Snow, snow, and more snow...

We received so much snowfall this past week.  It just keeps coming down.  White fluffy stuff --  it is so pretty, and I love how it makes the world look so white and clean.... but its a little cold, and I still do not have snow boots.  One would think that a girl from Maine who moves to Bulgaria, would have picked up a pair of snow boots long the way, however this is not so...  

Chestiita Trifon Zarezan!

I have never really been one to participate in the traditional "Valentine's Day" type celebrations, usually I don't even realize it is here until right before the holiday, and thus it has never really been a big deal to me.  This year, however, I found something here, in Bulgaria that I feel I can really connect to on a more personal and sentimental level:  the celebration of Trifon Zarezan. 

Trifon Zarezan is a holiday which centers around the annual ritualized and actual act of trimming the grape vines in the vineyards, prepping the plants for the coming grape harvest and wine making.  Some sprigs from one of the plants are cut and the plant is blessed with wine and holy water in order to stave away frost and other detriments to a good crop.  The day is also celebrated with feasting and imbibing, giving homage to our good god of wine, Bacchus.  Sometimes, in areas where this celebration is still strictly adhered to, there even is a crowned wine king who is carted through the village on a horse drawn cart and the celebration carries on for a couple days.  

Now, I think this is a holiday I could get used to.... so, all you wine lovers and drinkers, and especially those of you in the singles category, let's raise our glasses to the god of Wine instead of to the god of Love this year!  

Nazdravey!

(and a Happy Valentine's Day to everyone as well! xoxox)

More Photos from Christmas and New Year's!

.: more Salzburg :.

The Mozart birthplace... tourist trap

This was on the side of a building next to a man who was vending Christmas trees.  This little "chart" displays the growth and development of the pine tree from cone to seedling to sapling!

I have never seen so many handpainted egg shells in one place in my life.  I don't even think the Easter Bunny has either! 

Egg shells for any occasion...

Yes, nuns ride their bikes too...

slightly inappropriate wood carving/sculpture... 

Mom, carrying home the largest sprig of mistletoe I have ever seen...

.: Bulgaria :. 

Boyana Church, outside Sofia.  This I think is the most magnificent thing I have seen yet while being here in Europe.  The most unassuming and non-pretentious building, there are inner frescoes which still remain in such exquisite detail and condition (after a 7 year renovation) that date to around 1250.... medieval times!!!

St. George's Church and Roman ruins, Sofia.  One of the most photographed images of the city. 

The family, pretty stoked about their beverage consumption in the movie theater!  The only downside is if you go to see a really long movie...

Outside of the National History Museum, which contains tons of history, archeologic and ethnographic relics in this HUGE building which was the former government palace at one point.  The building just screams communism....

... especially the war helicopter outside on the front lawn ...

a couple of sleepy world travelers! 

.: Plovdiv :.

Plovdiv Old Town architecture

new town architecture...

the gorgeous mosque near the middle of the city...

some overdue posts...

In all the hubbub of coming back from winter break, pretty much up until now, I have been pretty negligent to post some photos of some of the more recent events/travels/social events I have had here over the past month or so.  Here are a few highlights to bring us up to date on the whereabouts of this east coast girl...

Christmas/New Year's Vacation with my family in Salzburg and Sofia.

I met up with my mom, dad and sister in Salzburg a few days into Christmas vacation to stay through the holiday.  I flew, took a train from Vienna to Salzburg, and after a 15 minute public bus, found myself walking around the squares and cobble stone streets as if I was alive several centuries ago.  The "old city", we were staying near the Mozartplatz, was one of the more charming places I have been.  The old stone streets, storefronts, plazas, and of course the castle always looming overhead on the mountaintop, looking over all the streets below, were something that had been torn out of an old vintage magazine.  I loved it.  

I checked into the hotel to try to see if I could locate my family.  My phone was not working so I couldn't call my dad as we had planned on me doing to let them know I had arrived.  I found my sister fast asleep in the room she and I were sharing, with a note on the floor written by mom saying they had gone out for a walk.  I decided they probably had not gone too far, and so I also went out to try to look for them.  I walked out through Mozartplatz, a plaza with a larger than life statue of Wolfgang himself, which had taken on the very spirit of the season with a large ice skating rink, the Christmas market (which went on for a couple plazas) and little huts serving syrupy alcoholic beverages, with high back benches, complete with blankets to warm those wanting to sit and sip.  

