Anna's will was visiting Romania because it is so close to Sveshtari. We even tryed to measure the distance between two places in Istanbul airport. Somehow this idea reached to others and suddenly whole project members were aware to join with us. It is such a shame that Armenians and Seher couldn't join with us. Visa is so complicated thing! Italians dealed with accommodation, Turks with transport. And in our first free weekend we were ready to discover Romanian capital city. Our first stop was in familiar Ruse. We had an opportunity to exchange lev to leu. I love Romanian money so much, its design is increadibly beautiful. The border wasn't far from Ruse and I thought it would be quick driving over the border, but I was wrong. Two European Union countries but it took so much time to cross the border. We have reached to this point in Europe because of refugees problem. Sad, that those things affects everyday life. I definately adore and appreciate Estonian - Latvian - Lithuanian border way more now. You just drive through, nobody wants to control documents or car. We are also in EU, but we are far from the problem core 😋
When we finally crossed Danube river, it took us about an hour to reach Bucharest. Southen part of Romania was similar to Bulgaria. Of course you can see a difference. Firstly, latin alphabet, no more cyrillic anymore. Secondly, different villages and architecture style. Thirdly, cypsies. Wa had a small problem to find our hostel but at the end everything smoothed well. Our hostel was London-styled and really cosy. And now about the situation that pissed me off. How is it possible that we didn't book a room for bus drivers? And even bigger problem is that I got to know about that brutal incident in Sveshtari from our prof. This kind of things drives me mad, it's not a human way how to act. Okey, Italians didn't book a room, but Turks talked with chauffeur and still didn't do anything. I was quilty as well, I did't ask where bus drivers sleep. This feelings sucks. The city itself reminds me Tallinn because of old town area with bars. For me Bucharest is more beautiful than Sofia. Probably because of all the sights are located really closely. It is easy to find them. Of course it was simple in Sofia as well but there is some kind of impression that creates your opinion on something. And impression of Bucharest, for some unknown reason, was better than of Sofia. After visiting some beatiful buildings all together, we took time off in some kind of Irish eating place. Suddenly our group was diveded in two parts. Mustafa, Görkem and Ana decided to dine somewhere else. After that I went with Spanish guys to visit the parliament house. I didn't want to use a map, my brain navigation system worked pretty well on this time. Antonio didn't believe in my abilities but after our short walk we reached our destination point. We reunioned with Turks and Ana and went back to the old town area. Others ordered some drinks and then there was me. Sitting there and tryed to communicate with everybody. It was weird, I was kind of alone, without Estonians practically first time after 2 weeks time. It means that I couldn't speak in Estonian and I had to communicate woth others. Otherwise, I was used to talk with Anna and Heleri and pretend that our converstaion is so personal that it is impossible to turn it into an English. Even though we were speaking in English it was a safe choice to have Estonians beside you. Somehow I handled the situation. I wouldn't say I did it properly. If I get bored I start to manipulate and my evil side appears. Actually I am all the time bad person, I definately have too much free time 😼 Anyway, if I couldn't talk with Estonians I could write with my Estonian friends. After some drinks we went back to the hostel, stayed some time there and went to the McDonald's. I was schocked! It was pretty late and eating burgers on this time!? Not the healthiest choice. Spanish tryed to convince me that it is OK, but hell no. After fast food stop we started to find others from Bucharest famous beer restaurant. Ana helped us a lot, she asked a way from locals. We briefly went in and concerted our futher plans. We decided to go and order drinks from some kind of Rock bar. I love this place, cheap drinks and tasteful wine. Romanian wine has a genuine wine taste but it's still cheap. I don't know how it is not possible in Bulgaria. Guys ordered shots even stronger ones than absinthe. After a while Mustafa was quite drunk. He took my phone and started to text with my friend. It was interesting conversation and at some point Mustafa started to write in Turkish, though, even Görkem couldn't understand what was written there. Antonio and Hutman left us after a while and Italians & Estonians joined with us. After a refreshing time away from Estonians I still was sincerely happy to meet with Anna again. She totally needed me, I don't know when and where, but she had drunk already enough amount of alcohol. It is risky business if somebody is paying for your drinks. I won't reccomend it. It was my lesson from the night. After helping Anna to recover we continued our journey in Bucharest. We went to the club,s