This trip was unexpected. It was our first free day and fortunately it was planned from our hosting organisation. First week on the strange country, so it was good to explore it with locals. We had started our journey with two minibuses and our destination was kind of unknown. We knew the cities names but if you have no idea what is behind the name it doesn't help a lot. Our first stop was next to the highway, there is located Razgrad regional historical museum. Really cool place, I adore interactional and playful exhibition there. You can gather facts and information through unusual methods. For example I tryed to solve mosaic puzzle and suddenly appeared Quirino who took time how much time does it take to me 😆 We saw a lot of Thracians treasures and that raised our motivation a lot. In museum area was also a open-air area. I hanged around with Anna and randomly we were in the field picking flowers. I found poppy, it was so beautiful that I didn't want to throw it away, so I found a place where to hold it 😝 After our ride through small mountain villages we reached our second destination point Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo. We had a light lunch there and place itself seemed touristic. But it was great nature there. Again we had to climb up from stairs. It's weird to think that years ago munks lived in those caves and climbing there was part of their everyday life. Paintings were interesting and view from the cave was so beautiful. We had an opportunity to discover more that place. Weather has changed because in Razgrad it was a little bit cloudy but here it was hot as hell. Fortunately or unfortunately up the hill it was super windy. It was refreshing but it was bad a decision to conquer mountains with dress 😆 I did my best to control my dress, I was like Marilyn Monroe fighting with the wind. But this view there was breathtaking. Nice place to take new Facebook and Instagram photos. I like that my phone refused to work with photographer and on most of photos I have double head or hand. When I walked down I saw a lot of lizards, another cute creatures in this world. When we were waiting for anothers it was just a hell standing there, even in the shadow the temperature was high. This mountain trip was a challenge to Anamaria because she is afraid of high. It was so proud of her still walk up and join with us. Our last itinerary destination was Ruse. City next to Romanian border and Danube river. Ruse is more pleasant city than Sofia. Ruse is small and beautiful, people are quiet and modest. It was still warm outside when we had arrived. But always there is a solution to your problem. Cappy did their advertisement on the street and people handed out free ice-cold orange juice. What a kind act. I love shopping in Bulgaria. In every town you can find cheap shops. Bulgaria is shopaholics paradise. We used the free time to visit China shop, cosmetics store and second-hand shop. What a shopping experience after a wearying cultural day.
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Backround information that I found from Internet: The comment here on Eleri meaning "Overflowing Happiness" is the only example of the name's meaning that I have seen on the web. Most sites state that it means "greatly bitter", another says it means "overflowing", yet another site said it meant "enough" and others just simply state that it is the name of a river in Wales or the name of one of Brychan's daughters... I did find a story that stated that the name of the river came from the story of a water nymph who fell in love with a shepherd boy that ended up dying and that, in her grief, she cried the river. Therefore the name means "overflowing sorrow". I would like to add that on our Greece trip a Cyprus businessman said that my name means "come here" but I didn't find anything that proves that from the Internet. I am used that my name is not easy to remember and pronounce. Even Estonians are not really confident to pronounce my name. So, obviously I won't get mad if foreigners mispronounce it. It's always funny to see people struggeling with my name. One thing is how to pronounce it, second one is how to remember it. Everybody knows that Marat has an excellent brain. In on-arrival training he named all the participant's names and then he reached to me and Heleri ... silence. Even professor was strugelling on the second working week with our names. Third struggeling part is Eleri and Heleri. Who is who? You say Heleri but you mean Eleri and vice versa. Funniest thing is that even Anna called me Heleri for weeks. It supposed to be easier to her but nope. Actually I reacted every time when somebody sayed something similar to my name. And you can always solve a problem giving a person a new name. For example Elari, Ilaria, Jüri or Jürka. Why do I use name Eleri Baci? Because Baci sounds a bit like my last name and it looks better than my own name. Actually my surname sounds even more like word "pazzi". I also have a story with word "baci" when I was in Italy for a first time. Our guide recommended us to buy Baci products and she told us the word meaning. From that moment I realised that it's not the best idea to tell my surname to Italians, they may mishear it. For now I have made my fear part of my everyday life. That's why most of my accounts are named so. Mustafa told me that this word has also meaning in Turkish.
