Brighton

When Nicola and I visited Brighton, all I could think about was the part in Pride and Prejudice where Lydia goes down to Brighton with the officers and ends up eloping with Mr. Wickham. It was kind of fun imagining what the Brighton of the early 1800s looked like, but it was also actually quite difficult. (Tangent alert.) Houses in California were usually built at some point in the last 50 years, and if they were actually built 50 or more years ago they’re considered rather old. Here though there’s no way of telling. When I went into the Dennis Severs’ house I was thinking, ‘Ok, maybe 60-100 years old, on the generous side,’ only to be informed that it was actually built in 1724. The US was still a colony at that point! Even most of the houses in the suburbs in the UK were built before World War Two. (Now back to Brighton.)

We came out of the train station (built in 1840, so this would not have been where Lydia arrived with the officers.) and started following the crowd of people who had shuffled us off the train towards the sea. The day was cloudy but the city was still alive with people and markets.

Crowds swelled around brightly colored buildings – bold yellows trimmed in red, mint greens, deep turquoise blues and pastel pinks - flowing into one shop or down a market street to the side. The city itself seemed to move, meandering off on little tangent streets filled with markets, massive antique shops and small second hand bookstores.





As we followed the flow of people, drinking in the surroundings, we were soon swept down a side street and into a farmers market that was filled with older women in purple dresses and red hats picking through fresh produce. After drifting back onto the main street we were soon distracted into another busy side street. Here there were tables set up outside massive antique and vintage shops that were overflowing with the strangest and coolest jumble of things you can imagine. Old tin toys, manikins with no arms, poufy holiday sweaters, original Pokémon figurines and just about everything else you can imagine was available for purchase in the cases and on the tables. We went into the largest shop we passed and found a pathway cleared through the tangle of things. We followed the wandering trail around two floors, getting lost in stacks of books and boxes of old badges and pins. After an hour of browsing we forced ourselves to leave and continued toward the sea.

We turned a corner and found Brighton Dome, which is really less of a dome and more of a expansive building built in the Middle Eastern style of architecture where concerts, comedians, speakers and exhibitions are held. After a quick walk inside we realized that the Dome was much more exciting from the outside unless you have a ticket to one of the above venues, so we retraced our steps out the door and followed a path around to the back of the building. We emerged onto a large green lawn sprawling away from the back of the building toward another similarly styled building to the side. It hardly felt like we were still in England.



When we pressed on we finally came down a hill and found ourselves facing the sea. The pier reached over the waves to our right, a Ferris wheel stood silent to our left and small orange rocks sloped down to meet the grey water that stretched endlessly beyond. The entrance to the pier was like the entrance to a fair - there were stands for crepes, cotton candy, ice cream and waffles curving around two arched entryways. I stopped to get a sugar and lemon crepe and savored the sweet, tangy flavor as we strolled down the pier.



Nicola gasped as I was watching seagulls play in the wind off the side of the pier, and I looked up just as a seagull swooped down and nearly collided with my head. Luckily I flinched when I saw him, pulling my head down and clutching my crepe close to my chest. I looked around and saw the birds below watching my crepe and realized something – the little jerk was trying to steal my crepe! It’s a good thing he missed or I would have been eating seagull kebabs over a beach bonfire that night. He circled back around, his head tilted; eyeing me reproachfully and squawking a little disappointedly.



Making sure I had his attention, I took a big slow bite of my crepe. He might have been a dumb bird but he got the message all right because he squawked louder, annoyed and provoked. I stuffed the last few bites in my mouth and walked on briskly before the feathered little terrorist could gather back up and mount another attack.

There is a fair at the end of the pier that brings images of lazy summer days at the sea to mind. (These days definitely involve Lydia and the officers in my mind even though the pier wasn’t built until several decades after she would have been there.) The day was windy and a bit cold but the pier was less crowded than in warmer months, (as I was told) and offered a bustling but peaceful atmosphere.

