually learning Bulgarian and that I need Bulgarian for more than just ordering coffee in cafes or food in restaurants.  I like talking and it\'s hard on me sometimes to find myself surrounded by people who seem to be talking all of the time on the bus, on cell phones, in the grocery store and on the streets and for me not to understand any of what they are saying.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nYesterday, when I thought I was having a no-good, ugly-rotten day, an older woman came up to me at the bus stop to either ask me about a bus route or if a bus had been by but she spoke too fast and I probably didn\'t know the answer anyway so I told her that I only spoke a little Bulgarian (with the emphasis on little).  She smiled and found someone else to ask the question to.  The thing is, I wanted to answer her but I couldn\'t.  I know that I am not going to become fluent overnight but I hate stumbling around in the language.\n\nI also hate that I can\'t get used to the Bulgarian head nods.  The problem is that the Bulgarians do this side to side head thing for yes--which looks very much like the way we shake our heads no in America.  Here\'s how it usually happens: I decide I am going to get a coffee so I go to one of the many coffee places in my neighborhood.  On the way I practice my order in my head.  Specifically, I try to make sure that I get the gender agreements on the adjectives correct and I repeat over and over again the word for mineral (минераленa) as in mineral water because for some reason I can never get it off my tongue correctly.  So by the time I\'ve done this a few times, I am usually at one of the cafes.\n\nI sit down and wait for someone to take my order.  For the record, I should add here that I\'ve never made an order and had the waitress look at me blankly but that is my fear so I practice every time.  I also try to think it quickly so that I can say it succinctly.  For some reason, I think that being able to do this will make me less well not-Bulgarian (unlikely, I know).\n\nThe waitress will come and I\'ll order and then I try to inflect an okay at the end of my sentence and additionally, I try to give her a look that says: you do understand what I want right? Then without fail, she\'ll give me the side to side head nod which I know means yes but I always think she\'s shaking her head no.  In this moment, I have this sinking feeling: oh, how am I going to explain what I want? and while I am thinking this I realize that she is walking away from me to fill my order because... she actually understood my order and was shaking her head yes--stupid.\n\nSo it\'s for this reason that I am inordinately proud of myself today after meeting with my landlord.  Oh and he saw the post-it notes around my apartment which I\'ve used to label most everything: chair, table, tv, stove, sink, and the list goes on and on--and he added the word coat rack (I did this because I realized the other day that I need a much, much bigger vocabulary and I figured why not start with what I use everyday? ).  And then because he used to be a teacher, he told me what a great job I was doing.  He also saw my Bulgarian Language certificate which I posted near my front door so that I can admire it and I think he was very impressed with my score of 6.0--that\'s the highest.  And that was that. He kissed me on both cheeks and I told him that I would see him soon and to have a nice day in Bulgarian.\n\nThe best part is that he\'s coming back this week to fix the dripping so that means I get to have another conversation with him!','A Real Conversation','','publish','open','open','','a-real-conversation','','','2008-09-17 18:44:28','2008-09-17 15:44:28','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=201',0,'post','',2),(205,1,'2008-09-20 15:19:59','2008-09-20 12:19:59','Well, I currently don\'t have hot water or the internet at my apartment.  I guess when it rains it pours.  Anyhow, I noticed that the hot water heater which is conveniently located in my shower was dripping water the other morning.  I saw my landlord the next day and he had a guy into look at it a day later.  Well.  He took off the bottom of the heater and sure enough it was broken and it wasn\'t something the repair guy could just fix--my landlord has to buy a new one.\n\nSo yesterday, I sat in my living room listening to all of the water drain slowly but steadily out of the hot water heater for the better part of two hours.  My landlord apologized profusely--as if it was somehow his fault--and I couldn\'t come up with any words to explain to him that it wasn\'t that big of deal to me.  Really, given the option, I would rather shower in the mornings with a fully functioning hot water heater.  The only thing that made me nervous was that on his way out, he asked me if I had any friends in the city and if I could shower at her house.  I said yes but forgot to add the \"ka\" on the end of the word--in effect saying that I a male friend whose house I could shower at.  My landlord laughed at me and said really?! Clearly teasing me and I corrected my mistake (but really, why does eveything have a gender here and why I can\'t I remember that!?!) It was only then that I began to wonder how long it was going to take to replace the hot water heater.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nAfter he left, the internet conveniently went out and now it\'s been more than 24 hours and it\'s still not back on.  I guess that my landlord\'s son called about it and the response he received was: we\'re having problems in that neighborhood.  Oh.  Great. I miss you too internet...just not as much as I miss the hot water.\n\nThis situation however, gave me plenty of time to sit around and think about what I should do with myself.  I decided to cut my bangs.  Clearly when you don\'t have hot water or internet, one should engage in self -improvement projects.  So this is what I did.  I cut my own bangs--a lot-- at least an inch and I have to say they turned out great.\n\nAfter this, I got ready to have some of my new friends over last night to drink beer and hang out.  I laughed really hard at one point when I opened my fridge and there was beer, cheese, bread and some assorted veggies.  When did I become a college frat-boy? Anyhow, it was great to have everyone over and we had a lot of fun.  I also got a kick out of the fact that most of the propel knew one of the previous Fulbrighters who lived in my apartment.  Those who knew him came in looked around and it took them a little bit of time to get used to the apartment being mine because I don\'t think it\'s changed much since he lived here two years ago.  Well aside from the rent and I think that I keep the place cleaner.\n\nHowever, this morning when I woke up I was beginning to feel like  not having water was impacting my quality of life--especially when i realized that last night I used every glass in my apartment to serve drinks in and I have no way to clean them.  I decided to line the glasses up in two neat rows and to try not let them bother me. Funny how, yesterday it didn\'t seem like that big of a deal not to have hot water for a day or two but today, it\'s kind of a different story.\n\nSo, this afternoon rather than engage in any more self-improvement projects, I decided to go to this great little coffee shop/bar in my neighborhood and to have coffee and use the internet.  I\'ve checked my email, read up on world events (thanks Washington Post and New York Times), poked around on Facebook and now here I am writing this post.  I\'ve got to go home soon to meet my landlord who hopefully has good news for me.\n\nIf not, my new Bulgarian friends are going to hear from me shortly when I begin begging to take a shower...or even better maybe I\'ll try to barter for a shower hopefully it won\'t cost me more than a beer or two.','I miss you, hot water','','publish','open','open','','i-miss-you-hot-water','','','2008-09-20 15:19:59','2008-09-20 12:19:59','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=205',0,'post','',5),(208,1,'2008-09-24 16:34:20','2008-09-24 13:34:20','Well, I am happy to write that the internet is back on at my place.  The hot water heater is working.  AND, I just got to watch my landlord stock up my coffee machine and had the opportunity to try out my pretty bad Bulgarian on him.  All in all, a pretty good day.  Oh and my 8th graders are the cutest things on earth.\n\nOf course, life can\'t always go this smoothly and I\'ve been kind of waiting round for the third bad thing to come my way.  First was the water heater, second was the internet and third, well, this happened at some point before lunch.  It was at lunch that I looked down at my shoe and there it was--my right big toe was sticking out of my ballet flats.  Yes, somehow I got got a huge hole in the toe of my shoe.  The leather top seems to have pulled away from the sole revealing my big toe.\n\nLuckily, I have other shoes here in Sofia <em>and</em> there are lots of shoe stores in my neighborhood.  It was just funny to look down and see my toe sticking out of shoe. I am glad that I\'m done with trouble for the time being and very glad to have the internet working in my apartment again.\n\nAnyhow more from me later this week on school and my students after the Fulbright orientation in Sofia has been completed.','Trouble comes in Threes!','','publish','open','open','','trouble-comes-in-threes','','','2008-09-24 16:34:20','2008-09-24 13:34:20','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=208',0,'post','',0),(211,1,'2008-09-27 19:41:36','2008-09-27 16:41:36','Okay, I\'ve just been introduced to this great blog called <a href=\"http://sosofia.com/\" target=\"_blank\">SoSofia</a> and it\'s SoGreat.  One of my new friends from FISI studies at Sofia University in the department of English and American Studies with the brother and sister pair who write the blog and she said in passing one night you should check out this blog.  The next morning I couldn\'t remember the name of the blog but after a post on Facebook to her wall, I had the name and url to the site.\n\nHere\'s why I think it is great:\n\n<!--more-->\n<ol>\n	<li>The site is in English and it\'s well written.</li>\n	<li>The blog is not trying to sell foreigners property on the Black Sea (but I think that if this brother/sister partnership wanted they could and would do a great job at it)!</li>\n	<li>The restaurants, bars and other sites they review are actually cool for 20-somethings in Sofia and this is important because so many of the reviews other places are for older more well connected people.</li>\n	<li>I\'ve been to a couple of the places they reviewed before learning of the blog and I agreed with their reviews.</li>\n	<li>I am looking for fun, lively, moderately inexpensive places to go in Sofia and their site seems to cater to this with out being either over the top in the descriptions or snarky.</li>\n</ol>\nSo, after obsessively reading every posting on their site, I think that I am qualified to render the above judgement.  This act of reading every post (of which there are a lot) also left me a little bit delirious and made me think that I should then contact the brother and sister writing the blog visa vie their contact us tab.  I did.\n\nI told them how much I liked their blog and gasp! They wrote back to me.  I decided to write back and to link my blog to their blog (because I think that this is what bloggers do).  And again, gasp, I do this because I think I might actually be becoming a blogger.  Anyhow, now I think that I might have blog friends because we exchanged skype names and I have talked to sister of the brother sister pair via skype.  (Oh and it\'s probally worth saying that in Bulgaria most of the Bulgarians I know use skype for the chat function rather than to call and actually talk to me over the internet.)\n\nOkay, I hope that everyone checks out this great blog on Sofia and that this inspires each of you to start making travel plans to come and visit me.  I know that some of you are skeptical but, see, there really is great stuff to do in this city (oh and it\'s still affordable even with the economic crisis)!!','Sofia Blog: So Sofia','','publish','open','open','','sofia-blog-so-sofia','','','2008-09-27 19:41:36','2008-09-27 16:41:36','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=211',0,'post','',0),(213,1,'2008-09-28 23:39:55','2008-09-28 20:39:55','I never imagined that I would be overwhelmed with options in Bulgaria.  I think that I thought this is for two reasons. First, in the States we seem to have about 15-20 different choices for everything when you go to the store.  This goes for kinds of cheese to shampoo to dish soap to boxes of cereal and even pain killers and sandwich bags.  In other words, I thought no one can have more options than I am faced with on a daily basis in Washington DC.  Second, I think I may have been imagining Bulgaria as a post-communist country still.  A country where I would get to decide between do different brands and ultimately make my decision based on which packaging appealed to me.\n\nNaive. This I now know completely and utterly naive.\n\nYesterday I went to the Apteka--or pharmacy to buy face lotion. Easy you might think.  I thought so too.  But it\'s not.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nNow that I\'ve said this, I think that some background is necessary for those readers living outside of Bulgaria.  There seems to be about three different ways that these stores--the aptekas--are set up.  The first is that nearly everything is behind the counter--tooth paste, tampons, conditioner, contact solution and you have to ask for it.  It may not be a surprise but given my current level of familiarity with the language I am intimidated by this set-up.  I have purchased successfully from this kind of a store contact solution and tooth paste (which I was glad to be able to point at through the glass).  The second is that some things are out in the isle like shampoo, body wash, hairspray, body lotion and make-up and then other things are behind the counter like tampons, deodorant and all of the non-prescription medicines and pain relievers. Meaning that somethings you can pick-up off the shelf and purchase and other things you have to request (and hope that you know the names of things that you want)  The final kind of store has almost everything out on the store floor hair dye, sunscreen, hair removal products--you name it and only medicine like things are behind the counter.\n\nThe Apteka closest to my house is the second kind and this is where I have purchased most of my personal care products--shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, hair spray and hair gel.  I can look around, I have time to read the labels and it\'s convenient.  This said, yesterday I went to buy face lotion.  I am not a very picky person and am lucky to have skin that is fairly easy going.  So I planned to go in look at my options and pick one. Ha, ha.\n\nAt the store, I couldn\'t find face lotion on the self with the other lotions.  Nor did I see face wash.  That\'s when for the first time I looked carefully behind the counter and realized that all of these things seemed to be on the wall behind the counter.  On top of this, the wall is far enough I way that I can\'t really read the fine print, I don\'t really know what I am looking for <em>and</em> there are so many different kinds I don\'t even know where to start.  Great.  All I have is a phrase that my tutor gave me in Washington DC which is something like crem za litse or the direct translation seems to be cream for the face.  And this doesn\'t seem to be getting me anywhere.  The woman is bring me what looks like face wash or alternately little tiny bottles of creams that are marked 30+ leva (which seems like too much to pay).\n\nAfter the woman waiting on me made a couple of trips back and forth from the wall to the counter, which actually isn\'t that far away, I can tell that she is frustrated with me.  I find myself wishing that she could speak English or that I could speak Bulgarian because I don\'t like people being annoyed with me.  I also don\'t like the feeling that I am troubling someone and all of this makes me flustered and frustrated so that I can\'t really think in Bulgarian.  All I want is face lotion.  Anyhow, this back and forth goes no where and I leave empty handed.\n\nI remember that I know where a bigger store is so I walk over there.  Here, I easily find conditioner that I want but when it comes to the face lotion, it\'s again a different story.  How can there be so many different brands? and how can there be so many different products for the face? And why don\'t any of them seem to say simply lotion for the face? I wish I knew what I was looking for.\n\nSo I stand there in front of the boxes of lotion and read and read trying to make sense of what the store has to offer.  Everything seems to be face wash, toner or products for pimples or wrinkles.  I can\'t help wondering: doesn\'t anyone in the country use just a plain straightforward face lotion? About this time a young sales girl says good afternoon to me and I think she asks me if I need help with anything.  I ask her if she speaks English.  She doesn\'t and walks away. <em>Awesome.</em>\n\nAlright then.  So I stand there some more looking at the boxes.  I realize that I am not buying face lotion today and go to stand in line to buy the hair conditioner I have been carrying around the store for a half an hour.  I figure that I\'ll ask a friend that I am meeting for dinner to write down the name of the product she uses and I\'ll come back the next day.  <em>Who knew this would be such a process?</em>\n\nWell, I asked her after dinner and she basically told me that she didn\'t use any.  This is, I think, wholly unfair because since I\'ve moved to Bulgaria I think that my entire body is drying out and I drink plenty of water.  Sofia, I think, sucks the moisture out of me.  I put body lotion on every day, my hair needs more conditioner than normal, my lips seem to be constantly chapped when I wake up in the mornings and my face requires extra doses of lotion in the morning and before bed.  And, she doesn\'t use facial lotion?!?  Man, that\'s not fair.\n\nSo, I\'ve made a mental list of other friends to ask about what kind and brand of face lotion they use and if this fails, I guess I\'ll just go back to store and buy a few things and hope to find a magic brand or combination that makes my face feel less like a desert or sandpaper and more like my face again.  Wish me luck!','Shopping: Apteka!?!','','publish','open','open','','shopping-apteka','','','2008-09-28 23:39:55','2008-09-28 20:39:55','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=213',0,'post','',5),(217,1,'2008-09-30 12:16:43','2008-09-30 09:16:43','Yesterday, I was waiting to cross a fairly busy street.  The light had just turned red.  I had been at school and was crossing to go and get a coffee and banitsa to kill 90 minutes until a 4pm meeting.  This is when a little old woman starts talking to me.\n\nShe has her hair back in a scarf and maybe comes up to my shoulder--maybe--and I have no idea what she is saying to me.  I tell her in Bulgarian that I only speak a little Bulgarian.  This doesn\'t seem to phase her and she continues talking to me.  Unlike other people, she doesn\'t slow down or talk louder.  She just keeps talking to me.  I tell her once that I don\'t understand.  When she continues talking to me, I wonder if I haven\'t said correctly that I don\'t understand.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nSo I tell her in Bulgarian that I am from America and I am a teacher of English at that school (and point).  And yes, she continues to talk to me! About this time, she also takes hold of my hand and given what I think I understand of our \"conversation,\" she wants me to help her across the street.  The light changes and I help her across the street very slowly. All the while she is still talking to me.  Although the more apt description may be that she is talking <em>at me</em>. And by the time we are across the street I like her all the more for it.\n\nShe knows exactly what she wants: me to help her cross the street.  So she talks to me, takes my arm and I walk across the street with her because frankly I don\'t have another option--it\'s not like I am going to leave her there on the corner.\n\nOn the other side of the street, I tell her have a nice day and she says the same to me.  It\'s the first time in the five or so minutes that we\'ve been \"talking\" that it\'s clear to me that we are on the same page.  I walk down the block to cross another street and she continues on her way, slowly.  Standing there watching her, it makes me wonder if I should have invited her to have a coffee with me.  This is one of the things that I am able to do after my three week Bulgarian language class. (And, I think that I could get to coffees, two bottles of water and two banitsa for the same price as one grande mocha at Starbucks!!)\n\nShe hasn\'t gotten far so I could go back and ask but I don\'t. My mother has never warned me about meeting old women on the street but I\'ve heard plenty about meeting and talking to strangers so I go on with my day.  At the cafe, much to my delight I realize that I\'ve become a regular.  The woman waiting on me is older and she smiles and speaks slowly to me, which I appreciate more than she probably knows, and asks me if I want my coffee for here or in a plastic cup.  For here I tell her and that is that!\n\nThinking about it now, it\'s hard to say what I should have done--ask this woman to have coffee with me or not.  It was a chance encounter--it might have been really interesting or at least very funny given my limited Bulgarian and her love of talking.  Anyhow, the only thing I can do now is write about the experience and hope that she made it home okay.','Chance encounter','','publish','open','open','','chance-encounter','','','2008-09-30 12:16:43','2008-09-30 09:16:43','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=217',0,'post','',4),(223,1,'2008-10-01 21:58:50','2008-10-01 18:58:50','I had my first dinner guest over tonight.  As luck would have it, we\'re both from the same hometown: Walla Walla, Washington and we both graduated from the same high school.  