추석 Traveling: Sofia, Bulgaria

So, I'm back from my travels for now, and I come bearing pictures.  Posting them has been slow going, as I've been sick and unbelievably busy.  I've got piles of things I don't want to do, and I'm forgetting to do the things I want to do, but that all gets shoved aside, as I come home from work and all but collapse into bed that very moment.  Still, I'm trying to knock out at least one heavy-weighing thing a day.  As you can tell, today, I'm trying to get caught up on the blog.  I have in mind to write about my trip in four separate posts.

Sofia and her poor wardrobe choices.  Call me uncultured, but I still feel that the way women are portrayed in art has little to nothing to do with celebrating the beauty of the female form and everything to do with the way it makes the artist feel to make it as such.

An absolutely beautiful old church. 

A mosque in the foreground with a vast synagogue in the background.  Apparently, Bulgaria originally sided with Nazi Germany in World War II, because Hitler promised them a good deal of land, but, when he came calling for the Jews, the Bulgarian leader said that they were still needed to do labor in the country.  He continued in this habit until Bulgaria switched and sided with the Allies, thus saving all the Jews within Bulgarian borders.

A Russian Orthodox church, with an unpictured Catholic church near it.  These two buildings and the aforementioned two were all quite close to each other.  Bulgaria apparently prides itself on the fact that these four are "within a stone's throw of each other, but never has a stone been thrown between them."

Alex and Vera drinking from the hot springs water that was fixed into fountains.  It was supposed to cure you of diseases, however, I know that Alex and I at least got a cold after drinking it, I'm not sure about Vera.  I think I'd say that it seems rather counter-productive, unless it's a "You've got to get worse to get better" mentality.

Two beautiful shots of Alexander Nevsky, yet another Cathedral in Sofia.  It rekindled my deep-rooted desire to find a way to spend the night or nights inside one of these grand old Cathedrals, although, I'm not sure I could hold my own against the other squatters, and I'm sure the darkest dark that would come with night would frighten me to death.  Nonetheless, I think, as would Miss Anne of Green Gables, that it would be terribly romantic and an adventure worth having.

In spite of the ghastly way I chose to treat my feet while walking around that day, I think it was a wonderful adventure. Jet lag screamed at me from about noon on, which was interesting, since noon in Bulgaria is only 6pm in Korea, but I suppose my midnight departure contributed.  In spite of all that, my biggest regret may have been leaving behind a beautiful violin with a carved scroll that I found in a market.  It was in atrocious condition, having been used instead of paper for someone to track numbers, with cracks around the end peg, so I knew there would be a heart-stopping cost to refurbish it, but I fell in love with it.  Sadly, the woman was asking a bit too much for it, compared to the repair costs, and I couldn't justify it at this juncture in life.  I would have haggled, but she seems entirely non-haggle friendly.  Perhaps it was my clear non-Bulgarian-ness, or because she didn't know that I would have happily gone and withdrawn the money from my bank account if a number came up that seemed more reasonable.  My biggest hangup was that I didn't feel confident in my appraisal abilities.  Perhaps I should study up on that, so that this won't happen again.

Look for more posts about my trip soon!

Lent: Double Header

Blessing #9 - My students
Yesterday, the new semester started.  I wasn't really looking forward to it, but I even got there early.  I was afraid it was going to set the tone, when, as I was walking in, one of my students recognized me, and we had the following conversation:

Student: 안녕하세요.

Me: Hi!  How are you?

S: I'm bad.

M: Bad?  Why are you bad?

S: ... ... ... You.

M: Me?  Why me?

S: ... ... ... *runs away*

Oh goodness.  But I decided to work on convincing myself that he was attempting to have a sense of humor, while I also tried silencing the rant on respect that was threatening to overtake my brain.  I'm glad I was able to keep both to myself.

I got the pleasure of meeting all of my co-teachers for this semester.  They all speak almost fluent English and are rather nice.  I'm looking forward to working with them.

