Family Time!!!! Berlin Travels and exploration of my home!!!

Family Trip!!! 

Bucharest: 

My parents and Michelle flew into Bucharest and I met them there.

We stayed in a really lovely hotel.

Day one, we walked around Bucharest and saw the outside of lots of buildings. It was Christmas and therefore everything was closed. It was my parents first time in Europe and it was so nice to see how excited they were about the old buildings and the beauty of the country.

One of the three synagogues in Bucharest -
in front is a Holocaust memorial 

Another view of the synagogue

The Parliament - one of the largest buildings in the world 

In front of the Cathedral behind our hotel 

Day 2: Because everything was closed we decided to book a tour of two castles in nearby Bran and Sinia and visit Brasov. Our tour guide was wonderful! He was very knowledgable and was a fabulous driver! We saw Pelish castle in Sinia and a really ornate and beautiful monastery. We also saw Dracula's castle in Bran and ate moma liga (a traditional Romanian food that my mother wanted to try because her grandfather used to make it) along the way. 

Pelish Castle 

Varna: 

After Bucharest we took a car service to Varna. I booked my parents a room at the Grand Hotel Dimiyat and Michelle and I stayed in my apartment. The hotel is amazing and has one of the best views of Varna from their glass elevator. 

Friday we walked along the sea, explored the center of Varna, did some shopping and went to the open market. 

Me and Michelle by the sea 

My parents in front of the Christmas market

Picking up vegetables for shabbat dinner 

Friday night I made shabbat dinner in my apartment - which was really nice. 

Saturday we did more walking and Saturday night went out with some of my friends to a traditional Bulgarian restaurant. My parents loved my friends - and they also danced the hora with the best of them!!!

They played a song just for my parents 

Istanbul: 

Next, we had to get to Istanbul because that is where my parents and Michelle were flying back to America from.

A few weeks before my parents arrival Rachel and Ari (my other sister and her husband) decided to meet us in Istanbul with the kids.

It was so great!!! The kids are so cute and it was fun traveling with them.

(unfortunately these children are not allowed to have their photographs online - basically because they are too damn cute)

We hit all the highlights: Blue Masque, Hagia Sofia, The Palace, The Grand Bazar and The Spice Market

Palace 

Cistern 

Medusa - there is a sideways and upside down Medusa on a column 

Inside Hagia Sofia 

The Spice Market 

Me and Rachel in front of the Blue Masque

Berlin: 

After my family left I didn't have much time to get sad.
Immediately after they left I took an overnight bus to Sofia and then that afternoon took a flight with Katy to Berlin.

Berlin was great! It was really eye opening. There are some of the most amazing monuments and memorials I ever seen in honor of the Holocaust. People were really open and honest about their history and it was overall a really positive experience.

We stayed in a really cool hostel a little off from the center. We stayed in the same place as some other fulbrighters so hung out with them as well.

The first day, Katy, Sara (another fulbrighter) and I did the most amazing free walking tour and went to a really beautiful art museum in museum island.

Our tour guide was a Brit studying for his PhD in history in Berlin. He was really knowledgable and thoughtful! We loved him - small crushes/ high crushes!

The day begins! We are cold but happy! 

Sara in the art museum 

Our beautiful tour guide - smart, handsome, athletic (look how he is standing) 

On our way to a bar at the end of the day! 

Day 2:

Katy got a nose piercing and I got a new stud put in 

We went to the art fair and we went on a huge snow slide 

We ended the day with the topography of terror museum. The Museum is housed in the old headquarters of the SS and chronicles all of the devastating history from the end of WWI up until liberation after the Holochaust. It is a really heavy and thoughtful museum.

Day 3: 

Our third day in Berlin - we walked around to two of the large synagogues, went to the Jewish Museum (one of the best I have ever been to) and the gay museum. 

The Jewish museum was amazingly done. The architecture was built to fit the message of the museum and every element was purposeful and thoughtful. 

Outside of Jewish Museum

This was a tree of life to write something you liked about the museum  

This was a tree of life to write something you wish would be part of life

Gay Museum 

The metro in the area is rainbow!!!! 

Our final day in Berlin we did a tour of Sachsenhausen, a concentration right outside Berlin.

It was an extraordinarily cold day and we were all so physically uncomfortable - but this only made it more devastating to think about the prisoners. Sachsenhausen mostly held higher ranking prisoners but of course killed countless Jews, Gypsies and Gay people there. They also had ovens - although the main purpose of the camps was to work the prisoners to death.

Back to Reality: 

Some highlights since I've been back.

I went to Pobiti Kamani - or petrified forest.

