And Now for Something Completely Different!

21Jul09

(posted by ellygrant)

…some Bulgarian culture for a change!

This is Elly writing, by the way.

Feeling very patriotic here. Statues displaying the valour of the citizens were everywhere!

Stu and I returned to Haskovo last night after spending 5 days in Sofia with D,K+A. They’re staying on there til tomorrow or Thursday.

So how is it, you may be asking, that after 6 weeks of being here we’re now making a fuss about Bulgarian culture?

David and Kathryn make their priority the Turks and the Millet. If you haven’t read the ‘About Bulgaria’ page here, then in a nutshell, Bulgarians don’t really think too highly of those particular people groups. So they tend to be found in concentrated pockets around the country, more often in Southern Bulgaria.

Here at home in Haskovo Stu and I experience these cultures, in order from most to least:

1. The kind of Australian/Turkish/missionary mish-mash inside the Richards’ house. Sorry guys to name your culture after a dish, but that’s what it is! We might be nicer to you if you stopped telling secrets in Turkish…

2. The Millet culture: sometimes 1st hand, sometimes 2nd hand when recounted by David or Kathryn.

3. Turkish culture: I’m now very well trained in taking off my shoes when entering a house and being paranoid about leaving my bag on the ground and watching out for stray bread crumbs. We’re also trying to learn the language, which is giving us insight into how they think.

4. Bulgarian supermarket culture: because after all the rest all we really do ‘in Bulgaria’ is buy food.

Stu in Narodno Sabranie (Parliament) Square. We followed the yellow brick road here...

This all changed once we arrived in Sofia. Being the nation’s capital it is very Bulgarian and we had no choice but to get to know it. We learned a couple things in our brief stay in the beautiful city:

- That it is possible to live there for 2 1/2 years and not learn a shred of Bulgarian and still be able to get about like normal. We met a man who had achieved this very feat, he was a missionary with big business ideas and we felt mildly triumphant that we knew more of the language than him in our very short time of trying. Yes he was American. We cannot fathom trying that down here in Haskovo.

- That Bulgarians aren’t evil Turk killers, but just the other side of the war. Maybe the jury is still out on this one and I might be better off keeping this revelation to myself.

- Sofia is really really small! After walking down one of the wide streets with tramlines in the middle and beautiful shops to look into I remarked that it reminded me of Melbourne but without the colonial architecture (and much much bigger, of course!) Then we looked up the population on wikipedia to discover that Melbourne is in fact nearly 3 times bigger. Sofia is much prettier of course and has the lovely Mt Vitosha towering over it.

Mt Vitosha reminds me of one of those cakes with panels of chocolate slapped around them to cover up the dodgy icing job. It's still pretty though!

Thanks to some pretty spectacular negotiations by David we scored a pretty nice room in a villa-style hotel in Simeonovo, a town that falls between the city and the mountain. We experienced wonderful traditional Bulgarian breakfasts (how do they stay thin?) and stellar room service (the Richards’ had clothing washed and my pyjamas were always found folded up neatly and placed under my pillow), which was incredibly hospitable of them considering we were paying 50lv per room per night instead of 110.

Yes, we enjoyed meeting Sofia and the Bulgarians. We’re looking forward to our next visit, which might be when we drag Humphrey there when he comes in October for his big tour of ‘the country that stole Stu and Elly away from Australia.’

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12 comments so far for “And Now for Something Completely Different!”

Amelia says on

22Jul 2009 at 10:11 am :


a very elly pose…
and an awesome mountain thing!!
it’s really cool that you’re checking out other parts of Bulgaria, must be exciting!
hows teaching going?
just had a four day holiday for semester break…twas good…hmm…
anyways have fun learning (and teaching)!!

byee!!
x

Amelia says on

22Jul 2009 at 10:11 am :


(1st comment how cool’s that!!??)

Attastu says on

22Jul 2009 at 12:14 pm :


Good evening!!