Well that\'s not very hard because it\'s the only public school in town.  Anyhow, strange as it maybe, the first person I made dinner for in my apartment in Sofia from is from my tiny home town.  Population 30,000 maybe.   For more information on this great town you can check out <a title=\"Surprise, Surprise \" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walla_Walla,_Washington\" target=\"_blank\">Wikipedia</a>.  Most of you know that Walla Walla is the town so nice they named it twice but for the rest of you who didn\'t know this--now you do too.\n\nMatty T my dinner guest is keeping his own blog about his time in Sofia.  So if you get tired of reading what I have to say or want a different point of view, you might want to check his <a title=\"Matty T\" href=\"http://backinbulgaria.blogspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\">blog</a> out.  I think that he\'s off to a great start.  I make an appearance in the first video and to set the scene the cafe we are sitting in and the square that the church is in are both a part of my neighborhood.  (Just imagine, you too could be visiting me come spring and have a similar experience!! hint. hint.)\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI made a roast vegetable dish with shell pasta and crumbled cheese and served this with a great whole wheat loaf of crusty french bread.  I think that the dish is an ode to Sofia in the fall.  The veggies in the local market have begun to shift away from summer squash and cucumbers to pumpkins, onions, potatoes and other pumpkin like squashes.  But there are still peppers and tomatoes so I don\'t think that the summer/early fall veggies are completely gone yet but they are on their way out.\n\nThe dish was easy to make and had lots of color so my nutritionist mother will be proud of me.\n\nHere\'s what I did (other people might call this the recipe):\n<ol>\n	<li>I sliced about one pound of pumpkin into 1\" inch chunks and turned the oven on high to roast.  I poured about 2 tbs of olive oil on top and about 1 tbs of red wine vinegar.  It took about 45 minutes for the chunks to get soft and then I added about 1 tbs of white sugar sprinkled on top after I turned the pieces of pumpkin over.</li>\n	<li>In the mean time, I cut up one medium onion into little pieces and one small red pepper and one green pepper into strips.  I sauteed the onion and two cloves of garlic, minced, until they started to caramelize and at this point, I also added the pepper.  A couple of minutes later I added this mix to the pumpkin in oven and mixed the whole thing together.</li>\n	<li>I then put water on the stove to boil for pasta and went to work chopping two medium tomatoes.  I added the tomatoes to the pan in the oven and put pasta in the boiling water.</li>\n	<li>After about 10 minutes the pasta was done.  I drained this added some cheese to it.  I served the pasta with cheese and the roasted vegetables together on the same plate. It was beautiful. The only thing that might have made it better was some slightly wilted spinach leaves but that seems to be unlikely here in Sofia.</li>\n</ol>\nI thought the dish was delicious and Matty T ate everything on his plate.  So I\'d like to think that he enjoyed it too rather than think he was too polite to tell me what he really thought and ate it all just to be kind.  Also I think that this dish would have been great with brown rice instead of pasta.\n\nAside from the fact that I like to cook, it was nice to have someone for dinner because it made me clean my apartment and it\'s great to have other Americans to talk to.  I am especially lucky to have Matty T because he lived for two-plus years in Bulgaria with the Peace Corps and it means that I can ask him lots of questions.  He is also working on research for his master\'s thesis related to Bulgarian identity and the way history is taught/presented in school to students so I asked him lots of questions about this too. Of course, as soon as I write this, I am sure that it\'s not exactly the right description of what he\'s doing but it combines two things that I am interested in--school and identity formation--so I enjoyed learning more about what he\'ll be doing in Sofia for the next four months.\n\nNow that I am writing this up, the one thing that I still can\'t quite get over is the fact that in August I moved to Sofia a city that six months ago I knew next to nothing about in a country that it 10 time zones away from parents and I just had dinner with guy I knew in high school, <em>IN SOFIA</em>!\n\nNormally, I try to avoid being trite or using worn out turns of phrase but in this case I don\'t know any other way to say this: you realize what a truly small world it is when things like this are possible.','Dinner Guest &amp; Recipe','','publish','open','open','','dinner-guest-recipe','','','2008-10-01 21:58:50','2008-10-01 18:58:50','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=223',0,'post','',2),(230,1,'2008-10-07 12:35:44','2008-10-07 09:35:44','<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It’s apparently chestnut season here in Sofia.<span> </span>I thought that it was fall but I was clearly mistaken.<span> </span>On Saturday morning, I woke up to this sound: “thud, clatter, clatter, clatter” and men talking and then again “thud, clatter, clatter, clatter” and more talking men.<span> </span>I got out of bed to see what was going on.<span> </span>From my balcony, I could lean out enough to see that there were three old men out in the street throwing something up into the tree—the thud.<span> </span>The resulting clatter, clatter, clatter were falling chestnuts hitting the street, cars and anything else within range.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I watched this for five or ten minutes. These men had such a great system and boxes to put their chestnuts in.<span> </span>When a car needed to drive down the block they stopped moved their boxes and waited between parked cars before throwing up the heavy object (which I am sorry to say I don’t know what it was). I don’t know if it was their chestnut tree or if they were pirating the chestnuts off of the chestnut tree on our block but either way I had a lot of fun and they seemed to be having fun too.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><!--more--></p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">That afternoon I decided to take a walk in this park called Boris Garden—it is for the record much, much more than a garden it is a huge park.<span> </span>Here it was clear that cooler weather is coming our way. <span> </span>The leaves are starting to turn and parents have begun to bundle up their children.<span> </span>Still it was warm enough that after long a walk I was able to sit on a bench and read my student’s first homework assignment.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I sat on one of a long line of benches that line the main path in the park.<span> </span>Trees grow over the path and four mothers with strollers could easily walk side by side on the path.<span> </span>So sitting here also allowed me to do a lot of people watching.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">There was a little bit of a breeze but the sun was out so most of us had jackets that we were carrying or on benches next to us.<span> </span>It turns out that the trees that line the path are also chestnuts.<span> </span>So when the wind picked up a little bit as it is bound to do chestnuts would clatter down from the trees over head.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The first time this happened I was a little bit surprised.<span> </span>I knew what they were when they were falling down but the noise the little nuts make gives you pause and question if you actually know what it falling from the trees above. The noise is such that you really feel like you have to look around.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">That’s the great part because this is when I realized that lots of people in the park were collecting chestnuts.<span> </span>And I can see why, these things are everywhere.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">One little girl—maybe 4 years old—walked by in a knit-cotton dress with a big sweatshirt style pocket across the font.<span> </span>It was completely full of chestnuts.<span> </span>She would put one in on one side and another would come out of the other side of the pocket.<span> </span>She had a chestnut-belly.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Others had small plastic bags that they were collecting them in and I saw one man with the pocket of his corduroy pants bulging distinctively with chestnuts.<span> </span>I bet he had 10 or 15 chestnuts but it made me think that he would be a lot happier collecting chestnuts into a bag of some sort.<span> </span>I think that he went out for a walk like me and then couldn’t resist picking up the chestnuts off the grass.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I understand why.<span> </span>At the fruit and vegetable market in my neighborhood, they are selling roasted chunks of pumpkin, chestnuts, apples and even roast pears and they smell delicious.<span> </span>That I think makes it pretty hard to resist picking up chestnuts when you see them on the ground.<span> </span>And, if no one picks them up they are going to go to waste so you might as well be the one to collect them.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">This said, I love collecting things but I am not collecting chestnuts.<span> </span>First I am not collecting chestnuts because I am not sure if there is chestnut-gathering-etiquette, second because I am not sure that my little oven will support roasting chestnuts and third because I’ve had so much fun watching people collect chestnuts that it feels like I might ruin it by collecting them myself.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">In the end, I am happy to report that it appears today is going to be another beautiful autumn day—cool with a little bit of a breeze in the air and bright sunshine.<span> </span>But I do think that maybe we need to reconsider if this season we are currently in—fall should really be such in Sofia.<span> </span>Maybe this is really chestnut season.<span> </span></p>','Chestnut Season','','publish','open','open','','chestnut-season','','','2008-10-07 12:35:44','2008-10-07 09:35:44','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=230',0,'post','',4),(236,1,'2008-10-08 21:22:55','2008-10-08 18:22:55','I\'ve been thinking about this post for a while now.  But not until this morning did I know it was time.  Time for me to write a post about the funny things I\'ve seen so far in Sofia.  I can\'t promise that these snippets are all really funny but I think that at the end you\'ll be smiling.\n\nSo at 7:45 this morning in front of  my school, I stopped to buy a bottle of water before teaching three 80 minute long classes in a row.  My Bulgarian isn\'t great so when I heard a dad order two hot dogs I thought I must of misheard him.  Two hot dogs and it\'s not even 8am? Turns out, that is exactly what he ordered.  I am standing in good location to watch the woman prepare the hot dogs for him.  It is important to know for this story that here in Sofia there is a hole at the top of the bun, but only one hole, for the hot dog to slide into as opposed to the oblong hot dog bun we have the states where the entire side is open and the hot dog sort of sits in a hot-dog-bun-envelope.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThe first thing the woman does is squirt ketchup and then mayo into the hole.  Lots of it.  Then she put the hot dog in the bun and the hot dog sticks out a little bit extra from the bun.  This is what happens next: dad takes said hot dog, wraps it in a napkin (which really only covers 2/3 of the hot dog) and then he unzips his daughter\'s backpack (which she is wearing) and sticks the hot dog in.  Yes.  He sticks the steaming hot hot dog condiments and all into her backpack.  I think: <em>God what is that going to taste like later</em>.\n\nBut I can\'t look away because he still has another hot dog coming his way.  Well, it turns out that he has another child and he bundles up this second hot dog and puts it in his backpack as well.  This is not the breakfast of the champions that I assumed it was to start with--rather I think it might just be a mess.  Why you would put hot dogs like this in your children\'s backpacks is beyond me.  Really? Can this be a good plan and what will those taste like after a couple of hours hanging out in a backpack?\n\nHum.  These are things that I don\'t want to spend too much time thinking about.\n\nSomething I do want to think about however was this little hedgehog that my Fulbright friend and I saw in the park near our house last night.  It was about 5:30pm and we were taking a stroll.  It doesn\'t really get dark these days until closer to 7pm these days and as such, we are in the park walking, talking and having a beer.  That\'s when we spot him.  He\'s about five or six inches, fat and round and he\'s lumbering through downed leaves.  He didn\'t cover that much ground while we were watching him while he was pretty cute, I wasn\'t going to mess with him. Though in hindsight it would have made for a much funnier story if I were flailing round with a hedgehog attached to me.  Sorry. (That story might also not have been very funny.  Sorry to submit you to that.)\n\nThe following story I think is funny or at least it is funny to me.  I get a huge kick out of the questions that my students ask me before, after and during class.  Some questions are serious, some are questions that I know are bound to come up and then some questions reveal the kinds of subjects that 13 and 14 year-olds all over the world think about.\n\nLast week, two of my students stayed after to ask me some questions.  They were concerned with two things.  First, did Coke really taste different in America? And second, did l like McDonalds or KFC better? These happen to be two things that I haven\'t spent a lot of time thinking about recently.  So I answered off the cuff.  I do think that Coke tastes different. Why? Well, I am not sure why. How does it taste? Um, it\'s sweeter in the States. I think it\'s probably a marketing thing but it might also be the fact that in the states we fill our glasses up with ice and then pour Coke on top.  Here in Bulgaria, ice is rare.  (Just ask the gin and tonic, I had the other day.  I got a lemon and I think two small chips of ice.  After watching these melt in what seemed like record time, I determined that ice really helps that drink along.)\n\nThe harder question was McDonalds or KFC? I guess that I should have know it was coming these two stores seem to dominate every other block in downtown Sofia.  But I coouldn\'t help but wondering are these two palces really even comparable? I guess that they are both fast food--so I tell the girls McDonalds.  They both agreed with me but I couldn\'t get out of my head one late-night in DC when we stopped for chicken nuggets to hear a man walk up to the window and order the Big &amp; Nasty (the sandwhich is really called the Big &amp; Tastey).  I think that his error may sum up fast food in a nutshell. Still, the french fries are good both here and in the states.\n\nNow comes the one story I was thinking about omitting.  You should be warned that the following description comes with a PG-13 rating.  Don\'t worry.  There is no swearing, there is no violence, drug use or underage drinking but there is mild sexual content.\n\nSo if you don\'t want to read about it you should not read beyond this sentence.\n\nA couple of Friday nights ago, I was out with a friend at a local cafe/bar having a beer.  This one beer turned into two.  At this point, I decided I had to go to the bathroom where I walked in on a couple a little younger than me engaging in a sex act.  In a bathroom. Without a lock.  In a very dirty bathroom without a lock and a broken door.  This is the kind of bathroom where you try not to touch a thing while you are using the toilet.  And I walked in on them.  Oh and then I apologize (Yes, I apologized as if it were my fault).  I close the door, I don\'t use the bathroom because it\'s occupied and I go back upstairs. Ahk.\n\nAnd that\'s the funny thing about Sofia.  You never know exactly what to expect, what you are going to see or how you should react.\n\nBack upstairs, I retold my bathroom encounter and we had a good laugh.  Because, frankly, what else can you do? Not much besides laugh and know that here in Sofia there will be surprises around every corner and behind every door.  Literally, apparently.\n\nAll of this said, I am having a lot of fun in Sofia.  But in the future, I will knock a little louder and open the door a little slower.','Funny things in Sofia','','publish','open','open','','funny-things-in-sofia','','','2008-10-08 21:22:55','2008-10-08 18:22:55','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=236',0,'post','',3),(156,1,'2008-10-11 21:20:54','2008-10-11 18:20:54','I\'ve been thinking a lot about elections both national and local elections.   I\'ve just had a piece published in the <a href=\"http://www.jatsbulgaria.org/show.php?type=article&amp;id=60&amp;issue_id=6&amp;head=14\" target=\"_blank\">Bulgarian Journal of American and Transatlantic Studies</a>, on the US economy and elections and when I was writing this I couldn\'t stop thinking about our local elections as well.\n\nThese elections seem somehow less important in comparison to the presidential elections but that isn\'t true.  So I am happy to report that just this week I got an email from the Walla Walla county election board. I was worried that I hand not yet received my ballot.  I\'ve been checking my mailbox pretty religiously and nothing.  Well, the email explained that the ballot had been sent out on Friday.  So no need to worry.  But just in case, they also emailed me a ballot that I can print out, fill in and send out in the mail.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nAmazing. I think it\'s really amazing that they can email me a PDF and that I can print it out and mail it in.  Wow, technology.  I am going to vote for the presidential elections in Sofia, Bulgaria from my living room.\n\nI took a look at the PDF.  I\'ve got a little bit of research to do before I vote.  I know who I am voting for for president and for governor but the positions that are up for election will require some reading and research.  I want to vote for the people that I think will do the best job regardless of party.  This is I think especially true in Walla Walla.\n\nWalla Walla is a city that tends to be dominated by Republican voters.  I understand why.  Kind of.  We live in a small town and our economy has historically centered around farming.  This means that there is some wealth, lots of \"small town values\" and people vote much more on who they know than the party that person belongs to.  Luckily, the school system is good and well supported and the city seems to have money for most of their projects.\n\nPersonally, I don\'t agree with the platform of the Republican party but I do think that there are good people who belong to party and who live in Walla Walla.  I will vote for them if I think that they will do the best job for us and for the city.\n\nState politics, however, are something else.  I know already that I will be voting for Washington State governor <span>Christine Gregoire.<span> </span>She</span> was elected in 2004 over <span style=\"text-decoration:none;color:#000000;\">Republican</span> <span style=\"text-decoration:none;color:#000000;\">Dino Rossi</span> in what Wikipedia describes as “the closest gubernatorial race in United States history. Rossi led after two machine counts by 261 votes and 47 votes, respectively, before losing a final manual count by 129 votes.”In 2004, I voted absentee in Washington State.  I voted for Ms. Gregoire then and I will do so again.\n\nEven now, I like to believe that four years ago I was one of those 129 votes in 2004.  Now that Gregoire is running once again against Rossi, she has my vote.<span> </span>This seems to me to be democracy at its best.\n\nIt\'s an exciting time to be an American.  I am looking forward to marking my ballot and mailing it in.','Washington State: Elections','','publish','open','open','','washington-state-elections','','','2008-10-11 21:20:54','2008-10-11 18:20:54','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=156',0,'post','',0),(228,1,'2008-10-12 20:58:08','2008-10-12 17:58:08','On my way home from school the other day, I almost got hit by a huge SUV.  It got me really angry and then it got me thinking.  This is not a town that I ever, ever want to drive in.  Heck, I am not sure I even really want to walk here after my near miss this evening but frankly I don\'t have another choice.  I just need to train myself to do the triple check and not rely on signals.\n\nPart of the problem I think is traffic.  It is pretty miserable here and if you don\'t turn when you have a chance or merge when you need to merge regardless of what other people are doing, you might not get another chance to make the turn or to merge.  Does this mean that it\'s okay to be reckless? no but I think it helps to paint the picture of driving in Sofia.\n\nThe other thing to know is that only in the last 20 years has the traffic started to get bad.  Capitalism brought plenty of new cars to this city but it seems like a sort of “driving pirate-ism” rules the roads.  I am sure that there are laws regarding driving and parking but no one seems to follow them.  Maybe this is because everyone more or less became drivers overnight or maybe driving is just a reflection of what it actually takes to get ahead in this city--a lot of daring, a bit of risk taking and decent dose of guts.\n\nAnyhow, I don\'t have what it takes to drive in this city so I\'ll stick to the sidewalks.  After all, I grew up in a farm town and learned how to drive when I was 15 in my parents\' station wagon--which they special ordered when I was in kindergarten.  