The Agean Sea

Thursday, May 21

Today we cruised on the Agean Sea off of Greece. We left at 7 AM for a 2 hour bus ride to the coast. It was really pretty seeing the countryside! The point of the cruise was to view Mount Athos, an island where over a thousand monks live in Monasteries. It was really impressive to see all of the buildings from the boat. The island is really protective of the monk's lifestyle, and only allow 10 visitors a day.

We boarded the boat at 9 AM and sat for an hour. We all went to the top level of the boat because we wanted the sun, but we were joined by a huge group of Swiss people that were all over the age of 60. They got really annoying really quick... A couple of them got pretty drunk and found it REALLY funny when they fell or stepped on my foot (I was by the stairs) the 3 times...They really thought it was funny when I got pooped on by a sea gull too...They had fed these birds for the entire 3 hour cruise. It was like they had never seen a sea gull before! They pointed and laughed when the poop fell right on my chest. I got right up and went and cleaned myself in the bathroom, and didn't go back up to the top level.

After getting done with the cruise, Chandler and I went to a fruit stand for a banana and pear for lunch. We walked a ways down the island to get away from the crowd of people and got in and swam for a little while in the ocean. It was cold, but the water was so clear! We then decided to walk to the dock where the boats were and jump off with a bunch of the local kids. It was a blast!

The trip back was pretty quick, since everyone slept a little! Dinner was a really fun experience that also. We went to a big place with another rival restaurant neighboring the sidewalk. We walked up and the waiters fought over us and we decided to sit down at one of the places. We ended up getting one of the owners as our waiter, and he was a bundle of energy. He talked us into getting a huge family style dinner. We got 5 appetizers for 9 people consisting of 2 salads, 2 potato dishes, cucumber sauce, bread and spicy cheese dip! He then brought out two huge meat platters that we all shared that had sausage, chicken, pork, ribs, and 2 other meats I didn't know to make up the platter. It was awesome! After that we paid the check, which was less than 10 Euros per person and left like 15% tip since we didn't want to deal with change. He came back and thanked us for our generosity, and said he was bringing us dessert on the house. The guy brings back two huge things of ice cream with doughnut holes on the side and our group devoured them pretty quick! Someone cleared the table, and the guy came back with another round of ice cream...We ate it and just left because we were so stuffed! It was a great dinner experience and I think we will be going back!

A whole week in Greece!

Greece is a pretty great place, apart from the nasty allergans, smoke everywhere and diesel, but this is the same throughout Europe.

Monday, May 18
We arrived in Greece after a 6 hour bus ride Monday afternoon. After getting our bus tickets back to Sofia for next week, had had the hell march to the hotel. We walked 3/4 of a mile on a single person sidewalk next to the kingston pike equivalent with lots of buses, while lugging our bags and luggage. I decided to take a girls extra bag because I only had one...but what a mistake! We arrive in the hotel nasty and sweaty as anything to find a pretty decent hotel, no internet though...We went out after an hour of recovering to tour Thessaloniki. It is a port city with a huge harbor and lots of industrial shipping. There are no beaches though...


Tuesday, May 19
Tuesday morning Chandler and I ran for a really good long run, about 35 minutes or 5 miles throughout Thessaloniki. After a shower and breakfast, we went to a huge complex at a company named Helexpo. They are a huge business convention center, attracting 6000 business to showcase products and over 700,000 people. This was the coolest business part by far, as the head of International Relations spoke to us for around an hour, in very clear english. After Helexpo, we walked back toward the port, because Dr. Elenkov told us he had been back there "many times." We got kicked out by the military and walked some more to find locked gates and refusals. After this we went to the hotel to rest, and I went to Starbucks to try out the internet access. After starbucks we walked around the markets and got a kilo of strawberries for 2 euros and ate them all, and bought bananas. On our way back after dinner, we saw a huge protest with lots of police re-directing traffic. It was apparently telecom workers protesting low wages and poor benefits. Overall it was a pretty good day, but Greece's heat and bad allergies stink!
Wednesday May 20,
Dang the European culture, smoke in every square "meter" is the entire continent...Greece is apparently in bloom also because my eyes have not stopped watering the past two days and last night I woke up with snot on my face and neck with both nostrils filled with European crapping pollen snot.

On a happier note, Greece is absolutely beautiful! I had the opportunity to hike up the old castle in Thessaloniki today after visiting the Byzantine museum. It was quite the hike, but totally worth it. I got some great pictures of various sights such as the entire city of Thessaloniki, the ocean, and an ancient castle surrounding us. We hiked a little further to the inner castle which had been coverted into a prison up until a hundred years ago. The wall was pretty incredible too because it had really random blocks making up the composition. There were bricks, mortar, broken pillars and random blocks with ancient inscritptions on them. It was pretty cool because we saw an own in one of the crevaces. It was the first wild owl I have ever seen in the daytime!

After climbing down from the castle we went back to the hotel around 4. We hung out and had a good dinner. Chandler and I went for a run at starbucks and then ran out of time sending emails...:(

Mount Vitosha in Bulgaria

Today we hiked a mountain. Mount Vitosha is the mountain with snow on it that can be seen from Sofia. After a 45 minute bus ride up the mountain, we got out to check things out. It turned out that the ski lift was turned off, so we decided to hike the mountain. Since only the crew (Me Chandler, Robert and Meredith) went along with the two professors, we all hiked up for a good 5 minutes. We all took pictures and Chandler and I decided to hike up further. We lost our shirts since it was 65 degrees, and it made for some pretty cool pictures since we were hiking in snow! I was suprised there was still snow, especially with the highest peak of the mountain being only 7500 ft.

