Hey y'all!

Well Spring is in full force over here in BG. Almost all of the snow has melted off Vitosha and the campus is in full bloom. For pictures of a spring campus check out Kathryn's blog at http://canadianinbulgaria.blogspot.com/2007/04/spring-on-campus.html

And yes, we are finally done with the Dracula play. Man, was that ever a trial. Everything ended up coming off pretty damn well though. The play ran for three days and we didn't have any big drama behind the scenes, although drinking vodka with the 10th grade actors at the cast party was kinda surreal... I've posted a selection of photos from the production on the gallery page(www.landlockedsurfphotos.blogspot.com) for your gruesome enjoyment. Enjoy!



The stage has been cleared off now to make room for the annual ACS arts fest. It's going to be the second weekend of June. My band is going to rally behind the voices of three of our female teachers and play for the students during the festival. Should be good times.

I'm keeping myself busy lately by planning for the next trip. My family is showing up in two days! Pretty stoked about it myself. They are going to spend 13 days over here, 9 of which will be spent traveling around the country. We will do a number of hikes, see a lot of historic sites, and maybe even get to go diving on the Black Sea! I've already reserved our rental car as well as most of out hotel rooms. Looking at the plan now I see that it'll definitely involve a lot of time on the road. Bulgaria might be a small country but there are plenty of places to check out. Thankfully I still have two cameras so I'm sure to end up with a good selection of photos by the time I return. I know my folks will go shutter crazy as well.

Other than planning I've been tearing apart my room, packing up my board bags full for them to take back home with me. Between what I brought, bought, and had shipped over I have quite a bit for them to get back home for me. It's a good thing though, it'll leave me with just the bare essentials to carry around on my back as a I will probably do a bit of exploring western Europe before I cross the big puddle and come home. I'll most likely swing through Amsterdam to meet up with Brandon McPherson, an old B'ham/Manson buddy. After several days there I head over to Ireland for a bit before heading home. Look for me sometime in the middle of July. I'll be starting up with the Entiat IA crew later that month. I'm looking forward to coming home but I suppose I shouldn't be in a rush. Miss y'all and hope to talk to you soon!

Tales From Winter

Chestita Baba Marta everybody! That is the traditional greeting given to your fellow Bulgarians on the First of March. After giving the greeting, friends take red and white bracelets, necklaces, or pendants called ‘martenitsis’ and attach them on one another. After a day on campus everybody is festooned with dashes of red and white all over their bodies. The idea is that by wearing these items your March will be a happy and lucky time for you. As Spring rushes into the world you are supposed to keep on the lookout for the “stork,” the Bulgarski version of our swallow. Upon seeing the stork you tie your martenitsis on trees that show budding leaves or place them under rocks. If you see ants crawling about then good luck will continue to befall you throughout the year. Sounds fun and entertaining, although I’m told that the bracelets start to smell pretty funky after a month of wear.

So yeah, I know, it’s been awhile since I updated my blog. Don't worry, I haven't been eaten by a pack of feral dogs. Probably a couple reasons for the delay; the first being an overall lack of adventures. The winter over here has been rather weak, I have only clocked eight days up on my snowboard thus far, with the first being on Jan. 30^th! Gordon and I got up yesterday during school but the conditions were pretty crappy. So instead of buying a lift ticket we just hiked up the hill for awhile, concentrating on exercise rather than the number of turns. The weather was fairly warm and sunny, but really windy farther up the mountain. Most of the lifts were closed due to the wind but as the ski lifts on Vitosha mountain are all owned by different groups one cannot just buy one ticket for all the lifts. Each lift charges about 22 leva for a day – about 13 dollars. We ended up leaving early and back down in town I was treated to the most disgusting Bulgarian meal I’ve had up to date… chicken liver and onions. Ick! It’s always an adventure eating out at some of these places because still, after all this time, my command of the language and it’s Cyrillic alphabet leaves much to be desired.

That’s not to say that Bulgarian food is typically bad, quite the opposite really. They tend to go for grilled meats precluded by salads of tomato, cucumber, and goat cheese. They are also big on baked potato casseroles with all kinds of goodies mixed in. You can get a three course meal with lots of beer for about six to eight dollars. Cannot forget about the pizza either, there is lots of it, even if it is Bulgarian fashion, i.e. with corn, pickles, ham, smoked chicken, and crazy cheese.

I have had a couple good days on up in the mountains too. About three weeks ago Greg and I teamed up with two of his Bulgarian buddies and went south to Borovetz. This mountain was the real deal, had to take a gondola ride up to the base lifts. It had snowed about twenty centimeters over night so the snow was verrrry nice… Bulgarians still have something to learn about powder skiing though, most of the people on the slopes stick to the on-piste runs, leaving the trees and side glades to those willing to go looking for it. I had some of my best tree riding ever that day. As far as I’m concerned they can stay on the marked trails, they tend to ski like they drive anyhow – reckless and with high speed. My first day at Vitosha I saw two collisions and a loose snowboard rocket down the slope. They obviously don’t know about leashes either.

Other than waiting for the snow I have pretty much been spending my time hanging out around campus. Between the beer drinking, writing, and playing music I actually spend a little time working. This week coming up it seems I'm responsible for copying all the parts to the ACS entrance exam. The whole process is very secretive due to the amount of kids taking the test. I have to do it after school all of next week, and if I was more corrupt, could probably make a side profit on selling copies...

As far as the beer drinking goes we kicked off the New Year in spectacular fashion about a month ago when six dudes from the school went out on a boy’s weekend. Our target was the historical town of Veliko Turnavo. The town is famous as it was the original capital of the country, nestled into the northern mountains and surrounded by two rivers. A decent sized fortress crowned a ridge running through town. Its origins were Roman but since then it has been razed, rebuilt, only to be sacked again. Currently only one wall remained along with towers and battlements inside.

From left to right: Y.T., Pete, Derek, Dave, Cooper, and Djorf. Yeah, Veliko was a fun town, even if my memories of it are kind of foggy. We stayed in a cool little apartment with three rooms, a kitchen and balcony. After a fair amount of Texas Hold 'Em and Jager induced prefunk we hit the town for the usual Bulgarski style revelry. During the following day our hungover souls made their way into a bowling alley where we commenced to roll for over six hours. Bowling has turned out to be the new campus sport, we probably hit the lanes at least once a week. I actually rolled a new personal best of 160 just the other night. After grubbing some pizza we headed back to the apartment, lacking both the energy and will to tackle the club scene for a consecutive night.
The next day we had a fair amount of time to bum around town before catching the bus back to Sofia. It was here that I took the majority of my photos but I still came away with the lesson that alcohol and photography are not the best of friends.
Several weeks passed as the snow slowly came. Boredom was alleviated by writing, snowboarding and throwing campus parties like this one. The theme was “pink and black” – named after the house in which it was thrown, Pink House. I borrowed the pink scarf and bow tie from one of the students in my drumming club.

