My Bucharest Home

Here is the address to the apartment building (bloc) that is my current abode. It is located on Strada Brailita. Brailita is pronounced Brailitza. The t at the end is the one with the accent that is pronounced tz. This address is right above the entrance door to the building. Once inside there are mailboxes and then the elevators. My apartment is on the 3rd floor.

Here it is from the outside. My flat (apartment) is the fourth one from the ground on the corner. You can see the white insulated windows. I know I said the apartment was on the 3rd floor, but remember here the ground floor is called the parter and not the first floor. The next one up is the first floor.

Finally, here is the bloc from a distance. You can still see my apartment there just next to the trees. It is a nice studio apartment with a kitchen, a big bed, two chairs, a couch, a table to eat on, and a tv. All the comforts a guy could want.

The Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Church

This church, which sits on top of a hill in downtown Bucharest, is the home church of the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church. It sits right next to his home (which is a palace). It is easy to see why this location was chosen, it would have given you a commanding view of the city. Of course now all you can see are the high-rise building surrounding the area.

Here is a view of the altar area inside the church. As you can see it is quite ornate. All of the Romanian Orthodox churches are decorated nicely inside but as this one is the home church of the head guy, it is even nicer.

Lastly, for all of you who know that I am a saint. Here is a picture of Saint Mark on the outside of the church.

The Outdoorsman

Here I am hanging with the campers. I had just mounted this fine steed when apparently he felt that the load was too heavy. Since he felt that i was not going to lose any weight quickly, he came upon another way to lighten his load. If you look closely you will notice a stream of water coming from beneath the horse. He stopped and until he had lightened his load he refused to move any further.

Having lightened his load the horse once again was willing to move around the corral. Notice the expert horsemanship portrayed by the rider. Able to use only one hand to hang on. Yee Haw.

Now to the other skill event of the day, archery. Notice the perfect balance, the rapt attention paid by all bystanders. I think i was even able to hit the target. Another fun day had by all.
Talk later.

Reading Bulgarian

The first work on this sign when you pronounce it in Bulgarian says garage. The first letter is the g, the a is an a, the p is the r sound, the a, and then the last letter says something like zha, almost the j sound. Many words are familiar, it is just not obvious at first.

This is the name of the street where my apartment is located. The first part, the y and what looks like an a without the line is an abbreviation for yulitza, which is street. The second word is senchetz, which is the name of some kind of flower which I forget (Miss Tony will kill me now).

The sign in the middle talks about the sports complex for one of the local football clubs (by football I mean soccer). The word on the second line is the name of the club, Spartak. The logo to the left is the logo for the club and at the top it says FC Spartak or football club Spartak.

The sign is important to me because it is one of the ways that I decide when to get off the bus. Here you can see the bus stop that I get off at when returning home from the office. I took this picture while I was sitting on at the bus stop across the street waiting for the bus to take me to the office.
Having more fun that one person should be allowed, talk with you all later.

Here is my home in Varna. If you look closely at the bottom floor on the right side you will see a green sign above a window and door. The sign is for the Vista Language School. During normal times this office operates as a satellite office for the main language school. During this time however, it is operating as my home. It is a cozy place with everything I need to live.

Here is the view up my street towards my building. This is the view I see as I return from the bus stop. My apartment building is not in sight in this picture but I thought you would enjoy the view.

Last, here is a picture of me from my camping trip last weekend. I am at Kaliakra. There is a legend about 4 Bulgarian girls (or 14 I am not sure which) who were trying to escape from the Turkish army. They came to this peninsula and realized that they were trapped. It is a long narrow peninsula that stretches out into the sea. When they reached the point a little further than I am standing in the picture, they realized that they were doomed. They vowed to die together rather than be captured by the Turkish army so they tied their hair together and jumped from the edge of the peninsula. It is over 100 feet down to the ocean, which at that point is filled with rocks just below the surface. A horrible way to die, but to them, preferable to capture.

Hanging with the Vista Language School Summer Campers

Here we are playing a game called Dragon, Knight, or Princess. The dragon eats the princess, the knight slays the dragon and the princess steals the heart of the knight (like rock, paper, scissors). Each team selects a figure to be and they line up opposite each other. Then you count endo (pronounced like it looks) dve (davay), tri (tree), which is one, two, three and you show your figure. The team that has the stronger figure wins a point. The pretty pose you see me perform is the princess pose, since the other side was the knight, we won the point.

Now on to baseball. My title for this picture is "Put me in coach, I'm ready to play." We have our gloves, our baseball hats and a working knowledge of the rules. Now all we need to add is some fun. The game was a blast with everyone having a good time.

Here we are playing a little "American football". The campers all swore that they knew the rule of the game so I told them "Show me how to play." What they played resembled a cross between rugby and "keep-away". Nothing close to American football. So i liken them up and showed them a few plays. I am sure that they believe their version is more fun.

For a job well done, a little treat. If you look closely into the middle of the pile of intently staring campers you will find some McDonald's french fries. As a treat for working so hard on their English, while having fun, the campers were treated to McDonald's cheeseburgers and fries. Another day of fun here in lovely Varna, on the Black Sea.

Talk later.

Camping in Bulgaria

Here I am standing on the cliffs overlooking the beautiful Black Sea. We went on a camping adventure this weekend. We camped in a wilderness camping area very near to where this picture was taken.

Yes, I put up my own tent. As you can see the place was "really crowded". I wish Yosemite looked like this some days! The ground was covered with rocks so the secret was to pick a spot where there were fewer rocks and hope you could sleep without one underneath you.

