Bulgaria with Noodles

Lots of young (and some not-so-young) teachers write to me via the TES. My alter alias is “the hippo” and I try to help and advise everyone who asks for my help. As young Tom is taking over my old job at St. George's School as English teacher for Grade 3, I really felt that I ought to meet him and try to give him some guidance. The good news is that last year I spent hours (and hours!) preparing lots of teaching resources, so Tom does not have to start from scratch. There is a huge “ability gap” between the most able students and the weakest ones, so lots of different resources and teaching strategies are needed. And the lunch? My Chinese readers ALWAYS want lots of photos of food. I hope that you are not too disappointed. The tomato-based salad was good (I love mozarella) and so was the pizza.

The Coronavirus. Although I did not want to mention it in my blog, it seems that I do not have much choice. The situation in Europe is turning from bad to worse to absolutely ghastly and there does not seem to be much chance of things improving sometime soon. The only light at the end of the tunnel is China, where life is slowly getting back to normal. After nearly three months of staying indoors, my friends in Shenzhen tell me that gradually more and more people are venturing out of their apartments and the streets are getting busy again. Last Tuesday we left our apartment in Sofia in the morning and came to our house in Kalotina. My Nissan X Trail is still waiting to be repaired, so the garage lent me a courtesy a car. First, we drove to the big METRO supermarket near the ring road and bought some food. The store was pretty well stocked with just about everything, including toilet paper, but there was almost no pasta left on the shelves. Wednesday was mostly spent making a se...

  We have had some SERIOUS snow. Just when everyone was thinking that the Winter was over and the Spring was on its way, heralded by the snowdrops in my last post, what happens? Yes, we got it wrong. Winter is back with us, at least for another day or two. While her poor husband had to go to school, my dear Irisha went for a walk with Yanna and two naughty little doggies. Tina loves the snow and she keeps trying to eat it. Now it is Saturday and this morning I took that naughty hound for several walks in the snowy park. Still no news from Nissan about our car being repaired. And the situation in China with this new virus goes from bad to worse.

One of the many things I love about Sofia is how Vitosha mountain looms beside it. Even in the middle of the city, in Vitosha Boulevard, there is this ruddy great mountain squatting at the end  of the road, right next to a capital city! Well, I was rather motivated to go up Mt. Vitosha, after reading Claire’s excellent post on the same subject on her superb blog, Auntie Bulgari a. No, we did not take the cable car ( cabinov lift as it is called in Bulgarian) from Simeonovo, which is basically behind IKEA on the ring road. According to Claire, it is wise to call ahead and check whether the cable car is running before you set off (the same goes for the chair lift at Dragalevtsi, apparently). The working days are, shall we say, a bit sporadic. In theory, it is meant to work at the weekends. But, you know, sometimes maybe not. According to Claire, the cabins are dinky – about the size of a large ferris wheel cabin – so you will have one to yourselves. There are actually quit...

Last Saturday, it came round again: the World Scholar's Cup. (Why can't the apostrophe be after the "S"? Is there only one scholar in the whole world?)  Although the WSC wants to get into the Guinness book of Records for the most tacky trophies given out to children, it is a lot of fun and the young people who take part do get to debate some very tough motions. In the Junior Rounds, we had some tough motions and in the Senior Rounds they were even tougher: "Resolved: That schools should teach classes on how to make mistakes", "That only the original writers of a movie should be allowed to write the sequel" and "That leaders of big countries should first practise being leaders of smaller countries." I did not have to do any judging in the morning, as we had quite a surplus of judges. I went along to the training session for the judges, up in the "penthouse" at St. George's, and then I went along to see a few...

Yes, Christmas is on its way. My dear Irisha has put up the tree and the decorations in our apartment in Ulitsa Kozyak. Then she started to go with Patricia to lots of rehearsals for a special Christmas concert in Sofia. Patricia and Irena at the Christmas Market in Sofia. Here are some photos of the festivities at St. George's School. The traditional Bulgarian dance troupe really were rather good. 

After church today I had lunch at a Chinese restaurant with Beth and Dave Kanelos, who were leading the worship. What really made it special, however, was that we had a real live Chinaman to keep us company during the meal. And, better still, Isaac Huang is from Shenzhen. In fact, he goes to the OCT church and knows quite a few people at SIF, Shenzhen International Fellowship, our church during our five years in SZ. Of course he knows Heidi, but then every Christian in Shenzhen knows Heidi. It was so strange (and so enjoyable) to hear someone speaking English with a Chinese accent and occasionally chatting with the restaurant staff in Cantonese. Isaac politely tolerated the few (very few) phrases of Mandarin that I still remember. The other strange thing was that meeting Isaac showed me how much I miss China. Five years is a fair old chunk of your life, I suppose, and part of me wishes that we were still there. Lianhuacun Park, Bill, Julia and the extremely naughty Diu...

