I was thinking about doing a video about my walk with the dogs and when Croft asked for one, I knew I had to do it!
Well, the things I do for my readers… I wasted almost two hours trying to edit this raw footage in the truly awful iMovie app and then YouTube wouldn’t cooperate. You guys really don’t pay me enough to do this. 😉 So here is the absolutely raw, shaky, breathy video. Watch or don’t, it’s up to you. Just don’t go criticising my lack of video taking skill. 😉
Let me tell you, I have the utmost respect for folks who go to Mexico without speaking a lick of Spanish! It’s very isolating and frustrating to not even be able to exchange pleasantries with a neighbour. But I’m getting by and the folks I interact with daily are seeing some progress, or at least effort, on my part.
I just went down to the village store for beer and hoped to get yoghurt and jam. They didn’t have the latter, but they did have the good German butter I’ve fallen for. I thought maybe I missed the jam, because it seems like such a common thing for a convenience store to have, so I asked and was told “Ne.” Okay, fair enough.
The lady pointed to my bottles and said something. I knew she was telling me to return them, so I said, “Okay,” but I doubt she knew I understood her. She will when I go back in a few days with a bag full of empties! She told me my total and I understood it, 6.20BGN. Don’t ask me to tell you how to say that (I can write it, but oral numbers are different from spoken), but I understood her. Without looking at her piece of paper, I handed her a 20BGN note and a 20 stotinki coin, then kept digging around for the 1BGN coin I knew I had. When I finally fished it out, she went, “Ah!” and handed me back a 10BGN and a 5BGN note.
Bulgarian money is very easy to use and has been much more intuitive than the peso was at first because of the extra zero (eg. 100MXN being close to 10CAD versus 10BGN being close to 10CAD). The symbol for Bulgarian currency is лв (literally lv, for lev). I will stick to BGN rather than switching my keyboard back and forth. Right now, I am paying 0.75CAD for each BGN, very similar to the exchange rate I enjoyed in Mexico. So when I see a price here I think of it as being as par, and then happily adjust downwards when I balance the books.
Bulgarian currency has the following coins:
1 stotinka
2 stotinki
5 stotinki
10 stotinki
20 stotinki
50 stoinki
1 lev
2 leva
I have seen the following banknotes:
1 lev
2 leva
5 leva
10 leva
20 leva
There are also 50 and 100 leva notes. I find it interesting that they have both coins and notes for 1BGN and 2BGN.
I wanted to sleep in today, but the dogs spotted me when I got up to pee at 7AM thanks to the glass front door. I went back to bed, but I could hear them whining. When I finally got up and threw open the curtains, I burst out laughing to find their cute faces pressed against the window.
The morning routine is that I top up their food and water bowls, then dress and head straight out with them for a hike. First, though, we have a cuddle session. Mechka is a total suck, but I think Sausage is even more taken with me. I hope I one day find a human who is as happy to see me first thing as Sausage is! It’s not even that he’s giddy about his walk. He just wants the attention!
We hiked for a bit, then I came back to have breakfast, which I realised, with immense shock, I could have ordered in nearly flawless Bulgarian — coffee with milk and a tomato sandwich with butter, cheese, salt, and pepper.
Then, I got to work transcribing a fairly boring hearing and then started on an interview with a jewelry store owner. I finished very late the last two days, so I decided I was quitting at 5:00 today, Sunday workload be damned.
I took my lovebugs on an extra long walk after work, ripped open my right calf on some really sharp thorns that also lightly scratched both of my wrists, and was amused by how close Sausage sticks to me even though he’s off-lead and could go as far as he wants. Mechka is more prone to wandering off by herself, and then coming back to me for some attention. I can’t believe just how good these dogs are. It’s like they’ve been mine our whole lives.
Penghu the bratty cat and I are also getting along beautifully. He’s learning that I don’t tolerate cats on tables and counters and I’m learning to keep my food on high shelves! He’s a cuddler and I love putting a movie on and inviting him onto my lap, where he burrows and starts purring to raise the roof.
I feel so blessed by how well this assignment is turning out. I was so worried about how I’d get one with the pets and never expected us to just fit.