Sure I can navigate a combine on a two lane highway but I don\'t want to get behind the wheel of a car in Sofia.','Drivers in Sofia!','','publish','open','open','','drivers-in-sofia','','','2008-10-12 20:58:08','2008-10-12 17:58:08','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=228',0,'post','',2),(239,1,'2008-10-14 11:11:47','2008-10-14 08:11:47','I just realized that yesterday in the states we celebrated the \"discovery\" of the Americas.  Thanks Columbus.  This said it seems fitting to write about all of the great questions I\'ve been getting from my students about life in America.\n\nThis past week, I asked students to get out a piece of paper and write down any questions they had for me or topics that they hoped we would discuss in the next year together. I told the students that they didn\'t have to put their names on the piece of paper and that any questions were fair game.  I warned them that I might not answer a question but that they should ask them anyway.\n\nThe sheets of paper that I received were wonderful.  The hand writing was a little hard to make out at times, the spelling was British (awesome) and the questions revealed that students had a wide range of interests.  They were funny, smart and empathic.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nWhat I was unprepared for was reading each page of questions--these notes were like their own amazing little poems.  They warmed my heart and they made me think: humm... there\'s a good blog post here.\n\nHere are a couple of the funniest: \"Is blond the original colour of your hair? Do you watch football? Or any other sport? What\'s your dream?\"  Another wrote, \"What kind of music do you listen to? What\'s your favourite movie? Do you have a boyfriend?\" Also: \"Do you like Sum 41? Do you like David Beckham?\n\nA longer excerpt from these questions follows--poem like.  I didn\'t change any of the spelling, grammar or language that the students used when they wrote to me.  The one thing that I wish I could do is to keep the paragraph breaks so that you could read what each individual student wrote to me as a \"stanza\" in the poem but right now I can\'t get the blog to do this.  When I am back in Sofia I\'ll post a word attachment so that you can read it as a poem.\n\n<strong>Tell Us:</strong>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">What is it to be American?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">What is the difference between the USA and Bulgaria?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Can you tell us some interesting cities in the USA?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Tell us about the mountain of the four presidents “Mountain Rush More”</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">How do you feel in Bulgaria?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">How do you like it in Bulgaria?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Do you say the \"n\" word?\"</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Can we listen to Tupac in class?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">How do you like it in Bulgaria?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Where have you been in Sofia?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Where have you been in Europe?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">How do you celebrate the Thanksgiving day and Christmas?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">What are the differences between the high school in Bulgaria and in the USA?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">What’s your birth date?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">What’s the life in USA?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Is it cool?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Do you like working with us?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">What’s your favourite colour?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Do you miss USA a lot? Do you miss your family?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Have you read Harry Potter?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Have you ever danced ballet?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Do you like our language?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Why did you come to Bulgaria?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Where did you graduate in the USA?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Is it nice to live in the USA?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Do you live in a house?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">DO YOU WATCH SOCCER?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">How do you feel in Bulgaria? Are you feeling ignored or not understood by others?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">So the real question now is: how do I answer these students? Some of the questions are easy, straightforward and uncomplicated. Other questions seem almost rhetorical.  Still some are cutting.  They seem to batter me.<span> </span>They want to know who I am and what life in the United States is like but they also want to understand why I am here.<span> </span>They ask me questions out of curiosity but also a desperate need to understand why I would come to their country. Many of the questions get to the same point, do you like it here? Why? What do you see in this country that I might not? In other words, why would you choose to come here--given all of the other places you might have gone?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It\'s this tension between life in the states and life in Bulgaria that I think makes these questions so difficult to answer.  The truth is that I like it here.  It\'s not the States and yes I do miss my family and sometimes I do feel ignored by others but the good outweighs the bad.  I have a lot to learn from Bulgaria and from my students.  Life is different here but not worse than the United States.  More over, how I can I even try to begin to compare these two countries?</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">But, I will.  The questions that my students ask suggest that they want to know more, that they want to try to understand who I am and where I came from.  Of course, their point of reference is Bulgaria. So for better or worse, I am going to try to answer these questions and I too will use Bulgaria as a point of reference--probably clumsily.  The challenge it seems will be to convey the nuances of these two different cultures, people and histories so as not to discredit either.  We don\'t live in a world of black and white--and in Bulgaria there is much more gray than I ever imagined.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Still in thinking about how to address the different questions my students asked, I am reminded of the way my students think in opposites: I hate taking the bus but I love taking a taxi.  Last week when I worked on talking about the range of emotions one can express between love and hate they were able to express in English the emotions to like and to dislike and with a little coaxing I don\'t mind.  These don\'t seem like enough to express what it really means for me to live in Bulgaria nor does it seem enough to explain how complicated life in the United States really is or how complex I believe that life in Bulgaria is.</p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">So, I\'ve got some thinking to do to be able to answer the questions I\'ve been asked but I am looking forward to doing this work.  It\'s a good task to engage in--this critical reflection on one\'s home, culture and self.  Funny, I thought that this would be an easy thing: ask students to write down their questions and I would answer them.  It has turned out to be anything but and I love my students all the more for that.</p>','Questions about America','','publish','open','open','','questions-about-america','','','2008-10-14 11:11:47','2008-10-14 08:11:47','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=239',0,'post','',4),(258,1,'2008-10-15 22:18:38','2008-10-15 19:18:38','I bought a chocolate bar at the grocery store.  This is I know in and of its self is not worth a blog post.  Here\'s what happened.  I stood in line with my basket full of things like fresh bread, yogurt, muesli, orange juice and a bag of rice.  Then it turns out that the line isn\'t moving and I am standing next to a display of chocolate that is bigger than the bread isle.\n\nAt first I look away.  Then I start reading labels.  Some of this is easy because the chocolate bars are labeled more or less in English.  Other bars have good pictures so there is little doubt what is inside.  That\'s when it catches my eye: LZ special.  What is that? It says in English this: Nestle LZ Special and in one circle \"Milk\" and in another box \"New.\"  There is fair amount of Cyrillic and I can only make шоколад-- chocolate and the picture only seems to reveal squares of chocolate with little ball of chocolate floating towards the square of chocolate.\n\nOf course, this is when the line starts moving and I have two options. One, I could pick up the chocolate bar and put it in my cart or two, I could leave it there and never know what it tastes like.  I choose the first. <!--more-->\n\nIf you are imagining Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory right now--golden ticket and all--I want to warn you: you might be disappointed.  I was.  So I get the chocolate home.  I put away my groceries because I am a responsible adult and then I open the chocolate bar.  I break off a square and now I can see air holes through out the chocolate.  It\'s as if the entire bar has been aerated. I bit in and it\'s chocolate.  It\'s fine but it\'s nothing special and the texture with all of the air bubbles is a little off putting.  I am used to chocolate being smooth even if it has nuts or something in it and this is not.\n\nSo I decided to do a little bit of research.  This is what I found on the <a href=\"http://www.nestle.bg/page.asp?id=55&amp;pid=5\" target=\"_blank\">Bulgarian Nestle site</a> and really it\'s worth a look because the pictures give a pretty good idea of what the inside of the chocolate looks like.  But if you don\'t read Bulgarian the rest of the site probably won\'t do much for you.  Then I tried to good the name \"LZ Special\" in English but I didn\'t get any hits.\n\nA search on the US Nestle site didn\'t return any hits either... I wonder why? That\'s when I took a closer look and realized that google was directing me to the Nestle UK site.  How does google know everything?  Anyhow, this was more productive and by looking at the pictures of various candy bars I was able to do a visual search for my \"LZ Special\" candy bar.  The only thing this turned up was the <a href=\"http://www.nestle.co.uk/OurBrands/AboutOurBrands/ConfectioneryAndCakes/Aero.htm\" target=\"_blank\">\"Aero\" bar</a>.  The pictures seemed to match but the product names were different. The written description seemed to match the bar of chocolate I brought home and ate.  Hum....\n\nI then went to Wikipedia because if Wikipedia can\'t settle this than who can, really? Just to be clear, I wasn\'t expecting much.  Then I found this<a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aero_Bar\" target=\"_blank\"> hysterical page</a>.  As I am sure you have seen by now, the page on Aero bars includes the history of the candy bar as well as the various different flavors that have been made since the 1930\'s and the fact that the candy bar was only sold for a short period of time in the states.\n\nApparently, it didn\'t go over big there and after a short run in the 1980\'s it was discontinued.  The thing is does that mean that we have bad taste? How is that a candy bard that at that point had success in the UK for over 50 years wasn\'t successful in the states? Maybe it was an issue of marketing but what if we just have bad taste and don\'t know something good when we see it?\n\nThat\'s when I couldn\'t get this thought out of my head: what if this means that I have bad taste too?  I didn\'t love the candy bar when I tried it.  The chocolate was fine but the air bubbles were off putting.  The pages I read said that the bubbles are supposed to melt in your mouth (or something like that) but this didn\'t happen to me.  Then I started to wonder, maybe there\'s something wrong with my mouth or maybe it\'s not me at all and I got a defective candy bar.\n\nThen the thought crossed my mind, maybe I just shouldn\'t be writing a whole post on a single candy bar. Oh well, I am too far in now.  So in conclusion, if I weren\'t so lazy I would correct the Wikipedia post which currently contains an error. Aero bars are not being sold under that name here in Bulgaria rather they are being sold under the name LZ Special.\n\nAnd I am sorry to end on this sad note, for those of us dying to know: how do the bubbles get in the bar? We will have to wait a bit longer to learn these secrets.  The Aero Wikipedia page explains \"according to the entry in the patent database, Aero bars are formed by a method involving chocolate in a liquid state on the verge of solidifying. Air is run through the chocolate with a vacuum as it cools (in the form of many very small bubbles), resulting in evenly distributed bubbles throughout the bar and a honeycomb-like texture. The exact procedure for making the bubbles is a closely guarded secret.\"\n\nOh well--but I can\'t help wondering would eating just one more bar reveal the secrets of the air-bubbles to me?','Chocolate Bar','','publish','open','open','','chocolate-bar','','','2008-10-15 22:18:38','2008-10-15 19:18:38','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=258',0,'post','',7),(263,1,'2008-10-17 12:09:54','2008-10-17 09:09:54','','Roast Pumpkin','Roast Pumpkin To-Go by the Slice','inherit','open','open','','dsc03817','','','2008-10-17 12:09:54','2008-10-17 09:09:54','',262,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03817.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(262,1,'2008-10-17 12:11:42','2008-10-17 09:11:42','This country is full of surprises.  There is food for sale at almost every street corner from women selling bread-pretzels out of big shopping bags to pizza by the slice, carts selling corn on the cob and little hole in the wall banitsa shops.  However now that it is officially fall even more interesting street food has emerged.  There are carts on the street selling hot nuts--especially roasted walnuts and chestnuts.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_263\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Roast Pumpkin To-Go by the Slice\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03817.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-263\" title=\"Roast Pumpkin \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03817.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Roast Pumpkin To-Go by the Slice\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nBut what\'s caught my eye is the cart selling roasted pumpkin.  Every day for the last two weeks, I walk by this older man--he\'s slight, not very tall and maybe 60 or 65 years old--selling pumpkin by the kilogram.  He has these large pumpkins which have been cut in half, the seeds scooped out and roasted as is.  The thing that really sold me on this roasted veggie is that every time I walked by he had a line between 4 and 5 people long.  I figured that means it\'s got to be good.\n\nLast week I thought, I\'ll pick up a slice on my way home and have it for dinner.  Well, I thought wrong.  The man had sold all of his roast pumpkin for the day and was packing up his cart when I walked by.  This made me more determined to try some of this pumpkin. <!--more-->\n\nAfter class yesterday, I stood in line for probably five minutes and watched him slice chunks of pumpkin for everyone.  I didn\'t think about how to actually order the pumpkin until I was standing in line. I figured that I would just listen to the women in front of me order and that I would follow suit seeing as I wasn\'t sure that I needed to eat a whole kilo of pumpkin which was the only weight I knew for sure how to say.  Of course, the women in front of me either spoke too fast or mumbled so that I couldn\'t hear what they were saying when they ordered.  Note to self: figure out how to ask for a half kilo.\n\nInstead I said good day to the man, smiled hoping this would help my case and counted on the fact that he wanted to take my money and would sell me something. Then I asked for a little.  Yes a little because I figured that he would just cut me off some and at the same time I made what I hoped was an appropriate hand gesture to indicate how much I wanted.  This worked just fine but I hate always having to mime things. He then weighed it, told me the price very loudly and slowly and I gave him his money.\n\nHe gave me the pumpkin in a plastic bag and a plastic spoon so that I could eat it on the go.  What a wonderful take on \"fast food.\"  I can\'t help thinking that this is one of the reasons that stereotypically Americans are overweight and Bulgarians are much thinner.  Our fast food is fast but full of fat and in Sofia the fast food is fast, vegetable based and cheap.\n\nAnyhow I got the pumpkin home, took a picture and started eating.  It was amazing.  The pumpkin tasted like pumpkin pie.  The meat of the pumpkin was soft, smooth and sweet.  Of course, there wasn\'t a crust but who needs that? The roasting of the pumpkin gave the meat a rich orange color with a slightly darker outside crust and the flavor was layered accordingly.  I think that I could eat a slice of this a day and never get sick of it.  I can only wonder how long this little man will be out selling pumpkin and alternately, I feel like I need to kick myself for not standing in line for a slice of the pumpkin sooner.','Street Food: Roasted Pumpkin','','publish','open','open','','street-food-roasted-pumpkin','','','2008-10-17 12:11:42','2008-10-17 09:11:42','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=262',0,'post','',3),(265,1,'2008-10-20 13:07:29','2008-10-20 10:07:29','I went with a friend and saw an amazing Bulgarian film last night at the Mall of Sofia.  I was a little worried about sitting through a movie that was nearly 2 hours long in Bulgarian but it was well worth it.  We saw this film which in English is called \"The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner\" or in Bulgarian is \"Светът е голям и спасение дебне отвсякъде\" (Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakde).\n\nAs I am sure most of you know, I am not a film critic but this said, I\'ll try to give a basic summary of the movie and then I\'ll talk about what was the most interesting to me. Now is probably also a good time for me to make clear that this movie is in Bulgarian. I was lucky to have a friend who was wiling to whisper to me much of the dialogue in English (and even luckier that no one else was sitting too close to us).  Some of the movie was in German which I did understand and in this case the German was subtitled in Bulgarian.\n\nSo what does this mean? Well, I have a better impression of the emotions of the movie than the specifics.  Yes I was able to understand some of the Bulgarian but before seeing the movie I wondered how much I would be able to follow and if I would be able to connect to the movie.  It turns out that I was able to connect and what really surprised me was that I cried during the movie.\n\nThe movie begins with a serious car crash and then proceeds to move back and forth between a hospital in modern day Germany, 1980\'s communist Bulgaria and current day Bulgaria.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThe first major event in the movie takes place in in the middle 1970\'s in a small town in Bulgaria with the birth of a boy--Alex.  His grandfather plays backgammon and is vying for the master title in his town the same day the boy is born.  As the child grows up, his grandfather teaches him how to play backgammon and even builds a board for him. The game becomes a central motif throughout the movie--playing with ideas of chance, luck and honor.\n\nHowever, life is not so idyllic for his parents in Bulgaria.  Alex\'s father works at a factory and is told that he must make record of all of the anti-communist things that his father-in-law says or his job is at stake.  The result is that the family decides to attempt an escape to the west. They pretend to go on holiday and flee over the Yugoslav-Italian boarder.\n\nThey are successful only to find themselves in an dismal Italian refugee camp. Things are bleak--many of the refugees have been there for more than three years waiting to be resettled and on top of this, they are given the same thing to eat every day--bowl after bowl of spaghetti.  It is clear that life in the West is not what the family expected it to be.  Backgammon ultimately provides a way out of the camp and the family emigrates to Germany.\n\nThe movie however shifts between this past and the present where Alex is in a hospital in Germany with amnesia after surviving a serious car crash that killed his father and mother.  When his grandfather arrives, he doesn\'t know him.  His grandfather begins the difficult and perhaps impossible work of helping his grandson regain his memory.\n\nThe work is slow going and raises a number of questions about identity, memory and the creation of self.  Who are we without family? Can we recreate family and memory? And how do we know who we are without these ties?\n\nThe story culminates in a tandem-bicycle ride across central Europe with grandfather and grandson--unlikely? Yes but it\'s much less about the bicycle riding and much more about the intersection of family, politics and memory.  The journey is about impossibility and possibility. The journey is an act of love--the one way that the grandfather can help Alex to recover and to reconnect to live.\n\nWhen Alex arrives in Bulgaria he rides by a billboard that says welcome to the New Bulgaria.  However the face that greets the reader on the billboard is one of a politician who we recognize as one of communist party leaders who instigated this journey to Germany so many years before.  Is this really the new Bulgaria? The names of the parties have changed but the faces remain the same--only now they are smiling.\n\nLeaving one to wonder have things changed at all? Politics it seems happens out there--other people do it--and for the individual what remains central is family and a connection to a place.  