Lost At Sea With Richard Parker
is:
Aaron, Dan, Greg

Major bashes since then have included a rakia tasting party. Rakia is the local firewater, a crazy high octane mix of plum brandies. My band hauled the music gear up to the house and jammed for a little while during the festivities. Next came our president’s 60^th birthday party, just last Friday. He has a nice pool table in his basement and I found myself in pitched battles for control with the other dudes. This coming Friday the house closet to the dorm, Frat House, is throwing their annual St. Patrick’s Day rager. Am looking forward to it, hopefully the weather will cooperate so my band will be able to play outside by the bonfire.

About two weeks ago I got a chance to go with Cooper’s hiking club. We left early in the morning on a train to a place called Lakatnik. The surrounding geology was really astounding. It was a huge valley carved down through tiered sedimentary cliffs. Check out the pics in the photo gallery to see what I mean. One of the teachers that went had got several of her friends who are professional mountaineering guides to lead us up through the cliffs. Eventually we arrived at the mouth of a huge cave. They led all 33 students and 8 teachers into the deep dark. The cave wasn’t very tight, just some slippery places here and there. It was basically a long cavern with stalactites and bats hanging from the vaulted ceiling at regular intervals.

My last couple of trips up to Vitosha Mountain has been with Gordon where we have been supplementing our workouts by hiking up the mountain side instead of riding chair lifts. We gain at least five thousand feet in the gondola before we even begin to hike so the workout is good for starving our lungs of oxygen and driving pain into our legs. Our last time up there we came upon these snowboards working this huge kicker over and over. Gordon used to ride semi-pro in big air competitions so he immediately started salivating. But since breaking his back seven years ago what he can do is limited. But like all of the crazy extreme sports athletes I’ve met, he decided to throw caution to the wind and give it a go. I went down with my camera gear to the lip of the jump and took many shots of both him and the other riders throwing their bodies into the air. I’ve never really experienced photography like this before and I’ll have to admit it was pretty fun. Framing ahead of time, setting focus, and grinding out multiple shots with my 5 frames per second motor drive. It his here that digital kicks ass, other than having hundreds of images to go through, which is both a blessing and a pain.

Here's Gordon getting some hang time. Check out the gallery for some more of the better shots.

Last Saturday five of us drove the school’s van up to the mountain instead of taking the gondola. They were having a boarder cross competition so we decided to check it out. The light was horrendous so I didn’t do much shooting but enjoyed the show none the less.

I'm still progressing on a short novel that I've been putting together since October. It is a work of science fiction and the surfing world involved at that time in the future. Several campus residents have been kind in helping with editing. Hopefully I'll have a rough manuscript finished by the time I return.

I've also started helping Djorf out with his drama production of Dracula by designing, and with the help to two other teachers, will be coordinating the building and painting of the set pieces. The show will kick off the first weekend of May so we still have a bit of time to get everything in order. Should be fun, even though a little stressful.

Well, the next big step is going to be spring break. I'm heading to Spain for twelve days. The plan includes a car, a surfboard, and a camera. Gonna try to beach camp and spend as much time in the water as possible. Gordon and I have been hitting the weights pretty hard the past month so hopefully my arms won't fall off after the second day. The Catholics decided to celebrate Easter week while I'm going to be there so I'll have a heap of crowds and crazy people to deal with so... we'll see.
After that I have a short weekend that I might use to head over to Italy. Then it's only a matter of time before my folks show up to get their exclusive Bulgarian tour. After they leave at the end of May I only have three more weeks on the contract before I can bug out. I'm looking into a three week Western Europe trip before heading back to Entiat and it's world famous fire crew.

Remember to check out the photo gallery. I'm going to try to get more, but shorter, updates on the blog on a more regular basis. Stay tuned for more.

A Jamaican Holiday

Hey everybody! Got some pictures from my families Jamaican Christmas here. Going through these shots while sitting here in Bulgaria makes me appreciate the little things that make getting together with friends and family so worth it. I look forward to my folks, and hopefully my sister, coming out to visit Eastern Europe in May.

We spent our first week in the area of Negril, a seven mile long beach that served a string of resorts. Negril lies on the western edge of the island and its location awarded us with one spectacular sunset after another. This one was taken on the southern point, past the beach and out on the rock headlands. We visited a lighthouse out on this point before heading off to grub some Christmas dinner.

I didn't take as many pictures as one might expect. I guess I might have been on a self-imposed break from photo taking. My parents brought my other digital camera, the one used for all these shots, down with them. I found myself actually taking quite a bit of video with it, creating footage that I hope to stitch into something grander in the weeks to come.

Good looking pair of couples huh. I wouldn't be surprised if my Dad has already started growing his beard back.

Kyle flew down on Christmas day and surprised the hell out of us. It was nice to have him there to help share the holiday and bring in the new year.

This shot is of the Negril headlands, looking north from the lighthouse point. A patchwork of coral reef extends away from both these rocks and further out in front of the sandy beach. We made one snorkel trip out to the reef by boat early on in the trip. The visibility was pretty decent and we saw a giant eagle ray along with numerous fish and a turtle.

One thing that travelers to Jamaica should be aware of is the constant hustle from the locals. In Negril, a notoriously touristy area, this was at an extreme level. You could hardly go anywhere in public without facing a constant barrage of hustle. These fellows seemed to think that Kelsey really, really needed a conch shell. For ten dollars no less.

Posing in the golden hour out in front of our resort, The White Sands. My dad and I spent several afternoons going through the PADI Openwater diver course. Unfortunately, the weather canceled our last two dives, forcing us to accept just the basic Scubadiver qualification.

Looking north along the main Negril beach. As you can see it was both long, we were at the halfway point here, and crowded. Most of the all inclusive resorts lay at the far northern end while the actual Negril village sat the southern end.

On one of our last days there we headed inland a bit to check out the Great Morass. A boardwalk provided access through out the swamp. We saw a great variety of birds and plants. Overall it was nice to get out of the hustle and bustle of the Negril beach life and get back to nature. I think that tends to be standard operating procedure for the Schmidt family.

Cute huh...

A view of the boardwalk though the Morass from a three story lookout tower situated in the middle of the trek.


This was our last sunset before leaving Negril. The following day Alan and Judy had to head back to Washington to keep plugging away at those jobs. We left with them, having had enough of Negril ourselves. After parting ways at the airport Kelsey, Kyle, and I made our way east on a series of shuttle buses to the portland area. We ended up at Boston Beach, famous for both its jerk chicken and surfing.

I'll be seeing these guys in May.