It is a 7 km stone forest outside Varna. The stones are natural forming and have sand inside from when the sea went out that far.
- in order to get there we had to take a bus to this village 2 km away. The village was really tiny and very interesting to see.

How cool? 

Bobi giving the injured dog water and his second sandwich 

This past weekend I went to Veliko Turnovo - an ancient city in Bulgaria and the old capital. 

It snowed so we didn't get to see that much but we went to Tsarvets - a fortress which was super cool and actually really fun to trek through the snow to see. 

At the top - infront of the church at the top 

View from a lookout point (for shooting people)

Gorgeous!

sooo cold!!!! 

A move, new adventures and christmas parties

So what have I been doing for the past two and a half months???

It has actually been a crazy few months.

I moved into a new apartment about a month ago. I am so happy with the change. The apartment is much smaller - which is actually really good. It a studio with a small balcony and a really nice bathroom. It is in a much nicer area of Varna and now I am a 15 minute walk from school rather than a half hour bus ride.

- Across the street from my apartment is a MyMarket - there is a Billa down the block. I found a nice gym to join and a bakery - and obviously I have already made friends with the woman who works there.

What was really amazing was when I was moving I had so many people offer to help me move. In the end, Margo, her husband and my friend Konstantin all helped me. It was pretty absurd how much I had acquired in two months.

My place!!!! 

One of our long weekends I went to Macadonia with Sam, Jake, Victoria and Sam's friend Danny (who was awesome). We stayed at a really cool hostel and were treated so nicely. The guy who worked at the front liked us, so he bought us wine. We walked around skopie and then the best part - took a bus to Medka - this cape outside the city that leads to a gorgeous cave. It was wonderful!

Jake and me in front of one of the many statues/monument in Skopie 

The whole crew! 

Medka!

I have also been traveling around Bulgaria a bunch.

Tania, the teacher I mentioned previously, and her husband took me to Kavarna, Cape Kaliakra and Bolata.

Tanya's sweet husband - outside Kavarna

I went to Buzludzah, an old abandoned communist monument. You need to crawl through a small hole to get inside. It was really cool and different and something you could not see anywhere else. Getting there was a bitch though :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzludzha

For thanksgiving a bunch of fulbrighters gathered together in Plovdiv, the ancient capital of Bulgaria. It is a beautiful city, it is one of the oldest cities in Europe and has so much history. We walked around the old city and saw lots of beautiful buildings - true architecture - no communist blocks. We also all cooked food - Alex got a turkey (unfortunately not kosher - so still no meat for this guy) and it was really lovely though.

Thanksgiving with my Bulgarian family! 

Three weekends ago was the "fulbright 100 days in Bulgaria" gathering and christmas party. Everyone presented on their work and what they have been doing here. They also took us to the Rila monestary. The biggest and most famous monastery in Bulgaria. It was gorgeous!!!!

Me in front of Rila Monastery 

This week we had two teachers christmas parties. One was at a karaoke bar in Varna. The teachers really know how to party and it was really nice and fun. I also felt like it was a turning point for me and the other teachers. They were all happy that I was participating and dancing and they were particularly impressed when I did the hora - traditional bulgarian dance.

We also went away for a party - to this Russian owned complex outside Varna. We got a tour of the complex, went swimming in an indoor pool and had another crazy dancing party.

In regards to teaching - it has been a roller coaster. But some highlights. The club "coffee and conversation" I started has been really good. I have had students reach out to me more outside of class. And finally, I had my students evaluate my teaching and overall I can say it was very positive!!


a nice evaluation!

Me and some of my students 

Tomorrow I go to Bucharest to meet up with my parents and Michelle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited!!!!!!

The Kindness of People

This post will be dedicated to sharing the small and big kindnesses people have shown while I have been here. Sometimes I think about my life and I am surprised by the adventure I am on. Not many people have their first real jobs post college and first apartments in Bulgaria. But mine are! What that means though - is all the ordinary first job, first apartment, first time truly on your own, problems are happening to me - in a foreign country - in a language I don't understand.

What I have learned is that people are really kind and if your surround yourself with the right kind of people - they will prove themselves to be amazing.

Some of the stories I will tell - may be repeats but I want to chronicle in one place all the kind wonderful things people have done for me.

Lets begins with Margo - my mentor teacher! She has been amazing!

First: when I moved into my apartment - she picked me up from the bus and helped move me in. Then when she realized that my apartment did not come with any dishes or things like that she came over with extra dishes she had in her house to give to me. She also set up my internet for me and when my landlord was not taking care of the leak in my apartment she sent her  wonderfully kind  husband over to fix it!

