spring or no spring?

wooohooo, wuschelmacho is here!
the new semester is still quite lazy, i.e. i don't have too many classes. better for me, cause this way i have more time to enjoy the sunny days of early spring...well, yeah, sometimes i was not quite sure, whether they had really begun. after all, one day we had 20 degrees but already the subsequent night brought snow and cold weather. however, while germany was hit by another wave of snow (i heard you guys had "white easter"), eike and i enjoyed ourselves all afternoon outside - not wearing any jacket!!! (2nd picture)



still, you should know that we did not celebrate easter! it is to early. bulgaria is an orthodox country, so we gotta wait until the last week of april until the cute little bunny hides our eggs....who cares, we are germans, so a kinder surprise was still a must :-P





the following weekend, eike and i went to plovdiv. supposedly, there was a wine fest, but we didn't see much of that. all the same, we had a great time in bulgaria's second biggest town and, of course, had delicious falafel, döner and ice cream (see blog entry a few months ago) and....wuschel just couldn't have enough cocktails (1,60 € a piece).



















meine kleine sonnenanbeterin












in the train heading for plovdiv i finally saw my first storcks this year, so i got rid of my last martenitsas as well!!!! :D

btw: tomorrow, we'll go to greece!!!!!!!!!! just to make you a bit jealous ;)

Martenitsas everywhere

in bulgaria, march is the month of the "martenitsa" - the red in this little charm symbolizes health; white stands for long life (of course, the longer you live the whiter your hair ;)). oh, did i write "little" charm? since i am back in bulgaria after my visit in germany, i see martenitsas really everywhere and in all sizes. of course, typically they are small enough to be worn on your wrist or near the collar of your jacket, but....well, it's all about creativity, right?

so, and these are some "fresh" martenitsas in a bush in veliko turnovo. somewhere earlier i posted a picture with older ones from the previous years - now, more and more fresh spots of red and white are appearing in the trees and bushes all around me. i'm still wearing mine around my wrist, but as we are experiencing increasingly good spring weather, i will start looking for a good tree where to hang them, soon. i'm not expecting to see a storck around sofia anyway, so the green buds and first spring flowers have to be a good enough sign to "get rid" of the martenitsas. :D

last week, my biggest sister and my father where here to visit me. we were mostly really lucky with the weather and it was probably the first time that i really enjoyed walking around sofia - going to the market, to NDK, to shopping streets....only on one day "baba marta" (= granny march) was angry, so it was windy and quite cold. especially in the mountains - as we chose exactly that day to visit my friend Hrissi in bistrica (her village just outside of sofia on the foot of vitosha mountain) and take the lift up the mountain. it was freeeeeeeeeeeezing. however this didn't stop us from smiling (see picture).

on our last day together, my friends Dessi and Philip took us to veliko turnovo - the mediaeval capital of bulgaria. there we spent the whole time walking around the beautiful old town and up the hill to the castle tsarevets and eating (lunch, cake, dinner....). next weekend, on the 22nd of march, it is the "day of veliko turnovo" so maybe i'll go there again - this time with Eike and some friends of mine.....

beautiful turnovo

veliko turnovo is situated on and between three hills. therefore, people say that in the turn there are but three directions to go: up, down or on the stairs :)
though, there is no tourist-friendly part in the city made only for pedestrians, the old town is really beautiful with its small alleys and typical bulgarian houses.

ugly turnovo

tsarevets - the paintings in the church on top of the hill are quite new in a modern-communist style. i quite liked them. something different ;) but as there was a small tourist group inside when we entered, i decided to pay attention to the sign "no photography" and didn't take any pictures.

Wuschelfilzball

heute mal wieder auf deutsch ;)

nach einer klitzekleinen beschwerde über lediglich "dumme hunde- und katzenfotos", folgt hier nochmal eines von meinem letzten berlinaufenthalt aufgenommen von katja bei ihr zu hause (danke, alemala!).
extra für dich, mein wuschelchen!

ich werde übrigens in nächster zeit von besuch nur so überschüttet. morgen abend kommen vater und schwester hier an und bleiben 5 tage. den montag darauf wird auch Eike schon wieder herfliegen. juchuu!!!

über weitere kurse oder vorlesungen für mich habe ich noch nichts herausgefunden, demnach werde ich zumindest nächste woche - hoffentlich - schön viel zeit für ausflüge mit Peter und Gül haben. Europarecht sollte zwar demnächst beginnen, aber....wir werden ja sehen.

nun gut, nächstes mal wieder auf englisch und etwas mehr.

dicken knutsch an meinen schatz!

long time no write...

i've been in sofia for four days now, so it's about time to show some signs of life again.

my 18 days in germany seem to have passed very quickly and despite the worries of some of my bulgarian friends ("i thought you would never come back" - a phrase i have already heard twice in the past few days) i have happily returned to my eastern european home. however, my friends were not completely wrong to believe that i would have had good reason to stay in germany: after almost two wonderful weeks with Eike i miss her even more now than i did before....

