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

The Emerald Isle

It's been a bit of a hectic week, but I've finally found time to put up the Ireland portion of my spring break. Kari, Mitch, and I spent roughly two days in Ireland (half of Tuesday, all day Wednesday, half of Thursday). I had been there once before, but it was Kari and Mitch's first time. Luckily, they were interested in seeing a lot of the sites I missed out on last time I was in Ireland, so it was a great trip for all three of us.

We got to Ireland, and all Mitch wanted was a Dr. Pepper. Loser.

Kari and I at the Jameson Distillery

In front of the fake fire; Jameson Distillery

Cheese and meat platter at The Porterhouse in Dublin. The brown cheese is made with beer, and the pink cheese is made with wine. Yum!

Our first night in Dublin, we went to visit the Jameson Distillery where they make Jameson whisky. It happens to be my favorite whisky (sorry, Jack Daniels. I still love you, too), and I was really excited to see the distillery. After a really interesting tour in which we learned all about how whisky is made, I volunteered to be a part of a whisky tasting test. I tested Jack Daniels, Jameson, and Johnnie Walker. It was really fun, and I was able to actually appreciate the different tastes compared to one another. For the record, scotch is gross. As the taster next to me said, "It's like biting into a cigar. Yuck." After the distillery, we went into the Temple Bar district to visit The Porterhouse, an Irish pub that had been featured on a food network show that Kari loves. The food was incredible, and it was definitely worth the visit just for the food. More important, however, was the fact that The Porterhouse brews their own beers, and for 7 euro ($12), you can sample three of their beers. They have three different stouts, three lagers, and three ales. I tried one beer from each category, and they were all really good. After dinner, I crawled back to the hostel to get some sleep.

Flat Amanda at Malahide Castle in Malahide, Ireland

Kari and I near the ruins of a church; Malahide

Kari and Mitch looking adorable by the coast; Malahide

During our full day in Ireland, we took the DART (a kind of train) to the nearby town of Malahide to explore the castle and the coast. The castle was absolutely gorgeous. It was originally built in the 1200's, and there was at least one member of the original family living there consistently till the 1970's when they made the castle into a museum. It was a really well preserved place, and it was fascinating to see all of the furniture that the museum has collected to create an accurate historical portrayal of various rooms. After visiting the castle, we ate lunch at an Irish pub and then strolled along the sea. After our stroll, we headed back to Dublin to visit the Guinness Storehouse. Although it is no longer used as a brewery, the Guinness Storehouse lets you tour the original site of their brewery and learn all about the beer brewing process. You also get a free beer. Rock on.

On our way to the Guinness Storehouse; Dublin

It's hard to see, but there is a shamrock poured into the head of my beer; Guinness Storehouse

St. Patrick's Cathedral

"Bear ye one another's burdens"; St. Patrick's Cathedral

Stained glass depicting scenes from the life of St. Patrick; St. Patrick's Cathedral

On our last morning in Ireland, we headed to St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was an incredible structure. The "new" part of the cathedral was built in 1270, and the older parts date back another 100 years or more. It was built next to a well, which the builders believed to be the well St. Patrick used for baptisms. Having taken a class on St. Patrick at college, I was fascinated by the gravestones on display inside that are believed to trace back as far as St. Patrick. After ogling the incredible history, we headed back to the airport to catch our flight back to London. Next up, Spain!

This post brought to you by the letter "I"

And the "I" stands for I WENT TO ENGLAND AND GOT TO SEE MY BIG SISTER!!!!!! Yes, it was exciting enough to necessitate my extreme use of exclamation marks. As you might have noticed, I have been missing lately. I spent two weeks traveling Western Europe for spring break. I am now officially broke but happy to have seen what I saw. The first week I spent with my big sister and her husband. We were based in London but also popped over to Ireland for a few days as well. Week two found me in Spain enjoying flamenco dancers for my birthday and eating till I popped. Seriously, tapas are amazing. And serrano ham. And calamari. ...Anyways, that's for another post. This post is dedicated to my trip to England with my big sissy. Next up, I'll post our Ireland pictures. Then, I'll put up my trip to Spain. Spain will probably also come in two installments. Over the course of two weeks, I took nearly 600 photos. I'm trying to winnow them down, but I think I'm going to need four good posts to get all the best ones in. Without any further ado, I present ENGLAND:

Buckingham Palace

Our first day in England was spent mostly just wandering about and seeing as much as possible. Mitch, my brother-in-law, had never been outside the U.S. before, and big sissy and I were determined to inundate him with Europe before the week was over. On that first day, we tried to hit the biggest tourist sites that you just walk past and wave at: Big Ben, Westminster (we wanted to go in to Westminster, actually, but there was a line around the block and a hefty admission fee; we just took pictures...), Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square. I'm sure there are more, but I can't really remember them at the moment. In addition to the walk-by sites, we stopped in to see the National Portrait Gallery and the Tower of London. I had never been to the National Portrait Gallery, but it was well worth the stop. It houses some of the most famous paintings of England's monarchs and VIP's.

Anti-war protests; Trafalgar Square

Big sissy and her hubby; Tower of London

Me with a big gun; Tower of London

Flat Amanda trying to make the guard laugh; Tower of London

I have neglected to mention one other traveler who made their way through Europe with me. Flat Amanda has become my newest traveling companion. I've been taking photos with her across Western Europe, and I will add photos of her in Bulgaria as soon as I can. After reading the book Flat Stanley, the tale of a boy flattened by a falling bulletin board and then mailed around Europe to see the sites, my cousin, Amanda, asked me to take Flat Amanda along to see Europe. We became best buddies.

Beautiful view of the Thames; Tower Bridge

During our last day in England, we split up for the morning. Kari and Mitch went to Hampton Court Palace, and I went to the Globe, a reproduction of Shakespeare's outdoor theatre. I spent two and a half glorious hours wandering around and soaking up Shakespeare. In addition to a tour of the actual theatre, my ticket allowed me access to the Globe museum exhibition on Shakespeare. The exhibition houses a variety of displays that explain everything from costuming at the original Globe to how they built the replica. Interestingly, they chose not to use modern tools to build the Globe. They hired expert craftsmen to build the Globe using the hand tools that would have been used in Shakespeare's time. The Globe is held together by wooden pegs, not nails, and each post was hand cut and carved. Incredible!

Flat Amanda visits the Globe

I'M AT THE GLOBE!!!!!!

Big sissy and I with a piece of the Berlin Wall; Imperial War Museum

Our last stop in England was the Imperial War Museum, a favorite of both mine and big sissy's. Dad brought us here when we were munchkins, and we continue to make the pilgrimage. It is, after all, the best museum in the whole world. At least, in my opinion, it is.