Thursday, January 17, 2013

In a Land Where Yes Means No and No Means Yes, Your Roommates Speak Russian, and the Toilet Paper is Orange

An account of what seems like one day, but is really two. 

DAY 1

1/15-1/16


The long awaited day has arrived.  I am now a student at the American University in Bulgaria!  Not that I’m really aware of it yet since I’m still getting over some pretty severe jetlag.  Having classes at what is usually midnight or one in the morning back home can do that to you.  Time changes suck.  Just to let you know, I’m not entirely sure how much sense this is going to make, but I’ll give it a go.  So on with the Great Bulgarian Adventure.

                6 am came much too early for my liking as we got up to go to IHOP for breakfast and get to the airport around 9 for my flight from Atlanta to DC which departed at 11:45.  It was especially early as it was cold and raining much like it had been for the last three days.  Check-in was extremely easy seeing as how I had done a majority of it the night before.  I was extremely appreciative of the fact that they caught that my passport wasn’t signed since at the gate for my flight from DC to Munich they checked passports and cheerfully informed us that if they weren’t signed there would be a fee of 200 Euros. 

                After that, my parents gave me the option of hanging out with them for another hour or going through security to my flight.  I chose to go through security since I knew that staying with them would just make it harder to say goodbye to them.   As it was it was hard enough.  I fought to not just completely break down in the middle of the security lines, knowing I wouldn’t be seeing them until May.  You’re probably wondering how it’s any different from going to school back home.  There’s a big difference in knowing that instead of being a five hour car ride away, they’re now a twelve-hour plane ride away halfway around the world. 

                The flight from Atlanta to DC was pretty average other than some minor turbulence but that’s to be expected when you’re flying at the exact same time as the entire eastern seaboard seems to be going through the Second Great Flood.  I lucked out and got a window seat, even if it was all the way in the back.  It was really cool when we took off because it was so foggy that almost as soon as the wheels lifted off the tarmac, the visibility went to absolutely zero until we got over the cloud ceiling.  It was wild.  I also lucked out in that I got a friendly and pleasant seat mate who was from Mexico traveling to Frankfurt.  We swapped travel stories for part of the nearly two hour flight. 

                When we arrived in DC it was even wetter and colder.  I was glad I had brought my thick winter coat on the plane with me, especially since we didn’t get one of those boarding tunnels (don’t know the technical name for them).  They just offloaded us down the plane stairs directly onto the tarmac.  The stairs were so steep I was sincerely hoping that I would just tumble down them face first.  It’s been known to happen.  It didn’t really help matters that I had a 24 pound backpack on.  The cold air did feel good though after being on the plane, which had gotten rather warm. 

                I had a very unexciting four hour layover in Dulles.  During this time I discovered that Dulles is HUGE.  My gate for my connection to Munich was all the way at the end of Concourse C.  I walked the entire concourse (all 28 gates of it) and part of Concourse D looking for lunch.  I probably covered a good mile or so round trip.  It was definitely worth it though since I was about to be on an eight and half hour plane ride. 

                The flight between DC and Munich was probably the most interesting of the three, starting before we even boarded the plane.  The plane was supposed to start board about 4:30.  4:30 came and it was “We will begin boarding in a few minutes.”  4:45 came, “We will be boarding in another five or six minutes.”  Finally around 5 we were actually allowed to board the plane.  Then we learned what the hold up was.  The co-pilot had been walking around the exterior of the plane doing an inspection and found some debris in one of the engines.  They didn’t know what it was or where it came from and it was going to take at least an hour for them to identify what it was and fix it.  I had a dilemma with this.  My layover in Munich was exactly one hour before I caught my flight to Sofia, meaning that there was a strong possibility that I was going to miss my flight.  The problem was quickly resolved and an hour later we were taking off for Munich.  The flight was rough with some pretty good turbulence as we flew up the east coast then over the North Atlantic.  I lucked out again with an aisle seat this time and another pleasant and friendly seatmate who was from Peru this time, although he lives in New Jersey.  He was on his way to visit a cousin in Genoa, Italy.  We talked for a majority of the flight when he wasn’t sleeping.  Unfortunately I didn’t get as much sleep as I had wanted to on this flight, only managing to snatch an hour just before they served breakfast at about 6:45.  Breakfast consisted of six pieces of melon (I discovered that I am not a melon person) and one very flat croissant.  Not the most heartening of meals.  When we flew over the UK at around 37,000 ft, the skies were so clear that we could see the lights of Manchester.  It looked like a lava flow.  When we flew into Germany the sun was just starting to rise and was pretty well up when reached Munich.  When we flew in, the view was gorgeous since everything was covered in about 2-3 inches of snow.  I had never flown over snow before and at first I thought it was a large lake with islands before I realized what it was. In my defense, I was running on one hour of sleep in the past 24 hours.  We touched down in Munich at 8:05 am local time, only running twenty minutes late, giving me 40 minutes to spare for my last and final connection to Sofia.  It was one in the morning back home.  I was so exhausted.  As I got off the plane I had a random thought that the pilot’s announcement was going to be one of the last American voices I would hear for a while.