Yes, those are a bunch of bugs in a toilet. Upon returning to our pad in Boston one night we found a plethora of these little wankers hopping around our room. Someone left a window open and a light on, drawing them in like moths to a flame. Fifteen minutes of eradication removed most of the little pests. We stayed at this little bed and breakfast for six nights. Our host, an eccentric Frenchmen named Jean Michel, was a kind fellow although often overly obnoxious. He did let me sling my hammock between some trees even though the weather only cooperated in letting me stay out there two nights. December is right smack dab in the middle of the rainy season and we could count on it pouring every afternoon.

It had rained all morning on the day we headed to Port Antonio to our first dive together. We thought it might have been a problem but the dive agency, a real chill mom and pop joint called Lady G'Diver, didn't seem to think so. We did a two tank dive with them. We all appreciated their attitude towards safe and sane diving. Plenty of time was given to check equipment and make sure we knew where all of the doohickies and gadgets went.

Down we go...

Three little birds, uh, I mean fish...

It was still cloudy for most of the day, reducing visibility and the amount of light available for photography. Still, I could see it being pretty fun to get an underwater camera system.

My BCD(Buoyancy Compensating Device - the vest that lets you rise and fall underwater) failed on my second dive. It kept filling up with air, shooting me to the surface. Our divemaster ended up just disconnecting me from it. I had to use my lungs for most of the dive to rise and fall as I swooped over the coral.

You can't tell from this picture but Kelsey is singing her SCUBA song. "Bubble's all the way...!" You'll have to ask her about it.

We didn't see all to many fish but this one was nice enough to pose by the fan coral for me. The day after our dive we left Boston Bay with several days still to go. I managed to get in four days of surfing. Was a pretty nice break, sheltered from the wind inside the bay. Was really starting to get the hang of the shortboard when we had to leave. Oh well. Just makes me look forward to surfing in Spain over spring break.

Welcome to Cockpit Country. After picking up our rental car in Ocho Rios we sped up into the countryside, passing through Fern Gully, a deep gorge through the rainforest, along the way. The road ran right over top of an underground river. Eventually we found our new lodgings up on top of Murphy Hill, an old cattle ranch converted to a small hotel and cell tower location. From it's summit we were awarded with great views of the northern coastline. For those shots I'm afraid you'll have to wait for the video. This shot of the countryside was taken as we descended down into 9 Mile the nest day. Notice how the topography resembles an egg crate. 9 Mile was both the birth and resting place of Bob Marley.

We took a tour of Bob's mausoleum, his grave was right behind this sign in a raised coffin inside his old house. It was a good thing we arrived early because short after finishing the tour a massive tour bus pulled in and disgorged a heap of pasty white tourists from the cruise ships that name Ocho Rios their Jamaican port of call. Needless to say we didn't hang around in Ocho Rios much.

After leaving Bob to the cruise ship weenies we continued our drive back to the coast. Our next stop was the Green Grotto cave system. I highly recommend touring these caves if you head to the island. They have been used by everything from pirates to runaway slaves, even arms smugglers heading to Cuba. Now they just serve tourists. The caves are a series of limestone caverns, each with its own identity and history. This shot was taken deep down at a sunken lake.

After leaving the caves we stopped at Runaway beach. I had to fly out the following day so it was nice to get some sand between my toes again. Kelsey and Kyle would head to Montego Bay for a couple days before they to headed back up to the States.

See ya' later Jamaica. Wa gwan mon!

Welcome to Istanbul

Hey there everybody! So finally got through all my shots from the Istanbul trip. I think I shot about 530, before deleting over a hundred. Oh, the pros and cons of digital shooting…

The trip started out pretty well. Gordon, Dusty, Greg and I left Sofia around nine at night. Our bus turned out to be not very crowded at all. Soon Greg was up front with the driver speaking lousy Turkish and smoking cigarettes. All the other passengers rallied up front to see what the action was – gave someone a good opportunity to rifle through my backpack’s top pocket and nab my sunglasses.
Eventually, things quieted down. All the smoking had driven Dusty and Gordon to the back of the bus. By the time we made it back there they had passed out. We promptly joined them. I myself crashed out on the aisle floor. Getting thought the border took a good several hours with little problems other than the waiting.

