July 25, 2001

We got back from a few days on the Black Sea and we’re burned to a crisp. Well, I am more than Kate . . . Yesterday, while on the beach, I realized that my skin was just plain hurting and I couldn’t take much more time in the sun before I would need plastic surgery to reverse the effects of the burning sun. We stayed at what once was a village – now it’s a mini-resort town on the beach, called Kranevo. Just up the beach from Kranevo is the resort called Albena. Albena claims to be the most “western” beach resort on the Black Sea in Bulgaria. Kate and I walked up there (it was just a 20 minute walk up the shore) and we had to admit, it was quite beautiful. Kranevo has more of a feel of a quickly put-up resort town, with little planning. Carnival rides, street vendors, a skinny street for all the traffic and pedestrians, and not very well planned out. However, it was definitely the cheaper of the two places to stay and we were able to find a room for about $7 a night for both of us. The people who worked there were extremely friendly and even drove us to the beach on the first day after we decided to take the room for a few days. We bummed on the beach for two and a half days and ate at pretty good restaurants in the evenings. I saw a few of my students there, who always seemed to see me first. Every so often I would see a hand waving in the air and then I would realize that it was directed at me and it was one of my more gregarious students trying to get my attention. The evening that we walked up to Albena all we heard spoken was German. The whole resort was tailor-made for German tourists. We even walked by a German karaoke bar with little children rapping along with a German rap song. When we went to a restaurant, the door lady didn’t first speak us to in Bulgarian, it was German that she first spoke to us. She was happy when we replied in Bulgarian. It was way overpriced and we ended up paying top lev for food that would cost us half as much here in Silistra. But after we left Albena and came back to Kranevo (again walking on the beach) I was relieved to be back in a Bulgarian-speaking environment. I felt much more at ease. The last night that we were in Kranevo, we went to a restaurant and we began to order in Bulgarian when the waiter began to try and peg us on our nationality. Russian? German? Polish? Chech? When we told him that we were American, he was utterly confused at our ability to speak Bulgarian. He gave us a serious stare and continued the interrogation. Where are you living here? How long have you been here? Are you two married? How long did you study Bulgairan? Are you studying here? No? Then what? Teachers? Oh, for English? Why? You are Americans and you wish to live in Bulgaria? Oh, volunteers – you teach our children English. He turned out to be a really nice guy who wanted to know who was going to drive after Kate ordered her second beer. He just had to get the facts straight before he could deal with us. Nothing new . . .

And now we’re waiting for my parents to arrive from Athens. We’ll be going up to Bucharest to meet them at the airport and then they’ll come down here to see how we’ve been living for the past year and a half. Hopefully we’ll get to tour a little more of the country and have a visit with our host family from last summer. We’ve been counting down the days until they arrive for quite a while. It’ll be interesting to hear what they think about Bulgaria. Things here have become so typical to us and sometimes I catch myself not really thinking about the unique situation that we’re in. After a year of not seeing any of my family, it will be fantastic to have them here, in our apartment, eating, drinking and speaking face-to-face again. After my parents visit with us, Kate and I will be heading up to Bucahrest with them to see them off at the airport and then we’re off on our trip through parts of Eastern Europe. We’ll be taking the train up to Budapest, through Vienna, Prague, Krakow, and then to Berlin. We were going to go to Russia, but the whole trip became too much of a hassle and the hotel rates were way too high. Our travel agent in Sofia (the only Russian-authorized travel agent in all of Bulgaria, mind you) wasn’t too happy when we changed our plans. When I went in to pick up our deposit, she made sure that I knew how hard she had worked on our trip. Sorry, Alla. After our trip, we have more visitors! Mike and Laura will be coming to see what the heck we’re doing over here. I guess they’re coming to see us, too. We’re really looking forward to their visit and being able to relate to another married couple in the same language. It’s not so easy to cross that language boundary when your language fails to express more than small talk. We can actually speak more than just small talk, but to keep it up and accurately express one’s self in a foreign language takes a lot of time and learning. Considering that Kate and I don’t intensely speak Bulgarian everyday, since we speak English in class, our language hasn’t reached the level of say, the business volunteers who speak Bulgarian all day long.

We’ll probably be taking a break from this journal until late August, maybe September. With all of our visitors and traveling, we won’t have much time to write in here!

-Josh