Kazan — summer 2014

Good Lord. Here I am trying to get Picasa to deal with my pictures. The internet connection is slow. I'm desperate. I turn on the devil box. What is playing? “Game of Thrones” in Bulgarian. I don’t even watch that crap in English.

A good start to the day: I got in fact more than 8 hours of sleep last night. Not bad at all. Surprising, too.

Of course, to start off my day's exploration I need some money. Here is what Bulgarian money looks like.

Now if an American man is travelling with an American woman, he can simply use her purse to store the items he doesn't want to carry himself. If a man is travelling alone, and if the day foretells thunder showers, and if the man wants to have his camera, credit cards, American money, Bulgarian money, an umbrella, a Nook, a passport, a city map, and the possibility of carrying some souvenir t-shirt without holding it in his hands all day, then he needs a murse. Yes, carrying a murse is not manly, but when you get to my age, you don't giving a sweet-tart about what a bunch of furriners think about your red-blooded American self, so you damn well carry a murse. Plus I learned the habit in Russia, and they are manly enough to invade the Crimea without giving a damn about what Americans think, so that's manly enough for me. Here's my murse from Russia.

I'm living in a part of town called Капанa “The Trap,” which doubtless sounds bad in English but is downright prestigious in Plovdiv. I first head to the north part of Капана to see the Marítsa river, small and slow flowing, but which nonethless defines the city.

This part of town has old narrow streets, many of which are cobblestone, lined with tall, old trees. Lots of coffee shops and gyros shops, although here they are known as donér, not gyros. Makes it easy to find food you like.

A mosque near the river.

As I head southward I go through an underpass and spot a shop selling this t-shirt.

Praise heaven! Now I know where to come for all my lesbian clothing needs.

Just past the carpet munching is a kiosk selling corn on the cob. Yup, that's Kung Fu panda doing the advertising.

My former Bulgarian teacher, Cleo Protokhristova, wants to take me to lunch at a wonderful hotel/restaurant called the “Odeon.” For you Spanish speakers this has nothing to do with the verb odiar. The English word comes via Middle French (πτύω) via Late Latin from a contraction of Ancient Greek ἀοιδή, which means ‘song.’ An odeon was a place for public singing performances, and this hotel is located next to an ancient odeon. Pictures of the ancient odeon, hopefully, will come tomorrow. Here are Cleo and Don.

The interior is beautifully done in blues that bring to mind the work of the recently deceased David Collins. (Personally, I don't give a damn about design, but my friend Jim is very design-oriented, and he pointed out the article. Thanks, Jim! To my surprise I actually enjoyed the article.)

I like to photograph the food in new places. Cleo advises me to start with tarator, a cold soup of yogurt and cucumbers. Very tasty, especially since the temp got to 92°F with 52% humidity. (The humidity in Phoenix was 2% the day before I left...)

Damn, I forgot to photo the пиле пикантно (spicy chicken) main dish. Entirely adequate. For desert Cleo insisted I try a specialty gateau. The cake was something half-way between a chocolate mousse and a chocolate brownie. In the States we would have called it a lava cake. Very tasty.

After lunch Cleo and I wander down roads lined with linden trees. Despite having lived on Linden Street in Tucson, I've never seen a Linden tree before.

Right now the city has a delicate, sweet smell to it. It turns out that is from the linden blossoms, from which you can make, so Cleo tells me, a very nice tea.

You can tell we are getting closer to the university because all over the place are kiosks that do photocopying. Ксерокс means ‘Xerox.’

Main entrance to the university where Cleo works

Here's one of the many sandwich shops around the campus. The words on top mean “Stop looking...”

As I wander back homeward I spot an interesting variation on a sandbox at the local playground. BTW, the local word for tires is pronounced goo-mee.

Hm, the word ‘tosteri’ is new to me. I'm thinking it means sandwiches heated in a panini press.

Local no parking sign. I was mentally contrasting the Russian version ‘ne parkuj’ with the Bulgarian ‘ne parkiraj.’

Here's a local restaurant whose name amused me.

Now some random shots as I approach the sculpture park.

Main post office

Local Godzilla restaurant

More walking

And here I learn that the word ‘katmi’ means ‘crepes.’

More walking

A chestnut tree near my hotel

I was amused how they spelled ‘cheeseburger.’

Here is the place where I bought my first gyro in Plovdiv

It's right next to these intriguing stairs that I will have to explore tomorrow.

More walking

And there is a casino right downtown. Wow, how do they make that work if they don't have any Native Americans?

With that puzzle in my head, I think it's time for bed.

Pow, jetlag wiped me out for a few hours. I wake up, walk through the town some more, but heading homeword along my street...

I'm starving. I give in a get another gyro. They are filling and relatively cheap.

But where will I get something to drink with it? A-ha! This place should do...

The bartender, like any good public service type during a deadly dull Monday, chats me up in hopes of a good tip. His English is stellar. He tells me his name is Ookpik.* Seriously? Is that a typical Bulgarian name? Heck no, replieth he, but that was my grampa's name, so I get it as well. Is he a student? Yes, one year from graduation, studying psychology. BTW, Ookpik's clothing is pretty typical for his age group. Here is his t-shirt.

The economy here is pretty weak, so any college age kid wants his clothing money to make an impression, hence Ookpik's colorful (and in this case, patriotic) t-shirt. The kids his age are almost all wearing denim shorts, or if they don't have those, then denim jeans with their legs rolled up to just under the knees.

Ookpik wants to be a policeman, which is why he is studying psychology. He comments that, sadly, the police are very corrupt in Bulgaria. He tells me a story of being at a club. At the next table they are sniffing cocaine off the table. He asks the waiter why this is allowed. The manager comes by the table and asks Ookpik into the bathroom, asking why he is making trouble. Later a police car pulls up. The manager goes outside and bribes the cops. Nothing happens. How much was the bribe? 2,000 levs, that is 1,000 for each policeman in the car.

Ookpik tells me that he understands the police's situation. They make little money, but if they accept bribes, then they can make a decent life for their families.

Y'know, when Ookpik first started telling me this story, I admired his selflessness for wanting to be a policeman. Now I'm thinking that his motives may be more pecuniary than selfless.

* I actually recognize the word ookpik. It can be either an Innuit toy or a walrus baculum, depending on the Eskimo dialect, so this is a very odd name indeed.

Tipping works a bit differently in Bulgaria than in the States. On Sunday Cleo and I were having iced tea at a local café. The waiter delivered the check, which came to 2.20 leva. She looked at it, said to the waiter три (three), and gave him a 10-lev bill, and he gave her 7 levs back. Wow. Talk about a compact way to go about that. No verbs, no nouns, no prepositions... just a context and a number.

So of course I have now tried the same thing out several times. Works perfectly even for foreigners, but with one proviso: you have to say the number in the rapid form if you want them to understand the first time. What is the rapid form? Well, the numbers in the teens and the primary multiples of the tens are written one way, say for instance седемнадесет (seventeen), can be pronounced the long, proper bookish way [sedemnádeset] or you can say it the rapid conversational way [semnáise]. If you say it the bookish way, they will be confused at first. If you say it the rapid way, they’ll get it right off.

For breakfast today I had a Bulgarian pastry called баница. Imagine layers of unbelievably fresh phyllo dough interspersed with savory cheese filling, baked in a triangle the size of a dinner plate, and pulled fresh out of the oven. I'm not a big phyllo fan, but this was freshness at its best. It freakin’ melted in my mouth. (Yes, basically it is the same thing as tiropita.)