Tuesday 30 September 2014

My Impressions of Sofia

A few weeks ago, Boryana asked us to write about our impressions of Sofia over the past few months, to be published in some compilation of how foreigners see and live the Bulgarian capital. I realised that this short text's natural home was, apart from anywhere else, this very blog, and so decided to copy and paste it here.

As out time is ticking - there's only a week left now - you can expect more such retrospective posts, even in this melancholy spirit that has engulfed our little international party, this awkward mood of wanting to fit as much as possible in the little time left but not doing so at all because the current situation of terminal comfortable inertia feels so natural. This single week ahead of us all of a sudden feels like it could fit the entire past nine months in it and with room to spare.



My impressions of Sofia



Sofia is similar in a way to Athens in that you can feel that its status of capital was only recently, in the grander scale of things, given to it. Not so long ago, it was a relatively unimportant provincial town of a large multicultural empire – just like Athens. The same empire, incidentally, And then, history happened.

The malls that are sprouting up like mushrooms nowadays have old communist building to serve as their backdrop meadow. Spreading like mushrooms, popping up almost instantaneously like mushrooms. These and other kinds of buildings or shops go to show what it is that people grew to desire after decades of austerity, lack of economic and political freedom and loyalty to the Party: sex shops, 24 chasa alkohol i tsigari, supermarkets and other shops open every day till late, McDonalds aplenty, multinationals that have set shop and offices due to the low minimum wages… All these things that seem so quaint to a person who grew up in a country where capitalism has been long taken for granted and is being, small step by small step, left behind.

But all the above was the stereotypical image of Sofia, the things I imagined I would find before ever setting foot in Bulgaria 8 months ago, similar to the common preconceptions we often have for cities that used to be communist. All the above I did find, but there was so much more. Sofia: candidate for European capital of the Unexpected  2015!

I found huge parks full of life, kateritsi, old trees, young as well as old people, with dogs or without, but mostly with; Sofians love their kuchetata. I thought Sofia would be a gray city; it is, but it’s much greener than it is gray. Grayn? Sorry, that was a bad joke. It was a big surprise and for me a big reason Sofia is as pleasant to live in as it is.

The city’s mass transit system was also a highlight of the unexpected. The two metro lines connect at Serdika, but they’re really one line split in two, like a single rope half painted blue, half red, forming a huge loop. That’s cool. The old trolley buses with their weird noises and the turbulence at Ruski Pametnik also have a special place in my heart. But my favourite by far is the Sofian tram. It’s almost iconic. Everybody knows I’m a fan of anything on rails, especially if you can muse looking outside the window while on them (which sadly excludes the metro). Sofia’s tram network is huge and plain fun. Who doesn’t like lines changing routes because of surprise repair works on main roads, or permanently angry tram drivers who randomly stop to get lunch or cigarettes and loudly quarrel with passengers? The best by far are lines 20 and 22: they have more seats and less standing room in this way making you feel like you’re on an actual train. Bonus points for line 10, which goes through a forest. By the way, if you don’t think the orange ticket stamp thingies aren’t amusing in their backwards-ness, but in a very adorable way, I’m not talking to you! And yes, I know that tickets are very expensive, especially since you have to use another every time you switch lines. But hey, those are the perks of being an EVSer; free transport cards! Not surprisingly, though, I went ahead and managed to lose mine in these final days of the project.

Then there’s the city proper, the things you can do in the centre. Here’s a brief list of options: eating amazing gelato at Confetti – definitely some of my favourite ice-cream in the world; Art Hostel with its garden: the perfect place to chill with a Stolichno Weiss, my Bulgarian beer of choice; Veda House with its unbelievably rich hummus; Mimas and that place owned by Turks on Ulitsa Pirotska that make the best falafel in town, and of course Sofia City Library and Ploshtad Slaveikov that saw so many of our activities, busy as well as lazy afternoons…  This list of favourite places accumulated over a period of eight months could go on but I’m running out of space on this small page. Not being able to mention every little special thing brings out some kind of familiar guilt in me.

Last but not least, Shar Planina 55 in Opalchenska: the building which was constructed in the Interwar period, with no elevator, the entire staircase of which we had to climb every time we wanted to reach our apartment on the fourth floor. If there ever is a hostel named after this otherwise inconspicuous place, know that it will be because our apartment saw many travellers from around Europe and other volunteers and provided shelter without complaint to more people than what would be considered normal for a living space of this size. It will forever stay in our hearts.

Wednesday 24 September 2014

European Day of Languages/Salad


Isn't Europe like a big bowl of salad - colorful and messy? That's why we love it!

 Sofia City Library invites you to celebrate the European Day of Languages together with us, volunteers from all of Europa - Greece, Spain, Denmark, Latvia, Poland, Austria, Slovakia are making a salad and the secret ingredient is you. That means you, my beloved language fan, should come on 26th September at 17:00 to Sofia City Library (American corner) It's going to be cosy, fun, international, friendly, with games, interesting presentations, language teaching and salad eating!

 Европейски ден на езиците На 26 септември Европа отбелязва деня на езиците. Целта на този празник е да се обърне внимание на деца, младежи и възрастни колко е важно изучаването на чужди езици, да подтикне към изграждане на положителни нагласи към всички говорени езици в Европа и да мотивира за учене на чужд език през целия живот. На 26.09.2014 / петък / от 16.00ч. започваме дискусия и четене на различни езици в Руския център и продължаваме от 17 до 19 часа в Американския център на Столична библиотека, където доброволците от ЕДС са подготвили програма, с която да отбележим празника. Ще научите коя е думата, която звучи еднакво на 24 –те официални езика в Европа.Ще има игри и презентации за най-лесния начин за научаване на чужд език, както и дегустация на национални ястия , типични за дадена страна. Ще си разменяме рецепти, ще слушаме музика, ще говорим на различни езици. Заповядайте да празнуваме заедно!