Notably this isn\'t however a movie about return.  The return is bittersweet. Rather this seems to be a movie about Bulgarian identity and the complexities of this identity in a post-communist world.\n\nI thought that the film was great and this morning I started looking up movie reviews.  What I found in English was basic and included flowery but basic summaries of the movie and the reviews were good but didn\'t seem to get at the heart of the movie.  I found this disappointing. What was especially disappointing to me was to read that it was unlikely that the film would be released outside of the Balkans.\n\nIt\'s too bad really because this is the kind of story that would help more Americans understand what is happening here in Bulgaria now and the way that the communist past has influenced the people, the politics and the economy of Bulgaria.  I also think that the film begins to help explain the deep cynicism that saturates much of daily life here--cynicism which I sense in my students, my fellow teachers and Bulgarian friends.\n\nI think that for many of you reading my post who will not have a chance to see the film you may now have the sense that this whole thing is a mess and that there\'s no way out.  But at the end, I was struck by the sense of hopefulness that comes from merely connecting to other people.','New Bulgaria: The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner','','publish','open','open','','new-bulgaria-the-world-is-big-and-salvation-lurks-around-the-corner','','','2008-10-20 13:07:29','2008-10-20 10:07:29','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=265',0,'post','',0),(270,1,'2008-10-20 20:41:25','2008-10-20 17:41:25','Me mailing in my ballot for the upcoming US Elections.','Carolyn Votes','Voting from the Post Office in Sofia','inherit','open','open','','dsc03958','','','2008-10-20 20:41:25','2008-10-20 17:41:25','',269,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03958.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(269,1,'2008-10-21 11:15:15','2008-10-21 08:15:15','[caption id=\"attachment_270\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Voting from the Post Office in Sofia \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03958.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-270\" title=\"Carolyn Votes\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03958.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Voting from the Post Office in Sofia \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nIt\'s official.  I got my first piece of mail in Bulgaria yesterday and it was my US ballot.  It was good to know that I can actually receive mail here.  I was beginning to wonder if I would ever get my absentee ballot.  So when I finally got my first piece of mail, it seems just perfect that it was my ballot.\n\nIn preparation to actually cast my ballot, I put on my Barack Obama tee shirt (for good luck) and roped a friend into going to the post office with me to take a picture of me mailing in my ballot which I hope will in part change the shape and tenor of politics in America.  I just can\'t stop thinking that I am voting in the most important election of my life from Sofia, Bulgaria. Wow.\n\nSo with very little fanfair I filled in all of the little bubbles, sealed the ballot in a series of envlopes and licked 1.3 leva in stamps on the envelope and that was that.  Oh, and I made sure that I didn\'t put the envelope in the Sofia mail box!\n\nNow if Barack Obama and his election campaign staff would just stop spamming me... I make one campaign donation and now I get emails sometimes three a day from them...but I guess if that\'s what it takes to win I\'m alright with it.','I Heart Barack Obama','','publish','open','open','','i-heart-barack-obama','','','2008-10-21 11:15:15','2008-10-21 08:15:15','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=269',0,'post','',1),(277,1,'2008-10-22 18:24:44','2008-10-22 15:24:44','Oh my god, high school is hard work. Every Wednesday, after a full day of teaching--given the Bulgarian schedule--I come home, eat lunch and then fall asleep on the couch for a couple of hours.  Then I peal myself off the couch and wonder how it is that first, I made the conscious choice to teach high school for a year (am I crazy?) and second, what did I put my own high school teachers through?  But the strange and wonderful thing is, I love it.\n\nThese kids are very smart and especially talented and that is, I think, why it\'s such a challenge to teach them.  They know a lot of English but it\'s by no means flawless.  They have plenty of confidence after getting into one of the very best schools in Bulgaria.  And on top of all of this, they are at the cusp of becoming young adults--so they want to be kids when it suits them and alternately they want to be adults when it suits them.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nPhew, being in high school is hard work.  I\'d begun to forget just how much jostling there is for position, how mean we can be to each other, how hard it is to sit still for 80 minutes and the fact that on some level everyone wants to be liked. Pretty clearly there\'s a lot more at stake than just learning English.\n\nOn top of all of this, each of my seven 8th grade classes has 30 students.  Yes, thirty students.  With this many students, I could do a number of different things.  Including but not limited to the following: I could field a serious soccer team, I could staff a small restaurant,  I could put together a decent jazz band, and I more or less have a enough people for a platoon.   However, I am trying to teach a conversation class to 30 students.\n\nThis has been a challenge for me.  First, I am not sure that I\'ve ever had a class with 30 people in it.  I think it\'s pretty safe to say that in high school I didn\'t.  The only class that may have come close in college was Biology for non-science majors which may have had 35 students but in practice the class met at 9 am and I think that we only ever averaged 20 people a day.\n\nSo what does this mean for me? Well, I can\'t change my class size so I try to work with it.  Luckily students sit at desks where they have a built in partner.  So I make sure that students do lots of partner work and I walk around to see how they are doing.  I\'ve also divided each class up into smaller committees so that they can work together in slightly bigger groups.  To date, this seems to be pretty effective.\n\nI have to admit, I was terrified to split each class into committees of between 6 and 8 people.  I thought that the talkative, sometimes out of line students would wreak havoc on the committees.  Then I let each class decide what their \"committee guidelines\" would be and this seems to have helped curb the overly enthusiastic.  Guidelines included: let everyone have a turn to talk, use quiet voices and to work together.\n\nWhat happened in practice was that the loud students with a \"smart aleck\" answer for everything faded into the background.  His or her peers didn\'t encourage him and that was that. Amazing what some positive peer pressure will do to a person!!\n\nSo three classes later, I stumbled home.  I can\'t believe how tired but happy I am.  This said, it\'s wonderful to see my students really practicing their English, learning something new and working successfully in groups together.  I am proud of them.  So proud that I take a 2 hour nap after lunch.  High school\'s hard work.','High School: Phew!','','publish','open','open','','high-school-phew','','','2008-10-22 18:24:44','2008-10-22 15:24:44','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=277',0,'post','',1),(281,1,'2008-10-23 11:41:26','2008-10-23 08:41:26','Margaret Atwood has long been one of my favorite writers.  She has a great imagination, a keen sense of what drives people to make the decisions that they do and she\'s got a serious way with words.  She writes with power, sincerity and cuts to the heart of things.\n\nThe first book of hers that I read was <em>The Handmaid\'s Tale</em> followed by a number of other novels and later in college I read her haunting short story \"Giving Birth\"--this is one of the few short stories that I\'ve read and thought: oh my god, she\'s got it right and was then terrified by her description.\n\nAnyhow, last night I was browsing through the NYT online and started reading an op-ed on <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/opinion/22atwood.html\" target=\"_blank\">\"A Matter of Life and Debt.\"</a> I didn\'t pay attention to the author when I started reading.  Then I couldn\'t stop and when the piece was finished I wanted more and that\'s when I noticed in italics at then end of the article Margaret Atwood\'s credentials. I thought to myself: of course this piece was written by Margaret Atwood and then I promptly reread it.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nThis morning when I got up to write a post about this article, I learned that everyone else liked reading it too.  Currently it is the second most emailed article on the NYT website.\n\nIt\'s because, she\'s got it right.  Atwood references Dante\'s \"Divine Comedy,\" Stowe\'s \"Uncle Tom\'s Cabin,\" Flaubert\'s \"Madame Bovary,\" and Warton\'s \"House of Mirth\" to illustrate the deep relationship of the debtor and the creditor. These examples remind us of the way that we are all tied together and that the debtor cannot escape the creditor.\n\nWhat is central, Atwood reminds us is the personal relationship.   It is easier to see this in the literary examples that Atwood relies on but it is true in this current credit crisis as well.  Part of the problem seems to be that we\'ve forgotten the tightly wrought relationship between debt and credit.  The relationship seems have become less personal with the advent of technology but now that the relationship has failed the repercussions are the same.\n\nWhat is the most powerful to me about this argument is that Atwood moves away from the paradigm that has become pervasive where we blame greedy creditors for the mess that we are currently in.  Instead she is saying: look, we\'re all implicit in this mess and you cannot separate the creditor from the debtor.  And you know what, she\'s right.  It\'s not fair but what we are now experiencing seems to be the market readjusting due to the greed of both debtor and creditor.    When the good times were good it was very easy to look the other way and to not wonder where the money was actually coming from and now that the tides have changed we seem to be looking for someone to blame rather than trying to understand our own role in this whole crazy situation.\n\nAnyhow, thanks Ms. Atwood for giving me a new perspective on the credit crisis.','Atwood on Life and Debt','','publish','open','open','','atwood-on-life-and-debt','','','2008-10-23 11:41:26','2008-10-23 08:41:26','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=281',0,'post','',1),(287,1,'2008-10-25 13:17:51','2008-10-25 10:17:51','I am not an economist.  In fact, I\'ve never even taken a course on micro or macro-economics.  I am an avid reader, a coffee connoisseur, occasionally a cultural critic--my background, for pete\'s sake, is in British and American literature.  This probably means that I shouldn\'t be writing on the economy but I am going to any way.  Because really, when someone like Allen Greenspan admits he has made a mistake and has put too much faith in the free-market system--then I think that I too can write about the economy.\n\nHere\'s the thing.  When the economic crisis hit a number of weeks ago, I got nervous.  I am living in Sofia, Bulgaria on a Fulbright fellowship.  It\'s generous but I am not going to get rich off of the monthly stipend which by the way I receive in dollars. I wondered are things going to get really tight?\n\nWhen I arrived in Bulgaria in August the dollar was already pretty weak and I thought how much worse can it get?  My fear was that the American dollar and the Bulgarian Lev would begin to reach parity--already it seemed to me headed that way as I watched the exchange rates come closer and closer together over the summer leading up to my departure.\n\nOn the first week of August, the exchange rate was 1 US dollar to 1.25 Bulgarian leva.  Yeikes! The Iraq war and our inept president aside--it wasn\'t looking like a great time to be an American abroad: the dollar was incredibly week and less than a month later it is confirmed that yes indeed our country is being run by yahoos.\n\nNow here comes the part that I never imagined I would write.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nHow is it possible that when our economy is in ruins and we are nationalizing banks, talking about billions of dollars in bailouts and home foreclosures are threatened that the dollar can become steadily stronger abroad?!?  This all seems very counter intuitive to me.\n\nSo if your background is in literature, coffee and German like mine is you might be trying not to think to much about the economics behind all of this.  I know on some level I am.  But because this whole thing has also become a train-wreck and just like a bad crash, I can\'t look away the question haunts me: how can the dollar get stronger and stronger?\n\nI wondered if maybe it wasn\'t but even all of the foreign exchange shops across the city have been offering better and better exchange rates over the last month.  So however strange this may seem, I did some research and here\'s a snap shot of what is happening:\n<ul>\n	<li><span class=\"result_msg\"><span class=\"result_val\">September 15th: 1</span> US Dollar = <span class=\"result_val\"> 1.38780</span> Bulgarian Lev </span></li>\n	<li><span class=\"result_msg\"><span class=\"result_val\">October 15th: 1</span> US Dollar = <span class=\"result_val\"> 1.43032</span> Bulgarian Lev </span></li>\n	<li><span class=\"result_msg\"><span class=\"result_val\">October 24th: 1</span> US Dollar = <span class=\"result_val\"> 1.52499</span> Bulgarian Lev </span></li>\n</ul>\nOkay, there was some fluctuation between September 15th and Friday, October 24th where the exchange dipped below 1.38 exchange rate offered on Sept. 15th (and this survey that I\'ve done is clearly not scientific) but on a whole over the last month and a half the dollar has been getting stronger and stronger.  It\'s strange to think that as our economy slides into a recession that the spending power of the dollar becomes better abroad.\n\nThis is all very good for me.  Heck, it means that I can justify buying the big jar of nutella rather than the smaller one now. And I thought I was going to have to cut back... Instead, I\'ve caught myself thinking: oh, now my rent is less, my utilities are less, groceries are less and so on.\n\nBut I don\'t really understand how this is possible.  It seems however that this is something I should want to know more about because frankly,if nothing else, it seems that this current crisis has taught us to question where our money and our good times are coming from.  So really, what\'s going on?\n\nWell, I\'ve asked a few friends and an economist (who is also a friend) and what follows is my understanding of the basics.  The economy started to sour in the US and then banks started to fail.  This made investors in the US weary of investing abroad and so they began to reinvest their dollars in the US.  As a result, the dollar is gaining strength abroad.\n\nSo here\'s the funny thing, I just took a break to make a cup of coffee and then I hit refresh on the NYT homepage.  They currently have a headline article up about the <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/25currency.html?hp\">soaring dollar</a>.  So if you are looking for a more nuanced explanation of exchange rates, the dollar and the global economy you might want to read that article.  And don\'t worry it\'s actually very accessible--even to an English major like me.','Amateur Economics','','publish','open','open','','amateur-economics','','','2008-10-25 13:17:51','2008-10-25 10:17:51','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=287',0,'post','',0),(294,1,'2008-10-26 21:09:30','2008-10-26 18:09:30','','At the movies','Me at the Vlaikova','inherit','open','open','','dsc03967','','','2008-10-26 21:09:30','2008-10-26 18:09:30','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03967.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(295,1,'2008-10-26 21:11:54','2008-10-26 18:11:54','','Theater Vlaikova','The Pink Seats','inherit','open','open','','dsc03969','','','2008-10-26 21:11:54','2008-10-26 18:11:54','',0,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03969.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(297,1,'2008-10-26 21:35:44','2008-10-26 18:35:44','[caption id=\"attachment_294\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Me at the Vlaikova\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03967.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-294\" title=\"At the movies\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03967.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Me at the Vlaikova\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThis weekend I went to see a film with one of my new Bulgarian friends.  We went to coffee last weekended and decided to see a movie this weekend.  After some back and forth--do you want to see this movie?--oh you\'ve seen it already--how about this one?--well what about this? and finally we settled on the film <a href=\"http://www.2daysinparisthefilm.com/\" target=\"_blank\">\"Two Days in Paris.\"</a> It was pretty good.  Nothing to write home about but definitely blog-able.\n\nReally, however, I am writing about the movie theater.  It turns out this theater Vlaikova is amazing.  Well, maybe amazingly bad. I am not sure how old the theater is but it\'s pretty clear that it hasn\'t been renovated, updated or refurbished in the last twenty years.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nI met my friend outside of the theater which on first glance was much more of a bar than theater.  We went inside and she pointed to a piece of paper posted on the wall.  The messy Cyrillic apparently said that you must ring the bell to buy your ticket.  There wasn\'t a standard counter or glass window to purchase your tickets at--rather a plastic door bell that you ring to get your ticket.\n\nThe tickets are only 3 leva which is very inexpensive but you get what you are paying for.  We got to the theater about 20 minutes before the movie started and rang the bell.  A woman came out with tickets but then told us we would have to wait to buy them. Oh. Okay.\n\n<!--more-->\n\nSo while we waited for her to sell us tickets we had time to look around.  What I assume was once the concession stand for the Heather is now a serious bar--there\'s no candy or popcorn for sale.  It appeared that you could get a beer or vodka/rum/gin but this was not the place I would order a cocktail.  At 3:40 there was already a woman setting at the bar having a beer, there were a couple of tables already scattered with beer bottles and a single pool table.\n\nI wasn\'t expecting much for such an inexpensive movie but it was strange to see a small but serious bar in what was once the lobby of the movie theater.  After about five minutes, the woman came back and sold us our tickets.  She then unlocked the door to the theater and turned on the lights. She told us that we shouldn\'t wait for her to show us out at the end of the movie.  Did this mean that we should exit during the credits so that we weren\'t suck in the theater in dark at the end of the movie? Hum.\n\nAs you can see, the theater was shabby.  However, what you can\'t see is how the theater smelled--it was strangely\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_295\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"The Pink Seats \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03969.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-295\" title=\"Theater Vlaikova\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03969.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"The Pink Seats \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\ndamp and musty.  It kind of smelled like the basement of your great aunt\'s house--like no one has been down there for years and you\'re afraid to look too closely to see what may have died in the corner. The good news is that after a couple of minutes you get used to the smell.\n\nThe theater was done up in a couple of different shades of pink.  The chairs were pink and uncomfortable and I couldn\'t help but wonder if they had once be red (but how long ago?!).  Anyhow who needs a comfortable seat for a 100-plus-minute long movie? Not me.  I took off my coat to settle in.  We took some photos because we were the only two people in the theater (if you can call it that--see as there were only eight rows of chairs) and we began to wonder if we would be watching the movie all by ourselves.\n\nFive minutes later the movie started, there were about six people in the theater and twenty minutes later I was putting my coat back on.  There was no heat in the theater.  This is probably okay all spring and summer but now that it\'s the end of October it might be time to turn on the heat but if the movie only bring is in 18 leva in ticket sales it\'s probably not worth it.\n\nAnyhow, the movie was fine and after the movie we found a cake and coffee shop and for 3 leva more the afternoon turned out to be pretty enjoyable.  We laughed and laughed about the theater, the film and the experience in general.','A Throwback to Other Days...','','publish','open','open','','a-throwback-to-other-days','','','2008-10-26 21:35:44','2008-10-26 18:35:44','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=297',0,'post','',4),(300,1,'2008-10-27 12:12:00','2008-10-27 09:12:00','','Young Revolutionary','25 year old Bulgarian Revolutionary','inherit','open','open','','dsc03869','','','2008-10-27 12:12:00','2008-10-27 09:12:00','',299,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03869.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(299,1,'2008-10-28 12:06:33','2008-10-28 09:06:33','[caption id=\"attachment_300\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"225\" caption=\"25 year old Bulgarian Revolutionary \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03869.