12 uvas en Istanbul

<-- this is the first sight i had upon my arrival back in sofia two days ago. since then i've been rather lazy, sitting at home most of the time, thus evading the snow and the cold weather outside. i've more or less spent three days like this now, so it's about time i write a bit about how i spent new year's eve ;)

from the beginning. it started out with quite an exciting trip on the train during the night of december 28th to the 29th. as the train was coming from belgrade of course it was running late. i guess with my waiting time from less than two hours i can even be counted as lucky. anyway, with the train from belgrade came 6 serbs. one of them was marko with whom i had arranged to join them for the remaining time until istanbul. none of us had reserved a seat for the ride, so after having been told that there were no seating wagons until istanbul, we simply searched a free compartment and made ourselves comfortable -- so far we were going in the right direction...

first problems occurred at the last stop before the turkish border. there the seating wagons were dislodged from the train and instead there were new wagons which had come from romania, BUT only sleeping wagons. since we didn't have any reservation for a "couchette", we were forced to stay in the tine area between two wagons. including us there were about 10 people squeezed together (at least we didn't get cold this way) until the first train station in turkey. fortunately, it took less than an hour until we got there. in turkey, first thing, everybody had to get off the train and and buy a visa and/or get a stamp into their passport. apparently, germans belong to the few who don't have to pay 10€ for a visa (spanish citizens have to pay so it's got nothing to do with being EU member). anyway, having collected yet another stamp in my passport (it's a shame i'm getting so few of them!), i went together with the serbs to talk to the conducter in order to find out how we could reach istanbul more comfortably. 10€ per person to stay in a sleeping compartment, they told us. it was 4 am and i was ready to pay that, but...well, marko wanted to beat down the price. we ended up 7 persons together in one compartment for6 and two of the serbian guys were asked to buy some rum and that's it then....ha, is this corruption? if it was it didn't work in the end. they DID buy the rum but we still had to pay more later on. when the conductor came to take our tickets he refused to give them back (the serbs needed them for their return) until we had paid about 5€ per person. at least that's only half of what they had first asked for....and i was able to sleep about 6 hours more or less comfortably in one of the "couchettes" until we reached istanbul the next morning. i had been given a very good description of how to get to my couchsurfing host's place from the train station and though she lives almost an hour away from the centre i easily found her.

COUCHSURFING??? what is this? being an active member of both couchsurfing and HOSPITALITYCLUB, i know that some of you have already heard me talking about it. others even are members themselves. but many of you probably have no clue. so i will give you a short explanation. they are online communities (www.hospitalityclub.org, www.couchsurfing.com) creating a worldwide network of people who like to travel. the purpose is to contact and get to know other open-minded people whereever you go. you can look at their profiles ask anyone who seems nice to you, if he or she would be willing to host you in their home or to meet you for a coffee, to show you around town, go out to the bars and clubs where the local crowd hangs out. hence, you are never caught between thousands of tourists but get a real insight of whereever you travel. it is wonderful. i have with much delight both hosted and "surfed" other peoples' couches. and sometimes, actually quite frequently, some of these people get together and organize a meeting. it may be a smaller one just for the locals and their current guest- in sofia the people from CS meet regularly once a month - or a bigger one like the balkan meeting in ohrid or the winter camp in istanbul. in any case, you are sure to have a good time and to meet loads of great people!

well, enough of this. try it out, it's wonderful. since i joined the network i'm not only not afraid to travel almost anywhere alone and without a previously arranged hostel booking, i even often prefer to travel by myself, because this is the best way to connect with the people at your destination and getting to know your host really well :D

in istanbul i stayed three nights at gülsah's place. for the winter camp she also hosted two more girls: daniela from costa rica (currently studying in rome) and katia from dobrich, bulgaria. part of the little bit of sightseeing i did in istanbul i did together with them. and thanks to them i never had to return "home" all alone in the middle of the night as we were all part of the same huge party crowd ;)
did i write "huge crowd"? oh yeah, it really was a HUGE crowd. just look at the pictures: it seems like a demonstration, but it is just us, a bunch of CS'ers and HC'ers on our way to a boat trip on the bosporus. and us on the boat...