I got my schedule for this semester: I will be teaching third through sixth grade, and only see each class one day a week.  While I think that is unfortunate for their language-learning, it's nice for me, because my role is now very clearly defined.  It will be very hard to replicate the issues I had last semester, where no one was really sure who was in charge of the class.

I got my new textbooks for this semester:  While I'm still not thrilled with the student textbooks and supplement videos, the language they're learning actually looks like it's pretty good, so I'm feeling a bit better about the book choice, even if it was only coincidental that they will teach the kids language that will challenge them  (The books were only bought because they were a continuation of the third and fourth grade series).

As I was leaving lunch, I looked up to see a line of my 4th graders from last semester (now 5th graders). Their exuberance at seeing me made my heart leap and a smile grow on my face.  I was even more excited to see that one of them was the boy from that morning.  I went over to talk to them.  The first comment that they made was how my hair looked different (It grows astoundingly fast), and, for the first time, I found myself incredibly appreciative of Korea's rather "feminine" men and began trying to plot how they could teach American men to notice such things.  Then, one of my more memorable/excitable/IknowI'mnotsupposedtohavefavoritesbuthekindofisone students  (shown in the picture) looked at my and asked, "불고기가 맛있어요?" ("Is bulgogi delicious?" AKA - "Do you like this special Korean meat that we all like a lot?")  It was loud, so I didn't hear him clearly, which made me sad, because that's a sentence I learned how to answer recently: "네.  맛있어요.  하지만, 저는 알레르기가 있어요." (Yes, it's delicious, but I'm allergic.) But, one of the kids translated before the words processed in my head, so I responded in English, asking them if they knew what an allergy was.  I was impressed to find that they did.  I explained that I'm allergic to meat, and they were properly (although hilariously) horrified.  At that point, I realized how much I'd missed them.  I genuinely like those particular boys as people, and if they never grew up more than they have, I wouldn't be upset with them until they were about 23.  

I'm looking forward to Monday, that's for sure.

Blessing #10 - Music
Today, I went to my church translator's house for lunch with him and his wife.  I got really confused about their intentions, thinking they just wanted me over to practice some violin stuff for Palm Sunday, but, as I will be doing something with the International Church that day, I explained I wouldn't be available, and didn't bring my violin to the lunch.  As it turned out, the wife just wanted to make sure that I had friends in the church who were willing to speak English to me, because she remembered what a blessing it was when her church in America provided her with a small group of Korean-speakers.  Then, they gave me a Korean-English hymnal, which brought tears to my eyes.  I love the hymns, and I have missed them so much.  

The wife is the choir/music director at church, so she's pretty musical.  Nonetheless, I was surprised to see a piano in their home.  She asked me if we could do a couple hymns right then.  I picked the first one, deciding on "The Love of G-d is Greater Far."  She picked the next one, our church favorite: "How Great Thou Art."  This, of course, sent me into a wave of tears, which horrified them, but I pulled myself together, explaining that it was my grandfather's favorite hymn, and, even though he had passed two years ago, I still can hear his voice singing that song.  I haven't been able to sing that song since then, because I miss him so much.  But I wanted to sing it.  He would hate us not singing it.  So we sang it, and I closed my eyes and drank in the sound of his voice in my ear.  And, although I got choked up at points, I sang every last word.

I couldn't stop smiling all day.  My grandfather was with me today.

What are your grandparents' favorite hymns?  When was the last time you sang them?

Handel's Mesiah

I got the opportunity to go to hear Handel's Messiah performed live yesterday.  How?  Well, I saw an advertisement for it while I was on the bus, so I took note and showed up later the next day.  Now, I don't mean to slight anyone's hard work over in Nashville, but never in my life have I heard a more glorious performance of this work than I did last night... and they did it without intermission... and added an encore performance of the Hallelujah Chorus.  I was in tears... partially from the beauty of it, and partially from the realization that if I was in Nashville I would be doing the same thing in about a week.   Either way, it was good enough that I had to share.