No longer content to look down at the beach, we soon climbed down to walk on the shore. It wasn’t long before we discovered that the picturesque orange pebbles that look so pretty in photographs are rather hellish to walk on. Firstly because it feels like a rather aggressive foot massage. Secondly, the pebbles are so smooth they can’t get any hold on each other and shift as you walk, causing your feet to be sucked several inches beneath them with each step. Finally, when this happens, about 18 dozen pebbles maliciously burrow into your shoes and wedge themselves in the most painful places, such as against the bridge of your food or between your toes, and make taking more than one step at a time between emptying your shoes impossible. Taking your shoes off was also a poor option since walking barefoot felt like the equivalent of walking over the top of a vat of rounded ice cubes.



After scrambling over the beach for a bit, we began to make our way for the station, becoming distracted in a few more shops along the way but finally making it onto our train.

Other Photos


Awesome dog in a pub window.




There is an annual festival in Brighton where artists paint massive murals on the back of a stretch of buildings.




You can't pass up a good touristy photo opportunity.


I would have ridden the chicken. Oddly enough the three chickens were the only animals that weren't horses on the carousel.




This is an Alice in Wonderland store! (Shout out to Caroline - the biggest Alice fan I know.)



RLO -Xxx

I have always found messaging etiquette/language interesting – It’s almost a whole different language, with different linguistic laws. Usually at home if texts don’t have a clear, hard end, we will end them with some sort of emoticon – usually : ), : (, >.< or : / This sort of ends the message and gives it some point of reference for tone because, obviously, tone and body language are eliminated in writing.

Here they end messages with “Xx.” Kiss kiss. Or sometimes more like “Xxxxxx.” (kisskisskisskisskisskiss!) I noticed it before I got here a bit, but never thought about it very much. Tom Felton can’t seem to send a tweet without attaching some amount of kisses on the end and Palak ended every text she sent me once I got here with x’s. I didn’t quite make the connection that everyone did this here though until I got my first text from someone at the university.

I don’t remember exactly what it said; it was something about food. “Did you want to get lunch sometime? Xx.”

Oh my. That’s rather intimate.

Someone soon explained that this means something more along the lines of “full stop,” not “let-me-virtually-kiss-you-multiple-times,” and ended my confusion.

For the most part I’ve been sticking to my smiley faces, but who knows – maybe once I’m back I’ll find I’m hooked on ending my messages with kisses rather than faces.

Xx.

London-isms

Dithering – wavering between options (i.e. “I was dithering today on whether I should present Monday or Tuesday.”)
Cash Machine - ATM
Jumper - Sweater/Hoodie
Chuffed – amused, excited, pleased
Tea – This can also just mean food (i.e. “I have to go to work without tea!”)
Cob - bun
Bap – also a word for a bun
Spot - zit
Philadelphia – cream cheese (People over here like to refer to items by their brand names)
Chunder – throw up
Plait – braid (I know we have this word in America as well but they use it much more frequently here)
Sort it out – figure it out / fix something (i.e. “My schedule is messed up but I’ll sort it out.”)
Kip – sleep, nap (i.e. “I had a kip today.” Or “You can kip at my place.”)
Maths – math (i.e. “I’m rubbish at maths.”)
Uni – university

Bulgaria, Part 3 (or -Megan Whines About Caves and Recounts Other More Pleasant Memories)

Every time we ate in Bulgaria I ended up being so full I felt like a pig being prepared for slaughter. The next morning in Smilyan turned out to be no different.

By the time Mariana, Kaloyan and I had woken up, Mariana’s grandmother had already made about 20 mekitsi – fried circles of dough. You put fresh jam or honey on them and eat them warm. They are so good! After about three though you start to feel a little ill, but you aren’t allowed to stop until all of them are gone.

We were off to explore some of the surrounding mountain villages, so after a quick coffee stop down the road, we piled back into the car and Kaloyan started driving towards Greece.



How awesome is that??

