Bulgaria and Back: Welcome to March

    Happy March!

    Spring has sprung in Munich--not officially, or not even really weather-wise, but in everyone's mind, at least! Boots are becoming a thing of the past, the snow is all melted, birds chirp frenetically all day, and clothing is tending more towards shorts and dresses and skirts with nylons underneath (even with the shorts. Weird). Alas, it's not happening nearly fast enough. Last weekend, the weather was sunny and beautiful and in the low 50s (or so I was told, as I was gallivanting throughout Bulgaria), and with that report, my Cali brain embraced the idea, tripled it, and anticipated coming back to blooming flowers and tanning weather. I am ready to ditch this coat. But the arrival of spring is a slow process. Though at least the days are longer, the forecast for the next few days ranges mainly between mid-20s and low 40s. With rain. Spring, where are you!?!??!

     Anyway, if you caught the brief reference above, I'm fresh off a five-day trip to Sofia to welcome Nate back from his month-long grad school audition tour in the states. Apply to him for details: I'll spare you anymore about that except you should all be glad it was him and not you!  It was a lovely trip, with pretty kind weather, and coincided nicely with some Bulgarian cultural events:

• the tradition of Баба Марта (Baba Marta (Grandmother March)) and wearing мартеница (martenitsa). Ultimately a welcoming-spring tradition, martenitsi are red and white yarn ornaments worn around the wrist or pinned on a jacket, bringing the wearer good luck and health, and as an offering to Grandmother March to make the spring come quickly. The bracelets/ornaments are worn until the wearer sees the first stork or budding tree, and are then removed and hung on the tree. Though many Bulgarians end up with dozens, I only got one. Sad. 
• March 3 was the Bulgarian holiday of Liberation Day, basically their version of the fourth of July. It's the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878, freeing Bulgaria from nearly 500 years of Ottoman rule. A much more solemn holiday than ours (the history being a lot more recent, for one thing), there was not much observable celebration, but the advantage of being in the country's capital is seeing the main event: a parade with the Bulgarian armed forces, a speech by the new president, and fireworks and machine gun shooting, all in front of the Parliament building (a mere ten-minute's walk from Nate's apartment, I might add).

Some other general frivolity included a trip to The Mall (yes, capitalized. It's a big freaking deal), a walk around the National Palace of Culture (НДК, pronounced In-dih-kah, which led me to believe for longer than I care to admit that the neighborhood was called Indica. Not unreasonable, as there is a Serdica. I learned.), an unexpected visit to a chunk of the Berlin Wall, a walk through some Roman ruins, a trip to the hot springs, and of course some delicious local and international food (INDIAN. And DÖNER. YUM.) I also learned how to read Cyrillic! Nate got tired of my utter ignorance (as did I), so we spent an afternoon in McDonald's learning how to read the menu, with the help of Nate's very patient Bulgarian friend, Irina. 


     All-in-all, a thoroughly wonderful five days. Worked out conveniently with my family in that Anne's parents were planning a trip over anyway, and they graciously waited for me to figure out my schedule to decide when to come. And as always, a heartfelt thank-you to my handsome and knowledgeable host, Nate. 

Soldiers marching in the parade

More

Official colorguard

Parliament building. Note the sniper just to the right of the nearest corner! Nate was worried when I dared to take a photo of him. He didn't shoot me though. I am sneaky.

Center of the proceedings, with troops and giant lit torch. Would have been a better photo were we not behind many people and Nate only got this picture by holding the camera waaaay up high.

Fireworks! Happy Liberation Day, Bulgaria!

Oh hey, Berlin Wall, didn't see you there.

"On 13 August 1961 a wall divided Berlin, Germany, and with it Europe and the world in two. Bulgaria stayed locked east of the wall - and this until 9 November 1989, when the people overturned it. This broken piece of the Berlin Wall is a present from the people of Berlin for the citizens of Sofia - as a symbol of the reunification of Europe and proof that Bulgaria will be from now on free."

Mt. Vitosha in the background of the National Palace of Culture

National Palace of Culture (НДК) 

Skeptical Nate, probably making fun of me for being such a tourist

Crumbling monument to the greatness of Communism

Alexander Nevski Cathedral

Ruined Roman amphitheater in the lobby of a hotel. NBD.