Next thing I knew the driver was nudging me as we all woke up somewhere in Istanbul. Good thing Greg knew some things about the city (he stayed there over the summer taking drum lessons) because the bus had neglected to go the main terminal. After gathering our things we tried to shake out the cobwebs by walking to the nearest tram terminal. We crowded on and got a little train tour of the city as it carried us through the touristy areas. Istanbul is a huge city, rumored to have about 20 million residents. We planned on staying on the European end of the Bophorus Straight, in the part of the city across the river from the Golden Horn – the area that contains all of the city's most famous mosques and bazaars. If you look at the map it was right behind the big tower where the two bridges look like they might intersect.
We eventually found a suitable hotel nestled into skinny streets atop a hill. One thing we were to find out about Istanbul is they have an interesting habit of clustering similar businesses around each other. We were staying in the same area that Greg had stayed before, in the musician’s district.
After a bit of sleep I finally let myself be dragged from bed and accompanied Gordon and Dusty across the bridge over the Halic into the oldest part of the city. We spent the day moving through the intense crowds of the bazaars, taking many a picture. As might be expected I eventually got separated from the couple and found myself wandering back down towards the water. The sun was setting and once again I found myself chasing the light. As it turns out I was mere meters from the entrance to the Grand Bazaar – the most famous of all markets in Europe. I never did make it in during my stay, for better or worse.
Eventually we all hooked back up together and found ourselves some dinner. Cat and Kathryn from school had traveled down on the train and we met up with them just in time to eat. Long story short – Greg ate sheep’s brain, I had some mystery meat stew thing and Dusty nearly vomited over her plate of raw jumbo shrimp. Interesting…
Next stop involved finding beers, which was a lot harder than in Bulgaria. Turkey claims to be a secular nation but with 90% of the population practicing some form of Islam, beer consumption is a little more subdued. Not in the club we hoped, which is were Greg, Dusty and I were headed next. Earlier that morning we had bought tickets for the reggae show that night. Turned out to be just a couple of DJs spinning some good tunes but no live music. Still gotta dance ya’know…
The following morning we rallied once again across the bridge. Unfortunately I neglected to recharge my camera so I had to be selective on what I shot. Gordon was on the hunt for some quality Persian carpet so we checked out several shops. The owners are pretty good salesmen, giving you a glass of hot apple tea so you have to stay at least until it cools down…
Next we checked out the Aya Sofiya, one of the biggest mosques in the whole city. It was originally built by one of the emperors of the Eastern Holy Roman Empire as a Christian church. When the Persians conquered they converted the cathedral to a mosque rather haphazardly. Many frescoes were simply painted over, however some, mostly on the ceilings, were too high to reach so they were left untouched. I have one shot of the virgin Mary with baby Jesus over a Muslim shrine. It was an interesting juxtaposition of opposing faiths represented in the same building.
Came out after spending at least an hour and caught the sunset behind the city. I shot the last of my camera's battery shooting silhouettes of the Blue Mosque across the street.
Once again we found Cat and Kathryn wandering on the street close to their hotel, (actually they found us, poking around yet another rug shop.) I left with them and headed back to our side of the city to meet Greg for dinner. This one was a little better, cheap street meat doners.
After the girls left Greg and I made plans to go to a jazz club to see one of Turkey’s internationally famous percussionists play. I still wanted to head up the tower that dotted the skyline of our hill, thought I could get some good night shots of the city. After returning to the hotel to grab my now-charged battery and tripod I tried to get up in the tower only to find that it was closed, open only to elite business men paying 100 euro to eat a fancy meal and watch belly dancing. They also mentioned that tripods were forbidden.
Oh, well. Didn’t want to pay ten lira to go up your stinking tower anyhow. So after taking some night shots of the surrounding streets I joined Greg in the jazz club. Standing room only inside, eventually I managed to stake out a side table and get some slow motion shots of the musicians by balancing my camera on my coat. Pretty good music, although definitely not jazz. It was kind of a funky fusion of world styles. The percussionist must have played a dozen different instruments throughout the night. Inspiring.
Wanting to get out of the crowded city I had decided to meet Cat and Kathryn the following for a boat tour of the Bosphorus Strait, the strip of water connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, separating Europe from Asia. Even though it was extremely hazy with high pressure and smog it was still a very worthwhile trip. Got a chance to see so much more of the city and let me tell you, it definitely has to be the biggest city I’ve ever been in. The whole Seattle sprawl area is like only five million. Istanbul is over three times that!
Eventually we found ourselves nearing the end of the straight, we could actually see the Black Sea at the end. Our boat pulled into the Asian side at a little tourist town. After cramming an expensive fish lunch I bounded out into the country side trying to find my up to an ancient castle perched on top of the hill over looking the entrance to the strait. Felt good to get out of the city and see some grass, even some trees. I think I might have took the road less traveled because I had to skip through a horse pasture and cemetery to get up to the main trail leading to the ruins.
Right about the time I got to the top a huge fog bank settled in, completely shrouding all views. The castle, or what was left of it, had been built by Romans and came out of the fog eerily. There were a fair number of Turkish tourists around the base and I conversed with one of them for awhile before scampering all over the grounds, shooting a lot of pics through the fog. Reminded me of my earlier trip up to Malyovitsa. I was disappointed in the amount of trash and graffiti around the ruins. Blows me away how people can treat their own land so poorly.
The fog hung close to the water slowing our return back down the straight. Eventually we broke out and since the current flows down from the Black Sea we made pretty good time heading back.
After saying goodbye to Cat and Kathryn I made my way across the bridge and killed some time by once again heading through the local fish market, this time in the evening. I ended up venturing further down the water line, and thanks to Greg on insisting that I bring my tripod, got some great shots of the city skyline at night.
After meeting up with Greg for some food we gathered up our backpacks and made a long trek by foot to the bus station on the other side of the city. On the way we passed under an ancient aqueduct also built by the Romans. We had booked another night bus which would put us into Sofia early the next morning, giving us all of Sunday to recover before having to work on Monday. No drama this time on the bus, we grabbed the back seats and all passed out, waking only to surrender our passports at the border before crashing again. It was surprising how much Sofia felt like home-sweet-home after our whirlwind tour of Istanbul.

Of course that's only a quick run through of the whole story. Check out the photo selection on my photo blog to see more Istanbul photos and read more details about the trip.

Bulgaria News and Photos

Hey all, head over to the Bulgaria photo blog to see new photos of Sofia. I know they are small versions, but clicking on them will bring up the full size image. I recommend it.

I'm heading to Turkey for the Thanksgiving break and am excited. I hear it's a real photogenic city so look forward to more interesting images. I'm in the middle of processing slides taken over the summer. Some are from my trip down to California job fair that culminated in my ending up here. Also have good ones from the annual Winchester Wasteway trip, Heather and I's trip to Cape Alava as well as lots of vivid surreal shots from up on the Tin Pan fire. Don't care what you digital gurus say, slide film quality still kicks ass. It just takes forever to process the images...

Things in Bulgaria are going OK, looking forward to the upcoming breaks. Can't wait until my Jamaica trip to see my family and friends. It's gonna be hard to head back to BG. At least I have lots of snowboarding to look forward to. Kind of been coming up short on adventures lately, although I did have a pretty wicked crash on my skateboard last week. It involved a parked car, a curb, and lots of concrete. Ouch. I think if I'm gonna do this whole Urban Warrior thing I may need a mountain bike and a helmet...

My teacher only band which is going by the title of "Lost at Sea With Richard Parker" is having a lot of fun putting songs together. My folks were awesome and shipped over my double pedal and other gear. One of the kids here has a pretty nice drum kit set up at school in the jam room so I end up using it a lot. Still teaching drum lessons every Wednesday, playing in a student-teacher band(#2) on Thursdays and co-teaching a photography elective on Fridays. This last Friday I put together a photo assignment draft. The kids picked numbers out of a hat and picked their assignment according to what number they drew. I tried to emulate National Geographic style topics like "Fashion and Attitude," "The Wild Dogs of Sofia," and "History and Change -40 days until the EU." They are also putting together individual portfolios so they can take away something of artistic quality away from the class. I'm putting together a collection of Bulgarian graffiti myself to show them what I mean. There is some really great graffiti here, it's definitely evolved into an art form of itself. I have already collected a decent size body of pictures that I'm going to make into a portfolio.

Well that's it for now, plan on more stories after my Istanbul vacation.
Cheers!
Aaron

Photos Updated!

Hey! I got a substantial amount of Bulgaria photos up on my photo blog. Look to the links on the right and check them out.

The other photo gallery is one I'm putting together to contain a broader selection of all my work. All it contains right now is some of my favorite fire photos.
Ciao!
Aaron

This one here is looking north to Mt. Olympus from Olympic Beach in Greece.

Bulgaria, A Prologue

Hey Everybody, thanks for visiting my new blog. Hopefully I'll be posting adventures and pictures here on a regular basis. This is my first posting, a list of the mass emails that I've sent out thus far. They are in order of me sending them, with the most recent at the bottom. Hope you enjoy...

