Part 23: Spring Break Episode 1: Don’t Move. April 2-8, 2012

The week before Spring Break is horrible.  It’s the end of the quarter and all the teachers here get to enter our grades and comments for each student by hand.  Individually.  Using copy/paste.  However, it is slightly more bearable with the knowledge that for the next 10 days you won’t have to go to work!  Also, two of my friends (from here on out known as Q and T) were coming from the US to experience Bulgaria and the surrounding countries. 

Q arrived on the Tuesday of grading hell week.  Luckily he slept most of the first day he was here, but then he just sort of had to amuse himself until I finished all 137 report cards.  He did get really good at going to the grocery store, but wouldn’t venture farther than that due to his fear of being mugged, in spite of the fact that I kept telling him that it was really safe.  Oh well.  He did make my roommate and me fajitas for dinner one evening, biscuits for breakfast one morning and he managed to find a 50 stotinki razor for the trip (that’s quality), so his trips to HIT were productive even if they were a little repetitive.  I also managed to pawn him off on my friend A, the college counselor, and her friends for an evening so he didn’t have to sit at home.  They did the Sofia walking tour, which I hear is quite good. 

On Friday, my friend T arrived!  I was really excited and I was glad Q was already there and could go pick her up from the airport.  I made sure to provide detailed instructions on how to find the proper and legit OK taxi.  Unfortunately, this didn’t make much of a difference and the (not so) OK taxi driver still tried to rip them off.  Luckily, I’d told Q how much is should cost and he was sooo mad.  Apparently, when the taxi driver tried to ask for 20 lev, he said, “NO!  Seven!”  Luckily it worked and they weren’t overcharged. 

That night we went downtown to a mall I’ve never been to before so my roommate could get a new power cord for her computer.  We then walked around and took in the sights before going to the Taj Mahal Indian restaurant.  We tried to get Thai food, but Sofia only has one Thai restaurant and it was full.

 The next day, we took forever to leave, but eventually made it to the bus station to catch a bus to Plovdiv.  We did the typical Plovdiv sights:  the Roman Ampitheatre, Nebet Tepe (the Thracian fortress) and the Church of St. Constantine and St. Helena.  If you want the historical info on these sights, check out my more detailed Plovdiv entry:  http://bulgariabiologyandotherbrasstacks.blogspot.com/2011/08/part-5-plovdiv-august-29-2011.html   

It was such a nice day in Plovdiv.  The sun was shining and it was really warm.  We started out our journey from the bus station to the train station where a man showed us where the luggage storage room was and then demanded 1 lev for a cup of coffee.  Then we tried to find out how to buy train tickets to Istanbul.  We found plenty of evidence of there being a train, but the first ticket lady said no (and of course I don’t speak enough Bulgarian to really get any details) and the information desk lady could only tell us what time it arrived.  So, using my Bulgaria guidebook (thank you SME science teachers!) we found the ticket office for international trains and this lady hooked us up.  She also had great music playing.   By now it was almost 3 o’clock and we were hungry, so we went to a Chinese restaurant.  The dish I wanted was 7 leva.  None of us paid any attention to the size of the meal and our waitress didn’t point it out either so we ended up with 2 lbs of food a piece.  Yep.  2 lbs.  Of course we couldn’t finish it, so we took it to go.  We put the Styrofoam containers into plastic bags and T carried them in her back pack all day. 

We then headed into the main part of the old town.  It is a beautiful city.  We headed down the pedestrian walkways and made our way up to the amphitheatre.  The sun was streaming down in beams and it was really nice.  We then walked past some traditional houses and even stopped briefly at one of the house museums before heading up to Nebet Tepe (the Thracian ruins on the hill).  Once again, it was all lovely.  We headed back down, passing the mosque and the Roman forum.  We had scoped out the ice cream on our way up and we knew exactly what we wanted.  We sat in a giant city park and ate our ice cream and refilled our water from one of Bulgaria’s numerous springs.  We then headed back to the train station.  On the way, Q sweet-talked some ladies (who seemed to be about ready to pinch his cheeks) for some forks so we could finish our left-overs (still in T’s bag) on the train that night. 

So, we waited in the train station.  I paid 1 lev to use the bathroom (that one lev even bought me about 6 sheets of toilet paper) and brushed my teeth.  Then, about a half hour before the train was supposed to arrive, we moved to Platform 4 (by the way, none of the platforms in Plovdiv are labeled).  And we waited.  We waited half an hour.  Then another half hour.  Then another half hour.  That’s right, the train to Istanbul was an hour late.  We were starting to worry as other trains had flowed in and out of the station, but the Istanbul train finally arrived. 

We boarded the train and found some seats (though, in hindsight, we are pretty sure we were supposed to get a place to sleep) and started our journey.   The train was flying down the tracks and we were tired, but it was still hard to sleep.  Sometime around midnight we finished our Chinese food.  Then, it started to get cold. 

