i'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch

a good way of describing how i feel here somedays.

i mean, i could be a lonely little onion in a field of petunias, too. i do not wish to imply this is an ugly place, because it is not. it just works to describe how out of place i am, and how i am more blatantly aware of this somedays than others.

and now, random favorite photos:

statue watching over the fruit stand
i love this shirt. i saw it while at disney tokyo last summer and have yet to see an equally worthy, strangely worded english t-shirt here...though i know one must be out there.

burgas, the black sea

i have to admit it...

(disclaimer: to my devoted and beloved followers. i know the sudden influx in blog entries seems a bit rash, but i am living in constant fear that my internet is going to give out for the next week, so i am really doing this for all of YOU =)

i LOVE traveling by train. under certain circumstances, of course. i feel as if i must admit this because i recently was on the phone with the rents regaling them with horror stories about the train system here. turns out, it is not all that bad, unless you're stuck in an 8-person compartment and the other passengers are worried about the breeze flowing through and, thus, opt to keep the windows shut for the entire 4 hour train ride.(when i'm alone in my seat and get to choose, i travel with the window all the way down...WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYEEEEEE! rebel!)

BUT, the experience of traveling by train, i have found, can also be very rewarding. i was forced to take a train on my recent trip to (a northern town) and found the afternoon i spent whisking through the 'old mountains' mountain range to be one of the most pleasant so far in this country. imagine it: a beautiful august afternoon, foliage abounding, deep gorges plunging below you, trees shooting up left and right on either side of the train that lurches forward and slows down for unknown reasons. the four hours on THIS particular train ride were delightfully meditative and relaxing.i have found that if you have some good tunes to accompany you on the ride, the journey is infinitely more enjoyable. my music of choice for this particular trip was the amelie soundtrack, complete with beautiful music composed by yann tiersen, rich with violins, lively accordians, and quirky piano parts that each tell a story.the music has a unique, whimsical air that transformed the otherwise dull train cabin i inhabited into a fun little european time vessel that transported me from volunteer to tourist instantaneously. like magic, like clockwork. the music's exquisite ambience helped remind me that there is so much beauty in life, so much to pay attention to in assembling the pieces of this great puzzle together to form some logical creation. i loved every minute of it.(on this trip, i was the ONLY person in my entire train car!)
trains here are cheap, slow, hot, old, and unapologetic as they wind their way through countrysides you might never see if you only stuck with riding buses. perhaps the fact that i never rode on trains in the states amplifies the exotic revelation of train traveling, so much so that i might just ride trains as often as possible.

moth, or sweet hummingbird?

i went nuts trying to take a picture of this creature, which i originally thought to be a hummingbird. recent reports from more experienced volunteers assure me this is actually a mutant type of 'moth' sucking the juices from the flower. any hummingbird experts on hand? dad, any hour-long documentaries on hummingbirds (or moths) in this country? let me know. clarification needed.

EDIT:

so, my good friend randy did a little research after looking into this issue and came up with some results... THANKS, randy =)

"from wikipedia- The Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) is a species of hawk moth with a long proboscis, and regularly hovers, making an audible humming noise. These two features make it look remarkably like a hummingbird when it feeds on flowers, a result of convergent evolution. It flies during the day, especially in bright sunshine, but also at dusk , dawn, and even in the rain, which is unusual for even diurnal hawkmoths . Its visual abilities have been much studied, and it has been shown to have a relatively good ability to learn colours.

I saw one at ak (that's disney's animal kingdom) one time. But they are found in europe. Species of swift found here:
(Apus affinis)Little Swift
(Apus apus) Swift
(Apus pallidus) Pallid Swift
(Apus melba) Alpine Swift

Swifts are in the same family with hummingbirds.
And by the way, when looking this up, one of the articles google showed me was your blog on blogspot"

for more info, click here

plus, an added first impression of the photo:

"I see a wasp and a flower and a house and a road and my mom and shes holding an ax and shes mad at me because I've been bad..."

... which indicates the presence of another small creature- a wasp! quite the photographer i am, capturing two species of insect in one photo. lonely plaent, here i come. thanks again, randy for pointing this out!

and to lynn, too, for confirming the moth status of this crazy lookin' little beast!

i wonder what type of 'swift' this little creature was??

making pickles!

a fellow volunteer and i ventured into the land of pickle making a few weeks ago. it was such a grand time, i thought i'd make an entire blog of it- my first time ever making pickles.

conserving foods of all kinds is imperative to the survival of the people here during the cold winter months, and this is the time of year when you can find the people here jarring just about everything- tomatoes, peppers, compote, the whole vegetable selection. this was my first attempt to jar anything, yet another step towards integration, hooray me! i suspect knowing how to conserve food will score me major points during my time here with the locals.

the process of making pickles is no easy task. it is also one that has no agreed upon recipe, though if you make them with locals, you'd better be prepared to make them their way. which may be better for all involved in the long run.

at any rate, my friend and i made pickles OUR way...

STEP 1:
find jars and lids that are a suitable size and will be compatible with one another. boil them and dry them.

STEP 2:
cut up ingredients. in our pickle making, we used: onions, garlic, fresh dill, mustard seed, salt, sugar, black pepper kernels, vinegar and water. and of course, small cucumbers.


STEP 3:
the most exciting part! fill the jars with cucumbers and then stuff in ingredients as you see fit. i used lots of dill, salt, mustard seed and garlic in the ones i made, steering clear of sugar as i prefer very sour pickles. pickles are called кисили краставички, or sour small cucumbers. this clearly was a very thrilling experience for me.

STEP 4:
boil again after the lids have been put on. we boiled our jars upside down because we had no pan large enough to submerge the jars.

