EXTRRRAAAAA

today was another peaceful day made all the more pleasant by the near-brisk temperatures and cloudless blue sky. these kind of days are so convincing in their persuasive attempts to get you outside that you feel like scum if you hole up in your apartment all day, no matter how comfortable you are.

a few days ago, i undertook a new mission: one to cook and produce some halfway decent food to eat. i decided it was time to stop living on tomatoes, cirene (feta-like cheese), yoghurt and granola. enough. so, i baked myself some banana bread and am pleased to report that it turned out EXTTRRRAAA. EXTRRRRRAAA is a slang word in the language- one that is hysterical when you hear it because you just can't believe a they're saying EXTRRAAA, with drawn out AAAAA and a cheesy smile. from what i have gathered so far, the meaning is similiar- it could potentially mean super, wonderful, or great but often the context in which it is used is a bit funny.

i have the cutest couple that lives across the street from my apartment, in a bloc almost level to mine. their kitchen is on their balcony-turned-indoor-cooking station and they spend much time in that converted space looking out the window it offers to the world. bulgarians in my town hang out their windows or sit in front of their blocs (without the k) to pass the time. and sometimes with a beer, or two, or more. for the first weeks i was here, i would engage in a friendly waving routine every time i spotted these folks in their kitchen.

one day not too long ago, the guy decided to jolt me out of my waving routine. he leaned out his window. and then proceeded to yell at me excitedly across the street. yelling at each other and enjoying the sound of our voices while they echo down the corridor of blocs on my street has become our new routine. no more waving business. my favorite part about it, though, is that sometimes, when i am yelling across the street at him, he says 'EXTRRRAA' when i ask how he is doing on that particularly fine day. he must have grandkids. people his age just don't say EXTRRRAA like the younger hooligans around here. however, it is usually the only word i can understand of our conversations together- i am fond of them already. and they say the people here have an indirect style of communication...

anyway, tangents aside, the banana bread, with a sprinkle of cinnamon and chocolate chunks, turned out EXTRRRAAAA. i decided it would be unwise to eat the entire thing myself, so i took half of it to the baba from whom i purchased the bananas for this EXTRRRRAA banana bread. she was delighted and surprised, even. i was surprised that she was surprised because the people here are masters at giving. apparently only in certain social settings, though, and my gift was a bit out of the ordinary. she was not quite sure what it was, so we made a little room for ourselves to devour EXXXTRRRAAAA super banana bread in front of her shop. and, the verdict was... that she liked it. she couldn't believe that 4 bananas had gone into the production of this bread... maybe because bread here is pretty homogenous across the board. with the exception of my friend st, who has magically found whole wheat bread in his town, i have seen various variations of white bread, white bread and more white bread in my town. bread with banana just isn't on the spectrum here. i delighted in her delight. and i was given some free veggies to take away from the mini celebration.

currently, i have no official language tutor. life just hasn't given me the right opportunity to set up a formal tutor-student relationship and i am embracing it. but, i thought today i may just spend an hour every afternoon hanging out with her, this "баба" who speaks slowly, has warm eyes and lots to talk about. a plan to start small and work my way up to tutoring seems suitable for the time being. and, because there are no people wandering the town around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, it is a perfect opportunity to help her pass the time. she even has a nice patch of shade from a big beautiful tree to congregate under. furthermore, i am partial to the afternoons, as i always have been, because i love the omnipresent sense that the world is exhaling in preparation for evening.

slowly i work to embrace the ambiguity of my new life here. the uncertainties have more familiar faces now and it is becoming pleasant to greet them each day. i am able to keep occupied with my efforts to expel the mating flies from within my apartment, with cooking meals i cannot ever possibly eat entirely by myself, and with learning to just enjoy free time without feeling guilty.

making peace of uncertainty is never something i have excelled at. this is how i know i have ended up right where i am supposed to be. alias &tarsier produced a beautiful song titled 'rising sun' that i revert to in moments of strong uncertainty. it is a hauntingly ethereal song, but i find the words to be more relevant to my life now than ever before....

