Update on this here bloggo: I am back in Canada and busy as hell as it is September and Cinema Politica and school have started up in a big way. Therefore, I will be trying to post a new blog about once a week, and will most likely do it on weekends. I have one more travel dispatch from Bulgaria to write and post, involving a certain wedding that took place in Sofia, expect that on Saturday. Thanks for hanging in there…
So, after some insane incidents (including Svetla not being allowed to leave Bulgaria with me last Thursday) I am back in Canada. As the work I have ahead of me presents itself in the form of nightmarish hallucinations of piles of paperwork, endless emails and swirling dollar signs connected to melting credit cards, I am comforted by the Bulgarian attitude: don’t stress, it’s not worth it. So alas, I must keep writing this here blog and not think of it as work, but perhaps an outlet for stress. Ah, I…read more
Where to start? I have been without internet access now for almost a week, so apologies for the delay in this latest travel dispatch. After Svetla and I climbed back down the mountain we spent a couple of days in Sofia seeing some beautiful buildings, some dating back to the time of the Romans. Churches, Halls, Mausoleums, and other incredible sights are found all over this historical city. After some walking around and visiting with some of Svetla’s several hundred friends here, we packed our bags and climbed aboard a…read more
OK, so here’s the deal, I’ve been writing several new and exciting blog entries to upload to the site, but technology has been failing me and time schedules have been working against me. I can’t upload my dispatches until I go to the one internet cafe we’ve found that works for my laptop, then things will get going. We’re leaving Sofia on Wednesday so tomorrow, Tuesday, I will post two dispatches with photos, then finish up with the last few from Canada. After that, I will return to my eratic…read more
The next day of the mountain adventure, we got up at 10 AM and packed up the camp. The rowdies who had stayed up until 5 AM couldn’t be stirred to get up and join us, so the four of us (Svetla, Hristo, Vera and myself) put our packs on and started up the rocky trail that follows the path of the icy river. Hristo and Vera had given Svetla and I decent packs to use, and while I was appreciative, the pack that I ended up with was pretty…read more
When Svetla’s friends Hristo (pronounced Christo) and Vera invited us for a little “hike up a mountain,” I expected both the hiking part and the mountain to be somewhat “little.” As it turns out, it is Monday and I am not yet fully recovered from a two day, 13 hour (of solid hiking/climbing), chilly, beautiful and breathtaking (figuratively and literally) adventure. It all started Friday night when Hristo and Vera picked us up in their car at Svetla’s parents. We were leaving late, and from what they were telling me,…read more
Day three in the crazy city of Sofia and all is well (<em>the picture to the left shows the efforts of the Sofia municipality to get sustainable as well as to get in the EU</em>). We’re in an internet café that is big, bright and playing the Canadian singer Feist on the soundsystem, reaffirming this whole globalization thing once again. I’ve had a bit of a culture shock from laid back Utrecht to frenetic Sofia. People drive here like it’s the last trip of their life, and seem intent on…read more
Goodbye to Utrecht’s creepy bunny statue (left) – we’ll miss you! It’s been three days since the last entry, normally we’re more on top of the blogging, but due to our travel from Utrecht to Sofia, we couldn’t send a dispatch. And now that we are indeed in Sofia, Bulgaria, the dispatches may become a little more infrequent (as in, not daily) – as we have some pretty wonderful plans for Jazz Festivals in the mountains, treks to Byzantine and Roman ruins, and visits to the beautiful beaches of the…read more
A Dispatch post from my partner in crime, Svetla: Alas, I finally discovered Holland. Criss-crossed by algae-green canals, covered from end to end by endless, grassy, cow-friendly fields and gently sunken into the calm of the cloudy sky, Holland feels like a quiet yet remarkably vibrant hideaway. The omnipresence of water itself is appeasing and rejuvenating while the beautifully adorned little houses embody the orderly, adept and truly serene Dutch way of life. The only problem is the Dutch didn’t know we were coming, and our bacchanalia in Amsterdam along…read more
In a recent spat of protests of white males who drive Hummers (WMWDH), tempers flared and anger rose to the point that the mainstream media had to search for “arab looking Canadians” in the bystander crowd to photograph and subtly connect to rioting and violence. The Hummer owners marched down the streets of several Alberta and Texas communities chanting “Hummers are Hungry! Israel must be stopped!” in an apparent reactionary stance to the recent IDF bombing of a power station in Lebanon which has led to 35,000 tons of oil…read more