Eventually, we got to some little town (Dimitrovgrad or something “grad”) and we stopped.  For a long time.  Then we started going backwards, which made us worry a little bit.  Then we went forwards again.  Eventually we made it to Svilengrad, the border. 

We asked the conductor what we should do and he told us to stay where we were.  Then, five minutes later he was standing outside with a flashlight, intensely signaling for us to move to the next car.  So, there we were, crammed into the narrow aisle with T’s giant suitcase as the large and impressive-looking Turkish border patrol man made his way towards us.  He took our passports, told us “don’t move,” and left the train (which, by the way, was parked between two razor-wire fences.  The airport is much less intimidating).   Then we were told by a man wearing cut-off jean shorts and looking to have no authority what-so-ever to move into a compartment of the train, which we were reluctant to do having just been told by giant-scary-border-guard to “not move.”  But we did.  We met a girl from France and a girl from Germany, who also had no idea what was going on.  Soon, we got our passports back and started to move again.  Eventually we were let off to buy our visas into Turkey. 

As we were standing in line, the guy behind us asks, “Where are you from.”  T answers, “The US.”  I then mention that the guy is American and wants to know which state.  T laughs and comments on his excellent English.  Turns out, J is studying abroad in England and decided to take on Eastern Europe during his break.  He was traveling alone, since all of his friends believe it is unsafe.  Anyway, he only had pounds that were printed in Scotland and N. Ireland, which apparently appear quite suspicious, in spite of being perfectly legitimate money.  Anyway, we stuck around to make sure he would not be stranded at the border.  The visa man took his money and after intense inspection, gave him a visa.  We then moved through the passport line and on to the holding tank (“luggage inspection”) before getting on the bus. 

We then saw the visa man, holding J’s money, coming towards us again.  He then began questioning, not only J, but the rest of us as well about its authenticity.  When Q finally took out $20 and offered to exchange it, the visa man seemed to believe that it was real money.  We then boarded the bus with our new friend J (it is now about 2 am) and set off down the road to Istanbul. 

To Be Continued.....

Part 22: So She Dances

About a month ago, I decided to see if I could get enough interest from my colleagues to form an Irish dance group for Faculty Follies, the staff talent show.  I originally got emails back from 16 people, four of them male (which to be honest was four more than I was expecting).  In the end, I had 12 people, 3 of them male.  We put in some serious practice time to get down the céilí called “The Walls of Limerick.” 

Meanwhile, I had my mom mail me my tap shoes because I foolishly agreed to do a solo tap dance for the show.  To be honest, I have never been a performer though I love dancing.  However, I was extremely excited to get those shoes in the mail.  I have really nice tap shoes (thanks Mom and Dad!) that have really loud taps and good enough construction that they have lasted probably over 10 years now, though in the last 5, their use has gone precipitously downhill.  Anyway, they arrived, and I promptly put them in my closet.  I’d like to think it was because tap shoes scratch wooden floors, so I had to practice in different shoes, but really I just didn’t have time for choreography at the time. 

The weekend after getting my tap shoes, I chaperoned the hiking club’s hike up Lozenska Mountain.  I really loved it.  I’m not really a city dweller.  Granted, I used to live in Prairie Village (basically Kansas City), but let’s look at the figures:

·         Bulgaria:  42,855 sq mi; population- 7,037,935; population of Sofia-  1.3 million

·         Iowa (my home state):  56,272 sq mi,  population- 3,062,309; population of Fort Madison-10,715
·         Kansas (my most recent state):  82,277 sq mi; population of PV- 21,447; population the greater Kansas City metro area (including the Missouri side)- 2,035,334 (but this covers two states and 15 counties- a huge land area)

 Basically, I grew up in a state with more land area and fewer people than Bulgaria and even when I lived in “the big city” I could drive half an hour in almost any direction and find myself surrounded by corn fields and cows.  Needless, to say, I get really excited at the prospect of getting out of Sofia. 

Next week, I was really busy… again.  It was the week before Faculty Follies, so the Irish dance group really needed to get a handle on those jump-two-threes (they really blow people’s minds).  And then there was that tap dance.  I finally picked a song (“I’ve Got a Heart Full of Rhythm, by Louis Armstrong) and choreographed the entire part where Armstrong sings.  Then, I set it aside again. 

Amidst all this, I get an email from my dad telling me that my grandma died.  It wasn’t wholly unexpected, as she hadn’t been doing well and she had been struggling with Lewy body dementia for several years, but it was still sad.  Plus, I felt really guilty for not being with my family. 