                Munich airport is really nice being very clean and modern.  It was easy to navigate once my jetlagged brain realized the signs were, in fact, in English if you continued to read further down.  My gate for the flight to Sofia was fairly close being only about six down from where I came in.  I had never heard so many different languages in one place before.  The man sitting across from me was reading a newspaper in German.  It was hard to believe that at that time the day before I had been going through security in Atlanta and now I was sitting in an airport in Munich, Germany.  I just sat there and watched everything for the next forty minutes as I fought to stay awake.

                They delayed the flight to Sofia for about ten minutes to allow everyone to make it since apparently my flight wasn’t the only one running late.  When we did board I was surprised that you didn’t have to show your boarding pass to a gate attendant.  You just scan it yourself at a couple of turnstiles before heading downstairs to board the plane.  Let me tell you, the Germans know how to board a plane.  We had only been on the plane for about twenty minutes when the announcement was made that boarding was complete and not three minutes later we were being wheeled away from the terminal.  Munich airport is interesting in that as planes come in and out from the terminal they pass over a six-lane highway that runs under the runway.  They Germans are probably used to, but I think it would be kind of nerve-wracking to have a giant Boeing 767 rolling over your head.  We sat on the runway for about 20 minutes before we took off for my final flight to Bulgaria.  I was out almost as soon as we were in the air and stayed that way for the entire flight, gaining me another two hours of sleep. 

                I woke up about 20 minutes before we landed and laid eyes on Bulgaria for the first time (I got another window seat this time and no seatmate).  It was gorgeous with snow-dusted mountains and rolling hills as far as you could see in any direction.  They looked like something you would get if you crossed the Appalachian Mountains with the Rockies.  They have the height and majesty of the Rockies, but they have a more rounded shape like the Applachians.  Either way it was beautiful and the best thing about it was that there was SUN!  Had to fly halfway around the world just to see sun for the first time in weeks.

                The landing in Sofia was rather frightening as the cross-winds pitched the plane about like it was a small toy.  My heart was in my throat.  I was prepared for a really rough landing, but the pilot really knew her stuff and the wheels kissed the tarmac pretty as you please.  As soon as the wheels of the plane hit the ground my first thought was “Holy cow, I’m actually here.  I am actually in Bulgaria.”  My journey was almost over.  Sofia airport was as easy to navigate as Munich had been.  Although the sign for baggage claim read “baggage reclaim” which threw me off for a minute since in Atlanta when you fly into the international terminal you have to reclaim your bags and then check them again.  That wasn’t the case here, it was just strange wording.  Not being able to read a letter of Cyrillic, I couldn’t make heads or tails of the rest of the sign.  What really told me that I was Bulgaria was when the Border Security Officer (don’t know the Bulgarian name for them) finally stamped my visa and welcomed me to Bulgaria.  That sound is just globally significant as the sound meaning that you’re in.  Once I collected my bags everything was a breeze.  I was out of the terminal in about thirty minutes, which I was amazed by.  In Atlanta all that would’ve taken me two hours. 

