Getting Started

On July 21^st, 2007, after three days of little sleep during our frantic packing and moving of the house into storage and a long day of traveling on planes, we landed in Paris. The sky was grey, and it was quite chilly. We took a shuttle with our 400+ pounds (literally - we were at the 100 pound limit for each person) of luggage to an apartment that we had rented for our temporary digs. We were absolutely exhausted, and it took several days to recover from all the jet lag and sleep debt. When the fog had lifted from our brains and we could think straight, we started looking for an apartment to rent.

Renting an apartment in Paris is tedious and exhausting. After finding listings that are interesting, you have to connect with the people who are in charge of renting. Then you have to meet to look at the apartment. If you like it, you turn over your “dossier,” which must contain a gazillion documents to prove that you are able to afford the apartment, etc. Then they examine all of the dossiers and decide who they want. It’s like being interviewed for a high powered job. And everything that seems like an appropriate-sized apartment is quite expensive. At the end of 10 days, we had learned a lot but still did not have an apartment lined up, and it was time to go to Bulgaria to visit our close friend Maya and her family. Maya is Bulgarian but moved to the States in 2000. She returned this summer with her twin daughters, Kina and Dimana, and her son Isa while her husband Nehad stayed in Oklahoma City to work and take care of the house. My sister Rhonda had already joined up with us, so she was traveling with us at this point.

So Monday, July 30^th, we got up relatively early and took two Metro trains, one RER/”normal” train, and one airport shuttle train to reach the terminal at Charles de Gaulle. In the airport we heard French with a smattering of other languages. As soon as we got on the first plane to Munich, almost everybody was speaking German, and on the second leg to Sofia, there was a little bit of everything, most of which I did not understand. Fortunately, I was sitting next to an elderly French couple and could converse with them. I was amazed at how the hostesses would flawlessly flip from one language to another, and they seemed to know at least three or four.

Maya and her brother, Dobromir, met us at the airport in Sophia and helped us get the correct taxis to the hostel where we had reservations. The “wrong” taxis, by the way, would have cost us as much as 50 times as much as the normal taxis! Basically, if people see tourists from America or Europe or other wealthier countries, they jack up the prices, and most tourists don’t know to argue. We were extremely glad to have our local guides!

In Sophia, we stayed in a hostel called the Art Hostel for two nights waiting for another American friend. It was a truly amazing place. Mostly, it was a place for young travelers to pay per bed per night, but since we filled up a room with the five of us, we were allowed to have a key to the room so we could leave all of our stuff there while we explored. The place was also called We Usually Spend Our Time in the Garden, and aptly so, for the owner and many of the hostellers were usually behind the building in the garden area. We stayed up late each night, sharing music and stories with the other travelers. One morning, an accordion player from Switzerland improvised to a 5/8 rhythm which sounded distinctly Bulgarian, so Maya and Rhonda and I jumped up and started dancing around the garden. The atmosphere was great, the competition for bathrooms and showers high (I did not shower) and the mattresses were two-inch thick cotton batting - not comfortable.

After two days in Sofia, we took a train to Sliven, Maya’s hometown. It is nestled right next to the southern side of the Balkan Range, a beautiful mountain range. We stayed in an apartment owned by Maya’s father and used it as our base for traveling to other locations.

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Wednesday, August 1^st, 2007

We're in Sliven, Bulgaria, at an internet cafe. It makes you appreciate how much we have at home when you realize how much other people do not have! The communist era put a pretty big stamp on this country. The people are very friendly, but you can tell there has been a lot of poverty. Some things are sooo cheap, yet other things are extremely expensive, like renting a car (which we are trying to do now). If you are obviously a tourist, often you will be aggressively charged for services. Again, we are extremely glad to have local friends who can translate for us!! Tomorrow we will head for the mountains to go to a folk music and dance festival. I am really looking forward to it!

Tuesday, August 7^th, 2007

We rented a couple of small cars, piled everybody in, and drove to the Rhodopes mountains a few days ago for a Bulgarian folk festival in Gela (near Shiroka Luka). It was located at the top of a mountain meadow and was surrounded by people camping for the event. The main attraction was a gaida competition (the gaida is an instrument that is sort of like the bagpipe). There were also people selling food and their wares (rugs, costumes, lace, and tons of other assorted things). At one stand, they were roasting about 40 chickens and a lamb on several spits over an open fire. It was a beautiful day, and at one point there were a couple hundred people dancing together to the music. The music was very interesting to me, and I loved seeing the competitors in their traditional costumes. That evening, it got rather stormy, so we did not attend the festival on the second day.