This is one of my favourite photos of me. I remember reading somewhere, "Never complain about old age. It is a privilege that many people never have." So yes, I am getting older, but I am so blessed with good health and, of course, my dear wife, Irisha. And here she is, looking beautiful (as usual). Anyway, congrats to me on getting to the big six zero and yes, we are very predictable and so we had my sixtieth birthday lunch at The Happy Grill . (Salmon with roasted vegetables and a carafe of okay Chardonnay.) Patricia, Suhail and their daughter Danielle had lunch with us. Thery are some lovely Christian friends from IBC, the International Baptist Church of Sofia. Danielle is a medical student and Suhail is a nurse. A great photo of two great ladies!

Recently a teacher on the TES asked me about the cost of living in Sofia, compared to Shenzhen. To answer the question, I would say that Sofia is probably a bit more expensive than Shenzhen, but not much. When we were in SZ, the school's accommodation allowance covered the rent and it is much the same story here in BG. I can walk to school and back each day, just like I did in China. The metro system in Sofia is a lot more expensive than in SZ and also we have a car as well, so that bumps up our costs a bit. In the Middle Kingdom, I was usually drinking Tsingtao, especially with crispy dumplings fried in butter, whereas in Bulgaria this old hippo gets through those three-litre boxes of the local plonk. On the other hand, each month we are given 60 leva of Kaufland vouchers and that helps with the groceries. One big advantage in Bulgaria is the school food, the best I have ever eaten in more than thirty years of teaching. Very generous quality cuts of meat, cooked in d...

Several of the teachers at my new school, Saint George's, have told me that Sofia is the most polluted capital city in all of Europe. Yes, that is probably true because lots of Bulgarians drive old and badly-maintained second-hand cars. That is one reason why I always enjoying going away for the weekend.  This weekend it was wonderful to escape from Sofia and go to our country house in Kalotina. Even though it is still only April, the weather was really warm and all of the birds were singing happily. Lots of fruit treas were covered in blosssom and, best of all, our house was still there and nothing bad had happened to it. It was a bit sad, having to cut the lawn, as the dandelions and daisies looked rather nice.  My dear wife's tulips were making a good show and the parsley is also going well. There was absolutely no sign of the asparagus and the Jerusalem artichokes that I had planted about a month ago. On a slightly more positive note, there were absolutely no was...

Mountains and blossom, so are we in Japan?   After church, Irena and I went for a very enjoyable walk in the park. Just across the road from our apartment in Sofia, in the district of Lozenets, there is a huge park.  It is rather different to Lianhuacun Park in Shenzhen. Regular readers of my blog (if there are any) will remember that our apartment was on the other side of the road from Lianhuacun Park. That one was so well looked after, manicured and properly maintained. Our park here in Sofia is neglected, run down and generally abandoned. I have never seen anyone who looked like a parken warden or a gardener. It is so strange, the way that the leaves suddenly appear and look such a bright shade of green. The sight of the snow-capped Mount Vitosha and what might have been cherry blossom was almost Japanese.  Some poor trees are half-strangled with martinitsi . You are supposed to wear your martinitsa on your wrist until you see a stork or maybe...

I like markets. They are fun, lively, full of smells and (most importantly) full of food. We went to Sofia’s Roman Wall Market today on the tram. Okay, it is Tram Time, so I am going to explain all of the ins and outs of tram travel in Bulgaria. What is it, oh mother dear, That looks like strawberry jam? Hush, my darling! 'Tis your father Run over by a tram. First of all, find your tram stop. These are usually fairly easy to find and the tram lines are a dead giveaway. Then go to the stop and wait. You probably will not have to wait for very long. Then along will come rumbling the tram, a sort of above-ground Metro train. After we got on, the tram driver, a lady, got off, having first had a shouting match with one of the passengers. Then, coffee and cigarette finished, she got back in the cab and drove our tram into the centre of Sofia. Ticket to ride Trams are very popular with the elderly in Sofia, so they are like geriatric wards on wheels. You have to ...