My grandma and I shared the same name, though that was mostly a coincidence.  I often joke that if my dad had meant to name me after my grandma, I’d be called “Mom.”  Growing up, my poor grandma often came into the living room as my sister and I were wrestling or doing some sort of gymnastic activity and remark that she “thought she had granddaughters, not grandsons.”  However, I think she was pretty happy with the way we turned out.  Plus, we have good table manners and thanks to her, we know that the fork goes on the left and the knife edge always points towards the plate.  My grandma also had the best reaction to my sister’s nose ring.  My mom was convinced my grandma would not approve, but when she noticed it from across the table at lunch, she reached across the table, poked it and then exclaimed, “Oh!  It’s jewelry.”  She then laughed (you know kids these days) and that was that. 

Well, time stops for no man and the next day, Irish dancing mastered the tea cup turns.  It was an ordeal, but the Walls of Limerick was now complete.  It certainly wasn’t River Dance, but it was fun and it looked pretty good.  That Friday, we practiced again after our faculty meeting and then we also previewed it at the school president’s St. Patrick’s Day party. 

On Saturday, I graded some papers, went for a run, and went out for St. Patrick ’s Day.  We ended up meeting a bunch of medical students from the American University’s med school, which I had no idea existed.  On Sunday, I had to proctor the school’s entrance exam.  I know that no 12 year old boy wants to hear this, but they were cute.  I teach 11^th grade; They are not so cute at that age and some of them have a lot of attitude, so it was nice to see the younger crowd.

On Monday, we didn’t have to work, but I went to talk to a woman from the Bulgaria Charity Aid Foundation about volunteer opportunities for our students.  I found the address without any problem and then I realized that all the names for the door buzzers were in Bulgarian.  I can read Cyrillic, no problem.  However, I don’t know the meaning of most of the words I read.  So I stood there puzzled and then grateful when a lady buzzed in ahead of me and I could just follow her into the building. 

Tuesday came and we had our first official rehearsal for faculty follies.  I spent the 2 hours after school and before the rehearsal frantically finishing my tap dance.  I was worried, but I got the steps written down (more on that later).  This rehearsal was mostly for the tech crew to get their cues, so luckily I didn’t have to perform the whole thing. 

Wednesday was our second rehearsal.  By that day, they had found a board for me to dance on (the stage has a rubber cover, so it really doesn’t work for tap dancing).  The board was actually an old backboard for a basketball hoop.  I had very limited movement for this dance, but at least you could hear me.  I did the entire dance pretty well by reading my paper.  That’s right.  It was the day before the show and I in no way had my dance memorized.  However, people said the fact that I was reading the steps was impressive, so I began to try to think of ways to work my cheat sheet in as a prop. 

Thursday was the show.  I decided to use my paper as a comedic element.  I’d act like I didn’t know what I was doing.  Little did they know that it wasn’t acting ;-)  I was a nervous wreck, since I don’t really like performing, but apparently it went well (it’s a blur, I don’t actually remember).  Some people told me that kids were leaning forward and standing up in their seats so they could see my feet.  Also, I remember getting big applause for my high kick.  (If I’d known it was that easy, I would have been doing high kicks in class every day.)  I finished my dance with some fuetes.  I’ve always liked turning and it meant I had almost 16 counts done with little thought required.  Plus, they are always a crowd pleaser.  I heard I got a standing ovation from some students, but I don’t actually know because I basically bowed and ran off stage.  The Irish Dance group did really well too.  We were basically the last act of the show and I think everyone did great.  Afterwards, someone told me, “I’m putting you on YouTube.”  Great.

Friday, we had a soccer game.  Now, I hadn’t been sleeping much all week, I’d tap danced more in the previous 3 days than I had in the last 3 years, and I was just sort of done.  However, Uchitelli Utd. didn’t have any subs, so I fulfilled my duty.  I feel like I played terribly, but I might be too self critical.  It doesn’t help that I used to play every Thursday and now I play when there are sporadic intramural games.  I hadn’t played since October and my muscles were all weak from all the tap dancing (lame as that sounds).  At one point (after one of several bad passes today) one of my teammates told me to pass for a wing when possible (which I know, since it was the Coach Bowen mantra), but I could barely form coherent sentences that day, much less consider game strategy.  Apparently, I must have looked really hurt by this comment because he saw me a minute later and apologized.  I wasn’t actually upset, just tired.  Although, with the way I sweat, he could have mistaken a bead of sweat for a tear running down my cheek. 

Anyway, tomorrow, I am hiking with the Hiking Club again and looking forward to seeing waterfalls and panoramic vistas.  Then, I’ll probably sleep a lot. 

And that was my very full last two weeks. 

Part 21: Baby, you’re a firework. February 23-26, 2012

Thank you, BG Ministry of Education, for yet another 4 day weekend.  I’m not sure it really benefits the learning process, but it certainly helps the traveling process.  This time, 5 of us descended upon Budapest, Hungary, site of the Katy Perry’s “Firework” music video, and thus the inspiration for my title.  Normally, I’m terrible at pop culture (who sings this? what actor is that?  I usually have no idea), but I did remember that music video tidbit.  A tidbit, that, as you’ll read later, I should have kept to myself. 