rumour has it that at the last party on new year's eve there were around 600 attending. i assume about a third of them were turks and the rest from all over the world. mostly europe, of course, but there were members from latin america, north america, australia, the mideast and asia as well...

the party on the night of the 29th i didn't enjoy too much, though. so gülsah, a turkish friend of hers and i left before midnight and we went to have some food instead. i had delicious clams filled with rice in the street called "fish bazar" - just count the empty shells and you know what you have to pay ;) later i discovered that at the same place they sell extremely tasty sandwiches filled with fried breaded mussels and a yummy garlic sauce - even better!
the next two party nights i enjoyed a lot more and i stayed longer. the 31st i started out with daniela and jorge (from madrid) making sangria - which we then shared with yet another two spaniards, daniel and antonio. 5 litres for 5 persons. perfect!

la sangría - antes y después








and an hour before the end of the year 2007 we went to the club (the organizers of the meeting had rented two floors)... at midnight with the 12 gongs jorge, daniela and i ate the 12 grapes as it is the tradition in spain. they probably were the worst 12 grapes i have eaten in all my life, but at least i can be sure now that i won't have 10 years of bad sex in front of me :P
daniel was too late to eat the grapes with us so he repeated it an hour later with the spanish midnight - don't know though, whether that'll count.... ;)

okay, i feel i have written enough for this time. i uploaded some of my favourite pictures taken in istanbul. here you go:

the blue mosque inside and out








at the spice market











my favourite















somewhere upstairs in a mall where they sell lots of electrical equipment











at the great market














istanbul, city at the bosporus....

Българската коледа

so, there was a little change of plans: i am not going to istanbul tonight but tomorrow night, meaning i will arrive there on saturday early morning. same difference :-P
actually, the reason for this postponement is twofold: firstly, i don't wanna go alone on the train all by myself as there are some stories making the round which make me prefer having company. since marko (--> friend from belgrade) doesn't get his passport back from the greeks (visa troubles) until today, he will only start his trip tomorrow morning. thus, when he then arrives in sofia in the course of the evening, i will join him in the train and we'll travel the rest of the way together. this will not only make the trip a bit safer but - more importantly - also a lot more enjoyable (cause i will be able to talk marko's ears off while he's trying to sleep in the most comfortable train seats *lol*)
secondly, i decided it would be better to recover completely before starting the party time in istanbul during which i don't expect much time to rest ;) yesterday was the first day since last thursday that i felt more or less well again. i had first thought that i only caught a slight cold and tried to rest as much as possible before going to stara zagora with rozi. however, once there, i realized that the cold wasn't that "slight" after all. shortly after our arrival at rozi's parents' place, i started to feel dizzy and preferred to stay in bed the rest of the day. and the following, too. and the one after that....well, also for the most part, at least. as far as i know i didn't have a fever, but was shivering for hours and felt that my head was going to burst into a million pieces any second. so i was more than glad that i had a wonderful bulgarian mom taking care of me. poor rozi's mom: she thinks her daughter brings home a guest for christmas and instead there arrives a patient. well, finally some homemade medicine and a few pills brought me back to normal and i was fit enough to take a long walk in the "famous" park of stara zagora on our last day there. yesterday, rozi and i hitchhiked back to sofia and here i am, taking a last short rest before leaving for turkey :)
besides the negligible fact that i was not blessed with perfect health during the past few days i had a really nice christmas. the pre-holiday time in bulgaria seems to be not even half as imposing/annoying as in germany. supermarkets started comparably late to put christmas chocolate into their shelves; the glittering, shiny and kitschy decoration in the streets was easily bearable, while the decoration in private peoples' homes was even kept to an extreme minimum. what a difference! you could really go around town for the longest time without being shown from all sides that you must be happy now 'cause it's chrismas... i liked that :) in bulgaria, christmas eve, is traditionally the last day of a period of fasting. thus, on the 24th a variety of vegetarian food is served - either 7, 9 or 11 dishes, one of them being a delicious home-made bread with a baked-in coin. whoever gets the coin will receive luck during the next year.
by the way a bulgarian wishing merry christmas will say весела коледа (vesela koleda), happy holidays here are весели празници (veseli praznitsi) and the new year shall be a честита нова година (chestita nova godina). during the communist times christmas was rarely celebrated here and дяадо коледа (dyado koleda), the bulgarian santa clause, had quite a hard time in these regions. i was told that new years was a lot bigger instead. however, those times are over, capitalism is getting bigger and even in bulgaria you can more and more often see one of those life-sized plastic santa clauses dangling as if strangled from the walls of some of the bigger autohauses :-P
so, now it's time to get ready, go out and buy a return ticket for the bus from istanbul to sofia on january 1st so that i can welcome eike at the airport on the 2nd!
i wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! see you/talk to you/write to you in 2008! :D