                Once I headed into the arrivals area I met up with the driver sent by AUBG to pick me and another student up.  The other student was flying in from London about an hour and a half behind me.  I killed the time, by writing in my travel journal, watching and listening to everything around me, exchanging my USD for Bulgarian Leva (BGN), and trying desperately not to go sleep.  Around 1:35 I met the other student, Olivia who is a Sophomore Photography major from Missouri State and we headed out on the last leg of our journey to Blagoevgrad, our home away from home for the next few months. 

                The drive was just as gorgeous as the flight as we drove either through or around the mountains the entire time.  It stayed sunny for the most part with some spritzes of rain here and there.  There was plenty of snow at the higher elevations, which was something else I hadn’t seen in a while.  The drive over should have been downright frightening, but I was so jetlagged that I didn’t care.  The Bulgarians are apparently very bad about tailgating and playing chicken with oncoming traffic as they pass a line of five or more cars.  We did this several times.  Olivia and I talked for about the first half hour or so before she finally succumbed to jetlag.  Her flight was twice as long as mine at 28 hours.  I dozed off a couple of times, but forced myself to stay awake so I would sleep that night.  It was worth it too just to see more of the country side. 

                Bulgaria definitely shows its days of Communism in the architecture.  The post-Soviet buildings combined with the old ones, and often painted bright colors make for an interesting mix in the cities.  Everyone here seems to have a grapevine or two in the yard if they have the space for it which I thought was interesting.  At one point we passed a group of horses that were just standing in a pasture that had posts for fencing, but no fence.  One was grazing right by the road.  It kind of reminded me of a more modernized Nicaragua really. 

                About an hour and half after we left Sofia, we arrived at the main building of the American University in Blagoevgrad.  We pulled into an underground parking garage that looked like somewhere you could easily film a horror movie in.  It was small and twisting and dark seeing as how there were very few lights in there.  From there we were thrown right into the middle of things.  We were taken straight to the Registrar’s office to get our classes and then turned right around to go to the security office to get our ID cards, then back to the Registrar’s office to get our classes.  I currently have History of Islam, Principles of Microeconomics, and Balkan Literature.  I’m looking to add Introductory Bulgarian as a fourth so that I will be full time and can actually qualify for all my benefits like housing and meals.  Once we had all that sorted out, we got back into the van and headed for the other part of campus that was about a half-mile or so away.  This is where the residence halls, the libraries, and another academic building are located.  We off-loaded our bags and then checked in to find out where we would be living this semester.  Everyone was staring at the two American girls with bags under their eyes, disheveled hair, and dragging our suitcases behind us.  The residence hall coordinators directed us to go down one more building to Skaptopara II, which is where we would be staying.  Skaptopara is the name they gave to all the residence halls.  Don’t ask me what that means, because I have no idea. 

                When we arrived we checked in with the front desk and showed them our IDs and Passports to be registered.  I was on the second floor and told where the elevator was.  I have discovered that the elevators are not worth it here.  You can press down and it’ll be going up.  You can press down again and it’ll be going up again.  Sometimes it takes forever to actually come.  To get to the second floor you actually have to press 1 because there is something called a parter.  And they are about the size of a wardrobe.  The other thing about the dorms is that they are unbelievably warm, I was sweating by the time I got to the second floor. 

                I got to what I thought was my room and tried my key, but it wouldn’t work.  I tried it a few more times and headed to go back downstairs to see what was going on.  There was a guy on the elevator when I tried to wrestle my suitcases on and he asked me where I was going.  When I explained the situation to him, he offered to help me out.  Turns out I had been trying to get into the wrong room!  I hadn’t realized that even numbers were on one side of the hall and odds were on the other.  I was really tired by now.  I thanked him and opened the door to my new room, which was not what I was expecting. 

                There were two sets of bunkbeds with a common area in the middle and a single bathroom for just that room.  I was thinking more of the suite-style with two rooms and one shared bathroom.  This was where I met my first two roommates.  One is from Russian and the other is from Kazakhstan.  They are really cool and I knew within minutes that we would get along just fine since as I looked around the room I saw a Hobbit screen saver from the movie, The Hunger Games Series and some Doctor Who books on the bookshelf, a Game of Thrones google search, and a Harry Potter bookmark.  I didn’t have much time to talk beyond initial introductions since there was still plenty more I had to do before I could collapse. 