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-300\" title=\"Young Revolutionary \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/dsc03869.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"25 year old Bulgarian Revolutionary \" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI\'ve been to this great little town Koprivshtitsa twice: once in August with my language school and then I went again this month with the Fulbright. It was great. Both times. The town is known for a series of historic homes from the Bulgarian National Revival period.  The village has been well preserved because it was named a town museum in 1952 and then in 1971 it became a historical reserve.\n\nI think that the village is worth visiting for the architecture and the the beauty of the seasons.  But I think that most visitors are interested in the history of the place.  This is after all the town that Todor Kableshkov announced the the national uprising against the Ottoman Empire--on April 20th, 1876.  We now know this event as the April Uprising.\n\nWhat was pointed out to me during this trip, was that Kableshkov was only 25 years old when he died.  It seems that he knew what he wanted; he was motivated by his ideals.  He not only fought for the revolution but it seems that he started it--firing a gun from a bridge not far from his home.\n\nMaybe he was caught up in the furor of a revolution, it certainly must have been an exciting time, but he did what few of us would do today.  He fought for something that he believed deeply in and he died for it. He seemed to believe that political change was possible.  Even after a 1000 years of Ottoman foreign domination, he thought: we\'ve got something here, we\'re a people and we can rule ourselves.  (Either that or he was having mother issues and it was easier to fight the Turks than to take it up with her.)\n\n<!--more-->\n\nIt\'s one of those things that is daring and bold but maybe a little bit foolhardy as well.  On top of this, it\'s not like you can test out a revolution to see if it\'s something that you really want to do--either you\'re in or there\'s no revolution.   I think the same rules apply to participation as well.  It\'s not like the Turks will care if you only participated a little bit.  So it means that you\'re either all in or nothing is going to change--there\'s not a lot of in between.\n\nGiven all of this, I couldn\'t help but wonder: do I believe in something so deeply that I would fight and die for it?\n\nThe answer: I\'m not sure.  I think I believe in a democracy that sometimes works and sometimes doesn\'t; I believe in capitalism--kind of; I believe in the power of homemade macaroni and cheese to warm the soul and turn a blustery day into something good (but I don\'t think that is fight-able); I believe in a woman\'s right to choose; and I believe in the freedom of the press and freedom of speech but I\'ve already sat back while the Bush government chipped away at these rights as well.\n\nSo, could I do it? I\'d like to think so.  But I also think that something has changed--we\'re not longer encouraged to think in these ways and in my life time there have been very few opportunities to fight for these thing.  On a whole, we don\'t protest--we don\'t vote--we don\'t care much unless it hits us in our pocket books (and it has).\n\nWhat it is I think, is that democracy and capitalism seem to offer us a range of possibilities whether or not in practice this is actually true.  I think that it\'s this range of possiblities that allows us to settle into our lives and not think about seriously committing ourselves to something bigger than ourselves.   Because we do not live in the either/or dichotomy that our predecessors faced, we tell ourselves that what we have is okay and we wait for others to act for us.\n\nThat is I think the sentiment that motivated this post.  It is an interesting question: what is it that motivates some of us to action while others wait for someone else to solve the problem? This is a question that i cannot answer but one which I think is worth considering.','Life and politics','','publish','open','open','','life-and-politics','','','2008-10-28 12:06:33','2008-10-28 09:06:33','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=299',0,'post','',2),(315,1,'2008-10-29 18:03:06','2008-10-29 15:03:06','Okay, this isn\'t going to be a very long post but I went out this afternoon to buy a notebook and came home with these awesome things:\n<ul>\n	<li>an orange notebook with purple lined paper (it\'s French!),</li>\n	<li>a copy of Hardy\'s \"Tess of the D\'Urbervilles\" (a book I think all English majors should have read and I never did.  And, it\'s racy--there\'s seduction--but of course it\'s also a tragedy.  It is Hardy after all),</li>\n	<li>three pairs of socks (two are knee high and one pair is striped.  I am wearing the striped ones right now.  Wow!),</li>\n	<li>a pair of earrings (which I\'m wearing) and</li>\n	<li>these great sparkly red-pink bobby pins (which I am also now wearing).</li>\n</ul>\nI am really pumped up about everything I bought. I guess maybe that goes without saying seeing as I am currently wearing half of the things I purchased today.\n\nThe other amazing part: I bought everything for less than 20 Leva  and given the exchange rate between the Lev and the Dollar I feel like these things are almost free--okay not free exactly but much, much too cheap.\n\nI seriously don\'t understand this country sometimes because on my afternoon of shopping I also stopped in a store where nearly all of the clothing was 52.99 Leva.  For starters, why such a weird price?  It doesn\'t make sense to me.  It would seem much cheaper to me at 49.99 Leva because it was still under 50 Leva but given the fact that the price is over 50 Leva why not bump it up to 54.99 Leva.  I mean, the store could be making an extra 2 Leva on every sale this way.\n\n<!--more-->Aside from the pricing, the other thing that stood out to me was that the quality of the clothing seemed fairly low given the prices.  In the States, I would say that the clothing quality was some where between Forever 21 (yes, I know, I know--insert eye rolling right now--I\'ve shopped there before), H&amp;M and Old Navy.  It\'s one of the kind of stores that has fashionable colors, up to date styles but sacrifices quality in order to do so.  Only in the case of this Bulgarian store they\'ve also kept the prices up.  Needless to say, I didn\'t buy anything at that store but there is a sweater that I have my eye one.\n\nThen I found the best store ever.  (Okay maybe not ever but it\'s pretty wonderful.)  I\'ve been by it a couple of times but I\'d never gone in.  They have tons of scarves out in front of the store and then I\'ve seen shiny things inside.  Shiny things like earrings, hair things, necklaces and what not.  I have no idea what the name of the store is but located on Vasil Levski between Angel Kanchev and Rakovski--right across from the corner of the park in front of NDK.\n\nI know that Shakespeare warns against being overcome or being fooled by shiny things when he wrote in <em>The Merchant of Venice</em>: \"All that glitters is not gold often have you heard that told\" but, ahch, I wanted lots of things from the store.  And they were all shiny. I managed to restrict myself to buying only the earrings and the bobby pins but I looked at lots of sparkly hair things including a metal and rhinestone butterfly clip.  I didn\'t buy it but even as I am writing this post I am beginning to think that this is something that I need--even though I never knew I needed it until today.\n\nCrazy, I know.  I guess that this is what Shakespeare was warning us about.  And I guess that as my reader you never thought I\'d be able to make a Shakespeare reference on a blog post on shopping.  Well surprise, surprise!!','Found: Awesome Things','','publish','open','open','','found-awesome-things','','','2008-10-29 18:03:06','2008-10-29 15:03:06','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=315',0,'post','',0),(319,1,'2008-10-30 19:15:12','2008-10-30 16:15:12','Dear Barack,\n\nI want you to win the upcoming election.  Yesterday I got three different emails from you and your staff--one for last minute fund raising, another for Washington State and the third from &amp; for women.\n\nThe email that really got me thinking was titled \"Have you done everything you can for Barack?\"  Really, do you need to send me emails like this? I\'ve made a campaign donation (not a lot but I don\'t make a lot), I wear my Barack Obama t-shirt around town, I talk you up to all of my friends, I blog about you and I voted for you and I mailed in my absentee ballot two weeks ago from an ancient post office in Sofia.\n\nThis said, I think that I have done everything that I can for you, Barack.\n\nBut because of your rather strange email, here I am doing more. I thought I was done writing about you but it turns out that\'s not the case.\n\nYour wrote to me visa vie the Washington State Field Director the following email:\n\n<em>Carolyn  --</em>\n\n<em>The second most common reason that people don\'t vote is because they don\'t know how.</em>\n\n<em>The top reason: No one asks them to.</em>\n\n<em>This is the last week before Election Day, November 4th, and we\'re executing the largest get out the vote (GOTV) effort in Washington\'s history. We\'ve filled 82 percent of our GOTV shifts, but we have to fill every last slot this week.</em>\n\n<em>The conversations you have with friends, family, and voters across Washington right now will make a real difference in whether they stay home or make their voices heard on November 4th. </em>\n\n<em>Imagine how you\'ll feel if you wake up on November 5th -- facing four more years of the same Bush-McCain economic policies -- and realize that you didn\'t do all you could to make sure Barack Obama is the next president.</em>\n\n<em>I know that\'s not a feeling I could live with.</em>\n\n<em>Volunteer to get out the vote between now and Election Day and win this election for Barack and Democrats up and down the ticket.</em>\n\n<em>Thanks, Chelsea</em>\n\n<em>Chelsea Waliser\nField Director\nWashington Campaign for Change </em>\n\nWell, here\'s the thing: I had to read the email about three times to understand what the email was asking me to do.  The first two lines seem to be scaring me.  Reminding me how stupid people are that the top two reasons they don\'t vote are because no one told them to or because they don\'t know how.  Really!?\n\n<!--more-->Okay, I want Barack Obama to win but are we really truly relying on people to vote who haven\'t before because 1) no one told them to or 2) they don\'t know how? For the love of god.  Once I got over that and was able to continue reading, I realize that the first two lines of the email were supposed to be a catchy intro to a get out the vote campaign. Clever? I think not.  In fact, I am not sure that the intro worked at all.\n\nThen in the next paragraph, there\'s the problem with the use of the acronym in a short email.  I don\'t need another acronym in my life let alone one that reads GOTV.  Go TV? What?!? Well upon re-reading this paragraph I realize that this is an acronym for \"get out the vote\" but seriously, who uses that? My guess is only 20-something campaign staffers.\n\nMaybe for the rest of us you could just write out \"get out the vote\" a second time rather than try to introduce an acronym in a short email.  Also, I think that if you are going to make something into an acronym you are supposed to write the thing out first using capitol letters like this: Get Out The Vote (GOTV)--this signals to the reader that you will be using it as an acronym in the future.  But as previously expressed an acronym for get out the vote might just be silly, unnecessary and dare I say: elitist?\n\nNow that I am close reading a campaign email, I will say that the paragraph encouraging us to talk to our family and friends about voting does make sense.  However, it\'s sadly hidden away in the middle of a clunky email.  This does provide a decent transition into this a shameless aside: Hey! family &amp; friends: if you can vote, do it and vote for Barack.  I mean it. Carolyn.\n\nThen comes the fear-mongering paragraph which honestly I find pretty distasteful--threatening us with four more years of the same. It panders to the lowest common denominator.  Frankly when I wake up on November 5th, I think I\'ll be happy to have some idea of who our next president is but I am not crossing my fingers.  The last two elections have been too close to call thanks to the electoral college and I can\'t assume that it will be any different this time around.\n\nBut if, gasp Obama does not win, will this be my fault? Will I be to blame for not doing everything I could have for Barack Obama? No way.\n\nSo Chelsea and Barack, I want you to know that I haven\'t unsubscribed myself from your email list but this most recent email made me consider it.  Instead, I decided to reply to the email.  I know that it is probably never going to be read but on the off chance that it is I hope that it made someone smile during this busy campaign season.  I would guess that who ever read it is the lowest person on the totem-pole and I hope that I made his or her day (because I can only imagine how horrible your job is and maybe one day if you are lucky it will pay off).\n\nThis is the response I sent: \"Thank-you for your email.  I\'ve been trying to do everything that I can for Barack.  I am currently living in Sofia, Bulgaria and voted two weeks ago.  Please see my <a href=\"http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/i-heart-barack-obama/\" target=\"_blank\">blog post</a> where I am mailing in my absentee ballot wearing my Barack Obama tee shirt.\"<a href=\"../2008/10/21/i-heart-barack-obama/\" target=\"_blank\"></a>\n\nIn conclusion, good luck to you on Tuesday, sir.  I\'ll be rooting for you!!\n\nCE','Open letter to Barack &amp; Co.','','publish','open','open','','open-letter-to-barack-co','','','2008-10-30 19:15:12','2008-10-30 16:15:12','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=319',0,'post','',2),(325,1,'2008-10-31 19:55:39','2008-10-31 16:55:39','Happy Halloween!  It\'s kind of an anticlimactic day here in Sofia.  I was out and about today and I saw a couple of teenagers kind of dressed up--one wearing a mask and the other a black pointy witch\'s hat.  And frankly, this was more than I expected seeing as this is a country that doesn\'t celebrate Halloween. More or less, it\'s a day just like all of the days that have come before it.\n\nThe thing is I don\'t really miss Halloween.  It\'s a lot of pressure to figure out what you are going to be for Halloween; not to mention the time you spend actually worrying about a costume, putting the costume together and then hoping that you can pull it off.\n\nWhat I do miss is celebrating Halloween in DC.  It wasn\'t until today that I realized the big thing I am going to miss is 1324-o-ween. <!--more-->This is the party that the group house I used to live in would throw every year.  It was a great party--we would decorate the house, make loads of jello-shots, invite 200 of our closest friends and hope that we\'d wake up the next morning and the house would be more or less in one piece.  Sure I am going to miss the carnival of the event--the costumes, the drinking and the dancing--but I am not going to miss waking up the next morning, going downstairs and realizing that your entire house is sticky and smells of stale beer.\n\nBut more than this, I realized that I miss the planning, the excitement and the anticipation of the party. Sure it\'s hard work to plan a party that five people will be happy with but when it comes together and the party is a success it\'s all worth it.  I guess what I am trying to say is that I miss the people I used to throw the party with.\n\nSure I could have planned and hosted a party here in Sofia but it wouldn\'t be the same really and without Scott\'s famous buffalo wing dip it would be a pretty fake imitation of the party anyhow.  Oh and I don\'t have the paticence to cut out hundreds of construction paper bats, hang fake spiderwebs, or rent a helium tank and blow up a gross of orange and black balloons.  And to top it all off, after my going away party in July I think I am retired from making jello-shots and we all know you can\'t have a serious Halloween party without jello-shots.\n\nSo, instead of dressing up in a scary, sexy or funny costume tonight, I am sporting jeans, a layered t-shirt look (surprise, surprise) and my chucks.  I am going to meet a couple for dinner tonight--he\'s Fulbright scholar and retired college professor and his wife, she\'s along for the ride--at Sofia\'s only vegetarian restaurant for some amazing food and to have a beer or two and then I\'ll call it a night.\n\nA little piece of me wishes that I was in the States so that I could pass out candy to little kids in costumes or so that I could attend 1324-o-ween but I am glad that I can spend the night with new friends because it turns out this what the holiday is really all about for me.\n\nTo my friends attending  1324-o-ween: I look forward to seeing pictures of your costumes, I hope to hear all about the trouble that everyone gets into and I hope that you don\'t run out of beer to early in the night.  It\'s bittersweet really... I am a little sad that I won\'t find myself lying on the couch the next morning reliving the night photo by photo and story by story while also fighting off a hangover, throwing empty solo cups away, fighting deflated helium balloons and praying for a Law and Order: SVU marathon but then again I won\'t be doing all of the things I just listed...\n\nThis said, go get \'em, have a great time, drink a beer or two in my name and think about me while you\'re on the dance floor!!\n\nHappy 1324-O-Ween!! XOXO.','Bittersweet Halloween','','publish','open','open','','bittersweet-halloween','','','2008-10-31 19:55:39','2008-10-31 16:55:39','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=325',0,'post','',4),(331,1,'2008-11-03 21:13:24','2008-11-03 18:13:24','','Me and wine','Wine Tasting at 9:30 am','inherit','open','open','','dsc04155','','','2008-11-03 21:13:24','2008-11-03 18:13:24','',329,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04155.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(333,1,'2008-11-03 21:31:48','2008-11-03 18:31:48','','Wine tasting','The Wine Tasting \"Room\"','inherit','open','open','','dsc041581','','','2008-11-03 21:31:48','2008-11-03 18:31:48','',329,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc041581.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(334,1,'2008-11-03 21:36:50','2008-11-03 18:36:50','','Wine','Wine Cellar','inherit','open','open','','dsc04148','','','2008-11-03 21:36:50','2008-11-03 18:36:50','',329,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04148.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(335,1,'2008-11-03 21:41:29','2008-11-03 18:41:29','','Wine, Wine','Wine Cellar','inherit','open','open','','dsc04150','','','2008-11-03 21:41:29','2008-11-03 18:41:29','',329,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04150.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(336,1,'2008-11-03 21:43:42','2008-11-03 18:43:42','','dsc04156','','inherit','open','open','','dsc04156','','','2008-11-03 21:43:42','2008-11-03 18:43:42','',329,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04156.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(337,1,'2008-11-03 21:52:02','2008-11-03 18:52:02','','melnik-wine-tasting-room','The Wine Tasting \"Room\"','inherit','open','open','','melnik-wine-tasting-room','','','2008-11-03 21:52:02','2008-11-03 18:52:02','',329,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-tasting-room.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(338,1,'2008-11-03 21:54:58','2008-11-03 18:54:58','','melnik-wine-woman','Showing us her wine','inherit','open','open','','melnik-wine-woman','','','2008-11-03 21:54:58','2008-11-03 18:54:58','',329,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-woman.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(329,1,'2008-11-03 22:30:50','2008-11-03 19:30:50','[caption id=\"attachment_335\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Wine Cellar\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04150.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-335\" title=\"Wine, Wine\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04150.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Wine Cellar\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThis weekend I went on an excursion with the teachers from my school.  We left bright and early on Saturday morning, spent the afternoon in Thessaloniki, Greece and then crossed back in to Bulgaria to stay in the smallest town in Bulgaria--Melnik which also happens to be know for wine making.  The weather was incredible between 10 and 22 degrees Celsius or about 67-71 degrees Fahrenheit.  It was hard to believe that it was the first weekend in November.  I mentioned this to one teacher and she told me that weather like this now it means that it is going to be a cold, cold winter.   Great.  Right now, I\'ll just try to bask in the sun and hope that even if the winter is a cold one that it\'s not too long.\n\nLuckily, I\'ve got some wine to make it through the winter.  Well, actually I have a bottle of red table wine and a two liters of cherveno vino (red wine) in a plastic bottle.\n\nHere I am at about 9:30 on Sunday morning in a wine cellar next to the house that we stayed in the night before!! So you may wonder how I came to buy a two liter bottle of red wine at 9:30 in the morning from a spunky 60 year old Bulgarian woman. I still do to.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_331\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Wine Tasting at 9:30 am \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04155.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-331\" title=\"Me and wine \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04155.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"30 am\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nBasically, we were headed downstairs to have breakfast before going on a walking tour of the city and the woman in the picture with me was outside behind her house.  