on february 15th i flew with a hungarian low-coast airline with more than an one-hour delay from sofia into dortmund. upon arrival, i took a bus to the next train station - holzwickede - and got a cold waiting for the train to cologne or rather bergisch-gladbach, where i spent 3 days visiting my cousins Ella and Ida. i guess, by now i can really say that it has become a tradition for me to go and see them on Ella's birthday. after that i took the train to berlin where i stayed at my mother's until last monday when went back to dortmund with a mitfahrgelegenheit and then with the plane - again with a huge delay - to sofia.

besides seeing family and friends - which is something very pleasant and exciting for me but less interesting for you to read about - nothing much happened during my sojourn in germany. nor did i go out or see as many people as i might have liked: my second weekend in germany, i suffered from an inflammation at my gums due to which i went to see my dentist who discovered a "folikuläre zyste" (now please don't ask for a translation, not even germans will know what it is, unless they have studied dental medicine or had to deal with it themselves). one time out of 1000 it happens that during the removal of ones wisdom teeth the "zyste" (type of skin) remains in the jaw bone and prevents it from growing back together. apparently, the hole in the jaw will even grow bigger over time, thus i was lucky to get the inflammation in this hole as i have already been without wisdom teeth for amost 7 years. to make my fortune even bigger, i got an appointment at the dental surgeon for the following day and had the f***ing piece of skin removed - just imagine this all would have happened in bulgaria. i seriously prefer to have undergone all this in germany (less communication problems, doctors who work without paying them bribes, modern equipment and most of all: no troubles with the health insurance - not that i want say all of these problems would have come up in bulgaria, but it is still better not having to think about such at all).

the surgery was followed by a short faint, one hour recovery in the waiting room scaring all the other patients, and nearly a week without being able to open my mouth very far (i guess some people might have been happy as this also made me talk a bit less), some pain, and a huge cheek (no, there are no pictures of me in this state). that's it.



rocking Ida ;)









FRED - my father's dog (or mine, if you believe what it says in his documents)

back in sofia i am now living with two germans, Martin and Susanne. my former room mates from france have now returned home (Amélie) or to studentski grad (Stéphanie) and the same day my father and sister, who are coming for a visit next week, will leave again, also Susanne is going home to potsdam and new room mates move in. most likely a lithuanian couple studying at the academy for theatre and film for one semester.... (now, it's confirmed: the lithuanians are moving in on the 15th of this month. it's only Vaiva who'll be studying whereas Grazvydas - a saxophone player as i learned during our dinner last friday - is accompanying his girlfriend and will look for some people to play music with....i think they'll make really nice room mates)

now, my second term in sofia is about to start and i have to find once again some classes and lectures that i can attend. apart from that i am anxiously waiting for spring to start and continue with my trips around the balkans....tell you more, soon!

...und zum schluss möchte ich noch ganz lieb meinen wuschelmacho grüßen :-*

Stara Planina - a trip to the past with a modern touch

everything started with a train ticket for 1,30 € to "Lakatnik" a small town in the "stara planina" mountains (also called the "balkan mountains" - yes, that's where the balkans got their name). rozi and i started at a decent 10 a.m., getting off a good 90 minutes later in a little town surrounded by a picturesque landscape.

up there is where we wanted to go. it should have been something like a one and a half hour hike along the rocks up to the cross and the soviet memorial (on the right).

the "eagle's nest" (little hut on the left) is only reachable by climbers....

however, we didn't make it to the top. the weather was beautiful, it was warm, the sun was shining, the path to go up wasn't too steep, but....rozi was afraid of hights. yes, she does often spends some time in the mountains, but this path was very narrow and too close to the abyss. after only 10 to 15 minutes we turned around and went back down. the guy working at this bus station (yes, this is a bus station and it is in function!) had already given us the information where the path to go up started. now, rozi asked again, if there was another way to reach the top or if he could recommend us a hostel, mountain hut or anything else where we could spend the night....

yet, there didn't seem to be anything close by, unless rozi would overcome her fear. thus, we decided to wait for gopa, rozi's boyfriend, who was going to come a few hours later and had some knowledge of the area. the plan was to hitchhike up to the next hostel and go hiking some place else the next day.

while we were waiting for gopa, we had a walk around lakatnik and hiked just a little bit up the mounains. in the end it wasn't so bad we didn't go up to the top - rozi just informed me that a day before yesterday somebody fell and died at that place (though i believe it was a climber, not a hiker).

this pinkish restaurant is at the foot of stara planina, the service is averagely bad, but the shopska salata very tasty ;)

here you can see something quite typical for the balkans. at least i have seen this already in different countries of former youguslavia and also in romania, if i remember correctly. anyway, in bulgaria you will find these posts everywhere, on doors, empty walls of half-destroyed buildings, lamp posts..., informing you about the latest deaths as well as more or less long passed deaths, from 1, 2, 3 and more years previously.
at the beginning i didn't like these notes too much, as i wasn't very comfortable with all the dead people in black and white glaring at me whereever i go. but after a while one simply gets used to them and i mostly ignore them...