There were some really cool flowers covered the mountain. I would like to have seen the mountain in two weeks because there were lots of blossoms everywhere. After hiking Chandler and I went for another fun run and workout at the local playground. We all went out to get lamb sandwich and ice cream. We are leaving to head to Greece pretty early tomorrow, so I will be going to be early tonight! Maybe I will get to see Emily in Greece...

Friday and Saturday

Friday was pretty uneventful, so I will leave it short. We went to speak to the Bulgarian Industry Administration and Economic Reform, which was really good for the first part. The first guy spoke enough English to get his point across. We spoke about how Bulgarian business works and what needs to be done improve the growth of GDP and what. The second guy that spoke was pretty boring, as he spoke about Bulgarian history, and his translator spoke too quietly to actually here...

After leaving the government building we walked back to the hotel, which was a good two miles or so, stopping to see the President of Bulgaria's building/home, and a few other important buildings. We had a 30 minutes discussion and were blown away by what we were supposed to have learned already... I hope our final isn't as detailed as the discussion was!

After our discussion we went out into the town and went to a market where I bought some stuff and we headed back for dinner and ice cream. I have taken a liking to the local ice cream that the street vendors sell! We ate it in the park and came back around 9. The best part to the night was being able to talk to Emily on skype. What a great invention!!!

Saturday
We traveled to a town where Bulgaria gained its independence. We learned about their George Washington sort of fellow. They battled the Turks in 1878 and became independent. We met up with a group of students who were 16 and 17 all studying English and they showed us around the city. We hiked part of the way up a big hill to see the statue of an important person, and decided to hike into the woods some more, it was awesome!

After coming back from the trip we went to the mall and bought some fruit and had some delicious pizza! I ate half and will eat the rest tomorrow for a meal. We are going to the top of a mountain tomorrow, I am pumped about the snow that is supposed to be there!

Museum of Natural History

Today we went to learn that Bulgaria is the 3rd as the richest country in the world with it's national treasure. It is only behind greece and italy. We visited the National Museum, and I will say, I was extremely impressed. I am normally not very attentive at museums, but this one was awesome. There was some really impressive "treasure" such as some gold from 10,000 BC, some great entricate gold artifacts and whatnot. I was not able to take pictures, but I am sure they are online somewhere...

After that we went to Sofia University, where we spoke with someone in the Arts and Sciences Department. I think he was the president or director or something. It was hot in the room, and we had just eaten, so it was really hard to stay awake...

After barely staying councious, we went to the Cathedral. It was pretty stunning, but had nothing on some of the Cathedrals I saw in Spain!

Wine Tasting at FIAL

Today we went to visit a friend of one of the professors, Tzvetko Stoimenov. He is the president and CEO of FIAL Bulgaria. They are the makers of cosmetic supplies, dairy products such as laughing cow cheese, and expensive wines.

We first went to an apartment complex, where the company's offices were located. I thought it was strange the the office of a major company being in an apartment flat, but apparently they are building a new building strictly for the business somewhere. Mr. Stoimenov spoke to us about his role and what FIAL does. He spoke in Bulgarian the whole time, and Dr. Elenkov translated. After his speech, we went to his winery, which was a two hour bus ride away. We had some wine and laughing cow cheese.
After the visit we went to a small town fr lunch. The ride was pretty amazing, as we were nestled in the valley between the Balkans and another huge mountain range. We got to this restaurant at the foot of the Balkans and it is probably the nicest restaurants I have ever eaten at! We had 5 courses of food! We were put in an akward position because we were expected to eat all 5 courses and pay for the entire meal, even if we didn't touch the food. The meal was more expensive than most of us had budgeted for a couple of days...

So the first course we had a salad with iceberg lettuce, duck meat, parmesan cheese, and small orange slices with a vinaigrette dressing. The second course was uncooked salmon with mixed minced veges underneath. It was ok, but the fish would have been much better if it was uncooked! Third, we had goose livers were alright. They tasted pretty good, but knowing they were livers and the texture and consitency made it disgusting. Our last meat course was pork sirloin which was a little dry, but pretty good. The last course of our meal was an amazing slice of cake. It was a triple layered while cake, one of which was a peach layer! We also had fruit purees to drink, mine was peach. This meal would have been over $100 in USA, but was only 40 lev (around $33)!


We drove back with the mountains on each side only to be frustrated with our computers for 45 minutes. Bulgarian wi-fi is not very good...Good day overall though!

May 12 and 13th in Bulgaria

Bulgaria, what a place!

So we have been very busy with lots of activities taking up the majority of our days.

May 12-Rila Monastery - We went up in the mountains in a two hour bus ride (tiny busy, 15 people, bad AC in hot Bulgaria is just bad...) The one thing about Bulgaria is the stunning landscape. Their are two large mountain ranges near Sofia- the Rila mountains and Balkan mountains.

They are high enough to still have snow on the peaks, even though it has been in the mid 80s.

So our trip was to a Monastery, which was built in the 7th century or so. It had been burned down quite a few times, but has housed thousands of monks and pilgrams in times of war and whatnot. We had a guided tour of the Monastery and spoke with a monk for a moment. The coolest part was the massive kitchen, that has been elected as one of the seven wonders of the world.

The best part was the lunch. We stopped back down half way down the mountain by a little river formed the valley we were driving in. We had a fantastic meal of a salad of tomatos and cucumbers, and a trout that had been caught earlier that day, grilled, served whole of course!



I am off to bed for, I will update May 13th tomorrow morning.