So really what follows is complete luck.  This happened to be the way we had to exit our room to go down for breakfast and she was out behind her house poking around (see I am not even sure what she was doing).\n\nThat\'s when one of the husband\'s of one of our teachers started talking to her.  Soon she had out both her homemade rakia and her red wine.  He called me over and I tried some as well and then she took us downstairs to her wine cellar. So what it boils down to is that I was lucky to be going to breakfast when she was outside, even luckier to have the husband call over to me the American on the trip that I should taste her wine and the best part came when she invited us in to see her cellar.<!--more-->\n\nThis was like no wine cellar I\'ve ever seen.  In Walla Walla which I think has a booming wine industry, the set up is a little bit different as most of the wineries there have been built within the last 10 years and often resemble fancy garages and their wine tasting rooms are shinny and new.  These wineries in Walla Walla are selling wine but they are also selling a life style and a well defined idea of what wine tasting is.\n\nFor this woman, her tasting room was outback on the side walk and her wine cellar was in the basement of a dirty 150 year old building. The walls of the building were made of stone and more than a foot thick.  She explained that this way the temperature remains constant throughout the year.  The great part was that it looked to me like the only updates the building had in the last 75 years was the addition of electricity--a couple of hanging light bulbs.  She was making wine for the sake of making wine.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_338\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Showing us her wine\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-woman.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-338\" title=\"melnik-wine-woman\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-woman.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Showing us her wine\" width=\"300\" height=\"233\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nShe had a lot to say but I wasn\'t understanding very much of it and the teachers I was with were listening intently and I hated to keep asking: what did she just say? So instead I looked around and took pictures. The construction of the building was pretty neat with lots of wood and rocks--there was nothing new about the place and you get the sense that the same thing has been taking place in this basement for years.  The wooden beams were rough but the construction appeared solid. It\'s a moment like this that helps you understand just how old the homes in this town are.\n\nAt some point, one of the teachers explained to me that she is licensed to produce wine and that other people in the neighborhood also store their wine in her cellar.  I think that it was important for her to tell me that she was licensed.  It did make me wonder later if other people were selling wine in Melnik without licenses.  Really though, what\'s the point of a licence in a place like Bulgaria? I guess if you taste the wine and you like it you should just buy it and not worry.\n\nI ended up with two liters of red wine in a big plastic bottle with a screw top lid like on a soda bottle.  There is something pretty bootleg feeling about buying your wine like this but then again it was only 8 Leva.  That\'s a lot of wine for 8 leva.  I am not sure that it\'s as good as the wine I\'ve had in either Walla Walla or at the Virgina Wine Festival but it is pretty good and seeing as I\'ve been known to drink box-wine who am I to complain or turn down a large bottle of cheap wine?  And for the record, her wine is hands down better than any boxed wine I\'ve ever had (sorry Robyn).\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_337\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"The Wine Tasting \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-tasting-room.jpg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-337\" title=\"melnik-wine-tasting-room\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-tasting-room.jpg\" alt=\"The Wine Tasting &quot;Room&quot;\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nAfter the tour, we took a picture together outside of the wine cellar--see the arched door? That goes down to the wine cellar.  Also you should make sure to check out her tasting room.  You can see it if you look at the ground by my feet.  Yep, those are the plastic bottles of wine sitting on the floor and a couple of glasses which everyone share.\n\nAfter the photo this woman then insisted on showing me her home above the wine cellar. If you look in the picture behind the two of us is a set of stairs up to her home.   I wasn\'t sure what to expect after being in her wine cellar/barn but the house was lovely.  It had a huge kitchen, high ceilings and she rents at least one of the rooms out to visitors which she also showed me.  It was bright and comfortable looking. I am not sure that I\'ll have the opportunity to stay the night again in Melnik but I am not tossing out her business card.\n\nThe thing that I was struck by is how nice someone can be even when you don\'t speak their language.  This woman clearly loved what she was doing and got a kick out of showing a very tall, blond rather out of place American around her wine cellar and home. I am sure it didn\'t hurt that I smiled and told her in Bulgarian that her wine was delicious.','Wine Tasting in Melnik','','publish','open','open','','wine-tasting-in-melnik','','','2008-11-03 22:30:50','2008-11-03 19:30:50','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=329',0,'post','',3),(344,1,'2008-11-04 18:39:24','2008-11-04 15:39:24','','Dinner','Ingredients for Dinner','inherit','open','open','','dsc04232','','','2008-11-04 18:39:24','2008-11-04 15:39:24','',342,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04232.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(345,1,'2008-11-04 19:30:25','2008-11-04 16:30:25','','Meatballs','Maybe not Beautiful but it sure is Easy!','inherit','open','open','','dsc04233','','','2008-11-04 19:30:25','2008-11-04 16:30:25','',342,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04233.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(346,1,'2008-11-04 19:36:33','2008-11-04 16:36:33','','Dinner','Dinner: вкуснo E! Delicious!','inherit','open','open','','dsc04235','','','2008-11-04 19:36:33','2008-11-04 16:36:33','',342,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04235.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(342,1,'2008-11-04 19:51:30','2008-11-04 16:51:30','I\'ve been inspired by my friend and ex-roommate Nick.  He\'s just started a new blog and his tag line is: <a href=\"http://www.macheesmo.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Cook Something</a>.  I used to be one of his food tasters and now I just get to read about what he\'s been cooking. This seems decidedly unfair.  I move to Sofia and he starts a cooking blog?! Well it\'s clear: he\'s got one lucky girlfriend and that most of his recipes are too hard for me to make here in Sofia.\n\nMy kitchen is not what you would call well equipped. In addition to dishes and silverware, I\'ve got one frying pan, a pot, and two slightly larger pots that you could use to make soup, a strainer, a set of crappy knives, a spatula and a can opener.  I think that I have the kitchen equipment of a college frat boy minus the microwave.\n\nI have a what the Bulgarians call a cooker--it\'s a mini stove and oven in one.  To help you picture this, imagine a dorm room mini-fridge and then imagine shrinking down a stove/oven to similar proportions.  My stove has two burners--one large and one small.  The temperature options range from 1 to 4.  It takes a while to heat up and once it\'s heated up I think that all of the options between 1 and 4 are some variation of very hot. <!--more-->\n\nThe oven is another part of the cooker and is more of the same.  There are some options for how I want the oven to be heated just from the top, just from the bottom or both but because my cooker is really not larger than a microwave in the states I always choose to heat the top and bottom.  There\'s also a knob that controls the heat--this starts at 50 degrees Celsius goes up to something like 300 degree Celsius.  I don\'t know if these knobs are accurate but the most I\'ve done is to bake potato wedges, roast pumpkin or heat up left overs and it\'s worked okay for this.  So I turn it to high and get cooking.  Oh, I probably won\'t be baking bread or cooking cookies in this oven--if only because I don\'t have a cookie sheet.\n\nThe good news is that I think with my stove I could give Rachel Ray a run for her money--30 minutes? Not a problem I could probably do it 15! The one problem with this would be that I don\'t have nearly enough utensils or spices to keep up with her. I\'ve stocked my kitchen with the basics--there\'s no fancy spice rack in my kitchen(I am from real America) .  Well really being from real America has nothing to do with it--mostly it\'s because I can\'t justify it.  I\'ve been living here since August (gasp nearly three months!) and I probably only cook two times a week.\n\nSo I\'ve been inspired by Nick to start a regular posting on my site called: Simple and Satisfying.  This post will be an easy to make recipe which is both tasty and simple.  As I\'ve explained, I don\'t have a lot to work with and I can\'t find lots of fancy ingredients so here\'s the first installment.\n\n<em><strong>Bulgarian Meatballs and Cabbage</strong></em>\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_344\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Ingredients for Dinner \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04232.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-344\" title=\"Dinner \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04232.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Ingredients for Dinner \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nIt\'s pretty straightforward:\n\nFirst cook the meatballs on the stove in a pan.  You can see that I bought mine premade.  These are called Koufte--they are made of out pork, garlic and some green spice. When these have been cooked transfer them to a pan in the oven to keep them hot.\n\nSecond, add the sliced red onion and cook until soft in the fat from the meatballs.  Then add the cabbage which should be sliced thinly (about three cups) and the grapes (about a cup).  I had to slice these in half to de-seed but if yours don\'t have seeds no need to cut them.\n\nThird, cook this mixture for about 10 minutes and be sure to stir once or twice.  Then add about four tablespoons of vinegar, two tablespoons of mustard and a tablespoon of lime (or lemon) juice and stir.  Cook until the cabbage is soft maybe 5 more minutes.\n\nFinally, take the meatballs from the oven add to the cabbage mix.  It will look like this:\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_345\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Maybe not Beautiful but it sure is Easy! \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04233.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-345\" title=\"Meatballs \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04233.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Maybe not Beautiful but it sure is Easy! \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThe grapes will kind of open up and the cabbage will wilt a little bit and the vinegar and mustard really add a nice depth to the dish.\n\nProbably from this picture you can see that what I\'ve been calling meatballs are actually look like little patties.  You may think that I mangaged to flattened them out while cooking them.  I did not.  The Bulgarian meatball or Koufte is actually served in restuarants flattened out like this.  Somone one told me recently: Oh, they\'ve been spanked.\n\nGreat now I can\'t get the image out of my head: Bulgarian women and grannies spanking meatballs.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_346\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Dinner: вкуснo E! Delicious! \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04235.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-346\" title=\"Dinner \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04235.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"вкуснo E! Delicious!\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nNow comes the fun part.  You get to eat the dish and you\'ve made enough for left overs for the next day or two.\n\nAs you can see, if you want to make the dish look really pretty and maybe  you want it to like it took you more than three steps to make, you can serve the dish in a pretty bowl with two slices of bread.\n\nAnd if you wanted to eat this meal quickly, I guess that you could just make a big Koufte, cabbage and grape sandwich.\n\nOkay, let me know what you think!','Simple and Satisfying Dinner','','publish','open','open','','simple-and-satisifying-dinner','','','2008-11-04 19:51:30','2008-11-04 16:51:30','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=342',0,'post','',5),(351,1,'2008-11-07 18:33:22','2008-11-07 15:33:22','Barack Obama\'s win seems to have everyone smiling these days.  I\'ve been grinning from ear to ear and want to thank all of my friends who have sent me their best wishes now that Obama is President Elect.\n\nI have to say it was pretty exciting.  It\'s easy to feel out of touch living in a country where you don\'t know the language or the local food but early Wednesday morning sitting in the relative dark in my bathrobe I found myself gmail chatting with friends in the states and listening live to both John McCain and Barack Obama give their speeches. The election brought me together with both family and friends in a way that I didn\'t expect.\n\nIt was then that I realized that my little sister and old roommates was watching this speeches in Washington DC where it was slightly after 11pm while my parents are watching from their living room in Walla Walla, WA where it was something like 8pm and here I was listening to the same speeches only for me it was Wednesday morning at 6 am. We had this shared obsession: the US Elections and were able to communicate in real time about what was happening and what we thought. <em>What a small world it actually is</em>.\n\nI had to teach on Wednesday at 8am.  My students cheered for me--well actually they were cheering for Barack Obama but as the American in the room, I was the stand in for this young black man who will be our next president.  Pretty funny if you think about it.<!--more-->\n\nI had decided to talk about the US elections no matter what but I knew that to keep the students engaged we would then move on to talk about political issues that the students are concerned about.  I wasn\'t too surprised by the issues that students discussed: corruption, low salaries, dismal pensions, pollution, trash, health care (access to doctors, medicine is too expensive, and the poor state of hospitals), and the economy.  The political issues that these 13 and 14 year old Bulgarians brainstormed actually aren\'t that different than the United States.\n\nWhat stood out to me was the list that two of articulate boys in one of my classes made:\n<ol>\n	<li>Sexism</li>\n	<li>Homosexuals</li>\n	<li>Health care</li>\n	<li>Low Salaries</li>\n	<li>Environment</li>\n</ol>\nThe one that stood out to me was #2) Homosexuals.  I asked them about it and was told that Bulgaria has a problem with homosexuals.  I asked them why they thought that.  Then we talked about whether or not someone is a homosexual or if someone can choose to be homosexual.  They told me maybe some people are homosexuals but that they think others choose to become homosexuals because they want attention.  They referenced a gay pride parade that was held last spring in Sofia.  I asked them if gay people deserved the same kind of rights and protection as straight people and they said yes.\n\nIt was a strange moment.  Their list seemed to be telling me that homosexuality was a problem but in our conversation they seemed to be telling me that homosexuals deserve to be treated like everyone else.  I asked them if they knew anyone who was gay--one boy said no and the other said my mom works with a man who is a homosexual.  I don\'t really know him but I know that he goes to work, does what he is supposed to and doesn\'t make a big deal out of being a homosexual. <em>Well, that\'s a step.</em>\n\nThen when we we came together to brainstorm as a whole group, the other big issue emerged--minority groups in Bulgaria specifically the Roma (but my students always call them the Gypsies) and the Turks.  The hostility that students express towards these minority groups is shocking.  One of my students said today that we should \"kill them all.\" Another said, \"you\'re being racist\" and I stood silent in front of the class for a long time. I don\'t how else to deal with this kind of hate, anger and hostility. So I stood there and looked at them.\n\nThese are my babies.  They are 14 and 15 years old and the youngest kids at the high school.  For the most part, they are still slight of frame and have soft, round child-like faces.  But the things they were saying were not so child-like as they expressed a mix of racism and naivete that surprised and shocked me. In this moment, I realized, I am not trained to handle situations like this--what I know is literature and writing.\n\nSo the question I asked: If you really think this is a problem, then what can be done about the Roma situation?  My students said: Nothing can be done.  These people are not Bulgarians.   So we talked about who is a Bulgarian.  The answer I got: if you are white and born in Bulgaria then you are a Bulgarian.  <em>Wow. </em>\n\nNow here\'s the thing, I don\'t think that all of my students believe this.  I am not even sure that my students are communicating all of this as they would in Bulgarian--English is after all their second language--so I don\'t want to be hasty or jump to conclusions it\'s just hard to know what to say to these students.  It\'s especially hard to know what to say when you\'ve made a student translate a joke into English that he\'s just told in Bulgarian and had the entire classroom laughing and it turns out that he\'s said \"Barack Obama is the first gypsy in the white house.\"  Yes he was embarrassed to tell me the joke but he wasn\'t embarrassed to tell the entire class the joke in Bulgarian.\n\nSo what\'s a girl to believe? Well I thought when they were cheering and clapping and happy about the Obama win they were also accepting the fact that he\'s an African American but I think now that they not color blind rather they are happy for someone who is not George W. Bush.  Okay me too. I don\'t think I could have handled another four years of the same kinds of Bush policies.\n\nBut, now what? Well now I am left to think about this question: How do I help my students talk about the Roma and the Turks in ways that both helpful and productive?','Racism in Sofia &amp; the Election','','publish','open','open','','racism-in-sofia-the-election','','','2008-11-07 18:33:22','2008-11-07 15:33:22','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=351',0,'post','',4),(359,1,'2008-11-08 19:40:51','2008-11-08 16:40:51','Hi all. I am in Plovdiv visiting another<a href=\"http://doginplovdiv.blogspot.com/\" target=\"_blank\"> Fulbrighter and her dog</a> (and yes, the dog is keeping his own blog about his time in the city).  The train ride from Sofia was great.  I took the Plovdiv city bus to her apartment without a hitch and we just spent the better part of the afternoon walking around the city.  We have plans for dinner tonight and will then explore the old town--part of Plovdiv tomorrow in the daylight.\n\nIt\'s a beautiful town which is super walkable and it has a Roman Amphitheatre and a Roman Staduim to boot!  Pretty amazing--Sofia doesn\'t have any of these things.  Oh those Thracians. Anyhow, I am looking forward to writing a longer post when I return to Sofia on Monday because it looks like I am going to have a lot to say about this city.','In Plovdiv &amp; Loving It','','publish','open','open','','in-plovdiv-loving-it','','','2008-11-08 19:40:51','2008-11-08 16:40:51','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=359',0,'post','',0),(363,1,'2008-11-12 13:44:12','2008-11-12 10:44:12','','Me in Plovdiv','Me &amp; Roman Ruins','inherit','open','open','','dsc04351','','','2008-11-12 13:44:12','2008-11-12 10:44:12','',361,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04351.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(364,1,'2008-11-12 13:49:18','2008-11-12 10:49:18','','Roman Ruins','Downtow: Part of a Roman Stadium','inherit','open','open','','dsc04276','','','2008-11-12 13:49:18','2008-11-12 10:49:18','',361,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04276.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(365,1,'2008-11-12 13:53:15','2008-11-12 10:53:15','','Wood and nails','The door into the Atanas Krastev Museum','inherit','open','open','','dsc04349','','','2008-11-12 13:53:15','2008-11-12 10:53:15','',361,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04349.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(366,1,'2008-11-12 13:57:52','2008-11-12 10:57:52','','Song and Dance','Bulgarian Flag and Singing (wow!)','inherit','open','open','','dsc04296','','','2008-11-12 13:57:52','2008-11-12 10:57:52','',361,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04296.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(361,1,'2008-11-12 14:01:13','2008-11-12 11:01:13','Gasp.  My coffee machine went down this week and I had no idea how reliant I\'ve become on it.  Yesterday\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_363\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Me &amp; Roman Ruins \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04351.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-363\" title=\"Me in Plovdiv\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04351.