Over the next couple of days, we explored the area before heading back to the plains. We toured a deep cave with amazing stalagmites and stalactites and then another cave that was used as a prehistoric dwelling. Then we hiked around this amazing natural bridge area with several stone archways a couple of hundred feet high - beautiful, but nerve-wracking with the younger children!

Last night we were driving home and stopped for gas, and completely by surprise, met the son of Maya's first cousin. So their whole family came to the gas station to say hello and they ended up inviting us to their apartment. The family was very nice, but it was a challenge to be there because of their constant cigarette smoking (even the 17 year old was smoking!). We pulled out some food since we had not had anything to eat for dinner, and then they shared the cookies that Maya had bought as gifts for them at the gas station. An enormous storm came up during our visit with flash flooding everywhere and a pretty long power outage. We lit some lanterns and watched the storm for awhile (amazing lightening and thunder). We ended up crashing at their place (nothing like 10 surprise guests!) and leaving at 6 a.m. in order to make the deadline for returning the cars this morning.

Everybody is pretty wiped out today, so we'll regroup for the next adventure tomorrow. Isa's birthday is Thursday (he will be three). At some point we will go to the little village where Maya grew up (I think for Isa's birthday at least), and we still plan to go to the Black Sea (probably at the end of our stay here). The more we see, the more we want to see. It is very tantalizing.

I am finally learning a few words of Bulgarian. Today I learned how to count to 10, and I was having Isa teach me a few words. It was hilarious, because he would tell me a word in Bulgarian, and then as if a little language switch had been flipped, he would start babbling to me in Bulgarian. I would crack up and remind him to speak English. He was really thinking about the translations - it was so amazing to see him thinking about it and then successfully translating (with some re-translations by Kina!).

The day we drove to the mountains, we arrived pretty late in the evening, and we could not find a place to stay. We were pretty tired, after a full day of driving with 5 active kids! Maya was asking about hotels at a general grocery store in a little village called Stoikite, and by chance a guy was there who had a villa up the hill and offered to give us three rooms with six beds for 40 levs/night (that translates into about $35/night). We were so relieved and grateful! We ended up staying three nights, and one day, when we had left some beans to soak for soup, we came back to find our soup magically prepared by the grandmother in the family! Wonderfully spiced and very Bulgarian! Just a taste of Bulgarian hospitality . . .

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After returning to our base at Maya’s father’s apartment in Sliven for a couple of days, we went to Maya's village (about 25 minutes west of Sliven, in the foothills), where we spent 2 days at her uncle Dimitir’s place. Despite our lack of ability in Bulgarian, we could at least claim one child, Dimitri, with a Slavic name, and we also met another Dimitir while there. In honor of Isa's birthday (and of us, I think), they slaughtered a lamb for the event. It was actually happening just as we arrived - a little taste of living close to the earth . . . I did not draw the kids' attention to it until after the lamb was no longer struggling, but then I asked if they wanted to watch the process of skinning the animal and all the rest of the things that have to happen when you butcher an animal. I was fascinated, of course, and Dimitri wanted to watch. Tristan was grossed out and did not want to see much of it. It was so interesting and very satisfying to me that they did not let anything go to waste. Meat, brain, heart, kidneys, intestines - all would be used. The skin would be sold later to the gypsies, who cure it and sell it to someone else. They baked the entire lamb in a stone oven. First they built a fire, and when it was quite hot, they pushed the coals to the side, slid the lamb in on a big tray, and then sealed the moon-shaped opening with a stone door and clay. They left it to slowly cook for about 5 hours. We had quite the feast! And the rakia (a very strong home-made grape liquor) flowed. I did not drink much, but it does not take much to feel it . . . Probably having to get the kids to bed was my saving grace! One of the most delightful things about their house was that there are grape vines covering the outside garden and patio area where all of the eating took place. Enormous clusters of green and purple grapes were hanging from the arbor. We would pick several huge bunches at a time and pig out. They also had really good peaches and plums and everything was ripe or close to being ripe! They also had sheep and goats that went out to pasture every day and came home in the evenings, and some pigs and dogs and a cat. We all would have been happy to stay longer, but we needed to come back to get ready to go to the Black Sea!

We ended up staying in Sliven for an extra day so that we could ride the lift up into the mountains with Maya and the kids. It was a 20 minute ride up the mountain, with dizzying drops and spectacular views. At the top, we walked around for awhile, Tristan did some lizard hunting (unsuccessful, according to him), and we found some delicious yellow and purple wild plums.

