Items of Interest, at least to me

Things about Rousse, Bulgaria that will probably surprise or interest you:

• Living spaces are small. Appliances are small. Personal space is small. Europe is small. You can get to Vienna from here, by bus, in well under a day. If the cafe is out of tables, someone will ask to share yours. (At least my experience is they will ask; in the german airport they just sit down in your empty chairs.)
• Showers are not in a separate space, but are in the middle of the bathroom and the drain in the middle of the floor. I have never seen a bath tub. The toilet may also be in this room, or it may be in a separate room. (I much prefer the latter, so I don't have to figure out how to shower without getting the toilet paper wet.)
• If you use a public restroom, there is the possibility that you will need to pay and/or squat.
• When you visit someone, you will sit at the table and you will be offered food as well as drink. You should accept, because if you don't they will just assume they haven't found the right thing to offer you yet.
• You will probably spend the evening drinking, discussing politics and swapping jokes. You will be asked for American jokes; I suggest you do some research because you won't remember any on the spot.
• If you ask, there's a good chance that any cafe or restaurant will have a menu in English and the server may very well speak some English.
• The waiter or waitress, however, will probably be intimidating. Its less scary to go in to a small store than to try and order coffee at a cafe. They also expect to be largely ignored by the customer, and if you ask their name or initiate any conversation it will be a surprise. For some it is a pleasant surprise.
• Regular coffee here means espresso. They will probably have nescafe and might have cappuccino. They will not have drip coffee. I don't know that they even know what a latte is.
• Pizza will probably have corn on it. And maybe an egg.
• Bulgarians are still pissed off about the time they spent under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, which they call the Ottoman Yoke, and they build monuments to the revolutionaries and soldiers that helped free them.
• This is because it lasted 500 years - this is more than twice as long as our country has existed.
• They do not consider themselves in any way, shape or form, Turkish or related to the Turks. And muslims are very much a minority. 500 years or no.
• Many gypsys live in Bulgaria and always have. They are not considered romantic or exotic, and though their music has had significant influence many Bulgarians still have mixed feelings about it.
• This is very much a cash economy. Most stores don't have cash registers. The person in charge of taking the money simply has a purse or wallet from which they make change and where they keep the money.
• I can not figure out if we pay tax on anything other than electronics, and it seems to be factored in to the price advertised. Maybe. I'm still a little confused on this issue.
• Family is huge and sprawling. Your parent's cousin is your uncle, and your cousin's child your nephew. There is a term to define the relationship between you and your child's mother-in-law. It is very common to call someone by their title (wife, brother) when addressing them or talking about them. I wonder if this is because names are recycled so much within families.
• There are parks absolutely everywhere and the children run free in them until 10 or 11 at night. Most restaurants have a play area for the children, and it is expected they will be running and playing. After age 5 or so, parents only expect them to check in every half hour or so and older children much less often than that. However, any older person feels free to correct a child that is not behaving properly.
• The soil is amazingly rich. Flowers, vegetables and grape vines are grown all around the base of apartment buildings.
• Stray dogs and cats roam the city and are routinely fed at restaurants. They are immunized, spayed/neutered and released by the city unless they become aggressive. They are not aggressive and I have not seen any animal waste in a public space. Pet dogs are kept on leashes at all times.

Dober Den!

We've been in Bulgaria a week now, and took a day off yesterday where we didn't leave the apartment. I don't think Alex even changed out of his PJs, and if he did it was brief. And I just now feel like I might be able to put a coherent sentence or two together.

The first days, week, of a trip to Bulgaria is always a flurry of catching up with family and friends. I was a bit startled to realize that I had people to catch up with this time, too. Family and friends I had met on my last trip here, a few of whom I've since seen in the States and all of whom receive regular updates on our life from Alex or our state-side family. It is a wonderful feeling to be so accepted, and in the case of the grandparents flat-out loved. (Think "our grandson loves you, we love you" and expand that to genuine, amazing generosity of heart that leads Dado Mitko to declare he wants to kiss me at any junction, Baba Danchi to attempt to force feed me so that I will grow cheeks, and Baba Maria to regularly pinch those cheeks that are growing.) But, the conversations in English are still few and far between, and that is surprisingly exhausting.

My Bulgarian vocabulary slowly grows, though I wouldn't count on my attempts to transliterate (is that the word?) in to the English alphabet. I can say good morning, good day and good evening all in their proper context. (Dobro Ootro, Dober Den and Dober Vecher, respectively.) I can also use the more casual hello or hi (stradvete or draste, definitely misspelled) and good night (le knosht). I haven't been able to spit out goodbye yet, but since everyone here uses 'ciao' I'm not worried about it. I can toast (nostdrave) and tell someone that something is very good (mnogo hoobovo), though I always make the object male. I have a smattering of nouns, including cat, knife, store, sweater, hat and cigarette. (Lots of smoking here - everywhere. There is no such thing as a nonsmoking section, though I'm relieved that most of the family doesn't allow smoking in the houses.) And for some reason I still remember ladybug from two years ago. Kalinka, it's just fun to say. If I'm hungry, I can ask for salad, tomatoes, water, wine, beer, coffee, tea, banitza and a type of meat I mispronounce as Kebabshke, but get close enough that people feed me. Fortunately, I like all those things! (I could also order rakia, their national liquor, but that I don't like.)

But since merely being able to ask for a few types of food and a knife (not a fork or spoon, mind you) won't get me far, I am incredibly fortunate that Alex is unendingly patient with translating for me and the family is all willing to go to incredible lengths of sign language to communicate with me. We actually do pretty well with the basics, and they have some English words to throw in there, too. Perhaps most surprisingly to me, I am beginning to occasionally get the gist of a conversation. As long as there aren't too many conversations happening at once, every once in awhile I'll realize that I understand the topic they are discussing or even the main point. I surprised Alex - and myself - the first night by understanding that his grandparents were asking who was caring for Gwen while we were gone. I couldn't possibly hold that conversation, but I understood it. Passive knowledge, Alex called it, and hope that I may actually learn this language some day!