Baci - kisses (Italian); rude sister (Turkish) Pazzi - insane/grazy people (Italian) Our first working day wasn't really a working day. It was introductive day to Thracians history. We had breakfast with people from Switzerland. It was a pleasant surprise that we are going to work with university students. Because they knew how to work with those tools and guided us. On the other hand it was a bad thing because we didn't have enough work to do but this is an another story. At first we went to a Thracians tomb, where a tourist bus just has arrived, so it is bigger touristic attraction than somebody can expect from this little village. Prof talked us why Thracians were located just here and told us other interesting facts. Then we drove uphill to see a panoramic view. We visited medieval village and an old oak, everything was overgrown, but we were told that we are going to clean it up later in our project.
Next we went to Demir Baba Teke. Our bus parked next to an excavations, but it wasn't our working place. There were also camping places and local people spent their free time grilling there. There were running cold spring water, really refreshing. We went downstairs, a lot of stairs to step by 😀 The place itself was peaceful, little frogs were swimming around and the forest was surrounding the building. I entered to the mausoleum, it was interesting, I have never visited church like this kind of athmosphere. There were stange people praying in language I couldn't recognize. The weird clothes I saw, broken floor and the ancient smell inside, this all made me escape from this room. Those birds flying in and out was like in my childhood when swallows had a nest in my countyside's stable. Anyway it was a weird experience. Outside there was a wall and if you can walk few meters eyes closed and reach to the wall fingers in the holes your soul is innocent orsm? I didn't try it but it was entertaining to watch how others do it. I think Chiara hasn't done anything bad in her life because she hit those holes. I think my problems started from those stairs there. As I said a lot of steps, enough time to speak with somebody. But it was also a good task, we walked upstairs faster than others with Anna and we made ourself different work out tasks on the stairs. Good way to fill time when you are waiting for others. Later we came back to the tombs. We saw a not very well preserved tomb and we visited one covered tomb inside, it was so cool. It's always fascinating to see things that others can't. We also had an opportunity to visit most famous Thracians tomb but we were too big group, so we had to divided into 2 parts. We were outside waiting for another group and I was observing creatures who looked like chipmunks. They were sooooooo cute, running from a hole to another one. I really wish I could make one of those cute animals to my pet ☺️ It was also informing time while waiting there. Rashed told that Sveshtari is one of the hottest place in the summer and the coldest one in the winter. So, this area has a rough climatic location. By the way we picked some mint with Anna near to the tomb to make some tea. We dryed it in our room, it was a fantastic period because our room had home scent. Everybody knows that Estonians are gatherers, because most of us collect berries, herbs, mushrooms and vegetables by our own. In today's society it is so much easier to go into a market and just buy mint tea. Once again, I want to apologise to all the people who were with me in the bus when we were driving to Sveshtari. When I gave a Tarkan's CD to the bus driver I had no idea he is going to play it 5 times a row. I bought this album from Istanbul airport and I just wanted to listen it for a first time, but yeah it turned out badly. Anyway, trip to Sveshtari was nice. It was cool to get out of the city and see how Bulgaria really looks like. Near to the Sofia there were a lot of mountains and tunnels, like in Italy. But suddenly there were only sunflower fields. Aaah, they are so beautiful, another thing you can never see in Estonia. Our bus driver is a little bit grazy was my first thought. But this grazy driving style is so Bulgarian that right now it doesn't bother me anymore. But it was a little bit scary then. Cultural differences. At first you are scared but after a while you love them. I was awake during the whole bus driving time. I repeated words from my Italian copybook and time flyed really fast. We had a 6 hours trip From Sofia to our working place, so it was needful to take a break to eat and move a bit. So we had a little break in gas station. It was really modern place, I was a little bit surprised again. But yeah, this gas station was really European. There was possibility to order food, so there were menus in English and in Bulgarian. We tried with Anna to learn new Bulgarian words comparing the menus. It was kind of pointless because after an hour we didn't remember anything, at least we tried 😉 We had our next stop in Bulgarian previous capital city Veliko Tarnovo. We hadn't had much time there but we saw the city main attractions. Unfortunately my phone battery was dead, so I couldn't take any pictures but fortunately Anna sent me her photos. It was extremely hot day and the sun was burning, so it was so much better idea to stay in the air-conditioned bus. We had a luch there and there was a TV show "Kuzey Güney". It was kind of preparation for arriving in a Turkish village. Another 3 hours of driving to reach our destination place. I thought about my life during driving there. Firstly about last night, even though I didn't remember much I collected information from others. I tryed to figure out what is going to happen in these 2 months and after our project but I hadn't had an idea how my life really turned out. I came out of the bus and I had no expectations about that place. It was impossible to find a lof of information about Sveshtari on the Internet for example on the Google Street View. I went directly to the hostel and didn't look around, so I didn't have any impressions. We had an opportunity to select our rooms and roommates. For us it was clear that we want to be all Estonians together. They showed us room upstairs but there were only two beds, we also looked two another rooms. It was a mess to organize the rooms system but at the end we still got the room upstairs. Actually we won like a lottery because this room has a lot of advantages. But it is another story. At first we had a trouble. We had 2 beds and 1 couch and we thought that somebody have to sleep on that one, so I made 3 paper rolls and one of them had a pen mark inside. Anna got the marked paper and she had to sleep on the broken couch. Fortunately, boys brought us a new bed and they carried out our two useless couches. We changed our room furniture location a lot to make a space for our suitcases. We had so cool plans how to decorate our room with flowers and stuff but they stayed only as ideas. It was an evening to get use to with the new situation.
