CELTA, and grammar,and teaching, oh my God!!!

So I've just finished my second complete day in Bulgaria, which was also my second day of class. I have to teach my first lesson tomorrow, which is a little...ummmm...sudden. But, it has to be done. This is what I signed up for! We met our students today, and they're super nice, although I think some of them are a little not impressed with me because of my age. I am by far the baby of the group. There are 11 teachers-in-training, 2 Brits, 2 Americans (including myself), a Russian, and the rest are Bulgarians. Everyone is very nice, but we have some seriously crazy characters. The last 24 hours have been a bit surreal, just in the experiences, conversations and encounters, but I'm just trying to go with it. :)

Sofia is pretty grey and decrepit, and very short and flat, which gives it a very small-town feel. Not very many people speak English, but most everyone is very friendly. No, let me qualify that. Most people of my generation (that is to say, those who didn't live very long or at all under the Soviets) speak at least a little English, and are quite friendly once you engage them. But people kind of seem to keep to themselves here.

We've had some serious rain coming through and lost power briefly today, but now it's pretty clear. This weekend a bunch of us are trying to go to a folk festival no one's heard of that apparently only happens once every five years. I'll report back. :)

Crossings

And I have made it to Sofia. Hooray! After a lovely day of wandering around yesterday, making my way to the Asian side of Istanbul via water taxi and back over to the old city, I hopped on a bus to Bulgaria. The bus itself was very nice, and very crowded. I wasn't a fan of the smoking on the bus, but what can you do? All was well until we got to the border. I had heard stories of the Bulgarian border, but I didn't know. I just didn't know.

I guess all things considered, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. There was lots of get off the bus, get on the bus, get off the bus. Get your passport stamped and walk through across the border to the inbetween land. Get your luggage off the bus. Have it scanned. Get back on the bus. Drive for 100 yards to the duty free shop between borders. Get back on the bus. Cross the the Bulgarian side. Get off the bus. Walk through/get passport stamped. Wait around in the excruciating heat. And continue to wait. And wait some more. Then we were on our way.

The Bulgarian countryside is very beautiful and green. There are fields and fields of sunflowers, and villages with red roofs. I spoke at length with a Bulgarian guy on the bus, and he gave me the lowdown of everything from the sights we were seeing, to world politics, to the Greeks and Gypsies (which he does not like). It was very amusing/informative. There was a guy at the train station to meet me, and after I snuck into the bathroom (you had to pay, and I don't have any levas), we were on our way to my surprisingly plush accomodations. My flatmate is a lunatic British gal who I hope I get along with. I think we lead two very different lifestyles, let me just put it like that.

Sofia is kinda grey and very crumbly, but it has character, which is good. There seem to be lots of open parks, which I'm a fan of. There's a tram stop just out the door, and tomorrow will be day one of classes! It's back to school time...

I was clean, and then I wasn't clean

So, I will be providing a few more updates here in these first few days, just because I have a little bit more time. So on, ummmm (caluculating days), Friday afternoon, I wandered around which was fun. You heard about that. Then I crashed a didn't wake up until ten to two pm Saturday afternoon. My British roommates apparently called me the sleeping girl. But they are nice. More on them later. So when I finally hauled my lazy, sweaty self out of bed, I struck off for more wanderings. I crosses a bride (the Ulikipani, as best as I can tell), and headed north along the main coast-following road. I'm not sure exactly what all I saw, but it was pretty and I liked it. There were lots of religious buildings. Hmmm. And of course I picked yesterday to traipse around in my little sundress, and wandered into one of the more conservative parts of town. Whoops. But no one really seemed to mind that much.

Then I came back and had dinner with another roommate, which was interesting. Then I joined up with the Brits and one of their acquaintances and another random Italian guy to go club hopping. I was, of course wide awake, cause I'd woken up late and it still kind of felt like four pm to me, so I was up for it. We had fun, though there was lots of reggae involved, which is not so much my speed. Came back and crashed, then was up (not too early) this morning to make a pilgrimage to a Turkish bath.