Just hanging out in said amphitheater. I may have smuggled a chip of it home with me. Don't tell.

     Anyway, all romantic foreign vacation weekend must come to an end, and this one did as well. The only pleasant thing about my trip home was a fun moment at an airport cafe in Vienna where a waiter actually apologized for speaking to me in English--I love being mistaken for a native German. Europe: 0, Laura: 1. 


     As sad as it always is to leave Nate and come back to the grind, it is pleasant to be greeted by these cuties upon my return:

     Spending the time in Sofia planning trips and visits and summer adventures made me feel like it is all a lot closer than it is: alas and alack, it's still the beginning of March. Crap. The monotony of the week and the realization that there's really nothing of excitement to look forward to for another month, at least, got me down for a couple of days. But I've rallied. Fear not!


     The one nice day this week gave us a chance to go to one of the nearby parks and do some bike riding. Cliona has graduated to a big-girl bike (albeit with training wheels, or stabilisers, as my family calls them), and she needs all the practice she can get. Though I feel like she's incredibly young to learn to ride a real bike, Kilian did it at the same age and he's a far better biker than I am at the age of six, so apparently it worked. Our biking went...well, okay. Cliona is a shrimpy little thing and pedaling is far more difficult for her than I think she'd ever imagined it could be. She also can't steer. I know it's awful, but I can't help but chuckle a little (read: bend in two laughing uproariously) as she pedals at the sedate speed of a racing snail straight into the grass/fence/soccer goal, screaming all the way. 


     Kilian and I had a talk the other day wherein he actually realized I was ultimately a kid, like him, really far away from home. He knows my parents exist because we've Skyped with my mom several times, but he hasn't really conceptualized that they live over there and I don't see them. Our conversation went something like "Laura, why do you never see your parents? Don't you miss them?" 
"Yes, Kilian, I do."
"Why don't you go to see them?" 
"Because they live very far away." 
"Couldn't you take an airplane?" 
"Well, I could, but it costs a lot of money and then I wouldn't be here to take care of you." 
"Oh...but don't you miss them?"
An interesting moment. Kilian's a very bright kid, and I very much enjoy talking with him (though I did just struggle through twenty minutes of him sobbing in bed because he didn't want to go to his swim lesson tomorrow..."I hate swimming!" "Why?" "Because I hate it!")


   A couple of weeks ago my buddy Leigh was staying with her host family down in Neuhaus, about an hour south of Munich, and an unexpected day off gave me the chance to schlepp down via the BOB (Bayrische Oberlandbahn) to see some real snow. 'Twas a pleasantly relaxing day of taking a couple of her kids sledding and getting dinner at a cosy little Bavarian restaurant. I love days off! 

NOM SO MUCH SNOW

    Other recent adventures include a visit to Toytown last night. We successfully managed to swing the online vote to have it at one of my favorite bars, Beach 38. It's full of sand and boardwalk and beach chairs and is a happy, happy place.

Leigh, Leah, Lauren, Laura. We confuse people a lot.

Foamiest beer ever

    A couple weeks ago was a trip to a new Irish pub in town, Kennedy's, for a friend's birthday celebration! In case you were wondering, you can indeed get an Irish car bomb at an Irish pub. Though they laugh at you.

    I started a new language course yesterday. This one is located a convenient fifteen minutes' walk from my house, so it's rather more practical than the last. It's also quite small: seven people, I do believe. I'm again the only American; the others hail from France, Russia, Ukraine, Croatia, and China. I'm definitely out of practice in the format of a class (my last one ended over three months ago), but it's nice to be back in some organized learning again. I'll keep you posted on how it goes!


    That's about it as far as personal news. If you weren't aware, Germany recently got a new president, Joachim Gauck. Research that if you feel it's necessary. I just looked up and saw a truly massive spider on my wall. Oh shit. It just fell and is now probably in my laundry.


    Yes. Yes it was in my laundry. That was a harrowing experience. There aren't poisonous spiders in Germany, but one roughly the size of my hand (okay, a little smaller, but still) is still going to make me shriek a little. It's running around outside now. Say a little prayer to the spider gods that it didn't leave any offspring in with me! 