It all started really randomly. In May I saw an offer to participate in EVS project. I applied for, had a skype interview and suddenly I was part of archaeological excavations. There were also two more Estonians Anna and Heleri. We had been talking for weeks but we met each other few weeks before our trip to Bulgaria. We had a preparative meeting but we didn't talk there much with each other, you know the Estonians thing. But I think that after two flights to Sofia we already knew each other pretty well. We had great time eating lokum in Istanbul airport and I was next to Heleri when she had her first flight. We arrived when the sun was setting. Our luggage came last and we were the last ones who came from "arriving section". There were Diliana and Spanish guys waiting for us. They were a little bit worried about us, because we were late. So, at first we met with Antonio, Hutman and Mommo. We got our first city tour, but it was pretty dark outside. I remember lightened buildings and that weird atmosphere, the feeling that something new and exciting has begun. Only few moments more and I'll see all the people I have to live with 2 months. We drived to our hostel but nobody was there, everybody were eating outside. We hadn't had much time to stay in our room, because we got invation to eat kebab. Then I saw more tha city: people, buildings and dogs. I was a little bit shocked because I haven't seen so many street dogs before. But Anna said that things in Istanbul are even worse. It was the first big cultural difference I had in Bulgaria. But that's the main aim for EVS, to learn cultural differences. When we came back from the eating place there were a lot of people, Turkish, Romanians and Armenians. I think everybody introduced themselves but it was really hard to remember their names and nations. It was one of the reasons why me and other Estonians went in our terrace and chit-chatted for a while. We didn't want to go to sleep and it was easier to communicate with people from your own country in your mother tongue. So did the other participants. On the next day we had an exhaustive city tour. We visited the touristic places and so on. We went there by subway, I really like this transport type because in Estonia we don't have subways. I am really grateful for the people who started communication with me. Because for me it is really hard to start conversation with strangers. Then I got to know that one Romanian can't participate, so we had 9 girls and 9 boys in our project. We also had a free time to dicrover Sofia on our own. Then it happened first time and I really didn't know how to act. I think Heleri had the same feeling. It was the first time when Anna fell over. At first I thought it was because of her high heels but life has shown that just her personal peculiarity. It was the lesson two, people are different and you have to consider with that fact. In the evening arrived other Italians, because Giuseppe was already there. In the evening was Italy and Germany football game and after our dinner we had an opportunity to go and see the game on the big screen in open-air place. I don't know why but I gave myself a promise that I learn Italian anthem by heart. Probably because it was so cool to see Italian football fans singing and supportinmg their team. By the way I didn't learn the anthem because I didn't have so much motivation in these 2 months. Anyway, Italy lost the match and finally all the participants had arrived. I think the alcohol thing started from that night because I drank somebody's wine and after Anna and Heleri gave me zips of their cider. It was nothing but it was the beginning of my drinking in Bulgaria. I can't tolerate drinking and driving and these kind of stuff but it's not a bad thing to relax a little bit, so I don't know what to say 😏 On the next day we had our first on-arrival training day. We got to know each other more. We learned our names and it was funny because it's really hard to remember names that you have never heard before. Nobody remembered mine and Heleri's names. What a surprise 😆 I still remember Quirino's face when he heard our names. He thought it is some kind of princess name. On the training we learnt about EVS and we did a lot of group work. I would say that this training was like my school day. You take lessons and do group work. We made a song about our project, other group did an act, a story and a drawing. It was really unique song, a Christmas song melody and lyrics that describe our project work. In our song team we had Heleri, Quirino, Hutman and Antonio. Me and Heleri had the singing role. At first I was a little bit nerveous but actually it wasn't so scary. I remember only fragments of the song and they also may be wrong. Searching golds, finding bones Hoping for a ... Together here, drinking beer Making atmoshphere It was extremely hot day