We stopped in Mogilitsa first, a village with a population under 500 that is the home of Agushevi konatsi, a castle-like winter estate built in 1834 for the wealthy Ottoman feudal lord Agush Aga and his family, and Bulgaria’s largest spoon. The house was cool, but personally I was more impressed by the spoon. While Mariana, Kaloyan and I walked around snapping photos, her grandmother struck up a conversation with the locals who were lounging nearby in a way that only an elderly, near-local woman could. People openly stared at me, their eyes asking the question that the language barrier prevented them from voicing – what are you doing in a small, Bulgarian mountain village?? I felt like the French man in the Roma movie “Gadje Dilo” that we had watched a few days earlier, and I quite enjoyed being the odd stranger for once.

We drove on through several more villages, searching for a restaurant where the river that flows down through the Rodophe Mountains begins.

Have you ever been in an Amber store? Every time I go into one I am impressed by how many different colors of Amber there are. The stones range from warm oranges, to clear yellows, to a rainbow of greens. Driving through the mountains felt like I had been miniaturized in a case of Amber. The trees took all the colors of fall and presented them so brilliantly that they looked as if they had been Photoshopped. The villages were spaced out and small, following the tracks of the valley between the mountains and climbing partway up the mountainsides. Older people, their faces and hands weathered with years of hard work, congregated in the village centers, seemingly content just to sit together. You could see the influence of the Ottoman Empire more in this region since it was one of the last areas of Bulgaria to be liberated. There was at least one Mosque and one church in each tiny village, and often more than one of each. The mountain villages were peaceful, quiet, beautiful and seemingly untouched by the busy, technology-driven life of the rest of Europe.





After a few villages, we reached a sign pointing to a dirt road, saying the restaurant was 500 meters or so down the path.

About five meters down and I was starting to think that ‘path’ was a rather generous word – I couldn’t have comfortably walked on this road so you can imagine how difficult it was to drive over.

Every hundred meters or so we would find a handmade sign nailed to a tree saying something encouraging like “I promise it’s not far now! Don’t turn around!”

Finally, at about the point that I was seriously beginning to worry about the car, (It was an older, small-ish car certainly not fit for the off-road driving we were doing) we saw a wooden archway with a sign saying we had finally made it.

When we walked through the wooden arc, we first spotted a wooden cabin-like structure ahead. Different swings and hammocks hung from the pine trees leading down the hill and into the rambling restaurant below. A giant, black and white, shaggy dog barked enthusiastically and pawed the air from the left where he was chained to a tree. To the right was the river, which was really more of a stream at this point, with several small bridges arching over it. Small, open shelters lined the sides, housing a mix of chairs, benches and wooden stumps around rough, wooden tables.





It was an eclectic, beautiful place. Stepping into it felt like walking into a fairy tale.

A short man with a wide grin and a sheepskin hat ran up excitedly and began to chatter about the menu with us. Just before he went to get our food, he handed us a key and told us to try it on the cottage at the end of the stream.

The cottage was set up in the traditional, old Bulgarian style, with red, green and white Bulgarian national dresses hung on the walls and jars of homemade jam and honey stacked along the edges of the room.

We sat down back outside in one of the shelters as the man was coming back with our food. He brought us homemade berry juice that was rich with sugar, yogurt with homemade jam and crepes with five different types of jam on them. It might not sound like an overwhelming amount of food, but never underestimate the power of jam. There were giant spoonfuls of jam in the yogurt, five heaping spoons on the crepe and the juice was basically pureed jam with water and extra sugar added. My stomach was threatening mutiny if I ate any more about halfway though. I managed to eat my way through the yogurt, the juice and half of the crepe before I started to feel like my throat was closing off and had to admit defeat.



When we were able to move again we waddled back to the car (taking a break on one of the swings halfway there and another by the fluffy monster-sized dog) and started driving back toward Smilyan.

About halfway there, Mariana asked me if I wanted to stop and see her favorite cave. I said yes since a) I (used to) like caves b) it seemed like an important place to her, and mostly because c) caves are usually cold and quiet, which sounded like it would help with the about-to-vomit-jam feeling.

