Lake Ohrid - Езерoтo в Охрид

Beautiful Macedonia :) - my stay there was very brief but lots of fun and likely to be repeated. last weekend in rila, rozi mentioned that the only neighbouring country she's never visited is macedonia and thus gave me the idea to go. unfortunately, rozi ran out of money and couldn't come as well, but amélie and i still got our things together and took the bus last friday to go to from sofia to skopje and then on to ohrid in the south-west corner of the country very close to albania. it is a beautiful - though very touristic - town right besides a huge lake. this very same weekend there happened to be the 2nd CS Balkan Meeting going on, which, of course, we joined. more than 100 travellers from the balkans and some more distant regions of the world got together to have fun - attending the meeting as long as one could any time between friday morning and sunday afternoon. as the bus ride from sofia to skopje takes somewhat like 6 hours (including one hour waiting time at the border) and from there another 3 and a half hours to ohrid, amélie and i only arrived in the early evening. in the bus from skopje we stumbled over another three couchsurfers and all five of us arrived well in ohrid where we quickly found the rest of the couchsurfers in their various houses serving as quarters for the whole crowd. somebody must have invested a huge amount of organizational skills to get all of us together. so many people arriving at different times from different places. but in the end, i'm pretty sure, all of us had a wonderful time. there were couchsurfers from all over. all types of people between the age of 19 and something around 50 years. the biggest group came from greece (thessaloniki is after all only about four hours away), but then there were bulgarians, macedonians, serbians, austrians, italians, germans, french, americans, brits, turks, a canadian, a senegalese, lithuanians, a swiss and....probably some more that i can't think of right now. in any case, you can imagine that i liked it a lot and i hope that the next balkan meeting which shall take place in sarajevo will be still within the time of my stay in this amazing region.
from ohrid itself i have actually not seen too much. at least not during the day time. on friday we arrived too late, on saturday we spent most of the day in st. naum (a village with a bunch of churches about one kilometer away from albania) and on sunday it rained all day. still, i have enjoyed it a lot and i have seen what's most important: the lake.
our trip back to sofia turned out to be somewhat more adventurous than we had planned. until skopje amélie and i could ride together with a greek-serbian couple in the car of a macedonian. there, we still had a long time to wait before our night bus/train would leave, so we decided to have something to eat in the center. and, of course (!), we had only been walking for 5 minutes, when we saw 5 other couchsurfers in a restaurant doing the same (well, one of them was actually from skopje, so she didn't wait for any transportation, but the rest of us did). at 11 pm, amélie and i wanted to take the bus. we had bought an open-return round-trip ticket and this was the last bus leaving that day. at the bus station we even met yet another two couchsurfers who'd be on the same bus, so we prepared ourselves for a night on the road, when.....we found out that we didn't have the right tickets. for some reason this last bus of the day was of another branch from the same bus company and our tickets weren't valid. besides that, the bus was full and....shit!!! but, uff, we were a little bit lucky at least and still managed to get into the bus. don't ask me how, but the macedonian from the information office at the bus station organized us even two adjoined seats in the bus and we arrived back in sofia at 6 am on monday morning (local time -- there is one hour time difference between macedonia and bulgaria). we had an awful night in an uncomfortable bus full of people (one hour waiting at the border in the middle of it), but at least we arrived back home safely. and i even had another two hours that i could sleep before getting up again and ready to go to my "job".

oh, yeah, that's actually, something else i still haven't written about. i managed to get an internship at CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz, the austrian branch of a big international law firm, which has a small office in sofia. i had an interview last wednesday and could start right away. "whenever i have time" i am there, i have my own key card, my own space in the office with computer and everything else i could need and within the next days i should even have my own email address :-P i am even supposed to get paid, but i haven't found out how much that will actually be. anyway, i am happy to have the place, cause it is something else to do besides visiting the few classes i have here. the people there all speak good german except for two or three who "only" speak english. they're all bulgarian lawyers but half of them have studied in either austria or germany. and they are really nice! i really enjoy going there so much that i don't even mind to have a quite stressful week: 9'30-13 h at CMS and 14-20 h class (this week i have an intensive course in commercial law). instead, i plan on going there the whole thursday when i don't have classes because of some kind of educational holiday.
yep, as you can see, i keep myself busy - but only in a positive way ! and i really love being here :D