and my fan was a really useful thing. Unfortunately I broke it on the excavations but I bouth a new one from Varna. Everobody was sweating but at least we had warm evenings to hang out. I was again drinking, this time more. I ordered mohijoto and later in the club Italians bought us ciders. After that I felt a little bit tipsy. I have no idea why I am writing it, probably I will delete this drinking part later because I am a decent girl after all. Something interesting happened in this night. Girls and boys rooms were next to each other. And our room windows were next to boys balcony, so Anna heard facinating story. They were talking about girls. I don't want to comment it anymore but it was kind of rude. I know guys talking style but it was unpleasant story. On the last day in Sofia we also had on-arrival training. This time it was a little bit easier because we knew each other more. And it eas really nice to be a popcorn and pop around the room. We had an opportunity to visit Billa shop and they are selling Estonian coctails there. Ofcourse I bought them and my first Bulgarian wine. We were waiting for others from the shop with Anna when we saw two rots running beside a river. It was also an interesting moment, I have never seen rots out of animal shop. We all ate at a local restaurant and after that others went to the club or pub. We went back to the hostel with Anna. Suddenly weird car stopped near us, I was freaked out, it was so unexcepted. Luckily nothing bad happened and the scary moment probably had something to do with my immagination. In the hostel we listened to weird Estonian music and we also got to know Bulgarian music and music videos. Their music videos are indescribable. It was so funny, especially video that Mustafa showed us. Blue Lagoon had the beautiful look and regardless the super sweet taste even foreigners liked it. We were in the kitchen but at some point we were in the teracce talking with others. Then I bought my wine and after that I have blanks in my memory. I remember that I walked with my pink slippers, I had white pants and in the morning I saw purple wine splotch on them. Wonderful, I still have ligh yellow marks on them, but it is really hard to see them. I probably made one of my biggest mistakes in my life in this evening, I tried to sing L'essenziale. I can't remeber it clearly but I can assure that it was horrible. It is really difficult song + I wasn't able even to search for the lyrics, so Quirino did it. I also had difficulties to got upstairs, so Anna and Mustafa helped me. What I can say, the amount of the alcohol wasn't big but the conditions were different. Anyway, I try to avoid writing about alcohol in the future. Because I have so many great memories without it and nothing can change that. In the morning I woke up and realized that I don't remember all my last night actions. It was scary, it had never happened before. But I felt myself good, my head wasn't aching orsm. I had a good feeling. I was worried about what others remember and I don't. Actually everything went good and it is super funny think about it. On that day we left Sofia behind and drived to the Sveshtari listening to Tarkan. Yes I admit, it was my fault but I didn't think that driver lets the CD play over and over again.
My aim is not to ruin somebody's reputation, I just want to show how thing really were and after all we all had a great time during our project 😃 And it would be such a shame if we forget these moments. PS! If you want to see more pictures, click on "EVT" Because it is kind of pointless for me to upload photos twice. Lo siento pero no puedo escribir en todos los idiomas. Mi dispiace, ma non sono in grado di scrivere in tutte le lingue. Я сожалею, но я не в состоянии писать на всех языках. 18 facts that show you did EVS in Bulgaria (particularly in Sveshtari) 1. You were really confused because of Bulgarians head shaking custom. 2. You saw people from your project in your dreams. 3. Love-hate relationship with rakia. 4. Jordan 5. Local fruits are life. 6. You have a Billa plastic bag. 7. You didn't want to go at excavations at least 3 times. 8. You don't like boza. 9. You have hitchhiked at least once. 10. You were fascinated by sunflowers, horses, goats and cows. 11. At some point you only wanted to speak in your own language. 12. You like Bulgarian weather and nature. 13. Bulgarian music is catchy. 14. You ate a lot of banitsa. 15. You combined different flavors. 16. You are multicultural person after your project. 17. You want to go back and at some point you never want to go back! 18. Your home is full of "Rose of Bulgaria"products. If at least 10 facts were true, you have had a wonderful time in Bulgaria 😊
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AuthorJust another confused youth. Archives
November 2017
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