For those who followed my travels around the Middle East, you will, of course, have heard my hamam stories from Yemen and Morocco. This hamam, was very nice, but comes in a close second to the hamam in Morocco, and was still light years ahead of the Yemeni hamam. Its exterior was newer, but then there was the traditional raised marble slab under the sky-lighted dome. I felt a little like a sacrificial lamb, being all scrubbed up for the slaughter. But I got over it, and relaxed and it was very lovely. I think it came in second to Morocco, because it was much more crowded, and much more well lit. This took away from the being-reborn sensation that we had in Marrakesh. The scrubbing was also not quite so thorough as Morocco, but I liked the bubble part. :) On the plus side, the marble slab prevented sitting downstream of other people's sloughed-off skin and nastiness and was lovely and warm to lie on. So, as I said, it came in a VERY close second.

Anyways, the second we stepped outside, all clean benefits were immediately gone, and it was back to being sweaty and gritty. We headed over to the Topoki Palace, which was very lovely and had a GREAT view. There was also lots of Byzantine bling on display, which made me question why it wasn't a little better guarded. Then off I went to see the Hagia Sofiya and the Blue Mosque. They were lovely, though I didn't get to go in the Hagia Sofiya because it was closing time. Then I took the tram back to my side of town, wandered to the hostel and had dinner with/taught backgammon to a girl from New Zealand. And now here I am.

Tomorrow's quest is to buy the elusive bus ticket to Sofia, and walk to Asia. I think this is manageable. I got all the pictures off the camera, but they are being really slow to load. (Weak internet connection.) I'll try again tomorrow.

Oh, Istanbul

Oh Istanbul, now you’ve done it. I’ve been here for about seven hours, and I think it’s love.
But I digress. I was going to do the travel debrief, and go from there. I moved out of the apartment yesterday morning without too much trouble. Aunt Susie had to come rescue me AGAIN, because I have accumulated a crapload of stuff in the last four years. This was after she and Uncle Manny already had taken me out to a SPECTACULAR last-real-meal-on-American-soil dinner on Wed. night. Shout outs to Co Co Sala. It’s very delicious, and I’m glad I didn’t know about it until two days ago, or I would’ve gone broke. Chocolate bar, anyone?
Anyways, then I hopped on the bus to Dulles (it took a very long time), and checked-in with the grumpy United man. He informed me my big suitcase was 14 lbs. too fat. Upon inquiring how much it would be to just pay for the extra weight, he said $200. And I said very quickly that I would do some rearranging. So 13.5 lbs later, I am hauling two extremely heavy backpacks. Then, I got to my gate with a comfortable 20 minutes to spare, and I watched a huge storm roll in. Needless to say, that scrapped all immediate departure plans, so we sat the storm out. It was only about an hour delay. Then we boarded, and proceeded to sit for another hour as they repacked the bags (they’d taken them off because of the storm?!), and fueled us up. We departed two hours late, made up some time, and promptly lost it again when we had a missed approach on the landing into Chicago cause the plane in front of us decided it didn’t want to take off on time. This whole flying thing takes timing and coordination people!! But in the end it didn’t matter because I had a six hour lay over reduced to four hours. 
So I talked to the parents and then moseyed with my backpacks across the world to the other side of O’Hare and hung out with all the Arabs about to go back to the ME before getting on one of the nicest planes I’ve ever been on. Rock on, Turkish Airways. There was lots of food, and plush seating, and an empty seat next to me, and the cool personalized screen thingies. I watched Invictus, which was a good movie, by the way. It got better after I figured out to set the language to English. The first six minutes were a little rough, but they got straightened out.
Arrival was fine—no problems with getting a visa or anything. It was a smooth process. Getting my newly skinny bag was a little more nerve wracking cause it took awhile. Then I hopped on a bus to the downtown area, and some nice people helped point me in the right direction, which was very cool. Turkey, unlike Morocco, seems to believe in street sign (which I am a HUGE fan of), but they don’t really exist in the middle of a huge square, which is where I got off the bus. I was like, okay, enie-meanie-miney-moe, there are only about a dozen different ways I can go. Hmmm. But I made it without too much of a problem. It cracks me up though (this is an Egypt thing too), that when I was hauling my backpacks, I got the “foreigner” treatment. But as soon as I was back to sandals and a purse, I’m just part of the scenery. Hooray for being brown!!!
This afternoon, I wandered around some just to get the lay of the land. Istanbul is very beautiful. It looks like East and West ran at each other full tilt and ran smack into the other. There are all the red roofs of Eastern Europe with the bright bright colors of Scandinavia and the trees and grass of northern Europe mixed with the skyline of towering minarets and domes of the Middle East. I was expecting it to be a little more like Cairo, which is to say kinda brown and dusty. But it is stunning how this city just kind of rolls over the hills and takes no notice of the ocean parting it in thirds. The red roofs, bright colored buildings, blue ocean and green trees crammed everywhere they can grow (and some places they theoretically shouldn’t) combine to make Istanbul a city of rare beauty. But moreover, the people (so far) have been friendly and helpful without some of the obnoxious pestering of Egypt. I have only had one guy ask if he could take me out for tea so he could “practice his English” and another ask—in all seriousness—for a kiss. Ah, well, at least they weren’t immediately asking me to marry them as in—hem hem hem—some other places I know and love.
Istanbul is kind of like Alexandria, and yet so different. I don’t know. So far the language hasn’t been an issue. I had the most delicious dinner (after some debate of where to go, cause there are kebob places EVERYWHERE), which consisted of a spinakopita-like substance (that is to say there was pastry, spinach and cheese involved. The pastry was like a cross between puff-pastry and a flour tortilla), konafa (which was EXQUISITE!!! The Turks go a little less heavy on the sugar syrup, and instead of putting cream in the middle which is not my preferred method, they put pistachio ice cream on top. It was unbelievably good) and am now about to crash before I go adventuring tomorrow. I’m glad I packed my flashlight though, because the wash room, which is large enough for a sink, toiled and butt, does not have a functioning light. Awkward! I feel a little more justified in some of my bizarre packing choices.
So that’s the first installment. Pictures with be forthcoming!