but suddenly part of our group vanished. Well, okey. We went from club to club, dancing like freaks. What happens in club(Bucharest), stays in club(Bucharest) 😆 Nothing really sensentional happened with me but I am solidary and won't publish all the information I have got from others. After another club dancing marathon we had enough with Anna. My brain worked hardly to get us out of the old town. I have never been happier to see Danube river than in this night. From there was really easy to reach our hostel but my legs didn't collaborate with my other body. Few times I really-really wanted to give up and just sit on the bench and not to stand up. Somehow, Anna motivated me and we reached our destination point. It was such a relief. I am proud that GPS-system in my head worked through complicated conditions. I was really afraid that I will forget everything that had happened (like in Sofia), so I wrote all the facts to my friend. In the morning, my first thought was "Do you remeber what happened yesterday?" Guess what? I remembered everything perfectly and it was funny to read my text full of typos. Definately Romanian wine advantage of Bulgarian wine is a fact that you don't lose your memory. Everybody was sleeping on their beds, that was a good sign that everyone maked it to the hostel last night. There was a surprise waiting for us in the bathroom. I started to brush my teeth when I noticed that something is wrong. The sink was broken and I had to brush my teeth on the bathtube, new experience 😅 After bathroom surprise we decided to go in the market with Anna to buy a breakfast. Marketing in Romania is way more homely than in Bulgaria. For example I bought kefir. Classic Estonian drink after rought night. Guilty pleasure. When Heleri was totally awaken we packed our stuff and went on shopping. We visited the main malls and relaxed around the parks. We dined in Carul cu Bere, where girls had their dinner yesterday. Really fancy place with live music. It was so weird to meet with other people. Nobody really wanted to talk about yesterday. Everyone remembered something from their point of view. For me it was funny evening and last time when I felt myself totally free. Our way back to Sveshtari was really sleepy. I don't remember, did Mustafa those "sleeping beaty" photos of Anna from this bus trip or from previous one (on our way back from Rock Churches)
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Let's be honest. My aim has never been learning Bulgarian. Before coming in this slavic country I wanted to develop my Russian, Italian and English. I thought it might be easy. But at the end I only spoke in English and in Estonian. I thought it would be easy to speak with locals in Russian but hell no. It made everything so complicated. I am not really confident speaking in Russian and I was really confused every time when somebodie tryed to speak with me in that language. Sometimes I couldn't even recognize is it Russian or Bulgarian. So using Russian was my last option. I would like to say to myself, Eleri, study more this language but sad story is that I have Russian lessons only 2 weeks more. And then I might never study it again. This is my story with Russian but let's continue.
My second wish was to practise Italian. First weeks in Italy I tryed to speak in Italian, actually Quirino and Giuseppe tryed. If they gave up there wasn't even any point for me to start conversations in Italian. Actually this project was kind of developing my language skills. I have never been understanding Italian more than in our Greece trip. After that my language level was decreasing. And at the end "Non ho capito un cazzo!" Again, funny story, where am I now? I am still listening Italian music but I don't even pay attention to the lyrics anymore. I don't care about what they are singing, like 3 years ago. I can't say that Italian is past for me, I spent months to study this language. I rarely read something from Italian media or watch films. And I swear in Italian, even my classmate does it 😊 My English level is good but it can be definately better. My peers Engish level is even on C2 (Tsau Siim) level. Mine is hopefully B2. Anyway, I had a long journey to go and still have. EVS seemed to be a good language experience. Easy way how to develop your language skills. I have now more courage to start a conversation in English. Even thought all the errors I had speaking with others. It is really hard to express yourself as you are used to do in your mother tongue. My vocabulary has widen thanks to the project, grammatically I can't promise I got new knowledge but it was a good practise after all. Whilst, I started writing blog in English, it might help me even more. And again I am aware that I make a lot of mistakes. Important is an idea not an accomplishment 🙃 I helped Hutman and Seher with English learning. I promoted application Duolingo, where you can easly achieve basics at different languages. Hopefully it helped them learning English and Marat learning Italian. Marat also had private language lessons with Italian guys. Even though my aim wasn't learning Bulgarian I used the opportunity to get know with this language. First