Things To Love About Bulgaria

It's been about 4 weeks since I left the ACS campus for California and our 10 week long summer vacation. I have to be honest and say that I really have not had much of a break from school. I've been pretty much thinking about school and working on ideas for my classes 24/7. Although this is natural for almost every dedicated teacher I know, we constantly are thinking about how to be better teachers and what we need to change to make the next year better for our students, it is not how most non-teachers imagine summer vacations to be. In fact, it probably has not been that healthy for me professionally to be working this hard. In the end, however, my surgery and recovery have relegated me to a month-long stay in Woodland, CA; it's the longest stretch I have stayed at home since my first summer vacation from UCSB in 1994. This is not a knock on Woodland (although I must say that I've been sneaking over to Davis every other day to sit in Peet's Coffee and fake like I'm a UC Davis grad student in Education), and I have to say I relish the moments hanging out with my mom and stepdad (my mom takes care of both of us). In the end, though, it is not my first choice. So, maybe it's surprising, maybe not, but sitting back without much to do in the big W has got me thinking a great deal about my first year in Bulgaria. These thoughts led me to create this list of the many, many things there are to love about Bulgaria or, at least, some of the things I love and I find fascinating about this small Balkan country.

In no particular order, here we go:

1. Mt. Vitosha

It dominates the horizon. It looms over the city with awe-inspiring power. It helps to orient me when I am lost on the downtown streets. Mt. Vitosha, standing tall 7,500 feet into the sky, guided my way to the ACS campus each and every school day. No matter my mood, the sight of the rust colored leaves on fire in fall or the blinding white after a heavy snowfall in the deep of winter, the mountain inspired.

2. Sofia

The city center continues to satisfy and surprise, to offer up gift after gift - a golden dome, a young muslim teen walking into the beautiful mosque for prayer, a hidden outdoor cafe surrounded by stone sculptures, a sleek new metro making a trip a little bit easier, the Queen of Pop in August, fresh vegetables and even fresher fruits, and so much more. Yes, we can despise and criticize the trash and the wild dogs, the traffic and the absence of Mexican food, but this is a great city and I'm looking forward to my 2nd year.


3. Everything outside of Sofia

I didn't know anything about Bulgaria before accepting the job at ACS. What I quickly learned is this - Bulgaria is an absolutley stunning country in terms of its natural beauty. It can offer you amazing hiking and skiing opportunities, Black Sea beaches big and small, hot springs, wine country, mind boggling rock formations, small and magical lakes, seasonal colors from the imagination, and endless reasons to jump into your old, beat-up Volkswagon Passat and explore.


4. Location, Location, Location

And when you get that itch to see another country, Bulgaria's location makes travel a cinch. Rome is a 2-hour flight; the island of Thassos is a 5 1/2 hour drive; or hop on an overnight train and wake up in Istanbul or Belgrade.


5. 2 Acts of Civil Disobedience
- bus tickets

I love taking the bus. One of the first things I noticed when I started riding the buses in Sofia is sometimes you would find a bus ticket on the seat. The more I observed, the more I would see strangers exiting the bus trying to hand a stranger getting onto the bus their bus tickets. The first time this happened to me I was completely bewildered. What are these crazy Bulgarians trying to do? It didn't take me long to figure out, and then come to love, this act of Sofian civil disobedience. Bus passengers are sharing their tickets. Since each ticket is good for a single bus trip on a single bus, and since there is no way for the wicked, despised ticket controllers to know the time of your trip, one can give a used bus ticket as she disembarks from the bus to someone coming on, or leave it on the worn out bus seat for somebody else to pick up and use. It's a collective middle-finger to the Sofia government and establishment. I've never seen so much hatred as the hate I see the bus riders have for the ticket controllers, and this is just one great way, my favorite way in fact, that they, no WE, get back at them.



6. Cheap Beer

Cheaper beer in Europe? Maybe, but probably not. Bulgarians love their beer, they have many national beers that are pretty darn tasty, and going out for drinks will never break the bank.

7. Balkan Dancing

On our first trip through southern Bulgaria, while eating dinner at our hotel, a local band started playing some traditional Bulgarian music. Before I knew it, many of the hotel guests were up, hands linked, moving in an intricate snake-like circle filled with tricky steps, kicks and hops. As the music changed, new dances were performed, and it seemed to me that this dance was known by every guest at the hotel except for me. This was my first introduction to the beautiful tradition of Balkan dancing. ACS has a Balkan Dance Troupe and when they performed in December, in full costume, it blew me away. I'm pretty sure that Balkan dancing comes naturally to Bulgarians; it's in their blood. It does not come as naturally to the many internationals at the school who give it a sporting try and attempt the many intricate dance moves. Because of my knee injury last year, I was not able to participate. I look forward to making a feeble attempt to learn this artform; please don't laugh when you see me up on stage.



8. Bulgarian Women's Hockey Team

You can't help but love and feel for a team that loses 82-0. I'm pretty sure there are only 60 minutes in a hockey game; that is a goal every 43 seconds. Yet, these women keep at it, even though I have never seen an ice rink or a hockey stick anywhere in Bulgaria. I will look for a Bulgarian hockey jersey and support the women's team until the day I die.

9. Black Audi's and Beamer's


Cars can say a lot about a country and its values. I'm writing this from small-town Woodland and I'm pretty sure I've seen at least 5 different H2 Hummers. Why anyone in his right mind would need a Hummer at all, much less in Woodland, is beyond me. Well, not exactly - for these guys here the Hummer is a feeble attempt to show power and masculinity. In Bulgaria, the equivalent is the black Audi or black BMW. These are the cars of the powerful. I have rarely seen these cars in other colors - always black, and usually with the windows tinted so you can't see the drivers. And who are these drivers? - well, speaking in stereotypes (and my apologies if you disagree with this assessment), these cars are more often than not manned by members of the various Bulgarian mafias. I remember just weeks after my arrival in Sofia coming out of Kaufland and seeing two black Audis, all windows tinted, and eight thicker than thick men with shaved heads talking on cell-phones and smoking, waiting for somebody who was probably pretty imprortant (at least for them). Well, anyways, they ARE nice rides.

10. American College of Sofia
http://www.vimeo.com/4887577

Check out this professionally shot mini-movie about ACS. It offers one small slice of what life is like on our campus but, in some way, also gives you a glimpse into some of the very many reasons I love this place.

note: Originally, I had hoped to take my own shots of these things listed here, but moving and life got in the way; or perhaps I was just lazy. Anyways, I grabbed these pics off of google images searches and I'm sure there is some copywrite infringment going on - I apologize for this blatant stealing.