#1

Hey all,
Made it to Bulgaria safe and sound. the flight was long but not too bad. Met up with a bunch of other new teachers in Warsaw, cool folks all about late twenties early thirties. Couple of fellas from the school met us at the airport and got us shuttled over to the school, and I thought I had a lot of luggage. My room in the dorm is pretty nice, the whole building
is newly renovated. I have a kitchen, bedroom and private bath all to myself. Feels empty without all the kids, sounds like there are going to be 14 girls and 14 boys on the two levels.
Last night we had dinner and drinks at the school president's house, met some of the other staff and drank a fair amount of booze. Later I was finally allowed to succomb to my jet lag.
this morning we filled out paperwork, it seems we need to leave bulgaria to get our work visas. So thisweekend we are heading to Greece, Theossiniki where we
will go to the Bulgarian consulate. Sounds nice, its on the beach and the school is covering the transportation and our hotel rooms. Went out with several of the other new teachers to seea flick and get some dinner tonight. Pirates of the Carribean (sp?) with Bulgarian subtitles. The language here is really hard to understand, probablygoing to take me a bit to get sorted out.
anyways, hope your all doing well. I'll write more later when I get more time, still trying to get the internet in my room so I'm borrowing Dan's computer right now. Miss ya all,
Nos Driva, (cheers)
Aaron

#2
Hey All,

Hope your having a nice summer. The weather over here is pretty darn similar to that of WA, maybe a little more stormy... Sounds like its gonna start getting colder soon, starting to remember all the cold weather items I forgot... If you didn't hear all the new teachers had to go to Thessoloniki, Greece to get our work visas and Bulgarian ID cards at the embassy there, for some reason we couldn't do it in-country. After visiting the famous Rila monastary we stayed at the rustic town of Melnik just north of the Greccian border. Had some great local food and wine. The day we visited a much less travelled too monastary at Rouzah. Got yelled at by this long-bearded monk for taking pictures inside the ground...twice, excuse me... Later that afternoon we rolled into Olympic beach and stayed for three nights. It was about 170 km south of the border on the Agean. Contrary to what I've heard the water was not crystal clear, it was filled instead with seaweed and tons of sunburning tourists. Not much to do but lay around and drink, get red skin, etc... Tried to gete the bill at dinner once but they told us to relax, have some free dessert and more vino. Great people. Bad hangovers. Mount Olympos was directly to the west so we got great views of that from our balcony. Look for pics soon on an internet site. The funny thing is we have to go back to Greece to pick up the visas and cards in person, (Bulgaria still adheres to alot of Communist holdover paranoia and anal paperwork behavior) So what, go back to Greece, no prob here. We all want to hit the Pearl Jam concert in Athens with the same stone. Fingers are crossed...

Yesterday we went through our new-teacher orientation, learned about SOPs etc... I'll be having 27 students in the dorm, mostly 8th graders. The school is pretty well organized and it provides a lot of opportunity for students. I'll probably be putting together a photography elective as well as advising for the hiking and snow sports clubs. Met another teacher last night, Greg, who is helping a student rock band do their thing, sounds like there will plenty of chances for jamming, yeah! Might head to Istanbul around thanksgiving to pick up a turkish drum, sounds like the variety and quality is amazing. Not much for instruments here in Sofia though...

Went out with Greg and Cooper to a club downtown, they don't really even get kicking until after two. Too much second hand smoke but the drinks are fairly cheap... Danced my left cheek off and got back in wayyy late, slept a bit, then joined some of the students as they took the lot of us out on whirlwind tour of downtown. Pretty neat city, lots to see. Checked out an old Roman church that downtown has just consumed. So much history all around.

Got back extremely bushed, so i hung my hammock and chilled before letting the girls next door feed me an amazing dinner, eating rice pudding with plum sauce picked off the tree in front of the house as we speak. Also picked up a cell phone yesterday so ya'll have to give me a call if ya like, don't have the number on me so stand by...

So yeah, having a good time. The dorm feels really vacant and spooky but that will change soon enough... Miss ya all so keep in touch! ;-)

Dober Vecher! (good evening)

Aaron

ps, this language is a pain in my tongue...

#3
Whats's up everybody? Been a little while since I've fired off one of these things. Hope everyone's doing well. Heard that the fire season is mellowing a bit... probably a good thing. Must be time to go to Montana or start making your own fires instead... Things here in Bulgaria are getting into full swing. Tommorow is their national independence day so the kids have a three day weekend and must leave the dorm, Yay! They have to leave on all long weekends, giving me and Roumy (the Dorm mother) some peace and quiet. I'm going to be heading down to Bansko, a rustic mountian ski town that I hear is developing rapidly. It'll be interesting to see it without snow... getting excited about the season for sure. Got up on the mountain last weekend and looked at the terrain, pretty interesting, there is about a twenty minute gondola ride up to the base area. I'll be helping coach the ski/board team so I'm sure I'll get pretty used to it. Till then I'm trying to stay busy in my wierd schedule. I gotta get up at 700 to get the kids to breakfast. After that I'm free until 1830, dinner followed by a couple hours of study hall. Roumy and I are sharing the weekend responsibilities to come up with activites. It's gonna be hard with 26 kids though to accomodate all...

Well I'll leave off there, what follows is a blurb (not too long I hope) about a pretty fun weekend I had two weeks ago. If you can't get the pics to work let me know....

Cheers and take care!

Aaron...

...So my dad is always stressing the need for adventures in one's life, he says they keep you, I don't know, lets say, spunky... so Friday I get this email from a local shaper (one of the only one's in Bulgaria) letting me know that the waves were gonna be hitting Sunday, for sure at Ahtopol, a small fishing village right above the Turkish border on the Black Sea Coast. He and his buds had been trying to put on a small surf contest for a while and were waiting for the weather to get on board. I had been emailing Antony off and on after he responded to a post I put on a surfing website, letting him know I'd be in the area for a year and finding out the story on the surf action.

At first after reading his email I was bummed, didn't think I'd have time to make it out and back over the weekend, much less surf... but later that afternoon the staff got together and played football (that's soccer for all you Yanks) on the concrete basketball court. Only fell once, minor amount of blood and one goal scored, not bad since I haven’t played since high school PE... Several guys on the staff clued me into the night buses leaving from Sofia on a regular basis, giving me the idea that I might have a chance after all. Even though everyone thought that there would be no surf on the sea, "don't you know it's flat as a pancake Aaron, Duh!?" I said I had the inside scoop and what do non-surfers know anyhow? After Lara helped me get the bus info online (she was heading out on a train to Varna that evening) I decided to give it a try, why not right?

We had a BBQ later that afternoon at the President's house on campus and after pounding a bunch of food and wine, I speed packed and headed out the gate with two others who were heading to the coast as well. The first bump in the road was that the taxi absolutely refused to take my board bag on the roof of his car, I tried telling him that my sister's Honda rocked the board bag no problem but I don't think he understood. Anyhow, we quickly went to plan B, and called up the folks still at the BBQ to rally the school van down and pick us up. T-minus 20 minutes until the last bus. Lara and Dave were super troopers and stayed with me instead of hopping into the taxi, they would be instrumental in helping me procure a last minute ticket at the bus station. Gordon and Dusty (a rock solid couple from Oregon new to Bulgaria as well) showed up not too long after, whisking us through crazy downtown traffic to the bus station. All three of us got on our respective buses with seconds to spare... extra baggage fee was ten leva at the bus but I could care less.

