Science in Sofia: "Kak say kazvatay?"...and other thoughts

The past three days I have started my days with faculty meetings (which have been surprisingly short). It has been really neat meeting and getting to know these people. I really like the fellow science teachers in my department. I think I am really going to enjoy working with them and I look forward to doing so.

This past weekend, most of the new international teachers all had to take a trip to Thessaloniki, Greece in order to process our visa applications with the Bulgarian consulate. We got to Thessaloniki on Thursday night, after having a lovely drive through several beautiful Bulgarian villages, we stopped at the Rila Monastery.

Rila Monastery is maybe one of the most photographed locations in the country, and rightfully

so. The building is absolutely beautiful, with amazing frescoes, and black and white design. The monastery is nestled down in the middle of this gorge in the tree covered mountains, which rose almost straight up on all sides. It was absolutely beautiful.

When we got there, the whole place was swarming with people. The car with a huge floral wreath tied on the roof, which had passed us earlier on the two way, curvy mountain, had parked in front of the monastery; a man in a dark suit took the wreath off the car and walked inside of the front gate into the throngs of people... Apparently, as Tanya informed us, the day we were there, it was the 800th-something anniversary of St. John, the monk who established the monastery in the mid 900's.

The mountains were just so pretty... they seemed to rise just straight up, and were covered in trees. Outside the outer wall was a several little kiosks selling food, saint icons, and other little touristy things. There was this one little building which sold the doughnuts, that Tanya said "we had to try". Tanya waited for like 20 minutes in this line to buy them for all of us.

There are beautiful detailed paintings all over and around the buildings of the monastery and the outer "dorm" building...I am not really sure of what it is, but the outer wall of the monastery had three or four floors of all these different rooms, which I assume were used as the living quarters of the monks who lived there at one point in time.

We walked into this one room on the bottom floor. It was the kitchen, and there was this huge soot covered ceiling that opened up to the sky, where there was a little bit of light coming through. On the ground were huge cauldrons where they would cook and prepare the food. I think this was a pretty cool shot of the kitchen.

The cauldrons in the kitchen.....

There were also all of these fountains where people would just walk up to and drink out of. Apparently they are all over Bulgaria, and it is very common to just go an

d use the water that flows out of them, however I am not sure how "safe" the water is to drink.

After being at Rila for about an hour we went to lunch at this restaurant that was tucked in one of the valleys next to a shallow stream. We sat at a couple tables, enjoying the nice day, and the breeze, and ate some delicious Bulgarian dishes. After lunch, we continued on our drive south to Thessaloniki. I am pretty sure most of us in the van passed out from our food coma, promptly after getting on (well, at least I fell asleep and didn't wake up until we had arrived at the city). Well, we did have to pass through customs, and that went successfully without any issues.

We arrived in Thessaloniki just around dinnertime...We all checked into our rooms, and I was able to sneak a shower before we met to go to dinner. We walked through the streets a few blocks into this larger "piazza" like square, which covered a few blocks, and stretched out right

down to the water. We went off onto a little narrow sidestreet lined with restaurants, each with dining tables spilling out into the cobblestones, from both sides. Our group was immediately bombarded by waiters trying to get us to come and dine in their establishments, and they were very persistent, however Tanya had already made arrangements with one of the restaurants. We get there, and there is a big table set up outside. Shortly, after

some negotiating with the waiter, we had ordered huge platters of amazing Greek food...kebobs, lamb chops, different sauces, salads, etc... Wine and beer... we had a feast!!

After we had eaten as much as we could, we all went to walk along the "boardwalk" along the bay. It was dark by now, so I couldn't really see the water, but we walked along this large wall, and the waves just crash right up against them.

I bought some street art, because I can not stand the fact that the walls in my room are so bright white... There were a few people selling art, and

one guy had some scenes of Greece. There was this really beautiful one of Santorini that I decided to buy. I think it was a bit overpriced at 5 Euro, but I think it is worth it, as it adds quite a bit of color to my room. (Which, I think I am going to try and paint sometime soon...woohoo!)

Friday, we had to be at the consulate early in order to make our appointment. Tanya took us in one at a time, where she would hand him our application for a visa, he asked me to confirm my signature, and that was all that was said. It was very strange and interesting. There was a little gift bag on the desk, which I imagine was some sort of gift to help push the visa applications through... Very interesting event, but we all made it out alive.

After we had all gone in and passed our visa apps to the consulate we then piled again into the van and made our way back north, along the coast to a different border checkpoint than the one we crossed on our trip down. Apparently this was a brand new crossing point and someone had suggested it because there would be less traffic. When we got there, it apparently was more of a big deal than was expected, and it took about 45 minutes to process our passports. This new border crossing was set up to process the NEW American passports, the ones with the hard magnetic covers that has all the information stored as opposed to the "old" ones where the attendant has to enter all the information manually. So after waiting, and several lines forming behind us later, we were processed through the Greece/Bulgarian border, and proceeded to our next destination for the afternoon/evening.

We stayed at this mineral bath/spa hotel, called Hotel Victoria, which I cannot find anywhere online (because I have forgotten where we were exactly). I do know that we were about an hour south of Bansko, the famous ski resort around here. Anyways, this hotel was, like a lot of things, in need of a little bit of basic upkeep. The food was good (I don't know if I can eat another shopsko salad for a month or so) and the pools were nice. The water is hot, almost like a giant bath tub, because of the hot springs that come out of the mountains where the hotel was built. It was kind of cool. However, because everything used these springs as a water source, there was no cold water in my hotel room, and the shower smelled a bit like sulphur...It was an experience nonetheless. At night, there was a guitar and violinist who were playing some traditional Bulgarian music. There were some people who were doing some of the traditional dance to the music. Tanya got up after dinner at one point and joined them... The video is a little dark but you can at least hear the music.

Some shots of the hotel and the pools....

Hello John, Roxanne and Greg!

Front entrance to the hotel

On Saturday we left around noon, and drove up to this mountain village... I cannot remember what it was called, but I will find out and post it. This village was beautiful. I guess you can rent out some of the houses for a week vacation. It was very cool. We walked around the village for a bit, took pictures, and then continued on to where we were having lunch. We ate at this hotel/restaurant that used to be an old mill. The food, again, was good. Very basic, and simple, but tasty. We had some wine, and enjoyed the entertainment provided by a frisky tiger colored cat, who I had to resist taking home with us :)

The food, again placed me into a food coma, and I dozed again on the way home to Sofia. It was a little bit of a long trip with all the driving and stopping, but we finally made it.

This is the steeple of the church in the little mountain village we stopped in. I think it was possibly the smallest church I have ever been in, but absolutely lovely...