Anyway, 6:15 am arrived on Thursday and we piled into an OK Taxi for the ride to the airport.  We landed in Vienna and then got on another plane to Budapest.  Once it Budapest, we navigated public transit to downtown.  The transit system is nice.  However, it is also super annoying.  You have to have exact change, in change, to buy a ticket.  ATM’s give you giant bills that you can’t use to buy tickets.  We had to stop in a shopping mall and buy bread in order to get change to buy tickets.  Eventually we did make it and the Happy Flat owner showed us our happy flat for the weekend.  It was nice and very large.  We then made our first trip to Iguanas, the Mexican restaurant. 

If you live in the US and you like Mexican food, you won’t realize how much you miss it and want it until you can’t have it.  Sofia has no Mexican.  None.  The one semi-Mexican restaurant in the entire city just closed, so we are without.  Therefore, we were really excited. 

After gorging ourselves on chips, salsa, enchiladas and such, we made a reservation for dinner the next evening before heading out to explore the city a little bit.  We saw the parliament building and the chain bridge.  We then finally figured out how to make it to the Shoe Memorial.  From 1944-1945, the Arrow Cross Party would take Jews to the banks of the Danube, make them take off their shoes and then shoot them into the river.  The memorial has several pairs of shoes made of iron that are made to look like shoes from that period. 

We then headed to the shopping district.  After some shopping we, headed back to the apartment and got ready to go to dinner.  At some point I mentioned that Budapest was the city where Katy Perry’s “Firework” video was shot.  Hence, we made sure to watch the video when we got back to the apartment.  It is sort of an odd video since fireworks shoot out of people’s hearts, however, it does not look like they are coming from her heart.  Anyway…  That night we found a nice restaurant for dinner where I had pumpkin stuffed pasta. 

The next day, we got up and went to take a tour of parliament.  The Hungarian parliament building is the third largest in the world; however, you wouldn’t know it from how much they show you on the tour.  The inside was beautiful.  The dome was amazing and the wing that we got to see was really nice.  We also met a nice girl that was studying abroad from Tulane. 

After the parliament, we walked across the Chain Bridge to the Buda side.  We took the funicular up to the top of the hill to Buda Castle.  It is now a series of museums.  We didn’t go to the museums, but we did find the square where “Firework” was shot and we did some reenactments.  Then S got a brief archery lesson from a guy with “gorgeous blue eyes” (she was, of course, really only interested in archery) before moving on to St. Mathias Church and the Fishermen’s Bastion. 

St. Mathias is a large church with an amazing tiled roof.  We asked about going in, but it is being restored, so a lot of it was closed, so we moved on to the Bastion.  The Bastion was built between 1895 and 1902 and was named because fishermen used to be in charge of guarding that stretch of wall during the Middle Ages.  It is straight out of Disney.  Turrets, white stone, and great views.  We then walked out down the hill, past a brick synagogue, and down the river to take a picture of parliament from across the river.  We then walked back across the Chain Bridge to Pest and headed to the Great Market. 

The Great Market is a huge indoor market where you can buy a lot of food.  It was mostly meat, but we got some great strawberries and one stand sold really great dried fruit.  Upstairs, there were stands selling Hungarian souvenirs.  I bought a blue hand-painted egg that is traditionally hung on a tree for Easter.  We then started walking back towards the apartment.  We walked past the Dohany Street Synagogue.  Since it was Friday, it was closed, but we looked at the outside and into the courtyard.  We made it back to the apartment and got ready to go eat Mexican food… again.

We left a little early to go take pictures of the Chain Bridge and Castle Hill at night.  They were really beautiful.  We then went and ate chips, salsa, quesadillas and jalapeño poppers.  It was delicious. 

The next day, we visited St. Stephens Basilica.  It was named in honor of the first king of Hungary (King Stephen, obviously ) and you can see his mummified hand in the back chapel.  However, it cost 200 Forint to turn the light on.  I only had 100, so I couldn’t really see it.  However, the inside of the church was beautiful.  The dome is 96m tall, the same as the parliament building dome.  The 96m refers back to the fact that Hungary was established 896 AD.  It took 54 years to build and was completed in 1905.  The inside has a lot of gold and is pretty bright, due to the many windows around the dome. 

We then began to walk down Andrassy Avenue  towards Heroes’ Square.  Our route took us past the Opera House and the House of Terror Museum (which I went to later that day) and through some really nice neighborhoods.  Heroes’ Square is dominated by the Millennium Memorial, which depicts the leaders of the seven tribes that founded Hungary.  It was supposed to be done in time for the 1000^th anniversary in 1896, but didn’t finish until 1900.  There were also some rulers from the Hapsburgs present on the sides, since Hungary was part of the Austrian Empire when it was built.  However, the square was damaged in WWII and when it was repaired, the Hapsburgs were replaced. 

