Bulgaria

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Blog Entry:

The doctor said sea sickness is like the chicken pox. Once you have it, you rarely get it again.... Dr. Milt, although quite intelligent, is seriously mistaken. There was a slight rock to the boat as we were sailing back down the Black Sea after Bulgaria. And the slightest bit of rocking means a nauseous morning for me. I had to book it out of my 8am to make it to the bathroom in time. Successful! None of my friends are this sensitive, and I don’t know of anyone else throwing up this much... I’m beginning to wonder what’s wrong with me... Bad inner ear. Who can I blame that one on? Mom? Dad? The easiest answer to this would be to take Meclizine, the heavy motion sickness medicine that the doctors recommend and give out for free here on the ship. But Meclizine makes you very drowsy. So do I risk taking it the night before, not knowing what the water will be like and not be able to stay awake through classes? I don’t know. I think I’d rather risk it and be awake!!

We are now in between Bulgaria and Egypt at sea for 2 days. I just sat in on a Human Trafficking seminar led by Andy Archibold of the New York Post. He’s been on the ship for a couple of ports now. At first glance, he looks like Obama.... I got excited the first time I saw him in the dining hall..... Blame it on lack of sleep. Like Obama, he’s a great speaker, very poised, and pretty dang smart. Can you guess who I voted for in the election?? ha ha

Enough of the small talk..... On to BULGARIA!

Bulgaria wasn’t on any of our radars. But, much like Croatia, we were all pleasantly surprised. With a new language (Bulgarian which resembles Russian), new currency (Leva), and lots of food warnings, an adventure was cut out for us. The first day, we tendered, which means our boat was anchored out in the bay and we were transported by “tenders” (our lifeboats) to the pier. I had a couple of hours before my SAS trip so a few of my friends (Becca, Kevin, Bo, and Lindsay) and I set out to explore the city of Varna. BEACH. All beaches. And bars. And sun. And fun. We walked the quiet, shaded streets of the city until we found a money exchange then came across a cute pedestrian street. We sat down for lunch and carefully ordered our meals.... At the pre-port meeting the night before, they told us not to eat anything that they wash in water... think about how many things you wash before eating/cooking.... almost everything! We ordered pizza because we figured the oven would kill anything harmful.... Whoops!!... forgot about the dairy warning. Becca didn’t care because she already had traveler’s diarrhea from Turkey (TD for slang). Most of us weren’t feeling the greatest afterwards, but Lindsay had it the worst. She’s hitting up the doctor later today : /

The trip we had in the evening was called “Wonders of Bulgaria” and wonderful it was. Over 3 hours, we visited a 5,000-year-old monastery of limestone in which were monks living as hobbits. They knocked out the sides of the rock so we could see and walk through the tunnels and rooms they carved out. Some of the paint was still on the walls of the rock....amazing. Our next stop was to the Golden Sand Beaches, a resort-like vacation destination with many hotels and businesses.... pretty much like Bulgaria’s version of Cancun where we spent the entire next day. Our last stop was to Bulgaria’s Rock Forest. Fifty million years ago, this area was under the sea (how’d they figure that one out?). As the sea dried out, the coral and rock that used to be under the water was worn by the elements into what looks literally like a forest of rock. The ground was even covered in sand. Imagine a whole sea of extra wide Roman column ruins, and that’s whatcha got. Pretty cool. Later that night, the whole gang bowled at a super sweet bowling alley.... “We’re Bowling in BULgaria.” Anthony Souza, everyone. He’s a hoot.

Like I said, the second day, the whole group spent the day at the Golden Sand Beaches. Our tour guide the day before warned us of the heat that day.... he was right. Luckily, the Black Sea was a bit cool so we dipped and sunbathed all day. Word on the street was that a nearby water park was a must do. If anything, the name sold me the most... “Aquapolis” ha ha get it? After 4pm it is 20% off and, hey, we’re all up for a bargain. Four of us went: Rachel, Becca, Deborah, and I. So we spent the next 3 hours on the crazy tube and body slides and up the lazy river before heading back to the beach to relax and have girl time the rest of the night then head back to the ship.

The third day was my favorite day. I had an SAS trip to a Bulgarian Village. This is the only country on our voyage that doesn’t border with the Mediterranean which means the whole dry summer on the Mediterranean thing doesn’t apply. We, unfortunately, had rain. This surprisingly has been our first encounter with rain other than the random spurts in Rome. It didn’t last the whole day though. Our trip was to a small, legitimate village about an hour out of Varna called Dabrovik, I believe. We had the best Bulgarian tour guides! They were a great representation of the characteristics of Bulgarians. Upon our arrival to this teeny tiny village, the female mayor greeted us from her Municipal building. None of the villagers spoke any English, including the mayor. She took the 40 of us through the dirt roads around the village buildings, explaining to us the history of their community. We stopped at the small Orthodox Church where the priest greeted us, sang for us, and allowed us to light some prayer candles. Up at the front was the cutest little old woman I have ever seen. She stood only about 4 feet tall, and was wearing all black with the traditional head dress so that only her wrinkly, happy face was showing. They call her Aunt Vina in the town and she is the female who tends the alter. This position is pretty important in the town and can only be filled by a female widow over 70 (meaning she can no longer bear children). She was so warm and friendly always with a huge smile plastered on her face. I was about to kidnap her and take her home with me…. So cute!