                I headed down to the basement of my residence hall to the Dean of Students Office to meet with my advisor to discuss the schedule and learn about all the things they forgot to tell me when I got here.  She was really nice and explained things in a simple way that made it easy for my jetlagged brain to understand.  It was also around this time that I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since the croissant that morning around 11 hours ago.  Not only was I exhausted, I was starving.  Olivia showed up downstairs as well, and we got everything settled there then headed to the International Student Services office to introduce ourselves and talk about everything that was going on.  We also got a chance to send emails back home to let people know that we were alive and not dead in a plane crash or ditch somewhere.  I also was finally able to put faces to the two women who had been very helpful in getting me through the whole visa application process.  They looked nothing like what I imagined them to look like, mainly because they were both younger when I thought they would be older.  They were very friendly, everyone here has been so far. 

                Once we finally got everything settled there, both of us were starving so we found our way to the canteen without getting lost and we ordered some soup that consisted of beef pieces in rice and I think peppers maybe in a broth, which was good and I finally got the water I had been craving all day.  Halfway through eating it started to feel like a lot of food, I made myself keep eating though since I knew I would need it later.  When we walked in the TV in there was on a music channel and of all things Justin Bieber was on.  You can’t escape him, even halfway around the world.  It was kind of depressing.  I’ve actually heard a surprising amount of American music here. 

                When we had eaten enough, we headed back up to our rooms she on the elevator and I took the stairs.  This is where I discovered that you can get lost at the drop of a hat in the building.  I didn’t realize that the building had different blocks of rooms and they weren’t connected.  So the stairwell I was in took me to a completely different place than I wanted to end up.  It took me two tries walking down the halls before I figured  it out.  I made my way back to the ground floor and found the right staircase this time and got back to my room.

                I was finally able to unpack my bags and put everything away, I didn’t have as much as I thought I did, managing to fit everything into one skinny drawer and half of a narrow closet.  When I went into the bathroom, I was pleasantly surprised to find a shower that was bigger than your average cabinet.  I was also surprised to see that the toilet paper was a rusty orange color.  That threw me off for a moment, I had never seen toilet paper that color before.  You also can’t drink the water out of the faucets here, but you can brush your teeth with it.  Luckily they sell massive bottles of water down in the canteen.  Once I was all unpacked I just sat in bed and worked on my travel journal some more.

  All I really wanted to do was sleep at that point, but my roommates and one of their friends (who was also from Russia) wanted to take me out with them instead.  So around 7 we donned our coats and jackets and headed out into Blagoevgrad.  I’m thinking that the Bulgarians have something against keeping things well lit since there were some places that had hardly any streetlights at all.  It was really neat though.  They took me the route to the Main Building from the Skaptopara campus despite the fact that I knew I wouldn’t remember it the next day when I started classes.  We ended up at an Italian restaurant called Napoli which was pretty nice and the food looked and smelled delicious.  My stomach was still adjusting to the time change and having just eaten I wasn’t the least bit interested in food.  So I kept them company and told them about why I picked AUBG, about back home, and we compared universities. They informed me of all the quirks and things of AUBG and your basic words.  This is a backwards place where they shake their heads from left to right to indicate “yes” and up and down to indicate “no”, which is going to be completely confusing at first.  They say “Merci” for thank you, despite the fact they aren’t French or anywhere near France.  “Dobradeh” is the word for good afternoon.  They use the same word for please and you’re welcome and something else that I can’t remember.  I learned they are going to make me a club and nightlife person, I’ll give it a go, but I wish them luck on that.  I also learned which professors are the good ones and that it’s not uncommon to find them in a favorite student hangout discussing the students.  It was fun and really nice to get to know some people here.  We headed out after about another hour to head back to the dorms.  I talked with them as we walked but for the most part I just listened to them shout at each other in Russian, which was entertaining in and of itself.  Another language I can pick up while I’m here in addition to Bulgarian. 

                We got back to the dorms and headed up to the room.  I immediately changed into my pajamas and climbed into my bed (literally since I have a top bunk) set my alarm clock for 9 the next morning and wrote in my travel journal until I just completely crashed shortly after 10 on my sheetless bed.  Not that it really mattered since it was too hot for them anyways.  It had been some long last couple of days.

               

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