On Sunday, August 12 we were to meet Maya and her kids at the bus station to catch a bus to the Black Sea. We arrived with all of our luggage about 5 minutes before the bus was supposed to leave, but Maya was not there. She arrived the minute the bus was supposed to leave and managed to secure seats for all of us (11 people, including Maya’s mother, who decided to come at the last minute), and get the kids on for free! The bus was completely full, so we felt quite lucky indeed (albeit a bit stressed!). We rode the bus as far as Sozopol, where we spent the next several days. The weather was warm and the water was lovely (though we had to dodge a few jellyfish!). Tourists abounded, flesh of all different colors bared to the sizzling sun on beaches with tiers of umbrellas. Some topless women drew our attention, but the novelty wore off (except for the ravishing young woman who was perfectly tanned everywhere except her lovely breasts, which were burned beat red!). Sozopol was pretty touristy, but fun anyway. The old part of the village was very interesting with ancient buildings and narrow winding streets. I took a walk by myself one day out to the point of the old village. It was quite hot, so I climbed down the rocks and took a nice dip, then went back through the village again, stopping to look at the wares set out by wizened old ladies, usually selling lace work and homemade preserves.

On August 15^th, Rhonda and Tom left early in the morning for Turkey. Tim, Tristan, Dimitri, and I said our goodbyes to Maya and her mom and kids and jumped on a bus headed to Sofia. We had a pretty uneventful but tiring 7.5 hour journey. After disembarking, we lugged all of our stuff to the taxi stop and got into line. At that point we had no locals to help us and were at a distinct disadvantage with the language barrier. Tim speaks a few words of Bulgarian, but not enough to really converse. Anyway, we showed the address of the hotel to several taxi drivers who waved us away and took other passengers. Finally, this lady who seemed to be directing the flow of passengers into the taxis came to us and spoke a little English. She talked to a taxi driver and he apparently agreed to take us. Tim wanted to make sure that we would be charged the correct rate, so he tried to ask the guy. After a few moments of back and forth misunderstanding, the driver got angry, yanked our luggage out of the vehicle, and took another passenger. In a fit of frustration, Tim yelled at him in English (something about how he was treating guests from another country) and flipped him the bird as he drove off. I was certain that we had completely ruined any chance of a ride, and there was a flurry of talk from the lady in charge to the other taxi drivers, and then she managed to get another driver to take us. As it turned out, it was a very short ride, so the drivers did not want to bother with a small fare. We tipped the driver liberally - we were so grateful to be at our hotel!

After dumping our luggage at the hotel, we walked around the city for awhile, stretching our legs and catching a few last sights. We walked to the amazing Aleksandûr Nevski Cathedral, which was quite spectacular lit up at night. The kids were exhausted and earned piggyback rides for the last hour of our walk. We settled down for our last night in the relatively comfort of the Hotel Iskûr, happy to have a toilet that worked and plenty of toilet paper.

The next morning we made a mad dash to a local store that sold folk costumes and rugs. We pondered for awhile, and finally bought a couple of beautiful Bulgarian rugs, one antique and one new. Our precious new purchases under our arms, we dashed back to the hotel just in time to catch a taxi to the airport.

The transition from Bulgaria to France via Germany was easier in ways than our trip in the opposite direction two weeks previously. We had a great time in Bulgaria, but it was a relief to be in a country where I understand the language! It was like being in a total fog not understanding anything in Bulgaria for two weeks and then having the fog lift as we got closer and closer to France . . .

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Saturday, August 25^th, 2007

Now, after a rather stressful week, we have finally found and settled on an apartment. It is owned by an English man and his Pakastani wife - lovely people. The apartment was a bachelor's pad for him before they got married. It is tiny (maybe 550 sq. ft.), on the 5^th floor with no elevator, but with a big balcony, lots of light, and partial views of the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur. The floor slopes dramatically, so it feels like you’re a bit drunk when moving about . . . Tim has labeled it our “Bateau Ivre” after the famous Rimbaud poem. An apartment with “character,” let us say. We will have to spend some time cleaning and organizing the things they are leaving in the apartment - we'll do that today and tomorrow, and then move our stuff in tomorrow. I can't wait until we're settled in. Rhonda is here still, so she'll help us to decorate and to make it feel like our space before she has to leave on the 31st.

It has been rainy and drizzly here a lot so far - I'm hoping the sun comes out after we are settled!

Next week we will have to get on the ball about getting the kids scheduled for going to school. Hopefully it won't be too difficult getting them enrolled. The school where we think that Tristan will go is just half a block away. We have not figured out where Dimitri will go yet . . .

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We were given the keys to the apartment on August 25^th, after making a deposit of $3200 (2300 Euros). Rhonda and I came over and started cleaning. We soon discovered how grimy things really were. Each shelf in the kitchen had a distinct layer of grey grime that took 5-6 wipings with various products before coming clean. There were a few dead cockroaches, but I did not think much about it since the owner mentioned that the building had been sprayed (I assumed recently). But soon we discovered that there were indeed some very healthy ones scampering about! When inquiring about the issue to the neighbor on the same floor, she seemed to think it was quite normal and informed us that we simply had to set out traps every two weeks or so to keep things under control.