    I was going to try and think of more, but I'm too shook up over that spider experience. Eek! More to come soon, I hope! And happy International Women's Day! 

     

Seasons change and so do we: On Autumn, Bulgaria, and Kiddos

      I have to apologize yet again for taking so long to post, but I'll say that with the admission that probably this will be a more frequent rate. Life isn't interesting enough to merit a post every three days (even when it is, probably no one would read all of them anyway, so I'll keep things modest). But life's good here!


      As I've said before, because I find it very witty (though I've yet to meet anyone who agrees with me. Fortunately my reservoir of self-confidence is full enough that I manage to cope with such lack of support for my humor.), if Spring sprung, then here in Germany, Fall definitely fell. I'm becoming accustomed to the typical Autumn temperatures (in case you were wondering, the term "fall" is basically obsolete as a name for this season everywhere except North America), those being generally between 35 and 50 degrees on a given day. A month ago those numbers would have totally terrified me, but I'm managing to stay plenty warm and enjoying discovering the amusing style choices that go along with consistently chilly weather. (These include nylons under jeans, undershirts, boots over jeans, and wooly socks. Soon I will probably also manage a bommel hat (picture the knitted hats with huge pom-poms on the top. So excited.))


      All's been going well here. I continue with babysitting, language class, singing in the Palestrina choir, and meeting new people. I had Mexican food last week. Never thought a Corona would taste so good! Biggest excitement of recent time was my trip to Bulgaria over the weekend to stay with Nate and get my first taste of Eastern Europe (and all that those capital letters imply). 


     Of course the knowledge I was going to see Nate made last week draaaaaaaaaaaag, but thankfully made it through and woke up at 4 AM Friday morning to catch a bus and a train to make my 7 o'clock flight to Vienna and on to Sofia. (Bear in mind it was about 25 degrees out whilst waiting for this 4:25 AM bus. Burrrrrr.)  Five fairly uneventful travel hours later (aside from the brief amusement of having to be shuttled out to the plane in Vienna as a Chinese jet refused to move from its parking spot at our gate...), I arrived in Sofia Airport and was greeted enthusiastically by my loving boyfriend (who will kill me for having said that). Nate has a great apartment (once you get past the terrifying entry-way, replete with quite a few horror movie locations. I'm pretty sure it's where they shot the video in The Ring. Thankfully the door locked.) right down the street from the university and the beautiful Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. We spent a good weekend with a lot of food (Mediterranean, traditional Bulgarian качамак  (I don't know how to pronounce that but it's delicious--basically hot polenta with feta cheese and sauce on it), amazing Indian food, and even some homemade imitation pasta primavera, accompanied by delicious Bulgarian wine) and a lot of sightseeing. Only in Eastern Europe do some of the main attractions include graffiti. We finished the weekend with drinks with some of Nate's Fulbrighter and Bulgarian friends, and then I headed back to Deutschland in the wee, wee hours of Monday morning (though a taxi ride to the airport was only 10 leva, aka 5 euros, aka CHEAP. Bulgaria's super cool that way. My apologies for taking advantage of their sad economy, but hey, girl's gotta eat.)


      I've never been in a country before where I have literally zero comprehension of the language. Though I'll be the first to admit my French is horrid, my Dutch almost non-existent, and my Italian laughable, I can fake a good please-thank you-where's the bathroom with the best of them, and at least make a reasonable stab at pronouncing street names/shops/menu items. Bulgaria was really a humbling experience, language-wise. The one word I had at my disposal (other than "snimki" (photos) and "kolka"(how much), which are all I picked up during four months of Nate's learning Bulgarian) was merci (thank you, obviously), which I generally said with a head-duck and abashed expression.  At one point I was asked what a restaurant we'd been to was, and I, excited to know the answer to something, spelled it out, only to be informed that what I'd just spelled was the word for Apotheke (literally, apothecary, like a drug store), which had been next door to the restaurant. Oops? It was incredibly nice to find, on returning to Vienna, that I actually understood the language around me. I know my German isn't perfect, but it's really improved a lot in the nearly two months I've been here, and it was fun to realize that.