We pulled off and parked in front of a mountain that was so steep it was probably only a few degrees away from being a cliff and Mariana hoped out of the car and pointed straight up, saying something along the lines of “we need to hurry to make the next tour!”

Ok, you can do this, I thought. It’s not too far – she must have just been pointing a little too high. It’ll be worth it.

We started climbing and by the time we made it to the first switchback I could taste pumpkin jam at the back of my throat. Pull yourself together, I thought, don’t slow the group down! Move it!

By the third switchback I didn’t care if we never made it to the cave because I was barely keeping the jam down. I plopped down on the bench and panted for the next few minutes.

We finally found a set of stairs – hooray!

Only 12 more flights of stairs to go until we got to the cave!

Oh, so when you pointed at the sky you really did mean “we are about to scale that mountain.”

These weren’t any ordinary stairs either – they were steep, shallow and offered a pretty direct fall down the mountain if you slipped or didn’t hang on to the slim railing.

By the time I crawled to the top of the last set of stairs I was heaving like a wounded animal. When Mariana cheerfully asked me if I wanted to walk over to the railing and see the view down the mountain it was all I could do not to growl at her.

I flopped onto a bench and slowly calmed my heart rate, settled the jam back into my stomach and caught my breath. Before too long a cheerful woman came out of a hut to the side of the clearing and unlocked the metal gate blocking the entrance to the cave.

She started leading us down into the cave, past all sorts of damp cave formations and through skinny slanting areas that had me wondering how mental the first cave explorers had to be to brave these sections without a path. Then she led us down some more, and down a bit further. The whole time I was counting the steps and thinking that once we reached the bottom we were going to have to turn around and go right back up.



Suddenly, she stopped at a flat walkway, bringing me to a halt since I was right behind her, and turned around slowly. “Don’t make any sudden movements and don’t be frightened,” she said in slow, calm English.

Why, have we awoken the dragon?? I’m pretty sure the stalagmites don’t scare easily.

She very slowly pointed to one of the stalactites a foot or so from my head. My eyes followed her hand just as slowly, and I found myself staring at a black ball. A black ball? That’s a weird rock. With a wing. And another.

Have you seen Ace Ventura? Yes, well this bat might not have been white, but Shikaka can keep his cave - I was getting out of there. The path back was blocked by people so I quickly ran down the next set of stairs away from the evil, winged, fanged thing and prayed there weren’t any more below. As I didn’t come face-to-face with another, I am going to continue to tell myself that there weren’t.

I can't show you a photo of the bat because I ran away too fast, but I can show you our bat faces.



We finally reached the end of a cave where we found a very impressive set of cave formations. (I kid you not, the end was a quarter mile into the mountain, which is half the distance to the parking lot below.) There was what looked to be a waterfall made from sparkly, white stone with brown formations around it.



The tour guide pointed out the “statues” that people had found around the walls, including the Virgin Mary and an elephant’s butt.



I’ll be honest: all I saw were rocks in the way of “statues” at that point.

Other Photos

The cats in the larger cities like Blago or Sofia were more skittish and ran when you got close, but the cats in the smaller villages were really friendly! Once I pet one they started flocking to me in droves.







We attempted to read our tea leaves (or coffee dregs).



Mariana saw more than I did.



RLO

One positive thing about not celebrating Thanksgiving is that the Christmas madness can begin an entire month early! The insane lights on the city streets, the red Starbucks Christmas cups, Christmas music, Winter Wonderland carnivals – they all come early and stay for two entire months. I love it! This also means the warm-fuzzy/nostalgic/I-love-winter/cozy/it’s-almost-Christmas feeling begins earlier and gets to last a bit longer.