Finally, we all headed to the mayor’s house for a ceremonial Bulgarian folklore show. I took lots of video! At the entrance of the mayor’s house, a handful of the members of the village choir welcomed us dressed in their traditional costumes with a man playing a bagpipe like instrument in the background. One by one, we broke the “friendship” bread, dipped it in spice, and were decorated with a string of popcorn on our heads, another Bulgarian tradition. Her property was beautiful! In the back was a huge vegetable garden, and around the corner of the house was an old stone oven which was where the women cooked all of our food. The village is completely independent. Everything we ate came from their gardens and farms. Tables FULL of food were already set up for us. They had everything from fried, garlic zucchini, to chicken and rice, to cinnamon baklava. And I’m pretty sure the goat cheese was straight from the goat…. They came around with home made wine and brandy. They just kept feeding us! We were STUFFED! It was hard to believe that they made every single thing by hand… everything. It makes you appreciate a grocery store. During our meal, the women’s choir put on the folklore show with lots of singing, circle dancing, and bagpipes. The mayor let us roam her gardens and pick some vegetables to eat. We were all so struck by their true hospitality. At the end of the dinner, the old village women picked out a guy and girl from our group to dress them up for a mock wedding. Ha ha this was really funny. They got all dressed up in the hand made costumes and everyone did the circle dance around the yard. We had so much fun! The best part was on the way out. They took our hands and we all made a long dance chain down the dirt roads through the town to our bus. No one wanted to leave! We all kissed and thanked the old women. They were so gracious and loving. Everyone felt like a grandmother. This was by far the best trip I have been on through Semester at Sea. We were truly engulfed in the Old Bulgarian traditions. Nothing was cheesed up or too touristy. It was the rawest of the raw. Someone asked me if I bought anything in the village when I returned to the trip…. There wasn’t any place to! Dabrovik was that real!

When we returned to the ship in Varna, I met up with Rachel to go out on our first run in port. We’ve been talking about it awhile, so finally having the time to run outside was so refreshing. The only other means of running is on the two treadmills in the dark, claustrophobic gym on the ship. We followed the road that runs along the water. Half of the time we spent dodging people. I think it was especially busy because the EU triathlon went on the night before. Okay, Rachel kicked my butt. She’s this small, muscular, athletic, quick little squirt who plays club soccer at the University of Michigan. I…. am not. She was pretty much running circles around me. The run wasn’t bad for me, but she said it was really easy. When we were done she said, “I think I could do 3 more.” Nuts.

The last day, I spent souvenir shopping and such. The last days at each port are a little bit more relaxed than the first three or four. Most of us use the last day to do some last minute shopping, hit up an internet café, or the beach. So, that was pretty much it for Bulgaria! It was Semester at Sea’s first time there and I would say it was a success. This is one country I would have never even thought about traveling to, but I’m glad that I have been. It is so different from the rest! Bulgaria was the furthest East we will travel, so in a sense, we are on our way home! Egypt is next… the lady sitting next to me in the computer lab looked up the weather for Egypt and Morocco…. Nothing under 100 degrees! Eeeek. On top of the heat, our bodies have to be covered. The weather should be interesting. Lots of water, I know Mom J

Alright I hope everything is going well in the states! I will see ya’ll in 3 ½ weeks!

Next stop: Alexandria, Eypt. I have an overnight in Cairo, Egypt where we will be seeing the pyramids, Sphinx, and sailing the Nile River!

Happy Birthday Samburger!

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Comments

[Dad]

Cosmic
Kate, We are cosmically connected! We spent last week at this gihugeic soccer tournament in Minneapolis ( I'm talkin' 852 teams on 52 soccer fields!) where the girls, plus Maggie, played on a team from Richmond, Ill. and made it all the way to the finals to place second in their division. Most of the goals/assists came from our three Elkhorn girls:) We were in a kitchen store at Mall of America and I heard this strange, yet beautiful language. I then struck up a conversation with this charming family from BULGARIA!!! Your mom was seasick on our honeymoon on the boat to Nova Scotia and the age of the rock forest was determined by the change in the ratio of C-14 ( half-life = 5715 years, the time it takes for one-half of the mass of that isotope to decompose ), which undergoes spontaneous nuclear decay, to C-12 which does not. All living things have the same fixed ratio, so when someone/something dies the ratio decreases and one can extrapolate back in time to estimate when it was alive. Love you, Dad.