STEP 5:
flip jars over and allow for a little more air suckage to occur before pulling them from water. *attempt to keep lids from unfastening and spilling contents into boiling water*

STEP 6:
let sit for months and months, or until you've grown entirely too impatient to wait any longer and then... test them out to see how well you did!

plastic bags and las vegas

august 2008

as i work towards integrating into the culture, i take note of things like this: stands selling plastic bags. in this country plastic bags are as ubiquitous as the trash piles in my town, tomatoes in the summer or problems with my internet. to be part of this culture, essentially means to be with a plastic bag containing many of your personal travel belongings...always. indeed, you buy plastic bags here with the specific intention of making them your suitcases.

never before, though, have i seen bags from the MGM grand hotel in las vegas in this country. oh, las vegas. maybe i can integrate and keep a little of home with me...even when i am this far away?!

awesome place (internet is working... yay!)

i have just returned from one of the most stunning european cities i have ever been to and am seriously struggling to jump some super tall mental hurdles related to coming back to my less-than-spectacular new place of residence. a friend i met here stated their heart felt like it was sinking a little bit every time they had to return to their town. for the first time, my heart felt like that today.
ealier this week, i hiked up north to a lovely place. this stop was an added excursion to a ‘regional’ teaching meeting i had to attend in a another town in the vicinity. i had to be present at this meeting, or go back to the capital for my originally assigned regional meeting (neither of which is close to my town, with the capital being almost twice as expensive to get to). i am the only person from my training group in my region, so i spit out a bit of jibberish to get myself out of the meeting in the capital and, instead, to the meeting in this country's “little sausage”.

other volunteers were going to be there, so i persuaded a few of them to extend the trip, ahem… illegally… and we enjoyed two nights in this lovely place- an increasingly touristy ‘hot spot’ for prospective british home buyers and other wackos (people generally of the ‘pensioner generation’ traversing the cobblestone paths with their canes trying not to kill themselves) who end up there in clumpy tourist groups. funny story about british people to come, don’t miss it in future blog! while the trip was fantastic, today was less so. maybe it was the 5.5 hour travel time on one train and two different buses. i must say that if there is an obvious lack of endearing qualities about my town, i am slowly beginning to embrace the fact that it is seriously impossible to travel to and from. this is actually a plus for me- i mean, heck, i must be nuts if i am going to complain about the fact that i can’t travel to places like this lovely town without literally having to spend two nights there.

here’s why:

to go anywhere outside of the surrounding vicinity of my town takes at least two buses. buses back into my town are rare, the last one being at 5:30 on weekdays and 3:00 on weekends. so, if i miss the last bus, i am stuck wherever i am at that moment. (i won’t mention train schedules, because i suspect there are more frequent trains, but i have only just started venturing into the madness that is the train system, so for now, we’ll roll with the hideous bus schedule complaining bit). this means, that usually, unless i can catch trains to get me to bigger stations nearby in time to get me to the closest bus station to my town before 5:15 ish, i am screwed! ha. in actuality, i am looking at it as a wonderful excuse to be out of site (an official no-no) for longer… BONUS!

(persuasive, huh?)

so, last night, this came in real handy. for some reason, (ok, well there was a reason- I was perusing the old fortress where csars used to run the place) i ‘accidentally’ missed the 8:54 train out of the lovely town yesterday morning. this would have lead to a series of unfortunate consequences later in the day had i decided to forge ahead with my plans to leave, like me missing all of my connecting buses to my town and winding up stranded in another town, a far less enchanting place that only has life-sized chess games in the central park working in its favor. i’d hardly say this was a bummer for me though, because i immediately seized the opportunity to stay in this lovely town for another night!

i think that one of the highlights of my time here so far was walking around last night, absorbing the amazing historical and hilly cobblestone paths, the vendors selling non-junky, attractive traditional bulgarian crafts and sitting at a café overlooking the beautiful gorge below me… drinking a beer that cost me $1. yep, one buck. clearly, it was awful for me. i even had the whole hostel to myself. =)
(a view from the hostel's balcony)
included are a few pictures of this Disney-esque town that is a hop, skip and a train ride away from me, though you may blame those who I expect to visit for the limited selection of photos included here… it is just too beautiful a place to reveal all of its charms via blog. even if i included all of the 100 or so photos i took, they would in no way do this lovely town justice. it is simply stunning.

august has been quite the adventurous month for me, which is perfectly as i hoped it would be. so much of the motivation that brought me here (and all that keeps me here some days) stems from the wonderful opportunities to explore that are offered by endless amounts of free time and very few financial obligations i seem to exhibit during the summer.

at any rate, school starts on the 15th and i anticipate i will be forced to speak more in my site starting that day.

ATTTENNNN- TION

okay. my internet has not been cooperative at all in the past few days. i am hoping this is simply a phase, though i fear my computer may be on its last leg. all of you, cross your fingers that this is not the case.

i will keep trying to update my blog frequently, hoping and praying that this sour spell passes like a cool breeze and that i will be connected to the internet in my apartment again soon.

until then, i will be checking email and attempting to write deep thoughts here via my school's computer lab. that of course, does not lend to very much time spent in front of the computer nor does it encourage deep thought as i am usually distracted by the fact that the lab is 100 degrees or more and i am not allowed to open the windows and keep the door open at the same time. heaven forbid i should enjoy a breeze.


anyhow. keep your fingers crossed for me. the weeks continue to be challenging and i just found out today that there is a new director at my school and my favorite english teacher (and best friend in the town) will probably not be getting her job back this year.

bummer.

on a cheerier note, i had a wonderful few weeks traveling. when i can get my internet to work, i will post pictures as there are many beautiful ones to share.