the bulge...both self and country

bulgaria!

so, about a week in bulgaria. let's begin with the arrival. a brief word on the logistics of travel from moldova: fucking impossible.

anything, save bucharest, iasi, or odessa, is far, far far away. like a 12 hour bus ride/train ride to bucharest, the travel hub (go romania). at first i refused to fly on general principle, but i may have to reconsider after a 23 hour train from odessa to the moldovan border, then a 2 hour maxi taxi ride home.

so, the trip began with inchoate directions to the 'hiker's hostel' at veliko tarnovo. veliko tarnovo is pretty sweet. like a medieval backpacker hamlet with a laid back student feel. wish we had another day there, if only to appreciate the nightlife fully (them crazy greeks... that's another story).

VT is kind of like the 'this is so nice it's not bulgaria bulgaria' ... it's the crown jewel of the backpacker's circuit. then we were off the wild bill's adopted village for a few days, with a day excursion to plovdiv. plovdiv is sweet. the roman amphitheatre that is still in use blew me away. i went into a temporary paralysis when walking down the shopping arcade, and was momentarily drawn into the (genuine) Diesel store. but, being with wild bill, i quickly came to my senses and realized i didnt' need shit. but, had i been with a girl, i would have totally gone girlie and bought some shit, if only to spread the word about bulgaria to my moldovan friends.

the village was the best part, for the food, the world cup, and the comparison. though i dummed slavi & sofia's place 'villa' life because it's such a pimp pad.

in general, i have to suggestions for bulgaria as a country: don't litter, and centralize timetables and relevant transportation information. that would make travel infinitely smoother and hasten the transition from peripheral eastern balkan/Romanian lackey to true tourist powerhouse. to any and all bulgarians, take the aforementioned with a grain of salt. please, keep in mind that i'm living in moldova!

anyhow, the bulge didn't shrink the bulge of the waist variety too much. we'll have to wait and see how that one is doing...

ankle update: fine and dandy, might be up for some football soon...

food in Moldova

is good, unhealthy, and just the way i like it.

breakfast: tea or coffee, fresh bread, preserves, cheese, pork, and perhaps a yogurt. this is the lightest meal of the day...

my host mother, elena, insists on tea, even if i have an 8am appointment. "mike, xoches kuschatz? ... nyet, ne xochu" but she prepares food anyways. i can't say that i'm eating healthy, definitely not losing weight, more like an unhealthy equilibrium. maybe i'll get a nice parasite and drop a few kilos. i'll just head to the villages for that... why am i writing about such issues? it's a blog, after all.

my audience has expanded to the point of censoring, unlike my previous blog. but... please comment!

nora, you'll be happy to know that for the past two days i've had butter at every meal. yup, living up to my name, which had almost died in the tofu cum healthy confines of ithaca, NY. i know you're all about that ... if only they had a decent friend chicken place.

but a word about Russian/Moldovan fast food. they basically consist of mediocre kebabs stuffed with mayo and fries, or pirozki. fried bread. stuffed with meat, cabbage, onions, pototoes, etc. two of them will make you sweat out a good grease ball on a hot day and will fill you up. they run about 2.5 lei, or about 20 cents. get two or three, throw in a bottle of water, and you have a perfect meal at the central market for about a buck. who needs mcdonalds when you can eat this good. but i must say, buying them is an experience. i have what one would call survival russian: if not understood on the first try, it usually doesn't succeed.

as a rule, most sellers of friend bread are women well past their prime, with mustaches of varying lengths and thicknesses. all are nice, and my quick witted "devushka" will usually gain me a glimpse of some precious metal, and a heartly laugh.

off to the bulge, soon...

the ankle and the beach: the moldovan riviera

...

it's like some sort of magical oracle. sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn't i think it might be something with a cartilage, or just some major stressing. it doesn't hurt like a broken bone or anything, just like a strained muscle group. one thing i know is that wearing sandals without an ace bandage sucks.

so, i went to a beach on the beautiful, polluted nistru river. transnistria lies beyond, and i actually got a glimpse of the militarized border. it was basically a rusted tank covered in camo netting, a white guard house, and a few dudes with AK-47s sitting around with nothing to do.

but that was on the way home. on the way there, we took a cab, an old, shiny yellow volga. the thing stalled at every stop, the driver was this geriatric, and when making a turn at more than 30km an hour his hands and the car would shake violently. no seatbelts, no nothing. but it was well worth it, as after we left the sprawling outskirts of chisinau, we finally entered "real moldova" - the country.

green as far as the eye can see, babuskas selling fruit on the side of the road, vineyards and the occasional trashy mansion.

the beach on the nistru was interesting. it was like a stretch of plowed farmland, fine dirt powder beaches, and lots of speedos. i kind of just sat there and was bored, but it was interesting nonetheless. the ankle started acting up but it is now just a presence i deal with. thought i am now a defenseless gimp both on the dance floor and when assaulted.

but anyhow, today is devoted to carl schmitt and language study.