As for Bulgarian wildlife, there are very large and aggressive spiders as well as boars… It’s been quite an education. Bulgaria still has real wilderness. Then again, I did see a fox in suburban London, so maybe wilderness is a subjective term…
I’m almost through my afternoon beer and thinking about supper. I’ll probably do a pasta with a fresh oniony tomato sauce and a little sour cream with chicken. All this fresh air and exercise makes me hungry!
Max should be out here Monday so I’ll be able to ask about some time off to go exploring. But I have to say that, for now, I’m quite content with my little Bulgarian routine and housemates.
Friday mornings here are going to be like Sunday mornings in Mazatlán, but more regular since they’re my only source of really fresh produce.
I wanted to get quite a bit of work done before the 10AM PST invoice deadline (8PM here), so I set off at 8AM to be back home by noon. I walked to just past the restaurant when I got offered a lift by a couple who then picked up an old lady at the corner where we turn left for town. It was a bit of an awkward drive because they were really curious about me and not daunted by my lack of Bulgarian. Over 5KM, they managed to learn about me:
-I’m not English, but Canadian;
-I live in Maluk Izvor, not Sofia;
-I was not on my way to Sofia, but on the way to the market and stores in Yablanitsa (by the way, took a guess and said “bazaar” for the market as that’s fairly universal word and that was bang on!);
-Max is the reason I’m here.
They dropped me off near the square and then I headed to the market. I took a few pictures, but it was really too much to juggle a notebook for people to write prices in, a wallet, bags of shopping, etc. It really is a lot like the markets I experienced in Maz, complete with the smell of cooking sweet corn! It’s just as hot, too!
Here’s an overview of what I’m going to call “vegetable lane”. All those colourful umbrellas in the background are produce stands, more veggies than fruits.
Need live fowl?
Or carpets? The capri vendor in the foreground at the left was there last week and is hopefully a regular since I know I’ll be going through my capris by the end of the summer. Her stock is much better quality.
Like in Mexico, LOTS of shoe vendors!
I’m pretty sure you can find almost anything at the Friday market. Here are some tools and hardware:
I started by scoping out the wares and making a shopping list of sorts, then bravely waded into the crowd. I had a notebook handy for folks to write prices in. I have been studying my numbers, but, get this, how numbers are written and how there are said is different and there are variations on the oral variations! I knew this going in and had no expectation of understanding prices, so when I did, I was very pleased!
Here’s my final haul:
Produce prices here warrant an OMG:
Tomatoes: 1.20BGN/0.90CAD
Onions: 0.70BGN/0.53CAD
Cucumbers: 0.80BGN/0.60CAD
Potatoes: 0.80BGN/0.60CAD
Carrots, green onions, beet, courgettes, hot peppers: 1.15BGN/0.86CAD
1 kilo of apricots: 2BGN/1.50CAD
Bananas: 1.20BGN/0.90CAD
Total for all this: 5.89CAD.
I bought the bananas on the way out of town and the man rattled off a price that I was pretty sure was 1.20BGN, so I pulled out a one-leva coin and a 20 stotinki coin and passed them over with an uncertain, “Dobre?” (Okay?) He grinned and said, “Mnogo dobre!” I knew that meant “very good”! This was the most “complicated” price I’d understood this morning and felt like a huge milestone. When I bought the tomatoes, onions, and cukes, I had the girl write the first two prices down and realised she was quoting me in stotinkis, so for the cucumber price, I wrote down what I understood, 80 stotinki, and that was correct. Progress!