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Me &amp; Roman Ruins \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nfor example, I could not get motivated to write a blog post.  I think it was the lack of caffeine.  Scary how easily we get addicted to the stuff.  One of my Bulgarian friends once said that you can get cheapest insomnia in the world here in Bulgaria given how inexpensive the coffee is and how readily available it is. Anyhow my machine is up and running again and I am back to writing.\n\nI had a great time in Plovdiv.  This last weekend.  I went to stay with one of my Fulbright friends and we walked around the city both old and new--ate some ice cream, went to a great Bulgarian restaurant and did a little bit of shopping as well. The city has a different feel than Sofia.<!--more-->\n\nFirst there is a much bigger walking zone than in Sofia.  This I think in many ways makes the city feel more\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_364\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Downtown: Part of a Roman Stadium\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04276.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-364\" title=\"Roman Ruins \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04276.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Part of a Roman Stadium\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nEuropean.  It gives one the sense that the pace of life is less hectic.  The one thing I noticed walking around is that everyone seems to have a baby.  Maybe it\'s this season\'s accessory? The women (and the men) push these pretty serious strollers around.  Not the running, three-wheeled stroller that we are used to in the States but still well equipped four-wheeled strollers full of baby and blankets.  These get pushed over cobble stone, up and down over curbs and they weave through crowds.  The thing is--these babies don\'t seem to mind the uneven lay of the land and their mothers march along behind the stroller in tight jeans and three inch high heals.\n\nIt made me think: if you grow up with and you don\'t ever know any differently then I guess it makes navigating the sidewalks and cobble stone that much easier.  Second nature perhaps.  Me on the other hand--I am horrible at walking.  I wear flats and more often than not tennis shoes and still I am worried that I am going break a leg or crash to the ground at any moment.  Every day that I don\'t hurt myself out walking I consider a small achievement.\n\nThis said, it was worth navigating the large uneven cobblestones of the old city to see some really great things.  There are a couple of beautiful old churches which which were great to see but I seem to be becoming immune to them--there are so many of them throughout Bulgaria and they share many features making it difficult to keep each one straight.\n\nAfter the church, I bought a great pair of handmade wool socks for 15 leva.  They are really well made and I like wearing them around my apartment.  One of my friends however told me that they look like the color of \"itchy\" but I prefer to think that they are the color of warm! The main color of the sock is a heathered espresso brown with a stripe of teal-green, purple, white and red.  I think they are great and I kind of wish I had bought more of them.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_365\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"225\" caption=\"The door into the Atanas Krastev Museum \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04349.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-365\" title=\"Wood and nails\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04349.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"The door into the Atanas Krastev Museum \" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nOne of the coolest things I\'ve seen so far was the house museum of Atanas Krastev.  What stood out about this house is that it\'s old.  Probably dating back to or before the Bulgarian revival period but rather than turning the house into a museum where everything looks like how it might have in the 1870\'s the house is full of both the old and the new.  In fact, it houses a pretty serious 20th century art collection.  There were no old Bulgarian embroidered dresses hanging on the wall or revolutionary uniforms.  Instead there were lots of interesting paintings.  It cost 3 leva to see the house and it was absolutely worth it.\n\nOh and another cool thing about the house was the front gate.  It was covered in over sized nails.  I think that it was done for the art of it because it didn\'t appear that there was any real reason for the nails to be hammered into both doors.  What\'s interesting is that the nails were so long that they had to be bent over on the backside of the door.  The effect was visually striking--the texture of the smooth nail heads and the rough aging door created this feeling of the modern intersecting with the past.  Not a bad introduction to the museum.\n\nThe one thing that I wasn\'t expecting happened when we went to dinner.  It was a traditional Bulgarian\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_366\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Bulgarian Flag and Singing (wow!)\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04296.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-366\" title=\"Song and Dance\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04296.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Bulgarian Flag and Singing (wow!)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nrestaurant and as an American I\'ve been to plenty of these.  I think that everyone feels obligated to take foreigners to restaurants like this--it\'s a cultural site where tradition and hospitality meet.  Luckily, I like Bulgarian food a lot and I get a kick out of the kitsch of the whole thing.  This restaurant didn\'t promise to be much different.\n\nThat is until the dancing and singing started.  I will not be able to fully describe it but it was part musical-part dinner theater.  There was a medially of Balkan songs and dances and the 30+ minute long affair ended with a huge Bulgarian flag waving and a man and woman singing and dancing.  The thing was--in looking around the restaurant, we were the only foreigners.  Everyone else seemed to be celebrating birthdays or anniversaries or were just out for a weekend dinner AND they <em>loved</em> the show (I mean they loved it, loved it).  It was great to see everyone clapping, singing along and really into the event.  I tried to imagine what this would look like in the states and I couldn\'t.\n\nThe one uch of the whole trip was the train ride home.  There was supposed to be an express train at 12 noon and a slow train at 12:10.  I bought tickets for the express train, got on it and then the station announced that we would hold for 10 minutes and that\'s when we became the slow train. On top of this, an older Bulgarian man (who was wearing a well worn jacket) sat next to me for the first 4 or 5 stops--he was a little bit smelly and he arm kept crossing his half of the arm rest.  I can\'t remember where he got off because we stopped at every stop between Plovdiv making a normally 2 plus hour train ride into a three hour trip.  On the good side, I got a little extra reading and sleeping in on the train.','Updates: Plovdiv','','publish','open','open','','updates-plovdiv','','','2008-11-12 14:01:13','2008-11-12 11:01:13','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=361',0,'post','',1),(370,1,'2008-11-13 19:22:34','2008-11-13 16:22:34','','CAE Haircut','Oh, a haircut!','inherit','open','open','','dsc04381','','','2008-11-13 19:22:34','2008-11-13 16:22:34','',369,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04381.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(369,1,'2008-11-13 21:05:15','2008-11-13 18:05:15','I decided two weeks or so ago that it was time for a haircut--I was unwilling to trim my bangs in the mirror one more time and I realized that my last cut was sometime back in early July.  So I asked one of my Bulgarian friends where she gets her hair cut. She has a good haircut and I figured that\'s a great endorsement for the salon.  She helped me set up the appointment and then went with me to talk to her hair stylist Rosa about what I wanted.\n\nIt turns out that I need to be more descriptive than a cut.  I\'ve never been a picky hair cut person (well minus that time I got a \"mullet-esque\" hair cut and I cried. A lot. And then ended up with a much shorter style that I originally imagined.  Thanks for reminding me, Charlotte).  One bad haircut aside, more or less with curly hair the layers matter but how many or the length of these layers doesn\'t really make much of a difference.  So it\'s pretty hard to go wrong.\n\nI\'d been going to the same guy in DC--at <a href=\"http://www.bangsalon.com/flash.html\" target=\"_blank\">Bang Salon</a>--Bryce that I would show up say hello and he\'d give me a great cut.  Some times shorter sometimes longer depending on my mood but it was easy.  He got me.  I liked it and there wasn\'t the pressure of a really fancy-she-she place where you\'re worried if you can afford the hair cut let alone the tip plus the cost of the cut.\n\nSo yesterday I met my friend at the salon and sat down in the chair trusting my Bulgarian friend and the\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_370\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Oh, a haircut! \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04381.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-370\" title=\"CAE Haircut\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04381.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Oh, a haircut! \" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nstylist and tried to tell them what I wanted.  I was a little bit nervous.  She cut my hair without washing it and simply brushed out my curly hair spraying it occasionally with water.  At some point, she told me that I had hair that made other women are jealous and the natural color was pretty.  I couldn\'t wonder if she was a little nervous to be cutting my hair too but she never showed it.  I just kept smiling at her in the mirror and hoping that I didn\'t end up with a second mullet some how.  She did tell my that my hair is dry and that I need to use more conditioner but if she was in the shower with me in the mornings she would know I am not skimping on the conditioner.  So I guess that this confirms what I already knew--that my hair seems to be permanently dry and that I need to buy a better hair conditioner.  But all of this said, the haircut turned out great.  My bangs may be a little shorter than I\'d like but the good thing is that those will grow.<!--more-->\n\nWhat surprised me was the price.  I paid 10 leva for my haircut and when I asked my friend about how much to leave as a tip she said it\'s not expected and that she never tips. So I didn\'t either.  In hindsight, maybe I should have but there were a lot of other people in the salon and I didn\'t want to make a scene or anything--you know the crazy American trying to press money on her hair stylist.  I guess these days it\'s kind of my MO.\n\nBut this post isn\'t just about my haircut.  It\'s also about heat.  Today I decided I need to figure out how to use my wall mounted heater (which also doubles as an air conditioner--I just never needed to use it well until now).  The thing is that it\'s not actually too cold in my apartment sure I am wearing a sweatshirt and wool socks but that\'s not much different than the giant group house I lived in for the last four years.  What spurred this decision was when I realized that a sweater and sweater-skirt that I hand washed 24-plus hours ago were still not dry.  I would like to wear them rather than end up washing them again because they\'ve mildewed.\n\nThe tricky thing is that the unit mounted on the wall say Toshiba and then all of the markings are in Japanese.  Really, my heater/air conditioner is Japanese?! I can\'t even sound out Japanese.  The remote has about five buttons on it and pictures and if you hold it at the right angle you can see what the temperature is in degrees Celsius.\n\nI am not great with technology. Sure I got the hang of the spin wheel on the ipod and I am keeping a blog but I don\'t like power car windows and I would prefer most things to have either a timer or a simple on off switch.  So I did what anyone else would do.  I punched all of the buttons and stood on a stool with my hand in front of the unit trying to decide if it was warmer or colder depending on the button I had selected.\n\nAfter about 20 minutes of this, I realized that I was only blowing cold air at different speeds around my living room.  I looked up a model close to mine online and in a couple of minutes I was blowing lots of hot air around my apartment. That\'s when I figured I\'d better find a reasonable temperature in degrees Celsius.  Yeah online converters.\n\nSo I am going to be a whole new person soon with my great hair cut, a warm apartment and dry clothes! I do however think that it\'s strange that it\'s the middle of November and I am turning on the heat for the first time in more than three months.  Oh to be energy efficient.','Haircut &amp; Heat','','publish','open','open','','haircut-heat','','','2008-11-13 21:05:15','2008-11-13 18:05:15','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=369',0,'post','',8),(378,1,'2008-11-14 20:32:11','2008-11-14 17:32:11','To make copies at school, I\'ve got to get the permission of one of the vice principles.  This week was the first time I needed to make copies and I have 210 students so it\'s not a small project.  Once you have the form then  you take to the librarian who apparently maintains the books and mans the copy machine.  We had a little back and forth about the copies in \"Bulgarian-English\" because I wanted the the two pages I was giving her copied on the front and the back.   We got this worked out with the help of some high schoolers who were using one of the two or three computers in the library (which is actually only two large-ish rooms).\n\nI wondered with this many copies if I should offer to come back later or tell her that I didn\'t actually need the copies until Wednesday morning.  Then after thinking about how I would ask her this I decided to stick around--that and I figured it was better for me to have the copies today and carry them home with me than to show up to school to teach my 8am class next week and wonder where the copies were.\n\nIt turned out to be a rather lengthy project. Our copier looks so old I can\'t believe that it actually works.  A Xerox machine it is not.  The poor librarian had to make copies of the first page and then gather these up, put them in the paper tray of the copy machine to run through the machine a second time in order to make double sided copies for me.  Man.  That would get old fast.\n\nNeedless to say, this and a paper jam gave me a lot of time to browse through the library.  (That poor woman.) At Georgetown this project would have taken no more than 5 minutes but in this case it was at least 25 minutes.\n\nSo while I was killing time in the library, I decided to look at the books.  They have a good selection of English language classics.  The thing that stood out to me was that there wouldn\'t be one or two copies of Vanity Fair but 15.  This is clearly so that a class could read the book together.  <!--more-->\n\nAnother notable feature was that most of the books had publication dates before 1970.  Really not a big deal for the classics--it\'s not like they are changing.  Or that\'s what I thought until I picked up on of the 8 or so copies of Jane Eyre.  The one I picked up was published in 1948 and edited by two New York City teachers.  But this wasn\'t the Jane Eyre I knew.  My Jane Eyre starts with the line: There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.  This line sets the stage for at least the first third of the book and it was MISSING. </span></span>\n\nIt was missing and I was really angry.  How could they do this?! I couldn\'t stop thinking: Stupid Americans, stupid Americans--I tell you--Ahh. I realize that Jane Eyre is a long book but you can\'t just cut out her youth or so I thought.  The edition I was holding in my hands started at Thronfield Rochester\'s gothic mansion. </span></span>\n\nI put the book back on the shelf pretty quickly and picked up a complete edition.  An edition that I think was actually published by the Foreign Languages Publishing House in Moscow. I read the whole first chapter and everything seemed in order with this edition.  Funny that the Russians can get it right and the Americans are publishing (and apparently teaching) dumbed down versions of the classics.  Still, I hate that book, the American edition, is on the library bookshelf without a warning or any disclaimer that it\'s abridged.  I should have probably tried to steal the book (to later burn) but I didn\'t.  It\'s still on the bookshelf where I left it and I am still mad thinking about it. </span></span>\n\nI would like to know more about how the library at the school started and the publishing and distribution English language books in Bulgarian during communist rule.  From my brief and informal look at the books, most seem to have been published either in the UK or in Moscow--even the American books.  So because I can\'t really ask the librarian about these things, I did the next best thing. </span></span>\n\nI went to the teachers room and found a teacher to help me check out a book.  The check out system is pretty informal. I filled out a card with my name (in Cyrillic), my address and my phone number and signed it.  Then the Librarian wrote the name and call number of my book down on the card and had me initial next to it.  It\'s due on December 15th and based on the other due dates the book has been checked out four other times--once in 2004, in 1975, in 1965 and it was checked out for the first time in 1964.  Wow. </span></span>\n\nSo now I\'ve got about a month to read Sinclair Lewis\'s Babbitt.  It\'s an edition from the Foreign Languages Publishing House in Moscow and has what appears to be a very interesting introduction which I\'ll write about more in the future.\n</span></span>','Re-reading the Classics','','publish','open','open','','re-reading-the-classics','','','2008-11-14 20:32:11','2008-11-14 17:32:11','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=378',0,'post','',2),(383,1,'2008-11-19 22:29:05','2008-11-19 19:29:05','','Waffle','Carolyn, her friend, a waffle and Brussels!','inherit','open','open','','dsc04421','','','2008-11-19 22:29:05','2008-11-19 19:29:05','',382,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04421.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(384,1,'2008-11-19 22:50:56','2008-11-19 19:50:56','','Art Nouveau Door','Art Nouveau Door','inherit','open','open','','dsc04460','','','2008-11-19 22:50:56','2008-11-19 19:50:56','',382,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04460.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(385,1,'2008-11-19 22:55:59','2008-11-19 19:55:59','','Grand Place','Grand Place at Night','inherit','open','open','','dsc04409','','','2008-11-19 22:55:59','2008-11-19 19:55:59','',382,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04409.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(388,1,'2008-11-19 23:20:20','2008-11-19 20:20:20','','Another Door','Another Art Nouveau Door','inherit','open','open','','dsc04461','','','2008-11-19 23:20:20','2008-11-19 20:20:20','',382,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04461.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(382,1,'2008-11-19 23:55:12','2008-11-19 20:55:12','I think that winter has come to Sofia.  It was rainy yesterday when I landed and today I had to wear my winter coat to school.  The air is damp and it\'s been a little bit windy making it seem colder than it actually is nonetheless, it\'s officially winter coat weather.  There was a chance that I was getting spoiled by the extended fall don\'t worry--baby, it\'s cold outside. And I think it will only get colder. Maybe it\'s better this way: fall when I fly out to visit a FISI friend in Brussels and winter when I return.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_385\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Grand Place at Night\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04409.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-385\" title=\"Grand Place\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04409.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Grand Place at Night\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nAnyhow I had a great time in Brussels.  The city is beautiful and it was great to see my friend. I thought that I would write about the visit yesterday but I had a hard time getting all of my thoughts in order.  The challenge is I think not sounding like a Lonely Planet guidebook.  It\'s easy to say wow the city is wonderful--in this case, I think it is but it\'s hard to know what a place is really like if you only spend a few days there.\n\nSo if you want the Brussels highlights go to Lonely Planet or even wikipedia but if you want my impressions well lucky you because I am about to share them. This said I am not a very worldly traveler so I won\'t be comparing Brussels to other European capitals or anything.\n\nIn a nut shell, Brussels has good energy.  The city is lively and even in late fall/early winter there were lots of people out and about.  Public transportation was easy to use (well minus the time I was watching the metro doors close and I was in the train and my friend was on the other side of the closing doors but some quick thinking lead me to pull her into the train. phew).  The Belgian waffles: yum. It made me think that we could really use a Belgian waffle stand over a new Starbucks here in Sofia.  All of this is topped off by really beautiful architecture. The Art Nouveau homes sprinkled throughout the older neighborhoods were also a treat (but not as tasty as the waffles). Oh and the Grand Place was a treat at night, the Belgian beer was better than the Bulgarian beer I\'ve been drinking and all sorts of people stopped me on the street to ask me directions in both French and Dutch.