She also is my go between with the principle - since he doesn't speak english and spent an hour trying to register me with the police and is taking me again next week to try again!

Seriously, I lucked out - Margo is wonderful!

Then there is Roni - she is another english teacher at the school. She is so sweet to me - always checking in to see how I am doing and worried about things going smoothly for me. Roni also is setting me up with her friends son - not as a date - as a friend, because she is worried I am not meeting enough people my age.

Today, Tania, another english teacher took me to buy my monthly pass for the bus. It was freezing out and we had to make two trips since they were on lunch break when we first got there. Her husband, who is also really nice, drove us and then drove me home. It sounds small when I write it out - but they took almost an hour out of their day to help me! Also, she bought me tea - which was really nice since it was freezing!

Another really nice person I met is Dobi - I met her at the polygot cafe - she lives right near me and is just really nice and helpful. After the cafe we took the bus back together and she stayed on for two extra stops to make sure I got home okay. She also offered to give me a bus tour and to show me where the closest swimming pool is. I am having her over for dinner tonight and I am really excited!

I would feel remiss not mentioning Juliana - the girl who did fulbright in Varna last year. She left me really nice things - for my classroom and myself and made sure to set me up with her friends from last year and wrote me a whole list of awesome advice.

Finally, there are all the little things: people giving directions, people stopping to explain something or just people being patient while I work out a sentence incredibly slowly in Bulgarian.

Patience is important and you never know how your small kindness can change someone's day. When people are nice to me sometimes I just want to cry!

First two weeks as a teacher

First two weeks of teaching down...

What I have learned about my students and myself:

First, I teach 18 different classes a week. I have all of the students in 9th through 11th grade once a week for a conversation class. This is really nice in terms of structuring my lessons and keeping students interested. The hard part is learning students names and connecting.

About my students:

I am teaching at one of the best high schools in Bulgaria and definitely in Varna. This means that a lot of my students want to study abroad and are very motivated to learn english. This is really exciting and I am so happy that so many of them actually care.

But... they are still high school students and I have a bunch that are not interested and are really misbehaved. Also, high school students mumble - and between the accents, the ridiculously hard to pronounce names and the misuse of words I am finding myself saying "what" all the freaking time.

About me: 

I have learned that I have more energy than I thought, that I am kind of funny (I have made 16 of my classes laugh) and I can be strict.

I know that in order to earn their respect I need to come on strong and if I need to peddle back I can. This means that my two terrible classes have required me to practice patience, move students seats and give short speeches about respect and behavior - which I did not know I had in me.

But overall teaching has been really good the past two weeks and I think I am going to really enjoy it!

After school fun! 

Last week I had a lot of guest. Obviously, I thought that I would be living alone and was completely prepared for that but it was a really nice way to get adjusted having visitors.

Tuesday, after my first real day of teaching a friend I made while traveling in Romania came to visit. He wanted to see Varna so it was really nice - we did something fun every day after work.

Wednesday, we went to the sea garden and down to the sea and Thursday, we went to the rock monastery a little outside of Varna and then went to the sea for dinner and watched the sun set from the docks! It was gorgeous!

The rock monastery is super cool! The monks built a monastery into the mountains so its really interesting looking. (unfortunately didn't have my camera so no pictures :( )

Friday, my friend left and then seven other fulbright etas came to visit. It was Blaine's birthday and she wanted to celebrate in Varna obviously (best city in Bulgaria). I got her a cake, we went to the sea (finally went in the water) and went to a salsa club! It was really fun and so nice to spend time with other etas and see how their first weeks went.

friends celebrating birthdays! In my kitchen! 

Jake with the dead jelly fish - eek! 

jumping picks never work... 

Then this week - I didn't do as much and relaxed a lot more - because I was pooped! But I did meet a lot of new people living in Varna and that was really awesome!

Sunday, I met up with some people, Juliana - the eta from last year - was friends with and went to a nice bar.
Then later in the week, my friend Minka (who is doing a fulbright research grant) had me and one of the guys we met on Sunday over for dinner.
I also met up with the volunteer coordinator for the battered women's shelter so hopefully I will get started with volunteering there soon.
And I went to this event called Polygot cafe - where various foreigners get together once a month to speak in their native language and meet other foreigners living in Varna. That was amazing! I met this american women who owns an english bookstore here that has monthly events, and this really nice bulgarian girl who lives near me. This girl was incredibly nice - she insisted on taking the bus an extra stop to make sure I got home okay and offered to give me a tour of the city and show me around one day next week! I'm starting to really feel settled here and I am meeting amazing people!