lessons were with Tsvety. Get to know with alphabet and basic expressions in two divided groups. People who knows Cyrillic and who doesn't. But then Tsvety left, which made my life complicated, but it is an another story. Rashed took over the lessons. We learned about everyday items, food, our work and travelling. I skipped the last class because I was too tired to wake up and learn something. But the class took place under our balcony and the balcony door was open. Probably my unconscious still heard those words and they are somewhere in my brain. The most eager learner was Quirino, he even learned Cyrillic before coming in Bulgaria. He tryed to speak with locals at every appropriate moment. Spanish guys had the hardest life. Everybody has their inner Spanish living there, because Spanish is so known language that even Estonians have learned it from telenovelas or from more professional way. Italians understood Spanish especially well. So, it was impossible to backbite somebody in front of other nations. There was always an opportunity that somebody might understand. And then we have Estonians who put on their poker face and talk about everything they want because nobody anyway doesn't understand. It is an advantage being Estonian. But if you teach others your language curse words you have no mercy. Every time you swear, somebody notices it and exhort you. Funniest moment of that was Marat reaction who asked why we are saying "Artura" all the time, instead we were saying "türa". Хайде, xайде! Before we had arrived in Bulgaria we had to discuss what we are going to prepare for cultural evenings. It was a hard task. All the things we though to make were not really good best before date, so we couldn't bring all those ingredients. And actually we couldn't make consensus, Estonian foods are not the tastiest one and we didn't want to shock foreigners with those flavours. Then we decided to bring snacks and sweets with us. I bought 1 kg Kalev candies and 900 g chocolate with me. Anna bought dried fishes and other sweet and salty snacks, so did Heleri. We tryed really hard to figure out what we should prepare for this evening. We even googled Estonian national food 😆 We understood that our cooking habits in Estonia is not really related with our national dishes. At least I don't eat Estonian foods at home. If you have no how idea how to cook for 30 people it makes everything much more complicated. Plus the fact that it is impossible to find right ingredients from Bulgarian trade. At least we decided to let main dish cooking for Turkish ladies and make a dessert. Our plan was to make Estonian food day.
In the morning we made "kama". In the afternoon we offered Estonian candies, chocolate and different types black bread. Probably we offered it in the evening as well, or only in the evening with the garlic sauce. I can't remember really well anymore. And finally in the evening we offered our cake and Vana Tallinn liqueur that Anna brought from Estonia. Rashed already has tasted it because Estonians always try to promote it. I am happy that even Antonio who doesen't drink alcohol tryed it. I am also glad that cake tasted well even though difficulties we had making it. I have no idea how it is possible that but in Bulgaria they not sell normal cookies. All cookies are weird. It's always problem when you travel away from Baltics. You don't have Kalev or Selga in the stores. I am not even going to talk about milk products. They are all different from our ones. But it was deffinately our fault that we shouldn't make ourself clear in Estonia that we want to prepare cookie cake and buy cookies from there. We spent hours in the kitchen to make that cake Estonian music playing in the backround. I was really done after being in the kitchen, I was so tired that fell asleep and when Heleri and Anna tryed to wake me up to decorate the cake I still didn't want to enter in the kitchen. I continued my power nap and woke up before the dinner. It was rude to let others finish the cake? Maybe but I am not the best cook and I better let others deal with that. It was such a relief when our cultural evening was over. Almost all other countries had already had their evenings. It put us even more pressure on but at the end the most important thing is that we did it. I really liked Turkish food and thanks to our cooks we had an opportunity to eat this kind of food more times. Interesting was Armenian evening. I love those stuffed grape leaves and quiz about Armenian architecture. We tryed so hard with Anna to remember all those names. Fortunately it payed off and Anna won. Wohoooo. What to say about Italian evening? We all know the story that you can't find right ingredients from Bulgarian shops. Well, yes it might be true but this excuse doesn't make food tastier. But everything wasn't so bad, tiramisu tasted good. Sangria made Spanish night perfect 😙 Seher can make miracles in the kitchen. It was nice that she helped Ana with Romanian foods. I didn't take any photos of cultural evenings. But I still have one culinary photo 😂 |
AuthorJust another confused youth. Archives
November 2017
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