From the square, we crossed into the City Park.  It is a very large and nice park that contains Vajdahunyad Castle.  It was originally built from wood in 1896  and was meant to display different architectural styles (romantic, gothic, renaissance, and baroque) that were present in Hungary for the millennial exhibition.  However, since it was so popular, it was rebuilt from stone and brick and became a permanent addition to the park.  Most of it is an Agricultural Museum (which we didn’t go through), but we did go into the Church of Jak.  The church was originally just for display, but was eventually made into an official Catholic church. 

From the Castle, we walked around the park a little more and saw the Széchenyi Medicinal Bath.  It is fed by 2 thermal springs, and while I didn’t go (since spa-type activities are not really my thing), my travel companions really liked it.  After perusing the park, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts, which is right by Heroes’ Square. 

I went to a special exhibit on mummies.  They used 3D imaging to reconstruct their faces and determine cause of death.  It was actually really interesting.  I also made it through most of the upstairs galleries.  I really liked the painting of the Centaur at the Village Blacksmith’s Shop  (http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/arnold-b-cklin/centaur-at-the-village-blacksmith-s-shop-1888) and I definitely saw some paintings worthy of the Ugly Renaissance Babies website.  For example, did you know baby Jesus had a six-pack?  Or that he was really hairy? 

After the museum, my friends went to the baths and I went to the House of Terror Museum.  It was really busy, since I was going on the 10^th anniversary of its opening and admission was free.  It was also really well done.  It focuses on the history of fascism and communism in Hungary in the 20^th century and is a memorial to the victims of the regimes.  The building was used by the Nazis and Soviets as a prison and police headquarters. 

The museum is interactive and well thought out, but most of it is in Hungarian, so you have to grab the typed info sheet at the entrance to each room.  The Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, only 1 year before their defeat, though the Arrow Cross party was present in Hungary before that.  However, once the Nazi’s got there, they wasted no time.  440,000 Jews were deported in only 3 months, most of them to Auschwitz. 

Most of the museum focuses on the 40 years of communist rule.  The museum has interviews with people imprisoned in Gulag camps talking about the horrible conditions they endured there.  5000 people from Budapest alone were taken to these camps.  In the basement of the museum, you can see the prison cells where the AVH (the Hungarian version of the KGB) held and tortured “criminals.”  The cells are tiny.  They didn’t have beds and I only saw one with a toilet.  I even saw one cell that was about 2 feet wide and 1 foot deep.  The museum has pictures of people that were held in each cell hung up, so you can see who was kept there.  It was really horrible. 

After finishing at the House of Terror, I walked back towards the city centre.  I decided to go across the Chain Bridge and down the Danube so I could take a picture of Paliament at Night.  It was worth the long walk.  The building is beautiful.  On my way back, I wiped out on a pipe barrier that had fallen over (that I clearly didn’t notice) and got a large bruise on my let and some weird looks from the 50 or so people that witnessed my clumsy moment.  After recovering, I went to the shopping street for a little while since my friends still weren’t back from the Baths. 

That night we went and got Thai food before going to check out the original ruin pub.  Ruin pubs are placed in buildings that are falling apart and condemned.  The owners get them up to code, but don’t redo the walls or anything like that, which leads to a really interesting atmosphere.  It was very cool.  We went to a couple of other pubs in the area as well, but these were smoky, so I was done. 

The next morning, I got up early to walk to the Holocaust Memorial Centre.  It is definitely not close to any other museums, but it was worth the walk.  Once again, it was very interactive and well-done.  They even had 4 or 5 families that you could follow throughout the museum to see if they survived or not.  I think 4 were Jewish and 1 was a Roma family.  You could watch interviews from survivors as well.  They interviewed 3 Roma women about their time in Auschwitz.  It was incredible. Since they weren’t Jewish, they weren’t immediately killed.  However, they had to help move bodies and dispose of them.  1/10^th of the Jewish victims in the Holocaust were Hungarian, which considering that Hungary is not a very large country is pretty horrifying.  I also learned that the Birkenau revolt was largely led by Hungarian Jews.  The museum was really good, but also really sad. 

On my way back up towards the apartment, I went to the Dohany Street Synagogue.  It is the largest Synagogue in Europe and the inside is rose-colored with blues and gold with nice dark-wood balconies.  The courtyard outside, is where over 2,000 people that died in the Jewish Ghetto in WWII are buried.  Normally, cemeteries are not allowed to be on the premises of synagogues, but this was an extraordinary circumstance.  The complex also has a couple of small museums and a really great memorial tree that looks like a weeping willow made out of metal. 

After the synagogue, I just walked around and saw more of the city.  I crossed a different bridge downstream from the Chain Bridge and walked back up along the Danube and I grabbed a quick sandwich before getting back to the apartment to catch our shuttle to the airport.  In the end, it was a great choice for a long weekend, even if I did have to hear my friends singing “Firework” over 500 times. 