The cover of the program

I live in Korea.  There's a line for everything.

Tenor 최승진, singing his heart out on "Every Valley Shall Be Exalted."

Mezzo-Soprano 구은서, with an absolutely stunning performance of "O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings To Zion."

Mezzo-Soprano 구은서 and Soprano 박영자, singing "He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd."  It was too good to cut down, so this is the entire song.

Hallelujah Chorus - I was very pleasantly surprised to find that everyone stood for this, despite a lack of ties to England and its former King.

Bass 류현승 was not my favorite, but only because I'm incredibly picky when it comes to basses.  He clearly is very well trained and has put many hard hours of practice into his profession.  He is singing "The Trumpet Shall Sound," featuring 정권수 on solo trumpet.

I hope you were able to enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did!
<3

This one's for my mom.

 Momma,

You're always saying how you want to hear me play in church.  Unfortunately, you couldn't be there, but this was for you.  Sorry it wasn't the best I could have done, but, sometimes in the battle against the cold, frozen fingers will lose.

Love,

Anne

For Alex

Alex asked me about playing my violin here, so today I will write about that.  (And the rest of my Sunday, I think.)

Sooo, Sunday morning, I showed up at church at 10:30 for the chamber orchestra practice, and realized that I had left my tuner at home. (Boo.)  The only other player there was the sax.  By 10:45, two flutes had shown, and just before 11:00, the cellist showed up, started tuning, and immediately popped her A string.  She didn't have a spare, so she played on three strings.  They stuck a lead sheet in front of my face, which made me rather happy.  I was afraid I would be reading complex classical music, an intimidating thought in a land of serious classical musicians.  However, improv is something I am pretty okay with, and, as a result, I had a GREAT time.  We played a couple praise tunes I didn't recognize, but we also did Shout to the Lord and Draw Me Close to You.  We played with some of the hymns too.  I was especially thrilled to hear Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee, since I had done that in Suzuki and knew the harmonies, but what made my day was when they started In the Garden.  That was my lullaby growing up, and my one of my late grandfather's favorite hymns.  All-in-all, the violin experience was unprofessionally perfect.  I love playing, especially in a group where the audience can't tell if I'm out of tune (thank you, Mr. Saxophone player in a C-instrument dominated group).  :)

After church, we went on a culture trip to a traditional Korean village (you may have seen pictures of this on my Facebook page).  What I DIDN'T tell you was that the pastor was totally trying to set me up with this Korean guy, Ricky.  The pastor made me ride in Ricky's car, and designated us as a group by ourselves... so I spent the whole day with him stuck to me like glue... ... ... it was awkward to say the least.  At dinner, Ricky poured my cup full of water and everyone else's half full, which I'm told is sort of a profession of love, and he traded seats with a couple of people so he could sit next to me.  Ohhhhhhh the stresses of trying to politely rebuff advances while avoiding starting another world war...

Anyway, here are some photos of my trip (click on them to make them bigger):

This is the water wheel at the entrance to the village.

People actually live in the majority of the village.  It is the responsibility of the oldest son in Korea to move to a home near his parents' grave and live there for three years after they pass.  There is a burial ground in this village, so that is the reason why most people live there.  It's so pretty though, it's almost worth giving up all the amenities of modern life.

These are warriors that are carved from trees and placed at the front of villages to protect the residents.

This is me at the doors to one to one of the museum houses.

Part of an upper class compund

This is a lower class home (you can tell by the roof).  The middle class compounds have a combination of both styles.

Rice fields forever - they smell really good!  I wanted to go running through them, but the bases of the stalks are totally submerged in water, so that would not have been a good plan.

You know me and tiger lilies.  If it hadn't been for the nasty white bugs on them, I probably would have grabbed one and tried to root it, but, alas... nastiness prevailed, and they're all safely waiting for another awesome photo op like this one.

Okay!  I love you all and will continue to take posting requests via email, Facebook, or blog comment. :)