Raben(enkel)tochter

ja, ja, ich weiß, ich bin wirklich enie treulose tomate - hätte mich längst mal wieder melden sollen bei euch, ruth, peter, oma, großvati, liebe familie! aber wie die zeit so vergeht....ist ja auch so: keine nachrichten sind in der regel gute nachrichten :)
ich werde morgen früh - am samstag - mit meiner freundin rozi zu ihrer familie nach stara zagora fahren, wo wir gemeinsam weihnachten verbringen werden. am 25. oder spätestens 26.12. geht es jedoch schon wieder zurück nach sofia, von wo ich am 27.12. abends den nachtzug nach istanbul nehme (keine sorge, auch darin werde ich nicht alleine sitzen). meine rückkehr ist nach sylvester für den 1.1. abends (nachtbus) geplant, weil ich am 2.1. nachmittags mal wieder besuch erwarte ;)
also, ich wünsche euch allen ein frohes weihnachtsfest und einen guten rutsch in das neue jahr!!!!!

seid allesamt herzlich umarmt,

eure indra

how good it is to be vegetarian!

today is the last day of the seminar "bringing europe closer to young citizens" in which i - more or less - participated this past week. it was one of those international seminars funded by the EU this time with participants from bulgaria, lithuania, romania, moldova, greece, italy, france and germany. well, actually i am a bit disappointed regarding the content of the lectures/working groups during the seminar, therefore i've stopped going to most of them after half of the week was over. however, i regularly followed the rest of the programme - lunch, dinner, free time ;)
thus, i experienced once again how much better it is to be vegetarian:

firstly, because you will almost always receive better (tastier and healthier) food

secondly, because you receive your food usually before the others - at least in bulgaria *lol*





the seminar definitely proved to be a perfect way to get to know some more restaurants around sofia - some of them serving excellent bulgarian food :)

my favourite part of the programme was however our excursion yesterday, first to boyana church, where we could admire some beautiful frescos from the 11th and 14th centuries and then to winter wonder land on vitosha mountain, where i spent more than one hour on the back of a horse - the first time after more than seven years! and i couldn't have had more luck with the horse: "magiya" was so wonderful and had a beautifully smooth gallop ;)


due to the seminar i didn't do much more since last wednesday. no university - the only class i should have had besides bulgarian was cancelled for whichever mysterious reason 15 minutes before it should have started - nothing uncommon here, at least i received the message before i arrived there and not hours after the class should have finished (which happened to me a few weeks ago with another class). thus, my highlites of the week consisted of a visit to swinging hall to see the band "ostava" perform live --> some kind of bulgarian britpop made in sofia :D and, of course, of last friday. it was the xmas party at zedes (zentrum für deutschlandstudien - where i have some of my classes) and afterwards hrissi and i went to a karaoke bar until...well, quite early *lol*

as i had my camera with me most of the time lately, i would like to provide you with a few more visual impressions of sofia. on the left you can see some of the most prominent buildings of this city: the national theatre and the court of justice - the latter is situated on vitoshka, a major shopping street, and a quite popular meeting point.

