Day trippin'

The weekend after Melnik, I met Kate and Hillary, the two other girls living in southern Bulgaria, in a small town called Assenovgrad. The town is best known for its fortress and its wine, a special type of Bulgarian wine known as Mavrud. We ate lunch and drank wine under the trees in the town center and then braved the climb to the fortress. It was a gorgeous day, and the view from the ruins of the fortress was stunning. After our foray to the fortress, we grabbed some ice cream and then headed home to our own towns.

Climbing to the fortress

The old church at the base of the fortress

Hillary and Kate admiring the view of the mountains by the church

About to climb up to the fortress

The old fortress

Hillary and I with the Bulgarian flag that tops the fortress

A Very Bulgarian Easter

One of my ninth graders and her family were gracious enough to take me in on Easter and let me participate in some of Bulgaria's Easter traditions. On Good Friday (or Crucifixion Friday, here), we went to church where we lit candles, received flowers, and crawled under a table for good luck. Saturday, we dyed eggs and ate the tradition Easter bread, Kozunak. The first egg is dyed red, and it is used to make a red cross on the foreheads of all of the children. Silvana's mother made a cross on my forehead because, as she said, I am still just a child. Then, we went to visit the Shipka Monument (it's MUCH easier to reach by car...) and the Kazanlak tomb of the Thracian king. It is the tomb of the son of one of Thracia's most powerful leaders. Sunday, we ate a huge feast of lamb, the traditional Easter food, and had egg fights. Basically, we each picked a dyed egg and then smashed them together. Whoever's egg breaks is the loser. If you lose, you get to eat your egg. If you win, you keep smashing your egg against new eggs. I preferred losing. It meant I got to eat more. :)

Our basket of dyed eggs

It's hard to see, but I'm sporting a red forehead cross.

The Shipka Monument

Me playing with a cannon. Like usual.

At the tomb of the Thracian king

Wine Tasting in the Southwest

In late April, we made our final reports to the Fulbright Commission and talked over some of the changes needed for next year. Then, Fulbright took us to Melnik, a tiny town in southwestern Bulgaria, to visit a monastery and taste wine. Melnik is one of the most famous regions in Bulgaria for growing wines because Winston Churchill used to import tons of it before WWII. The soil in Melnik is very chalky due to the nearby cliffs, and it gives the wine a slight chalky taste. Some people absolutely love it, some people hate it. I loved it.

Rozhen Monastery

You can see the chalk cliffs in the background

Before our wine tasting, we got to visit an eighteenth century wine merchant's house. The wine tasting was in the cellar.

Down in the cellar

With fellow ETA, Olivia, tasting wine

SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I promise, I'm still alive. My parents arrived in Bulgaria on May 13, and I spent the entire week before that in rehearsals from sunup to sundown. Then I spent a week travelling with my parents followed by a week travelling with friends. But I am alive, and I will start posting my adventures again this weekend. Lots of love! -L

Madrid and Sevilla

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and I have so much to catch up on! I’ll go ahead and put all of my Spain trip into one post. I went to Spain the first week of April for the second week of spring break. I met my friends Laura Y and Ellen in Madrid, and we spent five days there. Then, Ellen flew back to Bulgaria, and Laura and I went to Sevilla for two days before following Ellen to Bulgaria. We were in Sevilla for my birthday, and I got to see a flamenco show on my birthday! Madrid was mostly a blur of lots of walking and art museums. I managed to see a ton of Picasso, de Goya, and Dali among numerous other artists. I even saw a few paintings by Titian and Rubens! In Sevilla, Laura and I moseyed through the streets enjoying the warm sunshine and the fragrance of blossoming orange trees. It was amazing. I now know what paradise smells like. There is a cathedral in Sevilla along with the royal palace the Real Alcazar (not real, ray-all, which is Spanish for royal). The contracts for the conquistadores who conquered the new world were drawn up in rooms in the Real Alcazar. It also boasts an amazing series of gardens. All in all, it was an absolutely incredible trip! I will try to post about my Easter in Bulgaria and my trip to Melnik, the most famous wine growing region in Bulgaria, sometime this week!

Ellen, me, Laura Y. Dinner our first night in Madrid. So yummy!

Open air market in Madrid. So much yummy food!!

In the Plaza Mayor

Reenacting scenes from Pocahontas in the Royal Botanical Gardens

The Reina Sofia (art museum)

El Guernica, Picasso

The Prado (art museum)

Boating on a man made pond

With Victoria, a friend of Laura's, in the Bohemian District

In Sevilla

Flamenco show on my birthday. The lady is dancing, the man in the middle is singing, and the man on the right is playing guitar.

Laura and I at the flamenco show

The Cathedral in Sevilla

The Real Alcazar

In the gardens of the Real Alcazar