London-isms

Bit – part (They use similarly to how we would define it, just way more frequently. i.e. “I liked the bit where James Bond blew up the building,” or “I didn’t mind the bit with the videos in the museum, but I didn’t like the rest of the exhibition.”
Fit – hot, attractive. (i.e. “He’s really fit.”)
Happy Christmas – Merry Christmas
On offer – on sale
Washing – Also means dirty dishes
Washing-up Liquid – dishwashing liquid
Muffler – scarf
Mince – ground beef
Toastie – toasted sandwich

Bulgaria Part 2

Road Trip

“Good Lord, why are there no railings!” I asked for the eight-millionth time.

Because seriously – I was a good several hundred feet above the ground on a narrow path of white rock that had been worn smooth and slippery from hundreds of years of use and weather and I had nothing to hold on to.



“Just be careful!” Plamen said behind me.

“Yeah or die,” I muttered under my breath, clinging to a rare rock jutting out from the cliff next to me and glancing down at the ground far below to my right.

It was my fourth day in Bulgaria and Mariana, her boyfriend Kaloyan, her friend Plamen and I were driving from Sofia on the west side of Bulgaria down Smolyan in the mountains to the south. In total, the drive takes a little more than four hours.



After a fair amount of road trip games and talk about everything from Harry Potter to traditional Bulgarian food, we stopped at Asen’s fortress.


(Did I mention the funny photos we took before we stopped?)

Asen’s fortress is a medieval fortress that was built high on a rocky ridge in the 11th century and was then considerably renovated in the next two centuries. All that is left of the fortress today is a series of walls and foundations that ramble up over the top of the hill, but the Church of the Holy Mother of God which was built next to it in the 12th century is almost perfectly preserved. Looking at it now you can’t help wonder how in the world it was built.



The area was beautiful. Mountains rose behind us, the earth dropped into a steep valley before rising into more mountains in front of the church, and a deep valley sloped off to either side. On one side mist blurred layers of mountains that stretched away from the fortress, while on the other side buildings covered the valley floor like a river, flowing out past the edge of the valley and spreading on the barely visible plane beyond. Vibrant orange and yellow leaves covered the trees and carpeted the stones in areas. The rocks themselves had been worn so smooth they looked like polished marble.



It was fun exploring the ruins as well. There were no ropes or railings and few attempts seemed to have been made to preserve the crumbling foundations. I have always loved visiting ruins. It's fun to stand in the small squares that are ringed with stones and imagine the room that used to stand around the space. Who did the room belong to? How was it decorated? Where were the windows? Who looked out them at the same view I am looking at now?

Mariana, having grown up in the mountains, seemed to have all the fear of heights that a mountain goat might have, and carelessly climbed on and around the walls, ignoring the sharp drops next to her as if they didn’t exist. I however, the much more paranoid one of the two of us, liked to have my hands on something solid, and clung to the rocks like a baby that is just learning to walk.





We left before too long and continued on, but after a half hour Mariana proposed another impromptu stop. We had come to a sign for the Wonderful Bridges, rock formations that were about 30 kilometers off the main road. Without much convincing, we all agreed to go.

When we finally pulled up to the bridges we found another hill. This one was less treacherous but more tiring. By the time we walked to the top of the hill to see the first “bridge” we were all puffing like 80-year-old asthmatic smokers.

The bridges are massive, natural arches that have been worn into the face of stone cliffs by a river. They’re impressive because of their symmetry and size.



We caught our breath and made our way back down the hill. The next bridges were off to the side and down a steeper hill, and the only thing I could think as we walked down the hill was how much it would suck coming back up.

The bridges at the bottom were impressive, but after a bunch of photos we found ourselves standing at the bottom of the hill looking for the least tiring path back up. We settled on a rocky slope to the side instead of the stairs but still ended up huffing, puffing and whining our way up the last 30 feet or so.

Smolyan

We drove into Smolyan as the sun was sinking behind the mountains, casting the buildings and steep streets into a hazy gray light, and dropped Plamen off near his house before taking the car to a shop near the river at the bottom of the city so snow tires could be put on. From there we walked up about ten million billion flights of stairs to meet Mariana’s friend Nikki and his girlfriend on the pedestrian street at the top of the city.



