Karolinka In & Around Bulgaria

I made it through the week. Finally.

And it’s been quite a week. The semester ended. I’ve been under the weather. Students have been stressed out. There’s been tons of snow. I’ve had a couple of late nights. I gave an exam this morning and proctored one this afternoon.

But now the weekend is here. Sure I’ve got nearly 40 final exams to grade (and a fair amount of homework to check) but all of this seems manageable-ish in comparison to the week I just had.

Oh and tomorrow I am going to Pernik for the Surva Festival. On top of the cool folk-life tradition of the event, I also understand that drinking hot wine and rakiya is encouraged. Yes please.

I’ve been sick this week. The kind of sick where you think at first: ah, it’s nothing. Then you ignore it for a little bit. Finally you realize: time for a trip to the doctor’s office.

Being sick in a foreign country is especially hard. At home, you’d know exactly what to do, who to call, where to go and/or what medicine to buy but abroad, everything is strange, different and difficult. Of course it doesn’t help that you’re sick and likely feel horrible.

The difference when you’re living abroad is that you often have to ask for help.

In my case, I marched into the Deputy Director’s office at school and explained my symptoms and what was going on. Mind you in the States, I would never do this. Continue Reading »

I have many fewer clothes in Bulgaria than I did in the States so this morning when I went to my closet and pulled out my go-to gray cardigan sweater I was sad to find an inoperable hole in it. A big one.

I hung it back in my closet. Why I am not sure. It felt too hard at 6am to part with it. So now I have an unwearable sweater hanging in my closet. That probably says something awesome about me especially if I was Freud and knew how to read these things.

Anyhow, I find myself surprised by how sad I was to see the hole. Because really, it’s just a hole, in a sweater, a light gray one. One that, in fact, I was never 100% happy with because the sleeves never fit exactly how I thought they should. So when a sweater meets the end of it’s regular life, most people wouldn’t worry about it. Out with the old and in with the new. Continue Reading »

Today is my second Thursday this week. Yesterday was my first Thursday.

This happens sometimes.

At school we have a different schedule each day and sometimes one day of the week is hit especially hard given holidays and what not so then the school announces Wednesday is going to be a Thursday schedule.

This is exactly what happened yesterday.

So I taught my Thursday classes yesterday and today. The thing is I am a creature of habit so when I woke up this morning, it felt like a Friday. Only it’s not. It’s Thursday.

However, I can’t stop thinking: today’s the last day of the week.

But it’s not. Tomorrow is Friday. Tomorrow is the last day of the week. This seems especially cruel right now.

The only thing I have going for me this week is the fact that our school isn’t observing the Saturday is a work day as the rest of Bulgaria is this week. The Bulgarian government in their infinite kindness gave an extra day off at some point between Christmas and the New Year and Bulgarians are now working on Saturday to make up for this.

But I’m not.

It’s winter in Sofia.

How do I know this? Well, it’s snowing right now. And, for the last few days the temperature has been hovering below zero (you know in celsius). I’ve had to wear my boots everyday this month.

It snowed more than a week ago. Our school quickly shoveled the sidewalks and main paths. It seems relatively safe to walk around. The rest of a the city seems like a death-trap or at least the world’s most poorly maintained ice-skating rink. Then there are the three steps at the front gate of school. These are the worst.

There are exactly three steps. Each is domed with ice. This ice used to be snow but none of the men who guard the gate could be bothered to shovel the snow from the steps when it was just snow so now it’s a good two inches of ice. These are the men who are supposed to be checking identification of everyone who comes and goes. They are supposed to be guarding the police academy and the Mladost police station. I haven’t had my ID checked in weeks. It seems like the least they could do is shovel three steps. But they don’t. Continue Reading »

It’s been a strange day.

I got super frustrated with my Bulgarian lesson and cried about it. I’ve never done this before. Then I spent some time wondering alternately, why I am crying about Bulgarian and why I’m bothering to learn Bulgarian? I pulled myself together, finished my homework and left for my lesson.

On the way to my lesson it started snowing those horrible little flakes that sting your face and make you question the necessity of actually going where you’re going. Luckily once I was in the city center, there was no falling snow to speak of.

All things considered my Bulgarian lesson went pretty well. I did most of my homework correctly and there were no tears. I. my tutor also reminded me that I haven’t really been speaking or practicing my Bulgarian for the last three weeks. That’s also a good point.

On my way back to the metro, I saw the weirdest, coolest, grossest most surprising thing. I walked by it and thought: hey that’s a fish head and I kept going. Then I went back. I looked at it again. Then I took a picture. Be warned. It’s anything but cute. Continue Reading »