Week 11
This week...
This edition of Dickmans in Europe has come to an end. For the third and final leg of our adventure, we drove three hours back to Blagoevgrad, so I could return to class. We stayed in a great Airbnb just north of the city center.
The parking situation, however, was tricky. To pay for overnight street parking, you're supposed to text a Bulgarian phone number and pay 1 lev per hour. Pretty neat system, but there is a flaw. This only works for Bulgarian phone numbers. The men woke up to a boot on the van, but then paid a guy 10 leva to get the boot off.
Since classes resumed this week, so did the soccer league. Thanks to Coach Matt's superb scheduling, my family was able to watch this week's game. They must've been some sort of good luck charm because this was our first non-loss; we tied 3-3! Hearing the familiar cheering from my parents brought some normalcy and also the sad realization that this fall back home is the 18th and last year they'll be cheering for me on the pitch.
I Learned...
It was a collision of my two worlds having family in my university town. They kept pointing out differences of Bulgaria from home I hadn't realized were now ordinary to me, such as the unwelcoming persona of the Bulgarian people and the sort of outdated appearance of the city.
They asked me about the hundreds of postings of locals who have passed in the last few decades. I walk by them everyday but haven't thought about them since the first month. These postings are papers taped to the exterior walls of buildings commemorating loved ones who have passed. Once the paper gets old or falls, the family posts a new one.
They were impressed by the shopping carts in the grocery stores. Four fully rotating wheels allows them to move seamlessly in all directions, putting buggies back home to shame. Though the inefficient layouts of the grocery stores could use some work. My uncle and sister were fascinated by the variety of Lays potato chip flavors.
I Ate...
Besides taking my family to all my favorite restaurants, we tried a local place that was new to me. Restaurant Diva has a large menu of dishes with massive portions, all for super cheap. My mom and I split the mixed meat plate of grilled pork and chicken with sautéed mushrooms and roasted potatoes. We had a salad to balance it out. My uncle had chicken hearts, and my sister had breaded kashkaval, fried yellow cheese. The wait staff speaks no english, and it's cash only.
I Experienced...
We went on a hike with my exchange friends to the Blagoevgrad Cross to look out over the city and made a trip to the Rila Monastery.
Since we had a form of transportation, I planned to visit the destined Seven Rila Lakes which are up in the Rila Mountains and difficult to get to with public transportation. We started the hour and a half drive up on a nice sunny day. Once we started going up into the mountain range, we could feel it getting a bit chillier. No big deal. A few hundred meters higher, we saw snow on the ground. It hadn't snowed in Blagoevgrad in weeks. We were going to be quite cold on our hike to the lakes, but that's all right. A couple hundred meters later, there was some ice on the windy road. But there's ruts and melted spots to line the tires in, and my yankee uncle was driving, so we're good. A few minutes later we saw ski slopes that cross the road on which we were driving. We stopped to check the map. We went again and got onto a sheet of ice. They don't salt the roads up there. We were stuck on an incline and slipping down; we had to abort mission. Our skilled driver backed down the hill and maneuvered our way out.
It didn't occur to me how drastically the weather would change at the different elevations. There's still a chance I can visit the Rila Lakes, fingers crossed.
I am grateful my family was able to travel across the world to visit me. This spring break was one of the best ever. Adventures like these and spending time with my loved ones is always a reminder of how blessed I am.
Julia Dick
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