\n\nFunny no one ever asks me directions in Sofia.<!--more-->\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_383\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Carolyn, her friend, a waffle and Brussels! \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04421.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-383\" title=\"Waffle\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04421.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Carolyn, her friend, a waffle and Brussels! \" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nSo the waffles: great! Now however I must admit something that is kind of embarrassing. I grew up\nwith my dad making waffles with our Belgian waffle maker but I never knew that it was actually a dessert-street food in Belgium.  I guess that I thought it was just a way to describe the bigger waffles.  Sure the bigger holes, when compared to regular waffles, are far superior when it comes to conveying strawberries or blueberries, syrup and whipped cream but I never connected the waffles that my dad made to the county of Belgium.  (Sorry Belgium.)  This said, the street waffle was kind of a revelation to me--crispy, warm and sweet and served with almost anything else you can imagine.  I ate mine plain and am dreaming of getting back to the states and making up a batch of these waffles.  Maybe I\'ll start my own street stand--watch out Walla Walla, watch out.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_384\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Art Nouveau Door \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04460.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-384\" title=\"Art Nouveau Door \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04460.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Art Nouveau Door \" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nOne of the other pleasant surprises was the architecture.  My parents own an antique store.  I like old things (and I guess I probably would have whether or not the owned an antique store) and the old homes were simply a treat.  In Sofia, most of our architecture is based on concrete--my building included.  There are some places that have older looking window frames and stucco exteriors but even these buildings are showing their age.  The Art Nouveau homes however still look new and fresh.  They are clearly treasures and the home owners have taken good care of them.  The wrought iron was well made, the stain glass windows appeared original and the design of the windows and other exterior elements really set these Art Nouveau houses apart from their neighbors.  They were like little treasures sprinkled through each block.\n\nMy friend tells me that regularly there are architecture students camped outside some of the homes in her neighborhood sketching, taking photos and otherwise studying the homes.  I can see why.  The lines are beautiful and the homes appear graceful.  I of course didn\'t get to see the inside of any of these homes but I can only imagine how beautiful they must be.  I don\'t think that homes like this are regularly made or designed these days.  Simplicity seems to be king--exposed brick, high ceilings and open spaces and Art Nouveau doesn\'t\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_388\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Another Art Nouveau Door\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04461.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-388\" title=\"Another Door\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04461.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Another Art Nouveau Door\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nseem to have a place in this kind of design.\n\nI guess it might seem fussy to others or it might appear pretentious but me, I am in love.\n\nI also got a big kick out of the Grand Place.  It\'s the beautiful square in the very first picture of my post.  At night, the lights made everything look dream like.  I\'ve got a lot of great pictures which I\'ll post shortly to my Flickr account so that you can see some of what I saw.\n\nSo, Brussels, Bruxelles or Brussel--depending on what language you speak--was a great time.  I realized there that I actually know more Bulgarian than I thought and it certainly helped that I didn\'t understand French or Dutch to make me see how much Bulgarian I know.  I got a kick out of being able to puzzle my way through written Dutch--I guess speaking English and studying German for four years of college played an important role in this.  All of this aside, the trip also made me appreciate Sofia.  Sure the sidewalks are uneven, public transportation is dirty and old, I haven\'t seen a fresh spinach leaf in a salad since I arrived in the country and garbage pick-up is hap-hazzard at best but this is my city and while it may seem strange I like it for all of those reasons.  Oh and it doesn\'t hurt that the cost of living is much, much lower here in Sofia than Brussels.','Weekend: Travel and Friends','','publish','open','open','','weekend-travel-and-friends','','','2008-11-19 23:55:12','2008-11-19 20:55:12','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=382',0,'post','',2),(392,1,'2008-11-22 00:09:13','2008-11-21 21:09:13','It\'s been an odd week.  I got back from my travels on Tuesday.  The weather had finally changed which was expected but not entirely welcome and then I found myself in the middle of a strange week.\n\nI picked up some groceries and worked on getting settled back into Sofia for a couple of days before going to visit Veliko Turnovo on Saturday for the weekend.  It\'s always nice to cook a meal after traveling and being away from home.  I figured that I\'d do something easy and straightforward and that dish to me has lentils as a base.  I decided to make a pretty basic three ingredient lentil soup.  Then I burned it.  I don\'t think I\'ve ever done this before.  The stew turned out to be less stew and more burnt and stuck to the bottom of my pan.  The whole dish was ruined.  I thought that maybe I\'d be able to eat a bowl of it but it was burnt through so I ate some bread and cheese.\n\nThe next morning I had to teach at 8am--three different classes this it turns out was fine.  That\'s not always the case so I was excited about this.  I had a slice of street pizza on the way home and thought about if one should really but sliced hot dogs on pizza.  (And as much as I hate to admit it, I kind of liked it.)<!--more-->\n\nAt home, one of the best things all week happened to me! I decided to start a <a href=\"http://www.stumbleupon.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Stumbleupon</a> account.  Wow.  This social bookmarking site is really great.  I used to give one my roommates in Washington DC a hard time about \"dating-the-internet\" and I officially owe her and apology.  The internet is amazing and the Stumble button is super cool.  The only problem is that it\'s addictive.  I lost at least an hour of my life \"stumbling\" around the internet but it was worth it.  I guess that I should tell my readers this: if you are younger and are into the internet you should seriously consider starting an account.  I don\'t think you\'ll regret it but if you\'re older (that might be you MoM &amp; dAd) this might not be a tool that is very helpful to you but I guess that you won\'t know unless you give it a try so, do what you will!\n\nThen came the weirdest part of my week.  On Thursday, I was invited by a new Fulbrighter in Sofia who is researching Jazz in Bulgaria (I know isn\'t that cool) to a concert.  The concert was traditional Bulgarian folk music and maybe a little bit long but still pretty interesting (I guess this is not a bad way to learn Bulgarian).  But this paragraph is not about the concert--rather it\'s about the walk to the concert.  I am chatting about Thanksgiving.  We\'ve been invited to the Ambassador\'s next week for Thanksgiving dinner and then I am going to have some Americans and random expats over for my own \"Thanksgiving and Giving-thanks\" dinner.  I am busy explaining why I will not be making my own Turkey for the event and I look across the street.\n\nThere on the other corner is a man lying down with cardboard on his face with a parked ambulance near him and two medics just standing there and one police officer directing pedestrians to cross the street.  I stop talking and realize that this man is dead and lying with his legs out in traffic and three men standing in uniforms around him doing nothing else but talking to each other and making sure that pedestrians don\'t step on this man.\n\nI\'ve seen a lot of episodes of Law and Order and the strange thing was that there wasn\'t any police tape up or anything and he had a piece of cardboard covering his face.  I couldn\'t help but wonder what was going on.  Did they cover his face with the cardboard because there was something wrong with his face and they didn\'t have a cloth or something? Or did they find him like this and didn\'t want to disturb the scene? More than this, it was just really strange to realize that there was a dead man on the other side of the street and my biggest concern up until I saw him was the fact that I didn\'t think we were going to have cranberries at my Thanksgiving event.  I guess a dead guy puts in perspective pretty quickly.\n\nToday has been pretty uneventful considering the rest of my week.  Sure I\'ve paid more attention to traffic and crossing the street but other than that it\'s been life as normal.  I should be packing for my weekend in Veliko Turnovo but I\'ll do that tomorrow.  I\'ll be away from the blog for a couple of days so best wishes to every for a lovely weekend!','Strange Week','','publish','open','open','','strange-week','','','2008-11-22 00:09:13','2008-11-21 21:09:13','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=392',0,'post','',1),(394,1,'2008-11-22 09:25:47','2008-11-22 06:25:47','Wow. I woke up this morning to rain.  I got out of bed and thought great it\'s not raining any more. Ha, ha.  Turns out, now it\'s actually snowing.  This is unexpected.  I am still going to Veliko Turnovo--what\'s a little snow?! Luckily it\'s not sticking.  Wish me luck, I am going to break out my wool sweater.  Snow.  Wow.','Snowing in Sofia','','publish','open','open','','snowing-in-sofia','','','2008-11-22 09:25:47','2008-11-22 06:25:47','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=394',0,'post','',0),(401,1,'2008-11-25 22:55:57','2008-11-25 19:55:57','','CAE VT','Me at Tsarevets (the Castle)','inherit','open','open','','dsc04564','','','2008-11-25 22:55:57','2008-11-25 19:55:57','',399,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04564.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(402,1,'2008-11-25 22:58:54','2008-11-25 19:58:54','','VT Universisty','View into the Valley','inherit','open','open','','dsc04539','','','2008-11-25 22:58:54','2008-11-25 19:58:54','',399,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04539.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(403,1,'2008-11-25 23:03:10','2008-11-25 20:03:10','','VT Castle road','Road to the Castle','inherit','open','open','','dsc04552','','','2008-11-25 23:03:10','2008-11-25 20:03:10','',399,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04552.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(404,1,'2008-11-25 23:09:10','2008-11-25 20:09:10','','VT Church','Chruch at Tsarevets','inherit','open','open','','dsc04565','','','2008-11-25 23:09:10','2008-11-25 20:09:10','',399,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04565.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(399,1,'2008-11-25 23:13:38','2008-11-25 20:13:38','[caption id=\"attachment_401\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"300\" caption=\"Me at Tsarevets (the Castle)\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04564.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-401\" title=\"CAE VT\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04564.jpg?w=300\" alt=\"Me at Tsarevets (the Castle)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI went to Veliko Tarnovo on Saturday in a snow storm.  I thought it was going to be a pretty low key weekend and it was.  But I never expected that I\'d be traveling to the city in the first snow storm of the year.  It\'s made a couple of things clear: I need to buy new boots for winter and a better hat.  This will be a priority for the upcoming weekend (which I am spending in Sofia--it\'s the first in four weeks).\n\nSnow is a funny thing.  I think it makes people a little bit crazy.  In Washington DC, at the first suggestion of a snow storm people would flood the grocery store and buy up huge amounts of toilet paper and other food staples as if they might never be able to make to the store again.  In Sofia, people seemed more ho-hum about it.  I packed some warmer clothes in my bag and broke out my wool sweater and headed to the bus station.<!--more-->\n\nIt was a little bit slower going, the side walks are uneven already so a little snow covers that and made me walk more cautiously. When I got to the tram line on Vitosha Street, I thought: phew, now I am only five stops away from the bus station.  No problem.  Of course, there was a problem.  The tram wasn\'t running on\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_402\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"225\" caption=\"View into the Valley \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04539.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-402\" title=\"VT Universisty \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04539.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"View into the Valley \" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nVitosha this weekend.  I guess it was scheduled for repairs.  Luckily a Bulgarian girl who saw me standing there told me in nearly perfect American-English that the line was down.  It was really, really nice of her. I can\'t imagine how long I would have stood there otherwise.  Well, it was snowing pretty hard so I guess that I would have lasted for 20 minutes before I was cold and tired and decided to walk home and call my friends in Veliko Tarnovo for a \"snow-check\" (you know, rather than a \"rain-check\").\n\nAnyhow, as luck would have it I was able to walk about six blocks and catch the tram further up.  Still, reader, you should know it was snowing in big wet clumps.  It wasn\'t sticking to the ground so the sidewalk was wet and slushy.  I had my umbrella out but it might have been more trouble than it was worth.  Somehow, I made it to the station about 15 minutes before my bus was leaving.  I bought the ticket, hopped on the bus and by the time I was comfortable in my seat, we were on the road.  The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful.\n\nBy the time I got to Veliko Tarnovo, it was snowing heavily there.  Needless to say, I spent Saturday curled up on a couch catching up with my other Fulbright friends, eating soup and reading.  I figured it\'s better to be trapped inside with friends than at home alone in your apartment during a snow storm so I was happy as a clam.\n\nWhen I woke up on Sunday, the sky was clear and the sun was out.  It wasn\'t warm but the snow was melting and it was perfect weather for a walk.  So we walked all over the town.  On a map it doesn\'t look very big and it\'s not but what\'s surprising is how hilly the town is.  I was never out of breath or anything but walking around you get this sense that you are always going up hill.  This maybe where the \"I walked to and from school up hill both ways\" jokes originated.  It was great to see the city and even more than that it was nice to be out the apartment.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_403\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Road to the Castle \"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04552.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-403\" title=\"VT Castle road\" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04552.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Road to the Castle \" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nThe next day, I did about four more hours of walking around.  Veliko Tarnovo is known as a tourist city but it turns out in the middle of November after a snow storm there are not too many tourists out and about.  It meant that I had the castle nearly to myself.  I saw two other tourists on the grounds with me and when I was leaving I saw three more people entering.  The castle is an interesting thing because it was build during the 20th century.  Apparently there used to be a castle of some sort on the grounds but by the time anyone cared much nothing was really left.  So they rebuilt it.\n\nBut to say that they re-built it is kind of misleading.  They put up a church and then some walls that imitated what might have been there--once.  So there are rocks to climb over, walls to look at and an incredible view of the city and the valley.  It\'s worth going to the castle for the views alone.\n\nI have to say, I thought it was going to be a little bit cheesy to go to the castle seeing as it\'s a man made tourist attraction but when I was there I completely forgot about the feeling.  I am sure that it helped that I more or less had the place to myself but I think that it would be equally enjoyable during the spring or summer--just with more people.  The name of the castle is actually Tsarevets but being an American I don\'t get to use the word castle nearly enough so I just called it the castle all weekend long.\n\nReally just think about it, do we have a single real-honest-to-god-castle in the USA? I don\'t think so.  (The\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_404\" align=\"alignright\" width=\"225\" caption=\"Chruch at Tsarevets\"]<a href=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04565.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-404\" title=\"VT Church \" src=\"http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04565.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"Chruch at Tsarevets\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nonly castle I can think of right now is the Smithsonian Castle and that\'s just so-so.)  This made it that much more fun to say things like: I am going to take a walk to the castle or oh, this afternoon I toured the castle grounds.  I think that castles+me=fun. Oh and one other great thing,  the church at Tsarevets doesn\'t have a single icon painting.  Instead it has these great mural paintings.  The murals are seriously communist inspired and a refreshing change to a sea of icons in blue and gold with images of the Jesus, the Virgin Mary and saints slaying dragons in most of the other Orthodox churches I\'ve been to visit.\n\nI did a little shopping in order to do my part to reverse the current economic downturn.  I am not sure if I really made much of a difference but I got some great stuff--a little something for me and a few gifts as well.  And once again, I was struck by how inexpensive everything is even hand made jewelry made locally.\n\nSo my final thoughts on Veliko Tarnovo, it\'s a great little city.  I was very happy to have spent three days visiting the city.  If you were visiting Bulgaria, however, and wanted to see Veliko Tarnovo I think that you could do it in a day and a night.  That is if you were snow storm free!!','Veliko Tarnovo','','publish','open','open','','veliko-tarnovo','','','2008-11-25 23:13:38','2008-11-25 20:13:38','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=399',0,'post','',3),(406,1,'2008-11-26 15:56:33','2008-11-26 12:56:33','Happy Thanksgiving.\n\n[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjmR8GB6VjM]\n\nOkay seriously, I am wishing everyone a very happy Thanksgiving.\n\nWho knew I\'d move to Sofia and get to celebrate Thanksgiving twice.  I\'ll be eating turkey tonight and chicken tomorrow for the \"real\" Thanksgiving.  So I guess that my title today should really be \"Two Days of Flightless Birds.\" But I guess I shouldn\'t complain about--the only thing I am worried about is having appropriate leftovers to make a sandwich on Friday.  Fingers crossed.\n\nI know that right now you are very jealous of the fact that I get to have two Thanksgivings but right now the only thing I can think about are cranberries.  I wonder if the Ambassador has some secret ability to make cranberries appear at our dinner tonight. I haven\'t seen this fruit anywhere in Bulgaria and I didn\'t realize that I missed it until I was planning for my own Thanksgiving.  The thing is I am not talking the canned kind--what I really, really want is a nice sour cranberry relish with a hint of citrus.\n\nOh I also want a slice of white meat turkey breast.  I really hope that I don\'t get stuck with a leg or a wing.  That would bum me out.  The thing is I don\'t know how many other people are going to her dinner--will it be a plated meal? Is it possible that she will actually slice a turkey or will her husband? Then again maybe we\'ll skip this fanfare all together.  Also, will she have both pumpkin pie and pecan pie (and how will I pick?!?)? Man, there are so many things to think about.\n\nAnyhow, hopefully this will be a dinner that is more traditional than say the dinner I am hosting tomorrow night this is the \"modern-I-am-living-in-a-two-small-apartment-to-actually-cook-a-serious-Thanksgiving-dinner.\"  More on my own dinner later.\n\nThanks again to everyone who reads my blog and encourages me to keep writing.\n\nPS to my family in KY who I spent a couple of Thanksgivings with I woke up this morning (11/27) and realized that I forget to mention you in my giving-thanks for past Thanksgivings.  Sorry about that.','Two Days of Turkey','','publish','open','open','','two-days-of-turkey','','','2008-11-26 15:56:33','2008-11-26 12:56:33','',0,'http://karolinkabulgaria.wordpress.com/?p=406',0,'post','',6),(414,1,'2008-11-29 23:04:35','2008-11-29 20:04:35','','CAE and Thanksgiving friend','Giving-Thanks at Thanksgiving for New Friends','inherit','open','open','','dsc04605','','','2008-11-29 23:04:35','2008-11-29 20:04:35','',411,'http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04605.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),