Sleep was a more or less a trial and error process on the bus, maybe I was too excited. I do remember it being long... I woke up once to seeing the light over the sea, eventually the sun rose as the bus winded down the rocky coastline towards the Turkish border. I arrived at Ahtopol after 8 or so hours of cramped bus travel. (All you travelers know what I'm talking about...) I had sleep deprivation dripping out my eye sockets. The Lonely Planet gives the town about three paragraphs of up and downs... wasn't really helpful at all. Tried asking for the two hotels listed but I guess they didn't exist anymore. I went to turn on my mobile phone and found it wouldn’t let me access anything; it needed a PIN that I forgot in Sofia. Great. Thought I owned the damn thing. So much for maintaining prompt communication with crew and adjoining forces…

The town actually was a lot bigger than I thought it would be... so I set off dragging my coffin down the street, looking for that elusive hotel that I didn't know the name of yet. Found it about twenty minutes later, the guy behind the desk couldn't speak English but through hand motions and broken speech I get the idea he says come back at 8 and we'll see. Ok I thought, dropping my board bag in the foyer, sounds good to me. I made my down to the harbor and took in the scene, no waves anywhere; the sea was indeed perhaps flatter than a pancake. Well, shit I thought. The light, being early morning, was decent though so I guilt tripped myself into sluggishly pulling out my camera and start shooting. A long pier extended out into the harbor where I found myself lighting up the fisherman and their funky little boats.

I made my way back up to hotel eventually to procure lodging for the evening. This time their was a lady who spoke some decent English, enough to tell me that all the cheap rooms were taken and all they had left was the VIP suite. "But OK, I give you special price," she said. Fifty leva later (about thirty bucks) I had myself a room although, you guessed it, wouldn’t be available until noon. I then haggled the lady into letting me use her computer so I could drop an email to my buddies in Sofia to bust into my room and locate my friggin’ PIN number. I needed to get my phone working. My next move was obvious, I went down to the park and passed the f’ out.

After waking, eating cheap street pizza, and sleeping more in my lavish hotel room (not kidding, king bed, extra room with big TV, Jacuzzi, etc, And to think I brought my hammock and sleeping bag…) I called Antony from the room phone, he ensured me that the swell was indeed coming and that I was an idiot for not calling him sooner, could have got a ride and a place to stay. Phone problems I replied…

Later I got into an Internet café run by twelve year olds (supposedly didn’t exist) and got my PIN from Kathryn. See what happens when you cook for people? They help you out when you really need them. Talked more to Antony and he said his buddy was coming in sooner, the guy that was actually setting up the contest. Said buddy, Doichen, called me soon after and we met up, the wind had picked up by now and wind swell was smacking into the coast from the northeast. "Waves be here tomorrow, he ensured me." After I bought a ticket back to Sofia for the next evening we took a ride down to Sinomorets to look at the other beach where we might have the contest. Nice place, secluded beach break. Doichen lamented about the changing times and how it used so be so peaceful out in this area of the country. The beach was now covered with umbrellas, empty but ringing of the rampant tourism that floods the coast every summer. "One good thing about the commies," he said, "is that they left nature be." "Now it all gets bought up by the mob looking for semi legit places to throw their dirty money into." Indeed one could clearly see the raging, ill-planned construction sprouting along the coastline like an irregular fungus. While an effort was clearly made to keep the land clean he was quick to point out how a lot of his people had lost respect for the environment, littering and dumping at will. Doichen was thirty years old and clearly remembered the end of communism just fifteen years prior. He spoke of the Bulgarian spirit still being wounded, trying to come to grips with its new place in the world. In 2007 they will get accepted in the EU and he was hesitant about the pros and cons of this venture, but figuring it will all be better in the long run. If nothing else, his business will continue to thrive. Said company, Bulgarian Adventure Sports, constructs custom mountain bikes and sells other board riding gear out of Sofia. Good person to know I thought. He and his friends were the grassroots beginnings of Black Sea surfing, building their boards from whatever materials they could find. Surf films provided their training. Eventually some of their number made the pilgrimage to Spain and Mexico, learning the art of wave riding first hand and bringing their knowledge back.

I woke up early the next morning and checked out of my room. After stashing my pack in the back yard I crammed some Bulgarian breakfast and skipped down to the harbor just in time to see a windblown lefthander peel across the side of the harbor. Good morning Bulgaria! I met Doichen further down the shore road, watching the waves roll in. His impression was that the waves were crap. Sounds just like a local, I thought. Pretty soon cars started showing up crammed with dudes looking forward to the contest. I took this as my sign to run back up to the hotel and grab my board. The hotel matron gave me that look that older folks give you when they think your crazy, "Have fun, don’t kill yourself!"

Down at the harbor I met Antony and we talked for a while about his shaping business, as far as know he is the only one actively shaping boards in Bulgaria. He had several in his car to show off to the others there. We talked about how hard it was to get supplies shipped in. The smallest short board blank cost him fifty dollars and half that again just to ship them. Australia, not surprisingly, turned out to be his most reliable and cheapest supplier. More of Doichen’s buddies had showed up by then and were all milling around, deciding whether or not to do the contest here or not. It didn’t take too long for some to decide that the indecision was killing them as they donned wetsuits and splashed into the water. I followed about four seconds later behind Doichen, figuring if my ride was going in then so could I.

I went to paddle into my first wave, and realized too late that I was in the wrong spot. The wave jacked up and rolled me over the falls. Afraid I might auger into the reef I came up quickly, still clutching my board. I spat out a bunch of briny water and made my way out of the impact zone. Doichen must have seen my ill-fated take off because he paddled over to warn me about the shallow bottom and to stay away from the steep big ones. Yeah, no shit! I laughed back. I caught my next wave easily enough but getting out of the quickly closing out whitewash was proving to be a problem. I had a series of rides that never broke out onto the face, the waves were all closing out to soon. Antony, Doichen with his longboard, and a couple others were the only successful ones in getting any decent rides.

The waves continued to roll in, broken and in irregular sets. The current was proving to be a definite force as it worked to keep sweeping the lineup into the deeper part of the bay. By now I was thankful I had donned my thick wetsuit, at least the colder water wouldn’t be draining my energy, I needed all I had to keep paddling. Some of the other surfers wore only their boardshorts and rashies and were clearly shivering. Doichen said just a month prior wetsuits would have never been needed.