on the left you can see exactly the same bulevard (vitoshka) with view towards vitosha mountain on a typical cold winter day.








the corridor is in the bulgarian parliament. i took the picture last thursday when we had a small tour through the building with the group from the seminar...









this is inside the synagogue. my grandmother and i visited it together when she was here. the chandelabrum weighs more than 1000 kg.










this beautiful man holds his head up just around the corner from my work, so i see him quite regularly :-P


the yellow bricks (right) are quite characteristic for sofia as they are laid out widely in the center. so to say the city's special exhibit, which actually proves to be quite annoying and dangerous in snowy weather, since it then turns into something even more slippery than ice!



finally, the remains of a bulgarian spring tradition: on the first of march bulgarians give each other these red-and-white luck charms which they then to keep until they see the first storck or certain trees in bloom. then they take the "martenitsa" off and hang it in a tree or bush - where some of them remain until next winter and longer...... (btw a more detailed description of this tradition you will either receive from me in march or you have to look it up yourself, but i think xmas is not the right time for going into detail ;))

23

so, i'm again a bit older. and i dare say i quite like being 23 - so far ;)
though, i first didn't feel much like celebrating my birthday - i never do - i eventually decided to ask some friends to come to a pizzaria with me. and some short text messages later i reserved a table at "krivoto" for the evening. i had a wonderful time with some of my bulgarian and international friends, eating, drinking, laughing a lot....after that chrissy and i went to a karaoke bar around the corner. it was completely empty, but she still gave me my private little birthday serenade *lol*. altogether a wonderful start into the 24th year of my life :-P
after weeks and weeks of doubts that any of the mail sent to me by friends and family from germany, i finally received my first package. a friend had advised me i should simply go to the post office and ask, since i couldn't be sure that they'd actually provide me with one of thos little slips saying that sth has arrived for me and i should come pick it up. anyway, i did so and have now a huge supply of "vanillekipferl" made by my grandmother (vielen dank liebe oma! deine kipferl sind einfach die besten!). anyway, just two days later i received two notifications that another package and also a letter have arrived for me. i couldn't pick them up yet, because of the weekend, but i will go tomorrow. i just thought it was kinda cute how on one of the paper slips the mailman indicated some of the information in english and german as he must have figured that if the letter came from abroad and my name sounded rather foreign bulgarian might be somewhat difficult for me to understand :-P such nice gesture - and quite uncommon as that :)

Bulgarian pogo

yesterday, my friend dessi asked me whether i'd like to accompany her and her boyfriend to a punk concert. a german (!) punk concert in the middle of sofia :D i had never even heard the name of that band - "stoned age" - nor did i really know what would expect me music-wise. however, i decided to go and thus experienced my first underground punk concert. actually, i liked the support act - a bulgarian band called "remont" - better than the german main act, but it was definitely quite an interesting performance. all of the band members had covered themselves in mud and fake blood and two of them wore some of the most beautiful mohawks i'd ever seen *lol* in the end, i really enjoyed it, although i did not join the pogo dancers or screamed along with the songs ( i still wonder, how the rest of the audience could distinguish one word from the other when i didn't even realize that there were "words" in the songs at all).

anyway, this was not the only concert i went to last weekend: rihanna gave an open-air charity concert last friday. unfortunately, the square was way too small for the huge audience (mainly consisting of teenaged girls yelling "rriiii-haaaaa-naaaaa" all the time. besides that the acoustic was bad and the music itself not much better. okay, okay, what else should i have expected, it was a concert by rihanna after all - nothing for which i would pay money, but intersting enough to take a look at it. in the end we didn't stay much longer than for three or four songs and then went to have "perzheni kartofi ses sirene" and some beers instead.