post-soviet pavement

... is an interesting phenomenon. it's kind of like a major natural disaster (think katrina or some lesser hurricane), mix in a lot of mud, add a lot of scary holes and ditches, and then paint with your magic bruch all over an urban area of nearly a million people: you might have chisinau.

so, i was sampling some of the local vodkas and beers at the house of an unnamed companion (whose parents work in italy, mind you) and i, as the guest of honor, was made to drink lots of vodka. lots of $3 bottles. good shit, mind you, but only when you drink it properly, which entails never actually smelling the vodka. you take an open-faced sandwich of the smelliest food possible (in this case canned meat or fish and bread), take a huge shot, then put the food under your nose as you might smell a perfume sample or some other interesting olfactory experience, then eat. vodka taste & smell disappear, you are all the better feeling wise, and the hangover/sickness effect is negated, as you now have a full stomach.

so, i stopped count after 7 shots, switched to beer, which ran out after an hour, then went on to the vin de casa (house wine). it's literally home brew, and comes in all sorts of containers. this came out of what best can be described as an industrial strength pickle jar. before i know it my new friend Laur (an actor, always the hedonist, slightly older and more mature than my companions) & i head to a veschni bar (literally an 'eternal bar').

so, my memory stops then, and i somehow end up 3 hours later at dawn with laur and a huge hunger. but a good breakfast is hard to find in chisinau, and on a weekday it is all but impossible. so we get some more beers. but somehow i notice myself wincing with pain. as the drink wears off i am like in the worst pain of my life. but i am 3 km from home and there are no taxis to be found. so i hump it home and am dying with pain, my host family is getting up, and they think i have done some sort of all night dance marathon: my mom elena is like "misha cem bolshe tanzivatz"

no, i just got wasted and twisted my ankle. poor misha.

more to follow...

hospitality in moldova!

... is, simply stated, a way of life.

to the point of absurdity. case in point: i simply wanted to wander around the city and check out a place to eat mentioned in Lonely Planet. so, a member of my host family insists on accompanying me there. she invites her quasi-boyfriend (she's 16, a first courtship nonetheless). he brings his funny cousin who's like 6, who knows russian, romanian, and italian, and is basicaly all about ripping on me and looking for chicks. in any case, an all around good kid.

so, this place is like new russian prices, meaning $2-3 bucks for drinks, $5 for dishes, etc. i quickly pick up the tab for drinks, and since i didn't order any food, my host takes this to mean that the menu wasn't up to my specifications. off to another, more expensive, folksier restaurant. eventually we just get beers on the terrace and hang out, watch the ever shorter chisinau dresslines pass by, and finally walk around pushkin park with beers in hand. nothing like drinking in a park, i dare say.

so, we finally find a place to eat, and i, tired and not hungry, wishing to lose a few kilos, settle on beer. i pick up the tab, with the promise that "tomorrow you will go to moldovan disco and we make sure you have fun"

as long as the venga boys will be on the turntable and the 80s hits i know and love, i should be happy...

do zavtra

All i need is ...

an air-conditioned Soviet-era train, and a visa to guide me.
The scene: Gara de Nord, arguably the worst place to step into after being on the road for two days.

Met this sketchball who seemed nice, didn't demand money, and instantly latched himself on to me in the 'i'm not a mooch but want some cash' kind of way that only occurs when one leaves the stuffy confines of the European Union.

I arrived in Bucharest at around 2pm, with my departure around 8pm. I basically was a greased-ball'd mess, as humanity leaves me after two days without a shower. I mentioned that I just wanted some beers and food, and to walk around the city a bit. Checked my luggage, then headed to a "beer festival" that was actually pretty cool, but the only thing to eat there was sausages and other meat goodies, which wasn't bad but since i knew i would be on a pork diet for most of the summer resigned myself to being stinky, eating pork, and farting a lot on the train. which is not to say abnormal, as my fellow bunkmates were also feeling the 'romanian wind'

though my unnamed romanian friend mentioned that farting is akin to death ... not a problem. on the train my russian helped me very much, as most people of a certain age in moldova seem to have a soft spot for Russian whereas the younger (mid-twenties and younger) use Russian words only sporadically.

but needless to say the train was like a furnace, and only two hall windows in the whole train opened. Classic soviet style, no air flow of any kind, as the wind through the hair might, i dunno, make one comfortable. i'm definitely riding the bus in the future.

i slept only sporadically, as the heat kept me up and the sleep was more of a respite caused by exhaustion and not by comfort. before getting on the train in bucharest, i bought some groceries and these things helped out greatly. apples, sausages, a tomato, some bread, and a hunk of tasteless cheese did me well. i also purchased a red bull that, contrary to what you might think, actually put me to sleep.

that's enough for now. the family i live with is great, and i have my own personal guide, Christina, a temporarily displaces person. i'll just say that the mayonnaise is plentiful as is the hospitality. so much, in fact, that my language training and "research" hasn't begun. but it's only my third day.

in any case, poka