The first night in the apartment, I was very aware of the noise on the street and was uncomfortable on the pull-out couch. Surely I would get used to the noise, and I knew I could make the bed more comfortable by putting the mattress on the floor and putting some camping pads under it.

The second night (Monday), just as I was getting into a deep sleep, I heard a tremendous commotion outside. Lots of voices yelling. The volume kept going up and then I heard a gunshot. There was more yelling and then two more shots rang into the night. Tim had jumped up and was on the balcony watching. He saw about 50 men right outside the Pigalle metro preparing to battle - breaking bottles for weapons and posturing at each other. Both Tim and Rhonda saw some guys attacking a car with crowbars. Tim thought he saw a couple of policemen appear, and by the time I got up to look, most of the people had run off, but there were still a few men jumping around at the intersection. I heard someone yell, “cours, cours” (run, run) and they all ran west along rue de Clichy. Someone had been wounded and lay in the intersection. Soon a knot of people gathered around him. In about 15 minutes, there were 20-30 policemen and an ambulance at the scene. Eventually, the wounded man was helped up and into the ambulance, but the ambulance did not leave. Evidently, they were using him as bait. Sure enough, a couple of guys came back to try to see into the ambulance (we assume to see if their buddy was OK). Then they started sauntering off across the street. At some unseen signal, about 10 cops ran across the street and jumped them and took them off in hand cuffs. Finally everything settled down. The next day, we found out that it was definitely a gang fight. There had been a fight the day before, and since two people had been injured, this was the reprisal fight. Thirty people were arrested in relation to the fight and three people injured (not seriously). From everybody we’ve talked to, this kind of event is extremely rare.

Tuesday, Tim and the kids were going down the stairs and heard a domestic dispute with a lot of scuffling and yelling on the third floor. That night, after I had been asleep for awhile, I was awakened by a horrific screaming. It was almost inhuman. I leaped up to find the apartment empty. After I oriented myself to being upright, I found Tim and Rhonda listening on the landing. By that time, the screaming had subsided and we heard a woman sobbing. A neighbor was calming her down and calling her mother or a friend for her. We heard enough to figure out that her boyfriend (or husband) had left her. We think it all was happening on the same floor as the domestic dispute, so we were thinking “good riddance” about the man….

The rest of the week was busy with preparing the enrollment documentation and visiting the Mayor’s office and the schools themselves. We also took some time to look at a couple other apartments, and we agreed to lease a different apartment starting September 15^th. We had realized that the small size of the apartment, the poor insulation, and the cockroach issues were all of concern. The events of the previous week probably influenced our decision somewhat, but there were other things too. The apartment we will move to is at least twice as big, better furnished, in a little quieter location, and even has a piano. It is more expensive, and yet it seems so important to be comfortable this year.

In spite of the desire to move, we already have a sense that this apartment is home, and there is a feeling of grief over leaving it. However, when a cockroach marched across Tristan’s breakfast plate, and when another dropped out of my travel dictionary, the need to be somewhere else was affirmed.

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September 4^th, 2007

Yesterday was the first day of school for the boys. Dimitri was enrolled in a kindergarten that is a 20 minute walk away (on rue de Goutte d’Or), and Tristan started in an elementary school half a block away. Dimitri was supposed to go to a school close by (on rue d’Orsel), but it was full, and the director of that school, Monsieur Cure, was decidedly unpleasant when we inquired about being on a waiting list. So I made the 40-minute round trip walk four times yesterday to rue de Goutte d’Or. Both the teacher (Audrey Martin) and the director (Madame Novarro) of the school at rue de Goutte d’Or were very pleasant and kind. Today, however, Monsieur Cure called out of the blue to tell us that a place had opened up after all at rue d’Orsel. All we needed was a “certificate de radiation” from the old school. I walked over to rue de Goutte d’Or one last time and tearfully told the director the situation. I had already grown quite fond of her and Dimitri’s teacher, and was exhausted from the whole process. When I told her that the director at rue d’Orsel was not very patient, and was rather “méchant,” she burst out laughing and then reminded me that Dimitri would be with the teacher, not Monsieur Cure. I suspect that Monsieur Cure has a bit of a reputation for being short with people. Anyway, I took the certificate de radiation over to him, and he, much to his credit, was congenial enough, and promptly took us up to Dimitri’s new classroom. Michelle is his new teacher, and she seems quite nice.

It will be difficult for the kids for awhile, to be sure, but after two days, Dimitri is already repeating French words and short phrases to himself. Tristan is resisting more, but I think after a couple of weeks, they will both feel much more comfortable, and will be able to start communicating bit by bit with their classmates.