oh, yeah, and there was yet another "concert" that i saw this saturday - please note the wonderful decoration:

as the german embassy had orgnized some kind of "christmas bazar" on its premises, some of the other german erasmus students and i decided to take the chance and visit some familiar grounds. oh my, the german embassy must be one of the ugliest ones in all of sofia! anyway, it was kinda weird to listen to so much german being spoken around me - i hadn't imagine there'd be THAT many germans around. hahaha. well, at least the amount of germans could remind me of a real christmas market - the rest of the setting (glühwein, candles, leberkäs and sauerkraut) didn't really succeed in setting me in the right mood.

hmmm, we didn't stay in the embassy too long, but continued our evening with some "moving pictures". i'm slowly getting the idea that bulgarians are either ignorant of the cold or they are simply a tiny bit insane with regard to the weather. seriously, first, there is an OPEN-AIR concert on the last day of november - okay, okay, such things can happen, especially, since there is more space outside than in some kind of hall, and who would have expected it to be cold AND rain at the same time? - but then, who gets the idea of showing short films on public walls OUTSIDE on the first day of december?!? whereas i have to admit that i was one of the crazy people who went along with the shivering group. so maybe it isn't such a stupid idea after all. in any case, i had fun and the cold was a wonderful excuse to warm up in a bar afterwards :D

Belgrade - "White City"; smelly fog and my first guest!

after almost three continuous weeks in sofia, it was time to get of town again. so i got my stuff together and bought myself a train ticket to belgrade. i went there during the night from friday to saturday last week. i stayed two days, one night, and came back by train early on monday morning. okay, i have to admit it wasn't the best time to visit the city given the weather forecast promised lots of snow. but who could have known that the snow would be accompanied by so much fog? well, anyway, this way i got to know belgrade as a really "bel" (= white) "grade" (=city) :-D my wonderful serbian guide - marko from couchsurfing whom i had met in ohrid at the CS-balkan meeting - picked me up from the train station in the wee hours of saturday morning and after a short break in his residence, he showed me to this park, where you usually have a great view over the rivers. danube and sava. well, in this picture you can see the gorgeous view that i had *lol*
but please don't get me wrong: i still had a wonderful time. okay, that time did involve some wet feet and cold nose and ears, but also some really nice people, serbian coffee and a palacinca (=pancake) party ;) all that already convinced me that i HAVE to go back whenever the city itself is also more inviting. the people were already!



coming back to sofia, i also found a snowed-in city once again. but the next day was sunny and really nice.
<-- aleksander nevski cathedral covered in snow ...BUT THEN...
there came the fog! no, i won't post any pictures of sofia sunken in in the fog here. first of all, because it doesn't look any nice and there isn't anything to see; and secondly, because i didn't take any :-P
just this much: the fog is not just fog. it smells bad. it makes your throat itch if you breathe in too much. and it is kinda annoying b/c you don't see anything, especially when you have a guest and wanna take a look at the city :(
so, PLEASE! whenever you come to sofia, leave your car at home. and if you move here: sell it! don't take it here!!! ;)

this saturday - 24th of november, one week after belgrade - came my grandmother to visit me. just me! whoohoo, my first guest!!! considering the above mentioned smog, the best we could do was to escape it at least for one day. thus, to vitosha we went. vitosha is the mountain right by sofia. one of the lifts going up there has closed cabins in which one can ride quite comfortably to aleko peak (hight ~1200m).
surely, i didn't have to organize this excursion myself, nor had my grandmother and i to go there by ourselves. hristiana was a perfect great and wonderful company. thanks again, dear! it was really a great idea to go there and with you together it was at least twice as much fun :o)

i hadn't seen the blue sky for at least half a week, we had a sunny bright day. hadn't it been for the chilly breeze, we would have been sweating up there. it was definitely a lot warmer than down in the center of sofia.


by the way, the following day, monday, the fog lifted a bit, but it started to rain instead. also not perfect for sightseeing. yet, my grandmother and i enjoyed our time a lot. and if anyone else feels like visiting me here: now i know a few really good places to have delicious bulgarian food ;)