Part 20: Borovets

A few weeks ago, six of us made the short drive into the mountains to the ski resort town of Borovets.  Driving on the scary road with crazy drivers was all worth it when the road turned into a forest that was straight out of a Disney movie.  There were tall pine trees covered with snow.  They were so beautiful and put those short trees covering most Colorado slopes to shame. 

A. and I were staying at the big hotel in the center of “town.”  Borovets really isn’t a “town” in the traditional sense.  It has hotels, restaurants, and ski rental places.   However, it was really nice.  We rented skis and poles for 18 lev a piece.  That would be about $13.  They weren’t the best skis I’ve ever worn, but they got me down the mountain.  We then boarded the gondola and headed up the mountain.  The trees were still Disney-like and the red gondolas were really pretty against the snow. 

The ride was probably close to 30 minutes up to the top of the mountain, where it was windy and cold, but it was really nice.  The slopes that I went down were pretty good and not too crowded.  There was sort of poor signage, which led me astray as I was looking for a new run.  It said (or rather, pictorially indicated) that a chair lift was à.  It did not say how far à was.  It also did not tell me that it was flat as a pancake.  I figured that one out after I was too far to turn back.  It was awful.  Poling my way to the distant lift.  Then, after finally reaching the lift, I realized I was on the wrong side of the ski resort, so I had to figure out how to get back over.  The only option consisted of 2 extremes.  One black run and then some more pancake.  I made it down and over and headed back up for a few more runs before the lifts closed. 

That night, we ate at a Mexican restaurant.  It was a pretty good approximation of Mexican food.  Certainly the best I had in a long time.  We then went to a bar down the street that was smoke-free J  Finally, I could go out carcinogen free.  The DJ was good there as well.  We tried a couple of other places, but they were smoky and I was tired, so I went to the hotel and fell asleep.  The next day was foggy and gross, so I didn’t ski.  However, the hotel breakfast was huge and pretty good.  Since so many people from the UK go to Borovets to ski, we had a full English breakfast, complete with beans (which I didn’t actually eat since I think of beans as a lunch/dinner food). 

We then headed back to Sofia.  My shoulders hurt a lot from my cross-country experience, but other than that, it was a great weekend trip. 

Part 19: Italy and Malta Dec 26, 2011- Jan 5, 2012

(Sorry folks, but it’s a long one.  A 10 day trip takes a lot of words to cover)

Christmas Eve on campus was really nice.  Those of us that were still around ate a lot of food and played a card game that involves zombies.  The next day, I woke up with the flu.  I felt like death.  I did manage to do my laundry and that evening I vaguely remember packing a suitcase.  The next morning I dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 am, took a shower, and met my friend, H, to go to the airport.  She handed me a carton of orange juice so I could get vitamin C and she could clean out her fridge.  So, I sat in the back of our taxi to the airport swigging OJ out of the carton, hoping that I wouldn’t be sick for my whole trip. 

I got on the plane and slept all the way to Rome.  Then, I barely made it through the airport to catch the train to the train station.  Once on our train to Florence, I slept again while the Italian guy across the aisle kept giving me weird looks.  Apparently, I looked like death. 

Anyway, my first two days in Florence were spent in my hotel room.  I was miserable.  On day 3, our last day in Florence, I ventured out.  I still had a little fever, but I wasn’t going to miss an entire city.  So, I emerged from the hotel with my friends H, P, and ibuprofen.  We first went to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see Michelangelo’s David.  Finished in 1504, David is a 17 ft high representation of the Biblical David in his stone throwing, giant felling days.  However, in the actually story, David is basically described as a scrawny kid (hence the miracle of him beating Goliath) while the statue is of a very ripped guy with nice abs.  That aside, it is an amazing statue.  I, being artistically challenged, can’t even imagine how someone can chisel away at a marble block and have it look just like a person.  There was other artwork in this gallery by artists such as Boticelli and Giambologna, but David was the main attraction. 

Giambologna's sculpture of the Rape of the Sabine

We walked past the Florence Cathedral.  The outside is truly amazing, but the inside is very simple and plain, so it didn’t really take us too much time. 

We then headed to the Galileo Museum.  It was one of my favorite places that we went.  It houses the Medici collection of scientific instruments.  The Medici’s were a rich political family from Florence that were, for a time, Galileo’s benefactors.  In the past, scientific research was funded by families like this.  I used to show the Nova special on Galileo to my physics students, so I was soooo excited to see this collection.  Even more exciting:  the collection includes the telescopes Galileo designed and used to discover the moons of Jupiter.  It also had glass jars displaying Galileo’s finger, thumb, and tooth.  Religious relics for the science crowd, I guess.  (There are some practices that I’m glad went out of style).  I also saw astronomical tools, a giant representation of Ptolemy’s universe, and sun cannon (we’re pretty sure the lens focused the sun on the fuse of the tiny cannon so it fires at noon).   The museum also houses the Lorraine collection, but other than some disturbing wax models of things that can go wrong during child birth, the Medici collection was better. 