 За предложения и участие, моля пишете на мейл: dialog.21@abv.bg
За повече информация:
Боряна Янкова - 0887677089
Валентина Личева – 0897 300 943
Мариета Георгиева – 0888 087 147

Pictures:

Miro in the proper attire

Zanda's salad is the only one I didn't try. :'(

Etwas Kartoffelsalat, bitte!

Maria serving the hungry crowds

Salad and language make people happy.

Food and language makes the world go round

Spanish salad - what's left- by Vicente

Greek salad -what's left- by yours truly.




PRESENTATION 1 - EUROPEAN DAY OF LANGUAGES (PREZI)

PRESENTATION 2 - WHY SALAD? (PREZI)

Wednesday 27 August 2014

Beglika Fest 2014


Golyam Beglik is a lake in the Rodopi mountains that didn't exist before 1951.


Since 2008 it's also been a gathering place for people who believe in change and new possibilities and who want to have a good time surrounded by beautiful nature. Enter Beglika Fest, which has become one of Bulgaria's biggest and most important summer festivals.

We hitch-hiked to Beglika and back and camped there for a few days with Maria, Zanda, Miro and Daphne. Apart from a couple of stormy nights we (and our 20lv tents with the water resistance of my towel) had to endure, and the fact all the interesting workshops they had going there were almost exclusively in Bulgarian, we had an unforgettable time. Plus, it felt like we were part of something important, something ground-breaking.

I mean, dry toilets, hammocks, seed exchange, Suggestopedia, sailing, astronomy, kung fu, yoga and tasty vegetarian/vegan food all in one place - I will never forget that chocolate pancake and the vegan kyuftechta, never! What more can a person ask or hope for?

We didn't get a chance to listen to all of the bands because of the bad weather during most of the nights, but also because the spacial and temporal layout of the stages made it difficult, at least for me, to follow everything. One band in particular, though, made an impression on me. Traditional Balkan sounds together with beatboxing and dubstep, you say?!



The following is a video I made out of all the videos I took from Beglika. It's small and humble, there mostly to give you a small taste of what the Beglika experience was for our small international group.




As you might've been able to tell from the video, however, I'm definitely happier with our selection of photographs. Credits go to Daphne, Zanda, Maria and yours truly - can't bother to do it for each one separately:

Hammocks over water.

Signs to where the find the good stuff.

I love this picture

Weird thing about Beglika: at night they had the "chill" music and during the day
they had all the pumping beats, especially at the chill station.

Miro introduced us to the concept of dendrophile and nothing was the same again...

Looks interesting doesn't it? Само на български!

BEGLIKARTA

At the MMUUZZAA tent.

...all kinds of crazy things...

Maria and Zanda got their henna tattoos.

Sharing is caring.

Занда и кончето

ВЕДЖИ КЮФТЕТААА

"At night it can get cold", they said...

Tent City

Foggy mornings.

Kung Fu for dummies at sunset.

Where we got most of out sunburns.

Ghetto water resistance!




Haide, next time in Beglika let us be volunteers with perfect knowledge of Bulgarian! Or we could be the ones with the game corner...

Monday 18 August 2014

Moving Gallery



Snips of a moving photo gallery we did in July with our EVSer friends. Featuring Anna, Kuba, Florian, Gabi, Miro, Maria, Zanda, Vicente and myself.

 I'm not going to explain anything related to our performance, in order to more closely simulate our complete shut-off of communication with the outside world during the exhibition.

 Perhaps Zanda's assessment about the whole thing was correct: "more pictures, less video"!

Tuesday 5 August 2014

Moving books from Portuguese to Spanish Reading Room

The Portuguese reading room is soon going to become the Korean reading room. For that reason, all of the books kept therein had to be moved to the Spanish reading room and section which from now on will likely be the Iberian section! Meanwhile, we got some videos from the procedure and we thought they looked fun and representative of the good time we have in the library even when doing "manual work" like this, so I decided to up them.


Sunday 3 August 2014

Green Library 2014



We made this video with all our love for the event that was made of love. Library's a giving tree. Enjoy!

We were also on Bulgarian National TV. Unfortunately, I can't embed the video, so you'll have to click on the link and watch it there. Here's another reportage done by TV Evropa - I speak Bulgarian on that one! :D

The theme song:

Download .mp3


Again, many thanks to Zanda, Maria, Valya and Boryana. You should write something about it too, girls! Post it on the comments and I'll make it part of the post.



Monday 21 July 2014

Green Library 2014 Promo and Bulgarian National Radio Interview


This video was an exercise in spontaneity: we came up with the idea for it, wrote the lyrics and the music, shot it, cut it and uploaded it within 6-7 hours. Extra footage is from our first Green Library event at Lyulin, which took place last Saturday, and, apart from the rain, which spoiled our plans a little bit, it was quite successful.

I mean, we even went to the Bulgarian National Radio for an interview. Valya, Boryana and Zanda were the ones who spoke the most, presenting our activities and inviting the listeners to our event in Lyulin, but it's no small thing getting to speak in Bulgarian on the freakin' national radio, if only just for 15 seconds! The people were kind enough to share the interview with us. Valya starts speaking at 0:25, Boryana at 2:00, Zanda at 4:00, Maria at 4:20, Vicente at 6:55 and myself at 07:10. Here it is:




Many thanks to Maria and Zanda, who had the original idea, and everyone else who helped make this a reality. See you next Saturday!