By the time we reached them at the top of the last staircase I was convinced that there could not possibly be a single fat person in Smolyan.

As we were walking to a café at the end of the street we ran into several more couples that were friends of Mariana, and there was quite a bit of screaming and hugging and jumping about. When we got to the café we had assembled a group of six, and were quickly joined by two more.

It was a fun, relaxing hour at the café, sipping drinks and getting to know people. Nikki had a kind face and was constantly smiling. He and his girlfriend both laughed nonstop in an endearing, infectious sort of way. Svetla, the woman who lives next door to Mariana’s parents flat in Smolyan, is a sincere, quiet woman. She was more reserved than Nikki and his girlfriend but we chatted about the area and her classes at University. Her boyfriend, Peter, seemed like a peaceful person. He seemed content to listen and observe in a group, rather like I am.

The one thing I have noticed about nearly everyone that I met in Bulgaria is that they are very proud of their culture and local histories and love to share. By the time we left the café I had heard all about the local food, the lack of jobs in the area and how the multitude of winter resorts that are being built nearby are causing light pollution that interferes with the massive observatory in the city. My favorite story was about Orpheus, a Greek mythological prophet who was said to be able to charm every living thing with his music. It is said that he was born in the Rhodope Mountains where Smolyan is located.

Smilyan

Once we had climbed back down the mountain and collected the car, we drove about 15 minutes to Smilyan, the village where Mariana’s Grandmother lives. Her parents are living with her sister in Finland, so she didn’t want to stay in her empty flat.

It was a good choice, because when we stepped into the freezing night outside her grandmother’s house, we were infinitely glad for the warm stove and hot food waiting just inside.

Her grandmother had made a local dish called patatnik, which is made from potatoes and meat covered in flakey pastry. There was also soup made from a local bean that the village is famous in Bulgaria for and a coleslaw salad. It was delicious!



We went to bed full, warm and incredibly content.

Other Photos


This is the inside of the front door at Mariana and Kaloyan's apartment. Um...guys? I think you need a few more locks...


The night before we left for Smolyan we met Mariana's sister and her sister's boyfriend for dinner at a restaurant on Vitosha Mountain above Sofia. Mariana and I split a very epic waffle.


I was coaxed up onto a wall at the fortress but I don't think I let go of Plamen until I was on the ground and had my hand safely back on the wall.


This is the inside of the church at the fortress.


Surprisingly, a crepe with feta cheese, honey and jam is actually delicious.


Fluffy dog!


Wood-carrying-horse-crossing

Finally, more fun with signs!


DO NOT PLAY YOUR FLUGELHORN IN THE TUNNEL!!!

RLO

At Mizzou, as at many American universities, school shirts and sweatshirts are pretty standard campus-wear. Granted, Mizzou takes it up a notch, (if half of your wardrobe hasn’t come from the bookstore or free events and organizations, you aren’t a real student) but even students at schools with less school pride tend to sport their colors around campus.

I made the mistake of wearing my bright pink University of Westminster hoodie to class one morning here and felt like a pariah.

Seriously – the looks I got would make you think I had a scarlet “A” stitched to my front.

I paid attention after that and noticed that one of the Australian students and one other American girl insist on wearing their hoodies around nearly everyday, but I have yet to see a British student do so.

I now save my hoodie for in-my-room-comfy-wear or elsewhere-around-London-warmth.

London-isms

Rubber – eraser
Rub out – erase
Be one of the lads – Be a man/ man up
Getting too big for your boots – getting cocky/ getting a big ego
Torch – flashlight
Pissed – drunk (Which created a lot of awkward situations the first few weeks here, because whenever someone said, “I’m pissed,” I would respond with “Aw, why? What’s wrong?” They would then look confused and say, “No… I’m drunk…”)
Courgette – Zucchini
Aubergine – Eggplant
Knackered – exhausted
Banger – really old car