Ptolemy's universe, Galileos Telescopes & finger.

After the Galileo museum, we grabbed a snack and head to the Uffizi Gallery.  It was late, and we were tired, so we were really here to see the main attractions:  Boticelli’s Birth of Venus (you know, the one with the strategically placed hair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sandro_Botticelli_-_La_nascita_di_Venere_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg ) and PrimaveraI (sort of part II to the other painting  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sandro_Botticelli_038.jpg ).  When you see a painting that is in so many books and is so incredibly famous, it’s very weird.  You think, “Wow, there it is.”  Instead of a thumbnail in your textbook, it’s actually 10 ft wide and old.  Really old.  Over 500 years old.  Anyway, we were tired and basically done, so we left the gallery and grabbed some dinner. 

The next day, we hopped on a train to Siena.  Siena is known as a hill town (because it’s on a hill, obviously) .  To start out, we climbed a hill, the wrong hill, in an attempt to find our hotel.  Once, we got back down and on the correct road, we found that we were staying at a cute apartment-style hotel that used to be a farm.  We then headed out for the old part of the city.   I find it very interesting to visit cities like this.  They are packed in so tightly with twisting streets that are (very) easy to get lost in.  However, I would hate to live in one.  I find myself missing seeing trees and grass after only a day inside such places.  We found the main town square, every July and August, it is converted to a track and the Palio di Siena horse race is held.   Ten riders representing the 10 city wards race around the track.  I’ve only seen the pictures, but it looks incredibly dangerous and, from what I’ve read, many horses finish without jockeys, since they’ve been thrown off earlier in the race. 

Main Square- Siena

Any other time of year, the main attraction in Siena is the beautiful cathedral.  I’ve seen a lot of churches and this one takes the cake.  It was incredibly beautiful with marble-inlaid floors and, amazing paintings, and the amazing Piccolomini Library‎, where the ceiling and walls are brightly painted with beautiful scenes and patterns.  We probably spent over an hour in the church.  Then, we went to the crypt underneath (where no one was buried, but we saw some very old paintings from the original church on the site) before spending another half an hour in the baptistery of the church.  That night we ate at a local family restaurant before heading back to our hotel. 



Piccolomini Library Ceiling



The next day, I went for a morning walk since we had time to kill before catching our train to Rome to catch another train to Naples.  It was a long trip and we missed our connection in Rome.  Then, once we made it to Naples, we had to catch the Circum Vesuviana, a commuter train that goes around the entire Bay of Naples, to Sorrento.  We got it sort of late,  and proceded to try to navigate the old, narrow, and poorly labeled streets to find our house. 

Our house, was down this curvy road that had steps, so no cars could go down it and it was right on the sea.  It was really beautiful there and you just had to walk 200 feet in order to see Mt. Vesuvius across the bay.  On day 1, we caught the Circum Vesuviana to Herculaneum, a town destroyed in the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius.  The town has been fully excavated and you can literally walk down the streets.  The original town streets.  It is a little weird.  You can walk into houses, see Roman columns, places they kept wine, paintings on the walls, mosaics on the floors, and even baths.  There were also 3 skeletons on display as they found them- holding on to each other.  It is a an interesting trip back in time.  You can also take a nice picture of Herculaneum with Erculano, the modern town, behind it and Vesuvius in the background.  Apparently, humans never learn.  We grabbed some pizza before heading back to Sorrento, where we wander the shopping street and even saw a weird New Year’s Eve parade, with a strange band. 

That night, we lost power in our little house, so it was dark, and a little cold, by the next morning.  We flipped all the circuit breakers, but apparently, we needed to flip the one on the outside, which we found out about the next morning after we contacted the owners.  Then, P and I decided to take the ferry to the Isle of Capri.  We walked down (and down and down) to the Sorrento port and to catch the boat.  We arrived at Capri only to find that the buses from the harbor to the top (city center) were no running, since it was New Year’s Day.  So, we walked up the “Road of Death,” as we started to call it to the city center.  Eventually we found a set of stairs to the top and after a lot of climbing, we came out in the center of Capri.  We walked around the city and explored a little bit and got our picture taken by some Japanese tourists (which was weird, but we think it was because I’m blonde) and then we decided to walk to the Fragolini rocks.  These are giant rocks that sit in the Mediterranean just off the coast.  We were lucky to arrive in as the sun as starting to set, so the light was really beautiful.  Then, we had to climb back up the backside of Capri, up and over to the harbor on the other side.  Luckily, on the way down, we mostly managed to find stairs so we could avoid the “Road of Death.”  We got back right on time for our ferry.  We sat outside, looked at the stars and sort of froze.  However, that night we had great pizza at this place in Sorrento, so we managed to warm up. 