Ridiculous statue in Yuzhen Park. Built in 1981to commemorate 1300 years of...something, it was apparently so shoddily constructed it started falling apart within a year, and instead of spending the money to tear it down (and thus admitting defeat), they just put up a wall to prevent anyone being decapitated by falling pieces of statue.

National Palace of Culture. And Nate. 

Mt. Vitosha 

Gorgeous little Orthodox church of St. George, dating from the 4th century. 4TH CENTURY. They were reciting mass in Church Slavonic while we looked around. So cool.

Changing of the guards. Not quite as impressive as Buckingham palace, but they kick while they walk! Funsies.

I don't remember what this is? National Theater, I think.

Because I can.

      Me being depressing. Feel free to skip: The only downside to such a wonderful weekend is, of course, having it end, so I've been moping around since I've been back.  It's becoming less of a foreign country here and more of just another place I'm living, so it takes a little more to pull me out of a funk than it would have, say, a month and a half ago. It's tough not being able to talk to people, and tougher still to realize I'm no longer an important part of the lives people are living back in the states. Seeing my boyfriend only once a month for a weekend is incredibly hard for me. But I'm living the dream here! I just forget it every now and then. But I really do love it here: I love the family I'm with, I adore the people I've met, I cherish the beer, and I really do love Germany. But I mean it when I say I miss you all!


      Also, realization has hit that I leave for the states (and Katie Ascani's wedding!) in T-23 days, so that's really a landmark time coming up! 


      Kids continue to narrowly walk the line between adorable/sweet/super fun and incredibly obnoxious/whiny, but that's the story with kids in general, I suppose. Kilian decided today my new name was to be "Gorga Lisping Lily Toilet," and he called me that without fail at the end of every sentence. For about three hours. Oy. I also roundly got my butt kicked at "Kennst du Rechnen?" (Can you add?), which apparently I can't. Ouch. Conversation topics tend to be pretty limited; our half-hour walk home usually bounces between what kind of cars we're passing (Ich lieb BMV! Ich lieb Audi! Ich will Porsche! (that's I love, I love, I want)), that the leaves have fallen (die Blätter haben runtergefallen!), who was first/who won, and that Cliona is not a baby anymore (Ich bin kein Baby! Ich bin ein großes Mädchen! (I'm not a baby! I'm a big girl!))  


      I tell you, spending so much time with kids really gives me appreciation for parents. Especially mine. Given the four or so hours I spend per day with the kids, I cannot fathom being a stay-at-home mother. I think I would go insane. Not that being an au pair is turning me against the idea of having children (okay, some days it does), but it has definitely furthered my resolve to wait until I am good and ready.  Being an au pair is a type of Mommy-practice, I guess, but I sure appreciate that I get to hand them back to their parents at the end of the day. I suppose motherhood doesn't include weekends off, now does it?  I'm still amused at the circumstances that have led me, a self-professed non-child lover, to commit to a year looking after children. 


      Also, wherever I got the idea that kids forget things so whatever you do is okay, definitely not a good source. I am constantly being reminded of things I haven't done. Kilian disapprovingly told me today I forgot to give him a plaster (Band-Aid, for those not familiar with British-isms) when he fell on his bike. Last Monday. Sorry? Never say something you can't follow through on, seriously.


      And that's basically all! Went to a cool little local festival last week called the Auer Dult, which was basically a huge swap meet/antique fair/trade show with some rides and lots of food, but ended up being good fun. Here're some photos, stolen from the wonderful Leigh Stephenson:

L-R: Jessica, Sophie's boyfriend, Sophie, ME, Leah, and Taylor

On the awesome and never-ending swings! 

Rickety-looking Ferris wheel

      And weekend before last, I finally paid the 1,50 to climb the steps to the top of the tower in Alterpeter, the church in the city center. A lot of very steep and tiring steps later, I had an amazing, albeit chilly, view of the entire city. 

Frauenkirche in background

Marienplatz from above

      To wrap up, I'll say again (and really can't say enough) how much I appreciate your readership! It really warms my heart. Please come visit me. All of you.