Kleine Bäume, grüne Steine

ja, es gibt mal wieder was neues zu erzählen. und soooooooo viele atemberaubende fotos, die ich leider ned alle hier hochladen kann. ich war letztes wochenende nämlich im rila nationalpark. zusammen mit rozi (die bulgarin, die uns bei der wohnungssuche so geholfen hat) und meiner mitbewohnerin amélie bin ich am samstag einer umweltschutzorganisation nach rila gefolgt. dort wird nämlich ein neues skiresort geplant und schon mit dem bau begonnen, obwohl die nötigen genehmigungen natürlich fehlen. protestierender weise haben wir also ein paar kleine bäumchen dorthin gepflanzt, wo die unterste station des skilifts schon gebaut wird, obwohl doch da eigentlich bäume hingehören. tja, sieben kleine bäumchen sind's geworden und ich bin mal gespannt, wie lange diese dort noch bleiben dürfen. anschließend an die aktion sind wir drei in begleitung mit noch ein paar anderen der protestierenden im schlepptau auf den berg hinaufgestiegen. es war ein langer weg nach oben, was jedoch hauptsächlich an unserer arg langsamen fortbewegung lag. trotzdem haben wir es bis zu der allerhöchsten berghütte/herberge hinaufgeschafft, wo wir dann auch die nacht verbracht haben. oh, es war ja soooooooooo kalt dort oben. die letze stunde unseres aufwegs wurden wir dann auch noch schön von schneeregen berieselt und....ach, ich hasse kälte, ich hasse schnee und nass und überhaupt, aber trotzdem: ich bereue keinen schritt, denen ich dieser atemberaubenden umgebung getan habe! in den fotos ist das leider nur schwer zu erkennen, aber die steine sind tatsächlich günlich-türkis!
die berghütte, in der wir übernachtet haben wird von einer alten bulgarin geführt, von der ich leider kein foto gemacht hab, dabei sah sie so niedlich aus mit ihren spängchen in den haaren. sie hat uns am nächsten morgen auch zu sich in das einzig wirklich warme zimmer eingeladen und von ihrem frühstück gegeben: haferbrei *grins*
ach, ich könnte so viel erzählen, aber worte beschreiben das alles eh nur schlecht. unser abstieg ging etwas schneller. innerhalb von drei stunden waren wir wieder dort, wo wir die bäumchen gepflanzt hatten und von dort mussten wir nur noch wieder nach sofia gelangen. leichter gesagt als getan. in dieser abgelegenen berggegend ist selten viel los und bei schlechtem wetter noch weniger. wir mussten mehrere kilometer laufen, bevor uns ein paar nette bulgaren mit in ihr auto gequetscht haben und in den nächsten größeren ort gefahren haben. dort sind wir zum ortsausgang gewandert und sind zurück nach sofia getrampt. wir waren nach weniger als 15 minuten erfolgreich und wurden bis nach studentski grad mitgenommen. dann ab in den bus und um 19 h am sonntag abend waren wir wieder zu hause. puh! ein langer tag. ein langes wochenende! aber vorbei war es damit noch nicht, aber dazu.....vielleicht ein anderes mal!


and now in english: "small trees, green stones"

so, once again only a short version for the non-german speakers. last weekend i spent in the national park "rila". together with rozi (the bulgarian girl, who helped us find the flat) and my house mate amélie i followed a small environmental organization to the national park, where we planted a few trees in order to protest agains the construction of a ski resort in the area of the national park. afterwards, some of us climbed the mountain, while the rest of the group drove back to sofia. rozi, amélie and i spent a wonderful though awfully cold time in the mountains. we hiked up to "the seventh lake hut", where we stayed for the night. on sunday, we got up quite early, had breakfast with the old lady, who kept the hut (and attended to the guests whenever there were some) and then started our way back down. actually, we arrived back at the place where we had planted the trees a lot faster than we had thought. the next problem, though, was to get back to sofia. we hitchhiked, but of course, in the mountains there aren't too many cars around, so we had to walk quite a few kilometers before somebody took us into their car and brought us to the next bigger town, where we soon became lucky and got a ride back to sofia. after this last weekend, i can't wait to get out of sofia again - maybe already next weekend - and discover more of the beautiful country side! words can hardly describe this beauty and the pictures don't even show half of the amazing nature that i have seen. but you'll at least get an idea...

Hot Water and Internet

wow, everything seems to be happening at the same time. last saturday, two french girls (amélie and stéphanie) moved into our new apartment in the city center, less than 10 minutes away from the university. it's really a nice place, furnished and with everything we'll need to feel at home for the next months....everything...well, after we'd moved in we had to learn that there were some kind of reconstructions going on for 10 days and so we wouldn't have any warm water. sh*t! i had so wanted to take a nice and hot shower the first morning in our new home, but.... oh well, no hot water until today. i can't believe that they would be doing such kind of reconstructions exactly when it's about to become winter and then not only for 2 or 3
days, but even 10!!! ha, now, finally we do have hot water and at the same day, our internet provider has opened our access to the www as well. how great! and as if this weren't enough good news already, our central heating also started working this morning. yeah! now, we are cozy and warm at home. we're only still lacking some nice decoration and a few covers to hide our
ugly couch and armchairs. but there's no hurry, we've only just settled in, after all.

Plovdiv und mehr

PLOVDIV

rock city - zweitgrößte Stadt Bulgariens - sonnig, schön, entspannt - 2 1/2 Stunden Zugfahrt von Sofia - am 29./30. September - mit Jamie, John und Arnaud - tolle Innenstadt, mit teilweise westlichem Flair (soll nicht heißen, dass Osteuropa nicht auch tollen Flair haben kann) - leckeres Eis nicht unter 300 gr in einer Waffel, geniale Falafel für unter 80 cent - angenehme Unterkunft in Jugendherberge - lange Spaziergänge durch die Altstadt - Amphietheater, Pflastersteinstraßen, grüne Parks, viele Statuen (Bronze. Poeten? Philosophen?) - Antiquariate fast schon wie Museen - Tourireisegruppen aus Kanada und Griechenland - Fußgängerzonen und Pflastersteinsträßchen - McDonalds in Kyrillisch - mein erster Restaurantbesuch in Bulgarien (hier werden die Portionen in Gramm angegeben) - viele Hügel, langer Fluss, nette Menschen, schöne Häuser und hässliche Häuser - viele Häuser von berühmten (?) bzw. historisch anscheinend wichtigen Persönlichkeiten (beschildert und teilweise sogar zu besichtigen) - nachts nicht viel los im Zentrum, tagsüber mehr: trotzdem Beschäftigung durch Kartenspielen - zurück zu Hause, ab ins Bett.