Eventually all off the surfers on the beach made their way out into the water. I counted at least fifteen at one point. Not too crowded but enough considering the small, shifting take off area and current. I had been in the water awhile by now and was content to watch the Bulgarians charge the incoming sets. Obviously they were unhappy with the conditions because everyone started filtering out. By the time I made it to shore Doichen was yelling for me to get my stuff in the car, we were moving the whole posse to the other beach. His ever-present wingman, an old hound dog named Barry, hopped into the front seat between my legs, slobbering all over my neoprene.

The beach break was even windier than the day before and kicking up some decent waves. It looked like the contest was on. Every one was quickly divided up into four person heats with Doichen brandishing his bullhorn like a movie director. Antony was in the first heat and ripped up eight waves before the others had even got four apiece ending the first heat quickly. The next two heats timed out after thirty minutes each. One surfer launched an aerial but it looked like Antony was going to have it all sewn up.

I was told that I’d be in the fifth heat but in the confusion got put into the fourth at the last minute. The three other surfers had already paddled out so I hustled down the beach and took the riptide out to the line up. My caught my first wave and tried to go right but the windy whitewash beat me to the outside. I spent the next ten minutes (it felt like an hour) caught inside before another surfer told me to paddle right and catch the rip back out. Here the waves were even more unpredictable than at Ahtopol, coming in irregularly and completely windblown. Yet I was still lovin it. I caught three or four more before the heat ended. I never did end up with a good ride, only several half assed attempts at breaking out of the whitewash. I did manage to hang five over the nose as I rode the foam in on my last ride. My smile could have split wood.

By now my body was completely spent. Between the two breaks I figured I had at least four to five hours in the water, not too bad for not having surfed since May. I spent the rest of the time at the beach shooting and getting sunburned. Eventually we all packed up and moved back to Ahtopol. It was still breaking there, although really infrequent. I was content to continue shooting up and down the beach while Doichen and one other longboarder grappled for the few waves coming in. Sunset was dropping behind the sleepy town and shed a beautiful cast on the lighthouse outside the harbor. Must have taken twenty photos of the darn thing before I finally got a beauty with the surf crashing around it.

I finally said see-ya to the guys around eight and made my way back up to the hotel. My bus left at 10:20 and I wanted to get a decent meal and get there on time to board. This was one I couldn’t afford to miss. All the new teachers had to head to Greece to pick up our visas from the embassy in Thessoloniki the next day. This time I managed to sleep on the bus, go figure. I woke up as we were pulling into Sofia, around six in the morning. Greg and Gordon were waking up to come pick me up in the van but when I got to the bus station a cabby offered to take me and my gear. We stuffed my board into his small car and started out after I called Greg and told him to go back to sleep. He made sure to tell me not to pay more than eight leva for the trip. As we made our way through downtown I noticed the cab meter going up rather quickly, already passing twenty leva, and when I mentioned something to the driver he babbled incomprehensibly pointing to the tariff sign on the window. After getting him up to the ACS gate he demanded a payment of almost forty leva. Way overpriced, obviously trying to ruse the stupid American. If you know me, as most of you do, I am not a morning person and gave him a ten leva note, telling him that was all he was gonna get so piss off. He threatened to go to the police and I said sure, they are right up there (the police training academy is next to our campus and they maintain the gate day and night.) By the time he made his way to the gate I had my pass out and flashed it to the sleepy guard, burning right past the irate cabbie. What a way to start the day. Got back to my dorm room and passed out, waking up in a couple hours to go to more orientation meetings. We left for Greece at three that afternoon, allowing me more sleep in a bumpy vehicle. No real adventures on that trip unless you count the restaurant we ate at that night, but that’s a story for another time.

#4
Kak se everybody!

Let’s see, it’s the middle or so of October, gearing up for Halloween over here. Were throwing a big bash over at one of the teacher houses. Gonna have a haunted house set up in the tunnels and bomb shelters underneath the campus. We just got a tour by the president and know one else knows about them yet. They were pretty sweet. Those of us that are throwing it are going for a Wizard of Oz theme, gonna be the Scarecrow myself, that’s one character you can really get into. Downloaded a cool DJ program onto my computer today and combined with the massive sound system were borrowing were really going to thump the place. Am excited, I let ya know how it all turns out.

Been continuing my theory of adventure preservation every weekend so far. Four weeks ago several of the campus couples and I traveled down to one of the major ski towns, a quaint little village called Bankso. The gondola was closed for the day so we didn’t actually get up on the mountain, decideding to spend the day eating, drinking, and generally being merry instead. In this I believe we were very successful. There were several weddings going on throughout the town during the day so that was cool to see. They don’t run like American ones. Everyone in a Bulgarski wedding takes to the streets led by a troupe of drummers and other musicians. They took over the city squares and locked them down for some serious dancing. Later on that evening we went bowling for Derek’s birthday and I surprised the hell out of myself by bowling a 148 on the second game (it’s all about having the right ball and emptying your bladder in between frames…)

Bankso was a peculiar town in that there were virtually no stray dogs. This is highly uncommon for a Bulgarian town, normally the dogs are as thick as rats. I hear that the government has a policy that prevents the killings or spaying of loose dogs, something about ‘animal cruelty’ whatever that is. Anyhow, what was even crazier is that Bansko was overrun by stray cats! We all hypothesized that there must have been some grand war back in the day and the cats came out victorious. Who knows? Anyhow Bansko was a cool place and I look forward to heading there this winter to snowboard over some fleeing felines.

The following week was prep week, all the preps had the week off to play games, learn special skills and meet their fellow 8^th graders. (There are about 180 of them…) I helped out by taking kids on tours of the dorm and serving as a group advisor for the rest of the week. Friday was sports day and the entire school broke into teams and played at different sporting stations. I ran the ultimate Frisbee course, man that was Chaos! Try teaching people how to play ultimate when they have never even thrown a Frisbee before. My fire crew would have been laughing their asses off.

That weekend Netherlands was in town to play the national Bulgarian team so a bunch of us teachers got some cheap tickets to go see for ourselves how crazy this ‘European football’ thing was could be. We had to it right though, read “pre-funk,” I got Trisha to watch the dorm for me that evening (it was my weekend to play babysitter, I am responsible every other weekend.) We pre-funked at three different apartments downtown before catching taxis downtown to Levski Stadium. It had been raining all day and we assumed that it would let up later that evening… yeah sure. Good thing we came prepared with rain gear and a heavy buzz. The crowds outside the stadium were intense with cops in full riot gear everywhere. Lets just say it was a good idea not to wear anything remotely orange colored. After pounding our liter Zagorka roadies, gotta love the open container law, we filtered in with the mob, turns out Dave and I had tickets for the other side of the stadium so we spent the game split up from the rest of our crew. A brief run around the stadium brought us to our section, high and behind the goal. The game had just started and man was it intense. Standing room only, for ninety minutes, in the pouring down rain. I had a little paper Bulgarian flag and must have waved the thing to tatters shouting ‘Bulgari Unatsi!!” Means ‘Bulgarian heroes’ or something like that. Not that I could hear myself, I had a cheeky fellow blowing an air horn in my ear the whole first half. Bulgaria was the first to score a goal with Holland making it a tie game later in the second half. Didn’t see any soccer hooliganism myself but the guys on the other side watched a dude get pounded into the ground by a cop’s riot shield. I guess when they say ‘stop’ they mean it… I think everyone honestly expected Bulgaria to get their asses handed to them but the rain, and perhaps the Kamanitza god, gave them a tie.

