Science in Sofia: Flu Vacation Adventure

Last week we were given the week off from school as mandated by the BG Ministry of Education to help end the spread of the flu epidemic through our schools... Now, this would have been a great idea and a great way to spread germs however, all other public areas of business and entertainment remained open, so I am not sure how well their epidemic control worked, but it certainly made for some excited teachers here. Unfortunately some people had to remain because they were considered to be "administrative staff", so not all parties were included in this time of unexpected adventures. This did not stop a few of us from taking advantage of this time to explore a few previously unknown territories. Some went off to Italy (Cinque Terre and the Lakes Region to the north), others to Greece, Rome, Romania... I went with a few friends in a rent-a-car to visit the oft-disputed region of Macedonia.

Partially I was interested in going because of the beautiful pictures and accounts of travel in the country enticed me. Another part (and the part with the stronger interest) wanted to visit Macedonia to try to figure out what all the hub-bub has been over with this tiny, little country! Bulgarians claim the region and its' people to be Bulgarian; Greece lays some of the same claims. I am not sure which or if either are correct (doubtful) but I feel like this little place has something special to offer if there are so many people upset. I wanted to find out for myself about the country and to try to see what it all was about.

Wednesday morning, we rented a car and were off to the BG-MK border. The night before, I had received an email from the Warden of the US Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria warning travellers that a bridge on the BG side of the border zone had collapsed the previous day .... "due to bad weather"... Now, I am not sure what kinds of bridges you all have travelled on, but I am pretty sure that the bridge is not supposed to collapse DUE TO WEATHER. We luckily received this email and decided to take an alternate, longer, but also more beautiful route. We certainly had a hard time figuring out where we were supposed to go-- there apparently is NO MAP INFO available on Google Maps feature! It was SO WEIRD.... So, because we did not have a map, we just kind of took off driving in the right direction, hoping there would be better signage on the other side of the board. There was not.