The next day, we got up bright and early so we could visit Pompeii before leaving for Malta.  We hopped on the Circum Vesuviana before 8 am and arrived at Pompeii just as it was opening.  Pompeii is really impressive.  It is like Herculaneum, destroyed in the 79 AD eruption, completely excavated, etc, but so much bigger.  We could only stay for about 4 hours, and we only saw the highlights.  There was an entire side of the city that I didn’t even get to.  However, I saw the main city square where the markets and the Temple of Jupiter were located, as well as the two theatres, the Temple of Isis, several homes, a laundry business, the sports training arena, and the ampitheatre- where the gladiators used to fight.  The streets here had grooves from cart wheels and stepping stones that were positioned so carts and wagons could still pass, but pedestrians didn’t have to step in the street to get from one side walk to the other.  It was incredibly interesting.  You could see paintings and mosaics, as with Herculaneum, and since we were there in January, it wasn’t very busy (I think this place would be a nightmare in the summer). 

We then collected our suitcases from the bag check and got back on the Circumvesuviana for Naples.  We caught a train to Rome and then the airport so we could fly to Malta.  The entire country is only 121 sq miles and it has an extensive bus system.  I looked up the information and found that the airport is only about 25 minutes away from our hotel.  Well, by car.  The bus apparently zig zags around the whole island for almost 2 hours before getting to our hotel.  Hmm, things that aren’t mentioned.  Anyway, we did finally make it to our hotel, which was full of retired British snowbirds.  We were the youngest people at breakfast by a lot of years.  However, who doesn’t enjoy flirting with old British men by the toaster in the morning?  Plus, the breakfast was so good, that we got by on breakfast and one meal in late afternoon for our entire stay. 

Day 1 in Malta was rainy and we didn’t exactly get an early start, so we decided to visit Mdina.  This city was settled by the Phoenicians in 700 AD, but the currently, the oldest buildings are from the 1000’s.  It is a walled in, midevil city, on a hill.  It is like stepping back in time.  Of course, the moat is now an orange orchard, but I could imagine the water.  We walked around the small city until we came to St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Mdina, like the rest of Malta, has a lot of history dealing with the Knights of Malta.    The cathedral and the museum next to it, focuses on a lot of the history.  Inside the cathedral, the floor is covered with beautiful marble tombstones that belong to the knights buried underneath.  It was really amazing.  After the cathedral, it was raining again, so we stopped in a nice café to eat lunch and warm up.  We then took in the view over the wall of Mdina and finished our loop of the city before heading out of the walls to Rabat, the village Mdina is connected to.  We wanted to visit St. John’s catacombs, but we didn’t get there before it closed.  For those keeping track, this is the second time I’ve missed catacombs due to closure.  Sigh…  Anyway, we headed back to our hotel and tried to warm up. 

The next day we went on to Valletta, Malta’s capital.  It also started out as a walled city, but has since expanded significantly.  We started our walk around the city walls, looking out over the harbor.  We took a lot of pictures.  We then found the Lower Barrakka Gardens.  They were really beautiful and offered a great view of the harbor and the WWII memorial bell.  We finished our walk around the wall and stopped at a café for some coffee/hot chocolate before taking a tour of the theatre.  The Manoel Theatre is one of the oldest operating theatres in Europe.  It was built by the Knights of Malta in 1732.  It has basically been operating every since, with the exception of the time it was used a cheap hotel (people could sleep in the theatre boxes) when the newer Opera House was opened (it was later destroyed in WWII, so the theatre came back into major use). 

Next, P and I went to St. John’s Co-Cathedral.  Like St. Paul’s in Mdina, the floor is covered with marble tombstones of the knights, but this cathedral is much larger and the artwork and decoration is really extravagant.  It is also being restored, so it looks really nice.  Next, we stopped for lunch and I had some great pasta (the only pasta I ate one this trip, oddly enough) at a little restaurant near the cathedral before heading to the archeological museum.  This museum is filled with incredibly old figurines and statues from pre-historic malta.  Lastly, we took some pictures of Valletta at sunset before heading back to our hotel.  

(Side story:  that night I went to the hotel café to get some ice cream and read my book and the waiter acted like me wanted ice cream was the oddest thing he’d ever seen.  Then, at breakfast, I saw him again and he commented on my food saying, “oh, today you are eating a lot.”  Excuse me?  I found him to be really rude.)

On our last morning in Malta, I took a walk around St. John’s bay near our hotel.  We then caught the longer-than-it-should-be bus ride to the airport, where we hung out for about 1.5 hours, perusing books in English and other duty free merchandise, before boarding our plane home.   

In the morning we were in Malta.  It was warm.  There were palm trees.  That evening we returned to Sofia.  It was cold.  There was a lot of snow.  Oh, well, back to reality.