Karolinka In & Around Bulgaria

It’s rainy this morning and for some reason I’ve been up since 5:45am. I woke and up and couldn’t go back to bed. So I’ve been up reading the internet, drinking coffee and puttering around my apartment.

Mladost in the the rainy early morning seems especially Eastern European–or at least what I imagine when I think of stereotypical Eastern Europe.

The buildings are grey, the light is grey, the clouds are grey, the pavement is a rain-soaked grey, the unpaved pieces are dirt brown and the roads are asphalt black. The puddles reflect all of this back.

I’m going to dig out a full-sized umbrella and my boots and call it a day.

Two weeks ago–give or take–I applied for a new passport at the US Embassy in Sofia.

Don’t worry nothing bad happened–my passport was neither lost nor stolen (thought this is one of my worst nightmares). Nope, the most boring and mundane thing possible happened–my passport was merely in the process of expiring.

So I printed out the application for a new passport, I got American sized passport photos (turns out Americans want a 5×5 square while Bulgarians want a 5x something rectangle–I learned that the hard way) and I rounded up a enough leva to pay for my new passport. Turns out they aren’t cheep at $110.

Then 10 days later I went back at the embassy to pick up my new passport. Old passport meet new passport.

For the most part things at the embassy were pretty uneventful. I guess this is really all you can ever hope for. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t painless or stupidly easy but it wasn’t horrible either.  Continue Reading »

I’ve been pretty MIA on this blog recently. It’s not for any good reason. Nope. In fact it’s a string of boring and rather mundane reasons.

I had to make a new passport application. We had a book club meeting (Buddha in the Attic). I went to Prague for a long weekend and then I needed a week to recover from my long weekend.

I’ve been re-reading both Pride and Prejudice and The Unbearable Lightness of Being for school and the combination of reading and teaching these two books at the same time makes me both happy and hopeful as well as a depressed and certain that life is meaningless.

So I decided that I should also start reading the novel Beautiful Ruins. I don’t think that I love it but I am only 47% of the way in and I’ve been reading it before I fall asleep at night which means I have to do plenty of re-reading as I can never remember what I read the night before.

I’ve been out to dinner (and drinks) with friends more than normal. This past weekend I had Indian food at Saffron in Studentskigrad, I went to Blender club for drinks, I played a few games of pool (and I was horrible at it–like usual) and I’ve eaten pizza out twice in the last week.

I’ve planned sprig break, a long holiday in May and most of my summer travel. There’s still a short weekend in May that I need to figure out but I figure that there’s time for that. Maybe I’ll go to Athens. Maybe not. I really want to go to Kiev but there aren’t any good flights.

So this is just to say, don’t worry about me. I am doing okay. My laundry is clean, my dishes are washed, I’ve got food in my fridge and I’m getting plenty of sleep. It just turns out that I done all of this at the expense of my blog recently. I guess these things happen. 

I hope that everyone else is having a great week!!

I had a great weekend. Friday night I went to Wok to Walk with two of my teacher friends A. and M. A. and I have have officially become regulars. That’s fun. We walked in the line was a mile long–okay 6 to 8 people deep–and we both got big hellos from the employees. We ordered in Bulgarian–they laughed. The line stood still for us and the joking around.

Then we walked down the street for a couple of beers with colleagues at Murphy’s one of the Irish bars in town. It’s always nice catching up with people outside of work or somewhere other than the lunch table when everyone in stressed out and rushing around.

A. and I popped into the Vitosha Memento after Murphy’s because they have a great atmosphere and had a glass of wine before heading home. Once again, we said hello to the staff there. Oh and many of our hellos were to people who weren’t actively working there but hanging out at the cafe/bar that they also work at. I think it’s a good sign if the staff like the place enough to spend their free time there!!

Saturday morning I went to a yoga workshop at Yoga Mendala lead by Nanci Traynor. She was really great and the class was very inspiring. I spent most of Sunday sore–but the good kind of sore where you realize, you’d better get more serious about your yoga practice and that you weren’t at fit as you were once were. This said, I was equally proud of myself to be able to do two hours of flow yoga after breaking my hand two months ago.

Then I spend Saturday afternoon in a whirlwind of shopping and hanging out with friends. A. and I were clearly making shop owners’ afternoons, if not weekends. I found a couple of great new scarves, two new necklaces and some really wonderful handmade martenitsi.   We then met up with two other friends and played Settlers.

Sunday I got up and cleaned my apartment. A girl’s got to do these things sometimes.

Sunday afternoon I met some friends at The Mall and we saw the movie Beautiful Creatures. It was amazingly awful but perfect for a movie at the mall at the end of the weekend.

I capped the whole thing off with a two hour skype call with my parents. Oh how I love skype.

Upon noticing that you’ve gotten a haircut, Bulgarians like to wish you a Happy New Haircut!

It’s sort of like Happy Birthday for your hair. I think it’s a charming tradition. I also think it sounds unbelievably funny in English because it’s just not something we say to each other in the States. Just to be clear, I think it’s funny and wonderful. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

This said, today I’ve had a number of people both students and colleagues wish me a Happy New Haircut.

Here’s the thing, I didn’t get my haircut.

I just did my hair–like instead of putting back in a bun. Specifically a sock bun. I’m obsessed with the sock bun.

Anyhow, this morning I dried my hair with my hairdryer and then applied a little hairspray. Watch out world!

The first time it happened, I just said thanks but by the third Happy New Haircut, I said: thanks but I didn’t get it cut. I just did it.

Then I was embarrassed. A lot. Why would I say that?! What was I thinking?! I should clearly just keep saying thank-you and this should probably be a lesson for me to do my hair more often.

The problem is that it’s winter and my bed is so cozy in the mornings and sock buns are so easy that I feel no real compulsion to get out of bed. Maybe today was just what I needed.

It’s been a crazy 2 1/2 days. Grades and student comments were due to day and I’ve been a busy cookie. The thing about the end of the first semester at school is that I always think I have more time than I do. Each year I think: no problem. Then it turns out that there is not enough time to do everything.

So I stop washing dishes. I keep cooking to a minimum. I don’t fold my laundry and generally I live in a state of chaos until I finish all of my work.

This year I tried to keep things classy–and maybe just maybe fool others int thinking that I have it all together–by wearing blazers, a fancy necklace, and a sock bun in my hair.  I am not sure it worked and I think that there’s a sock bun intervention in my near future.

Then again, maybe it did work because today at the height of my craziness a student walked into my classroom and announced: Ms Emigh you look so pretty today! Me: Thanks! Student: No, no. I mean you look nice always you just look extra-pretty today. Um, little does this student know that this comment made my day. Made my day.

I worked right down to the wire this time. Full disclosure: often it’s close. But then again I’ve never put grades and comments in with a head-cold. Yesterday after school, as I put in grades and comments I had to do so with a kleenex stuck up my nose because I couldn’t tilt my head down without my nose running like crazy. I know that’s totally gross but a girl’s got to do these things sometimes. The grade due date really isn’t flexible.

Working with a cold is hard. I still have a cold but I seem to have moved on from the runny nose to the sneezing part and the best part my world seems much less cloud-like.

Anyhow, the last 2 1/2 days have passed in a blur and I couldn’t be happier to have all of my grades in.