I got all the veg first and then looked for fruit, of which there was not much. It appears to be apricot and cherry season. I couldn’t imagine getting the cherries home, so I went with the apricots and said, “Beek iskal edno kilo molya.” The vendor said. “Dobre!”, weighed out a huge handful, took out three to get to the kilo, put two back into his pile, and gave me an extra one as a gift! I really had no idea how much a kilo of apricots would be, but it ended up being the amount I would have picked out on my own. That was a big exchange and my first chance to try out my brand new “I would like ______, please” phrase. Guess that one’s mastered. My extra apricot was very good. 🙂
I then went to the supermarket to pick up a few things. I’ve been spending “a lot” on groceries since I got here, but I am rather building up a pantry and I know my expenditures will go down. I’m hoping to not need to go to town again till next Friday and to get whatever I may need at the little village shop…
One thing I’ve been trying to find since I got here is a cheap notebook for doing my lessons in. I don’t want to use my new Moleskine for that and I couldn’t find even scrap paper around the property. I’ve been shocked by how hard it has been to find paper or a notebook. So when I passed a little shop in which I saw heaps of pens, I figured I’d struck gold and found a stationery store. Yes! Unfortunately, like a lot of shops here (and in Mexico, for that matter), everything is behind a counter and you can’t really “shop.” I just pointed to a notebook at random and bought it. It’s a bit larger than what I’d envisioned, but the wide line spacing will be really good for practicing my Bulgarian calligraphy. The price was right, too.
I’d reached the limit of what I felt I could carry home and headed back to the market for bananas, then stopped at an ice milk vendor. What ensued still cracks me up. I asked for chocolate in Bulgarian and he replied, in German, “How many?” Without registering that A) the guy had spoken German and B) that I understood him, I replied, “Zwei, bitte”!!!! He made my cone and continued,in German with, “One, please,” I passed over a lev, and said, “Thank you very much!” still in German. I guess that’s 15 weeks of German 20 years ago paying off?!
I then began the long walk home and got, oh, maybe a kilometre from town when a guy pulled over and offered me a lift. Picture Wladimir Klitschko in a car so tiny he couldn’t even sit up straight in it, a car full of stuffed toys, with a baby seat in the back, and no fewer than three baby on board signs. I said, “Maluk Izvor,” and he motioned for me to get in. As we got to the turnoff for the village he spoke quickly and made hand gestures that I interpreted as “I’m not going to Maluk Izvor, but I’ll take you in and then turn around.” I wasn’t too sure, though, and didn’t want to take advantage, so when we got to the corner, I said, “Dobre,” and started to unfasten my seat belt. He said, “No, no,” and again made the sign of turning around. So he drove me into the village and at the restaurant, I said that this was fine and thanked him profusely.
So I just had the long uphill schlep to home, where I got in at 10:15! Town really isn’t far when you get lifts!
Last night, I did some research on the possibility of renting a car while I’m here. The best price I found was 1,200 euro for three months. *gulps* I can’t justify that. But I am going to consider going to Sofia by bus the first chance I get and then coming back with a rental car for, say, a week, just to give me some freedom to go out during the day and explore. I’d really like to go back to Teteven and up to the monastery. I could drop the car off in Sofia when I’m done and come back on the bus. Something to consider.
It was a very good day in town. Next thing I need to do is eat at a restaurant!
I really don’t think I’m a coffee snob, but I definitely know what I like and I have an opinion about what “real” coffee tastes like. It was difficult to find something suitable in Mazatlán. I did not find good supermarket ground coffee until my very last trip to Mega, when I was able to do a taste test, so I did trips to the Golden Zones to buy fresh beans that I had to grind myself. Coffee was a bit of a production in Mexico!
When I was in Yablanitsa on Tuesday, I had to come home with coffee since I only had a cup or two left of my Canadian grounds. I found the coffee section in the tiny supermarket and noticed that it was dominated by a German brand, Tchibo. I did a quick search and learned that it’s a chain of German coffee shops, like Starbucks or Tim Hortons, and is popular the world over. That seemed like a safe bet and a package wasn’t expensive, only about 4CAD so it wouldn’t be an expensive experiment. I bought their dark roast and tried it out yesterday.
The flavour of first cup took a bit of adjusting to, but I knew that with a bit of tweaking, it would be just fine. It’s a very finely ground coffee and I use a French press, so I have to use less than I would use of coarser grounds and also reduce my steeping time. I’m on my third cup of this coffee and I think I’ve figured it out since I’m really enjoying it!
BTW, the house comes with an espresso maker. When I told Max last Thursday, my first morning here, that I’d had coffee, he was surprised that I’d found and figured out the coffeemaker, and even more so that I’d brought my own coffeemaker with me! I love my French press. It makes good coffee, is uncomplicated to use, and is easy to clean. I can’t be bothered to learn an espresso maker.