The game got out at after eleven. After tying back in with out crew we hit the closet watering hole to get away from the rain, but not before powering down some cheap street meat doner sandwiches. Needless to say the rest of the evening drifted away into the kind of blurry oblivion best known by fire crews, Bulgarians, and frat boys. Thankfully I made it home with both my wallet and all my clothes. The next night we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. I jacked a ladder from the campus workshop and picked some of the local apples (still raining like a torrential monsoon) to make a bomber pie. You can find the recipe at www.shit_out_of_luck.com

Ok, so that was all fun and games. Until all that exposure made all of use who went to the game sicker than dead cows. Mine came on about Wednesday. I gave my first photography lecture on Friday, blowing snot into a slimy rag the whole time, don’t know if the students were impressed. Cool thing was I think it actually made me better. I felt good enough to play in our teacher vs. student football game later the same afternoon. Thinking I had it whipped, I joined Greg, Gordon, and Dusty on a hiking trip down to the Rila mountains over the weekend. After meeting up with four of Greg’s Bulgarian buddies we loaded up into the school van and rolled about 100 km late into the evening. We arrived at the trailhead around nine’ o’clock and started heading up the trail. We planned to stay at a mountain chalet up the valley. Greg’s buddies claimed it was “not too far…” Sure, maybe it wasn’t, I was too busy watching my footing as we hiked up this path that resembled a rambling creek more than a trail. Eventually we hit the chalet, dropping our packs in our small, eight bed room. Time for a beer we decided.

The next morning came early, too much Zagorka perhaps… Dusty rolled me out of bed and I rolled downstairs to a dope omelet. After collecting the troupe we started heading up the trail. A thick fog was hanging in the valley, obscuring everything in our way. After making our way up the trail the fog began to lift in patches, exposing pockets of shear cliffs and rocks here and there. Upon reaching the head of the valley we struck it up the mountain side, near vertical, following a system of cairns and painted rocks indicating the trail. The first pitch was a bitch, eventually peaking us onto a high mountain cirque(small lake that freezes throughout the winter) Fog is magwah in Bulgarian and there was a lot of it, clinging to the sky and surrounding rocky peaks like mold. We did get some good pictures of the lake in between the fog breaking in and out. We continued our uphill slog to the ridge that separated two huge valleys. After taking some wind shelter along the edge we broke out some snacks, exposing Greg’s Bulgarian buddies to peanut butter in the process. Needless to say they liked it. With our newly revitalized bodies we continued on the ridge to its highest point, the summit of Malyovitsa. Two big rock cairns, a flag pole, and a huge drop off signified the summit. I still haven’t gotten word whether Malyovitsa is the second, or third tallest peak in Bulgaria but I hear it’s up there, 2730 meters to be exact. The fog never did lift, denying us the view we had heard a lot about. But oh well, at least we made it and it was pretty bad ass.

We arrived back at the chalet tired and hungry, but overall pretty satisfied with the venture. After some hot tea we got a couple of beers and set into getting ourselves dinner. As it turned out the lady running the joint had an obvious dislike for Americans(maybe it was all foreigners.) We had a hellava time getting ourselves fed. It would be like, “Oh, were out of that…” only to see it brought out to another customer twenty minutes later. We ended up scrounging some potato soup and bread. Greg and I also split a plate of stewed meat. Oh well… Gordon did end up finding a pretty nice digital camera up on the trail, left his number at the chalet but as of yet nobody has called to claim it. The next morning we got up kind of belatedly, (Greg’s buddies and I had stayed up late and killed a fifth of whiskey I had hiked up.) After hiking around some more we loaded up our gear and made our way back down to the trailhead. We had planned to stop off at a public hot spring on the way back but when we got there it turned out to be really really crowded. No thanks we says…

The following weekend I was back on duty at the dorm. The whole week prior I spent trying to get the kids stoked to play Capture the Flag. On Sunday we went at it, and holy cow, I think I might have created a bunch of little monsters ‘cause all I hear now is “when we gonna play again!” It took them a little while to catch onto the rules and tactics of the game but they’ve got it now. We played again later that week. Pretty fun stuff. Even got Greg to come out for that one, the kids like it when other teachers get involved. This weekend were gonna switch back to softball though…

I’ve also been jamming with Greg and Daniel in the school’s newly soundproofed(by students) music room. We play almost every Friday. Last one was pretty good, we’ve started recording stuff. Both of the dudes are really good musicians so I’m stoked about the stuff were putting together. I think our international tour will commence next summer, will be looking for roadies and groupies… After finishing our session Greg and I got a wild hair up our asses, deciding it would be fun to longboard to downtown. It was really late with minimal traffic and both of us had a comfortable buzz going. Was probably one of the most fun and intense skating sessions I’ve had yet. All downhill and since we were on the street most of the time the concrete was relatively smooth. We made it about five or so miles, to Pliska, and decided to stomp over to Cooper’s pad for some beers. Damn guy, made us drink Bulgarian vodka and more beer. Killed our skating vibe. Anyhow, we caught a taxi back to campus later on and while walking up to our houses I got caught looking back at Greg pulling his body on the board like a penguin and somehow managed to skate into a pothole, pitching myself forward onto my face. Oww. Always knew I was a gaper but jeez… All that intense riding and I hurt myself twenty feet from my bed. Woke up the next morning with a mild concussion. Sure makes the case for not riding under the influence, as well as a helmet.

I’m actually finishing this email on Nov. 2^nd. The first of November is a school holiday, called the “Day of Enlightenment.” Don’t know about that, I was pretty, uh, ‘sleepy’ after our Halloween party. Went off pretty damn good. Managed to scare a lot of folks in those haunted tunnels. We played it up as if Dorothy got captured by the wicked witch and we all had to go find her. I wore knee pads under my pants and flopped around all day as if I was indeed made of straw. We had a lot of the staff make it, as well as a lot of Bulgarians that stayed until we booted everyone out. Good thing we had it when we did ‘cause I’m looking out my window right now and there is a full-on snowy blizzard hammering the campus. Right on!

I hope all of ya’ll had a good Halloween, wish I could have made it to your parties as well. JB is throwing a bash at his house this weekend, if you can make it I’m inviting you as a former roommate of his.

Cheers everybody, love you all!

-The Scarecrow