I would say “how’s things?” but you’ve already answered that :) Hopefully the language barrier is slowly coming down and those foreign dreams are helping! I wanna ride in your lift too, it looks dangeresque ;)

Tassie is the same old place; bogans robbing shops, idiots on the roads, frosts in the morning…

But anyways, keep up the good spirits, we’re all thinkin of yas here in Austray-ya :) And you’ll soon have Chudleigh royalty visiting too which will be exciting!!

stuartgrant says on

22Jul 2009 at 12:23 pm :


Good morning!

Aaah, Tassie sounds good; we love our bogans. Actually, we worked out the other day that the people we’re working with here (and I don’t mean our hosts!) are the social equivalent of bogans in BG. By which I means everyone hates them a little bit! ;)

Our young student (Aydin) keeps asking us about you (indirectly) – he’s car-obsessed and asks us almost every day about our car back in Australia… How’s the car going, anyway? Sam prolly told you he took it in for a service not long after we left (yeah, we weren’t quite organised enough!). New brakes! Enjoy those. ;) Feel free to email us if you have any questions about it etc…

Hmm, this must be fascinating reader for everyone else!
Cheers
Stu G.

Kylie says on

23Jul 2009 at 3:48 am :


yeah really fascinating :P nice statue photo. elly why r u avoiding stray breadcrumbs? is that just so u don’t get messy feet? cultures are funny. i think the story about the american is hilarious. if hilarious is the right word. u know wat i mean :P i can’t wait to see wat u get up to with humphrey there. its gonna be awesome. :D
- kylie xox

Georgie says on

23Jul 2009 at 8:13 am :


I am really not surprised about the American. They tend to think everyone should work around them even if they are in another country. You guys sound like you are having a good time. I hope the homesickness is not too bad. The photos of the countryside are beautiful.

Thinking and praying for you

Georgie

ellygrant says on

23Jul 2009 at 9:07 am :


Hey Kylie
Apparently bread is sacred or holy to both the Bulgarians and Turks (and therefore Millet) so if you drop crumbs on the ground for ppl to step on then it’s really disrespectful. Then again, we don’t have many ppl visiting us so I’m not that fussy about my own floors! :P
Yeah, I think Humphrey is going to have his own blog…
Exx

humphreymurray says on

23Jul 2009 at 12:32 pm :


I see u read yesterdays paper then stu :-P

humphreymurray says on

23Jul 2009 at 12:32 pm :


Yeah, fascinating read stu :-P

humphreymurray says on

23Jul 2009 at 12:39 pm :


The photos make it look awesome :-)

Stephen taught me my first word in Turkish yesterday… dunno how to write it but it sounds like shoe-cran — and it either means HELLO or Stephen is playing a trick on me and it’s a profanity. I almost started a blog the other day, but then I discovered the “Effort” factor!

Half of me is really excited bout coming over, and the other half is completely freaked out. :-P I’m sure it’ll be awesome though!

Kristi says on

24Jul 2009 at 2:56 pm :


Good to hear the story behind the photos! And I have enjoyed hearing about the different people and ‘things’ that they bring with them. Interesting about those bread-crumbs too, I guess food is something to treat with respect and bread seems to cop a lot of it! You don’t sound quite so homesick at the mo, so that is also good.
Grinny is busy re-writing her reports so has had her bum up and head down for a few days now… am sure she’ll be on here soon tho.
kisses,
Kristi

mum and dad Grant says on

27Jul 2009 at 1:03 pm :


hey Stu and Elly
yay! reports are done (again) what an ordeal!! I bet you can imagine! We are thoroughly enjoying your writing and adventures in BG. You are getting to see so much of the country (while working) – much more authentic than just being a tourist. It seems that your adventures are very flexible and movable. I agree with Kristo (what a surprise!) that you seem less homesick and enjoying the adventure! Just as well you’re Gen Y
I’ve been really getting into FB – amazing how many people from around the world I’m catching up with, but still not sure about the value – (not the catching up with long-lost friends bit – just not sure about the quality of connection and superficialness!! I still haven’t heard from Will – poor boy! I hope he recovers!
love to you both
Grinny/mum