As strange as it seems for someone living here for 8 months now, I often think to myself “It’s Bulgaria out here!” whenever I leave an expat gathering or my own apartment (where I am enveloped in English language music, TV programming, Internet content, and periodicals.) It is actually easy forget you’re in a foreign country until you step outside and are confronted by a still unfamiliar land filled with a distinctive and relatively homogeneous population that speak this strange language—Bulgarian. Actually, I understand a little more each day; at this point I’m really comfortable reading signs, ordering at restaurants, asking for stuff in stores, and explaining where I want to go to taxi drivers. Never the less, I am resigned to the fact that I will never be able to carry on a real conversation; even Rich, who was the star Bulgarian student from in last year’s Corps, told us his conversational skills were limited to “what’s you favorite color” type of exchanges.
I will probably have to take this back, but it looks like spring has arrived in Sofia! We’ve had a week of relatively balmy days (50+ F), I've discarded my Martenitsa, and city workers have been doing spring cleaning in the park across the street from my apartment (which is a very welcome sight!) I expect the trees will begin to bud any time now.
Spring Home Show
The "Строико" home show I wrote about in the fall has returned to NDK. On my way home from work today, I spent an hour walking through it and came away with one overriding impression—Bulgarian are rich! There was all kinds of high-end building material, furniture, and fixtures displayed; I even saw a shower with a built-in TV. These vendors would be wasting their time and money if people weren't buying this stuff, and I can't believe that only mobsters and crooked politicians are buying; the people wandering the aisles looked to be average Bulgarian couples—they just like to invest in their house, where it's safe I guess.
BTW, next week this time I will be on my way to Vienna! I'm really looking forward to that.
1 comment:
Oh, yeah, that's how I learnt my French vocabulary as well...reading signs like "Passage interdit".
Oooooooohhhhh Vienna: I celebrated my name day there last July in the pub Debakel (Skodagasse, Josefstadt). It was funny, as actually until that time, I just passed Vienna for our business trips to the Netherlands and Germany. I remember it was Friday night and raining, and we didn't know where to go, and we just found this pub right next to the place where we were staying. At first we didn't want to go in, as there were some strange guys sitting there, and I remember my friends told me: "Emese, you go in first, you are the only one from us, who speaks German." But after that we got befriended with the waiters, got some free Tequilas...of course no wonder why we spent Saturday and Sunday night there as well.
Anyway, have a great time!
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