Thank you very much! Good bye.

Soooooooooooooooo, we're getting into annual appeal time in NGO country. Which means it's letter time. I've moved from stamping bags with a rubber stamp to putting postage stamps on 2,300 envelopes. That took up the majority of my time yesterday. Monday and Wednesday will be all about stuffing said envelopes. Yes, the day before Thanksgiving, I shall be in the office all day stuffing envelopes. Remember, sometimes job descriptions are a smidge misleading.

But as the semester is winding down, I reflect back on what I've learned from my time at an NGO.
1. No job is too small for an intern.
2. No job is too big for an intern.
3. Phones aren't a scary as previously thought.
4. Mistakes are embarrassing, but whatever! Everyone makes them. You live, you learn.
5. The work behind cool development projects is not always exciting, but definitely worthwhile.
6. I might be missing my calling as a travel agent.
7. Be efficient, be courteous, be prompt, be personable and stick to your guns (except when you're wrong. Then get over yourself and admit it graciously.)

These are my profound thoughts. Interpret them as you will.

Please Call Me Back

So, DC, how's the internship search coming? Mine is frustrated at this point. My stipulation of wanting compensation for labor seems to be a sticking point in my search. A lot of employers don't seem to think we college students need to eat, so they don't pay.

The worst is when you find the ultimate internship-paid, looks interesting, could help develop new skills, and you send off the resume with such high hopes...and never hear back. Not cool. Not cool at all. I feel like the girl waiting by the phone, waiting for the guy she likes to call her back. And he never does. Ever.

And so I persevere, struggling against the oppressive weight of the un-paid tradition that has insidiously taken over DC. I AM INTERN (who is soon to be unemployed-real-person come graduation time), therefore I am poor. Let's fix that, DC, 'k? 'K.

Please don't stop the music!

It was a quiet week at the office. One boss was out of the country and the other is back trying to play catch-up from her three weeks abroad. As a result, there was not much exciting happening. The boxes are all taken care of and now I'm doing research about other NGOs in our field, what they're doing, how they're being funded etc. This has also doubled as job/internship searching time, which as thus far been unsuccessful. Why, oh why, NGOs do you not pay your poor interns?

On another note, the brown paper bag stamping/groove time has been successful, though for significantly shorter periods of time than I would wish. Once the boss comes in, I have to turn off my happy music, and bag stamping gets a lot less fun.

I know other people's internship blogs are full of tales of important projects and cool conferences. Bully for them. I give the other side of the story, about the mundane grunt work of interning in a small office. But bag stamping has larger implications than me feeling like I'm frittering away my pursuit of higher education. It means a woman in a developing country will be able to have her product put into a nicely presented bag, giving it more respect than just shoving it into a generic, plain bag. No, my organization is proud of the work we are doing with that woman, and proud of her resulting accomplishment, so when we sell it, we'll put our name to it. Proudly. And I get time not staring at a computer screen. Everyone wins.