well, to go on with my little story about my trip to the mountains: when gopa arrived, it was already starting to get dark and our plan to hitchhike to the next hostel failed since there weren't any cars going into that direction. 18 km of walking was a bit too much considering the already advanced hour. so, instead, we hitchhiked to the next bigger town: svoge - the town of the chocolate (what hershey is to america, svoge is to bulgaria, only not quite as touristy :-P)

in svoge, we asked around to find a place to sleep, though everyone we talked to was really extremely friendly, the first information we received was surprisingly to us negative: there aren't any hotels in svoge. how strange for the home of the bulgarian chocolate...finally, we did find out that there was a little complex at the outskirts of the town consisting of a restaurant, a fitness center and a hotel/hostel. having expected to spend the night in some kind of mountain hut when i left sofia that morning, this night's accommodation proved to be extremely luxurious and a lot more comfortable than imagined. but since we didn't have another choice, we happily took a room being the only guests for that night. also part to the complex was an area with swimming pool and jacuzzi. of course, we couldn't have guessed that when packing our bags, so our only choice was to jump in and enjoy the wet pleasures bare-naked.
the next day, i woke up well rested and happily greeted by a sunny balcony (see above: gopa and rozi enjoying the gorgeous morning), ready to start another day in the nature. this time: bov or "garabov", though the last name just indicates the "gara", i.e. the train station of bov. but what a cute train station!!! ;) seriously, doesn't it look a bit like having gone back some 50 years in time. also the (closed) restaurant behind the train station retained a look as if from grandparents' times...(photo)

bov is the place where the bulgarian writer ivan vasov regularly went to work on his books. therefore, every street in the village is named after him, his books, his characters, etc. we took the "vasovian eco-path" leading up to the waterfall (second to last pic at the left), from where we had a beautiful view over the village and the mountains. so, after all, rozi and i did the hiking in the stara planina mountains, as we had planned, even though not in lakatnik but in bov. and after a long half-lazy, half-adventurous weekend, we returned to good ol' sofia in the early sunday evening.


und zum schluss möchte ich noch ganz lieb meinen wuschelfilzball grüßen

change of seasons

can you believe it? it actually hit me with surprise yesterday (january 29th!!!) when i realized that finally all the christmas decoration has gone. no more shiny trees. no more red and green blinking lights along the bulevards. thinking about it now, maybe this is the reason why the whole xmas season started so much later here than in germany....i mean, if you keep all the deco up until more than a month AFTER xmas.... :-P well, don't worry, even now that the blinking lights are gone, the bulgarians are already preparing some new decoration, so the city will stay colourul: just a moment after i had noticed that the lights on tsarigradsko shosse (correctly it should be spelled "chaussee" but that is hardly recognizable anymore as in cyrillic it is spelled "шосе") had disappeared, i saw that the small kiosks that sell bus tickets, magazines, fashion jewellery and shampoo - everything you may need - started putting out the "martenitsas". a martenitsa is the little red-and-white band that bulgarians give to each other on the first of march as some kind of spring luck charm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martenitsa). let's just hope that spring will arrive just as quickly as the martenitsas increasingly appear in the kioks and stores around sofia.

yesterday, i went to an erasmus party. it was just the second of that kind to which i went and i really enjoyed it. there was a nice mixture of people - old erasmus students (many of which are leaving around now, that's why the party), new arrivals and quite a few bulgarians as well.

here you can see me zipping from a typical bulgarian beer bottle. no, don't worry, i didn't drink the whole 2 litres by myself, nor did i continue to drink directly out of this bottle after the pics....oh, and to evade misunderstandings, there are also smaller 0.5 l - and 0.33 l - beer bottles in bulgaria, but if you if you stock up for a party you'll usually get the bigger sizes around here ;)

btw: this weekend i'll finally get out of the big city again. i'll to lakatnik in the stara planina mountains. sooooooo much looking forward to it!

Besuch...

hey there, everyone!!! although i haven't written in a while, i am still here. still alive. still in sofia. still in cold and snowy bulgaria :)
and i don't even have an excuse for keeping so quiet lately. i haven't been travelling, no more trips since istanbul. and i haven't been extremely occupied with either work or university. i've just been....here! there has however not been happening too much during the past three weeks, nothing much to write long stories about, no adventures to boast about, no jokes to tell...
so, my life has been mostly circling around...

<-- ...my office (or rather the one of my colleague darina. i sit in the same room, but i have far less paperwork on my desk :-P )

<-- ... university (one of the few buildings in sofia that are somewhat attractive....here is nothing really like a beautful city centre...)






...and Eike. yes, i actually do have something to tell. on the outside there hasn't been happening too much, but inside me....everything is going crazy. i am in love and it is wonderful!!! well, i guess, most of you know how that is and i don't wanna go into detail here. just know: i am veeeeeeeeeeery happy!!!

so my beloved guest was the reason why i haven't been up to many exciting adventures. we did go out for some good dinners, though, several times....












....where we had waaaaay too much food, and some good bulgarian beer ;)

















<-- oh, and i re-dyed my hair...

that's about it. now, i am all lonely again. but only three more weeks and i'll be in germany with my sweetheart :D
btw: last week of february i/we will be in berlin, i hope to see some of you there.

ps: schwesterherz, ich hab vergessen die fotos klein zu machen, hoffe du nimmst es mir ned übel *fg*