After finding the family and catching up in person, we headed out for an evening on the town and had a delicious dinner together (I actually think it may have been Indian food).  The storefronts all screamed Christmas and we walked around the streets, side alleys, enjoying the holiday cheer and each other.  It was nice to be able to spend time with them over the holiday.  I think Christmas is my favorite holiday.  

After a "Mozart" dinner/performance, which was amazing, a hike and tour of the fortress over Salzburg, a walk into the other half of the city across the river, and plenty of time spent in the Christmas market, we certainly had a busy and yet relaxing vacation.  Christmas Eve was a bit of a scramble to try to find a place to eat, as the holiday is spent with family.  We did find an excellent family owned Italian restaurant that had some of the best anti-pasta and homemade pizza I have had in a really long time.  Probably since the last time I visited Boston's Little Italy...  Midnight mass we attended later on in the Dom (which is the main cathedral in the city)  It was unbelievable.  The service was entirely in German, but it was periodically interrupted with some of Mozart's best works.  At the end of the service, all the lights in the giant, cold cathedral went out, save the candles and some of the ambient lights near the top of the cupola. There was a male and female soloist, a violinist, and a acoustic guitar player, and the four of them, up in the little side balconies along the center aisle, sand and played the most beautiful rendition of Silent Night I have ever heard.  It truly made sitting through the very foreign mass worth it.  Christmas was a very nice and lazy day which we spent walking and then finished with a grand Christmas dinner at the Sacher Hotel (apparently where the sacher torte was created).  

It was a wonderful and delicious vacation, and after Christmas we made our way a little further east to Sofia, where I was able to show my parents around my city and some of the sights.  I think we spent about an hour and a half in the ethnographic museum gift shop, which sells almost strictly handmade Bulgarian crafts.... pottery, weavings, silver jewelry and woodwork. Mom and Abby I think muddled over pottery for about 90% of the time, trying to decide how they were going to pack their things home, which clothes and shoes they would have to leave for me to ship back, and also which shade of light blue design did they like best :-)  It was a very well spent afternoon of sightseeing and wallet shrinking...

We took a little day trip on the train out east to the city of Plovdiv, a place which is pretty well known for its "old town" section.  We wandered around those cobbled streets, checking out the restored and preserved houses which are representative of the Nationalist revival period of Bulgarian history.   I loved the mosque that they have in the center of the major pedestrian areas;  it had beautiful fresco-like paintings all along the inside of the room.  Stunning and very impressive.  Plovdiv is also home to many Roman ruins dating back to the second and third centuries.  The amphitheater had been completely sealed and forgotten about until the 1970's when a landslide in the city revealed the Roman remains.  Pretty crazy that something like that could go on unremembered for so long...

New Year's Eve in Sofia was pretty tame for us, although I think it usually is a pretty low key holiday for me.  We went to see Australia in the nearby theater, and we ended up being the only ones seeing the movie.  My dad was pretty pumped about being allowed to consume beer in the movie theater! (or kino as we in the Bulgaria sector call the movies).  

It was a great vacation, restful and fun.  I was very happy to be able to spend time with my fam, and sad to see them go, but school was starting back up in a few days, and there was plenty for me to do between before then...

Here are some photos to document our time on break:

Up in the fortress!!!...

A creepy torture tool, which the tour recording said was one of the worst torture devises used in the fortress.  The torture room we went in, never was used for these activities, according to the guide, however is just named that because it houses all of the tools used against enemies of the Salzburgian state... lovely. 

Crazy little marionette museum room... with antique puppets.

Dad with the crazy marionette puppets...

Peterskellar...The extremely old monastery, which I believe inspired the setting for the scene in the Sound of Music where the VonTrapps are hiding in the graveyard from the Nazi's.  Very cool, very old, and built right into the side of the mountain...

so, I had meant that post to be for my class blog, but it is interesting, so I guess I will leave it up for everyone!  :-)

Deepest Hole Ever Drilled?

Someone in one of my classes asked today what was the deepest human's have ever drilled into the Earth's crust, and the answer I can find online is 12,261 m.  The Russians in the 1970's built a drill called the Kola Superdeep Borehole, with the intent to sample the region between the crust and the mantle, called the "Moho" short for the Mohorovičić discontinuity. They never made it to their goal, but the project has given scientists and geologists and immense amount of information about the Earth's crust, as well as giving new information, changing what we thought we knew before about the structure of the crust.  

A few links, if you are interested:

International Scientific Continental Drilling Program

Wikipedia-Kola Superdeep Borehole

Another drilling project through a thin area of the earth's crust:

Integrated Ocean Drilling Program