Boboshevo is dying. And I wash my underwear.

So, in case you hadn't noticed, I finally made it to Bulgaria.  I am living in Boboshevo, a small town (never call it a village!) of about 1000 people maybe 90 km SE of Sofia.  It is quaint, has gorgeous mountain views, and is dying.

The downtown area is full of boarded up shops and cafes.  There are still several magazines (the Bulgarian word for "corner store") and a couple cafes open, but most of the economy has moved away, apparently to Italy, the chosen spot for expatriate Bulgarians.  Everyone has a relative or two in Italy.  My host mother's son lives in Milan.  The larger city nearby, Dupnitsa, has lost half of its population since the end of communism, from 50,000 to 25,000.

It's very sad.  But if Bulgaria maybe develops more of a tourist industry, things will improve.  It's so scenic and quaint and cute.  
Speaking of my host mother, yesterday she provided me with some brand new nightmare filler.  I came home from school (ie, 4 hours of Bulgarian) and she started insisting we do laundry.  I told her I didn't really have enough for a load.  (We communicate through pantomime and my 50 or so words of Bulgarian.)  So she reached into my dirty laundry bag, which lives in the bathroom, and to my horror, pulled out four pairs of underwear.   She babbled about how Yulia, my Bulgarian teacher, had told her that she was supposed to teach me to wash clothes by hand.  Which is true – but we'd already done it, a few days previously.  Now we can use the washing machine!  All hail the washing machine!

But she didn't get it.  Or she chose not to.  There's nothing like trying to hand wash a pair of your underwear when you've got a toothless Bulgarian woman standing over you pointing out how it's not clean enough.  "Humiliating" is the word that comes to mind.

Me, trying to handwash a pair of underwear: This is like some kind of hellish nightmare.

Host Mother: *cackle*

Speaking of toothlessness, dentistry is apparently not high on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, because pretty much every Bulgarian over the age of 40 is in severe need of an Extreme Dental Makeover.

Monday is HUB day – my class of 40 is scattered in smaller villages and towns around Dupnitsa in groups of four or five, and we're all going to see each other for the first time in a week and a half in Dupnitsa for workshops.  I'm looking forward to a. being in a hotel for a night! b. being around the corner from an internet club, and c. seeing everyone to hear about their towns. 

My new life in Bulgaria!

Recently, I told my friend Joscelyn that I was born during water rationing in California, that my parents had to save the bathwater and pour it into the toilet to get it to flush. She asked me “would that really work?” I told her I guessed it would, I’d never actually tried it myself.

Well, Jos, I can now assure you from my personal experience, yes, it works.

I am a tourist.

I drove Joscelyn to the Oakland Airport yesterday.  It was great to have her here, but I am so tired!  Check out everything we did:

1. We went to Alcatraz.  She was amazed to find that I'd never been there.  Really now, though, who has?  I'm pretty sure only tourists go there.  But you'll note from my subject line, I am a tourist.  So, we went.  Honestly, it was very neat.  It was a nice, sunny day (although windy out in the bay, of course) and the audio tour that's included in the price of the tour was surprisingly good.  I like taking the ferry, too.

Then we wandered through Chinatown and North Beach.

2.  We went to the town of Sonoma and a bit into Napa County, to look at the wineries.  It was a bit anticlimactic, honestly, and then it started to rain.  So when lunchtime came 'round, we drove back to my parents' house.

3. We went down to Point Reyes and walked around the Earthquake Trail.  I always thought that Point Reyes was the epicenter of the great 1906 earthquake, but I was wrong (that's down by Daly City).  I do think it had the greatest shaking, however, and you can stand right on the faultline and see where a two halves of a fence are now ten feet apart.

4. We drove up to Armstrong Grove and looked at the redwoods.  I think Joscelyn was suitably impressed.

5. We went back down to the city for a history walk on the earthquake (it's the centennial of the great quake, so there's a lot of commemoration going on).  Afterwards, we met up with my friend Sonya in the Mission, where we had burritos.  Then we met my friend Jeff in the Castro, which was good, as he'd taken a bag of my stuff back to CA when he visited Chicago a few weeks ago.  He also drove us up to Twin Peaks.  It was a beautiful day and we could see everything.  Lovely.

Now Jos is back home, and I am trying to take care of my last minute errands.  I have to run to the post office tomorrow, I just realized I still have my Field Museum badge.  I expect they wouldn't be happy if I took it to Bulgaria with me.

I’m in California.

Yup.  California.  Here I am!

Leaving Chicago was incredibly stressful and I don't really want to think about it right now. 

I was pretty hungry when my plane finally arrived (late), so I convinced Dad to make a detour to the Mission where we picked up tamales and pandulce.  That was good.

I am on vacation.  So far, it has been fairly uneventful.  My friend Joscelyn is flying in from St. Louis tomorrow night for a visit, fun will be had.