"when all you know has changed,
the promise of a rising sun...
is all that remains"

there have been days when uncertainty has been so pervasive i find myself clinging to anything constant, stable, certain. often, i find stability in music. english music. or in sunrises (which i rarely can wake up in time to see). i find, too, that the promise of a beautiful sunset is uplifting in its own right. here is the one from this evening. the universe has blessed me with such a spectacular view!

i surrender

i surrender to the blog... peacefully of course.

i (somewhat reluctantly) begin this journey of blogging with the intention of it serving as an easier avenue for those interested in keeping tabs on me to keep tabs on me. i also intend for this to provide a glimpse into the tangible experience here, though i suspect my inner thoughts and worries will flood this blog from time to time, too. it will be interesting to see where the boundaries lie...

for those of you who received my e-mail, i feel compelled to state that for all the rambling i did, i left out a lot about what i am ACTUALLY doing here. perhaps it is because, right now anyways, i am doing a whole lot of nothing. i have the summer to soak up the free time and to ideally prepare for the road ahead of me. those of you who know me well know that i am usually only semi-successful in my plans to plan ahead, and often i spend more time planning to plan ahead than i ever do on work that would prepare me for the future. this topic always reminds me of jason hackley, whose birthday is the same day as mine, and who was convinced that taurus individuals could be pretty lazy people. lazy...i dunno. ridiculous procrastinators, possibly.

i have been spending my days in my strangely idyllic apartment, contemplating all that this experience has brought to me so far and searching for concrete things in this new place to hold onto. i have finally caught up on sleep. i have the most excellent oscillating fan anyone ever owned and enjoy the challenge of using it to the max on summer days when this communist-style abode averages 85 degrees F. the whole apartment is not only physically warm, but emotionally inviting and charming. it is appropriate that there is much sunshine flowing in constantly.


when i meander out of my apartment, i find life ebbing and flowing in the town below me. the tide of this community makes so much sense, but my mind still cannot wrap its head around the wonderful idea that is 'break time' everyday from 13:00-15:00... or later. it has taken me a fews weeks to decide that there are truly no options for buying food around this time and if i feel like i need some privacy, this is the optimal hour to take a stroll around the area. a huge river, the largest in this country (and no, for some reason the danube doesn't count), runs right by and there are some pretty little hideout spots to sit and watch the river, and the day, flow by. i am thankful to have this opportunity to enjoy the nature here, though admittedly, the nature here is far different than that of the gorgeous mountains in the southwestern part of this country that remind me so much of home.

today, on a bumpy bus ride back to town from 'the big city' (a nearby town), we slowly came up to a Roma family in a smaller village enroute waiting at the bus stop. the happiness that was borne in the eyes of this family, with their two small children playfully tangled around their bodies was the most beautiful thing i have seen in a long time. they had blue eyes that reminded me of turquoise marbles my brother and i used to play with. of the famous picture of the afghan refugee girl on the cover of an old national geographic magazine, taken so many years ago, her eyes gazing into the camera and directly into your soul. i love that when you look into people's eyes, sometimes they invite you inside to stay for a while and warm up from the long, cold journey that can be human interaction.

it made me retrace my mental steps. and to step back from my outsider's viewpoint. to ask why it is that i have come all the way here to judge, to offer sympathy and to pretend to understand the lives of individuals i see only through a bus window. the radiant happiness that i could feel as i gazed out that window next to me does not exist within material boundaries and is entirely unrelated to the type of house this family lives their lives in. happiness, and the peace that has brought me here, cannot be defined by this wealth of material desire. rather, i find again that my mind and heart have circled around the reality that our realities are shaped not by what we have, but by how we think and how we appropriate those thoughts. when you look through the window with this outlook in mind, life begins to look incredibly beautiful.

there are so many journeys like this one awaiting me. i can't wait to write more about them. and to watch all of the amazing sunsets along the way!