This is a view of the coast after we had hike down to the water level. I picked "hiked" because it was more than a walk, you had to be careful when you were going down.

Now for a little fun. Tell me what that rock looks like to you. Imagine that you are in a small clearing below this rock and you look up, quickly what does it look like. The people I was with all agreed as to what it looked like. Tell me what you think.

Last a question for you. This "bed" in one of the caves that were all over the area was used for a special ritual that was performed by the people who lived here long ago. Take a good look and decide what it was used for. You can answer me here in the comments section. If you post anonymous just add your name to the end of your post so I can know who is answering. Your prize??? You think there should be a prize?? How about, your prize is the knowledge you gain from answering this question!!

Tomorrow, Monday I start my second week of teaching. I will keep you posted as to how it is going.

Recruiting for the Los Angeles Dodgers

Today we went to a local park and played a little baseball. In this picture we are getting them all checked out on their mitt. Most of them had never put on a mitt before so as you can imagine we had a lot of work to do. Some of them were not even sure which hand the mitt went on. But what they lacked in experience they more than made up in enthusiasm. Of course they were not interested in learning any basics skills they just wanted to play, but we insisted they learn how to catch the ball first.

So here they are practicing the skill of catching the ball. We had to keep telling them to keep their mitt up and not drop it down when they were catching the ball. We  did this for a while before we let them hit off a tee. They kept asking like every 2 minutes, when are we going to play?

As you can see, I even got to pitch during the "game". Everybody had a great time and got to learn a little about that American game baseball. Tomorrow (Friday) I get to go camping with some people along the rocky coast in Northern Bulgaria. I will take some pictures and post them on here when I get back. Talk later.

One of my classes

Here are the students from my first class. They are 12 years old and we are having a fun time. They are Elaina, Laura, and Staman. One has been studying English for 5 years and the other two have been studying for 7 years. They understand English very well but they are reluctant to talk. So, that is the plan, we are doing things where they have to answer me in complete sentences. It was hard today, the first day of class, to convince them that they really needed to answer in complete sentences. So just like Mrs. Nunes' class and Ms Del Duco's class they are also being required to answer in complete sentences. If you look on the table you can see the picture that we were using to do Verb Tense Study. They did it very well and by the end of the class they were no longer shy and willing to attempt to answer in complete sentences. I will share more pictures of the other 2 classes that I am teaching. Tomorrow, I will be going to a baseball practice with some local youths. It will be their first exposure to the game of baseball. I think I will teach them that the correct yell at a baseball game is "Let's go Dodgers" hehe to all of you A's and Giant's fans. I got here first!

Arrival in Bulgaria

What a trip!!

On Monday I went from Bucharest, Romania to Varna, Bulgaria. A simple plan it seems at first. I had my ticket, a train from Bucharest to Ruse, Bulgaria, change trains in Ruse and on to Varna. I had a cushion of forty minutes in Ruse to make the change of trains. The train left Bucharest on time and other that one stop for about 5 minutes we proceeded without any problems. Except, we arrived in Ruse one hour late. So much for my forty minute cushion. On the train, sitting in my compartment was a German man who spoke no English but we were able to establish that he also was going to Varna. When we finally got to Ruse he and I got quickly off the train and met two travelers from Austria who also were trying to get to Varna. A man approached our little group and asked if we were going to Varna. We said yes and he said the last train of the day to Varna had left 20 minutes before, but he could take us by car to a station that the train would stop at, and he could get us there before the train arrived (so see cars are much faster than trains). We of course thought he was just someone trying to cheat stupid foreigners, so we went to the information booth. To get there we had to walk down two flights of stairs. The lady there said, "Varna, yes go to platform 1 to get the train." We ran to platform 1 and it was the train we had just left. We asked a man, does this train go to Varna, he said that it did, but it went to Sofia first and then tomorrow you can take a train to Varna. We asked are there no more trains here today for Varna and we were told no, go to Sofia, spend the night and try again tomorrow. We all looked at each other and the man who offered to drive us and 3 of us decided to take the risk and go with the man (the man from Germany decided to stay with the train). We jumped into his car and off we sped. In the car I learned that the two who had come with me were from Austria and they were school teachers. They taught at a school with a bilingual program, like Junction. They taught German and English to the students. Anyway I talked with the woman, he name is Daniella, to keep her mind off the road and the driver since he was going very fast and passing a lot of cars and she was very nervous. We arrived at the station (it was 72 Kilometers from Ruse) about 10 minutes before our train. The driver had told us that he would not charge us if he did not get us to the train on time. So we paid him and got on to the exact train that we had missed in Ruse. We were able to complete our journey to Varna without any further problems. My host and her husband were waiting for me in Varna. So an exciting journey to say the least!
I will meet with some of the students today to prepare for the classes that I will teach. Starting tomorrow I will have 3 classes of students. I will be sure to take some pictures and tell you all about them in future updates. See you all soon, goodbye from the beautiful Black Sea coast city of Varna.

For Mrs. Nunes' class, my apartment

Here is the most important part of the apartment, the bed. The apartment is a studio apartment. That means that the living room and bedroom are just one room, there is not separate bedroom. I am typing this sitting on a chair in my "living room" about 6 feet from my bed. In fact in the bottom right corner you can see part of the chair.

Now for the kitchen. I took this picture by just turning the camera to the left from where I had taken the picture of the bed. There is a small two-burner stove, a sink, a microwave, and a refrigerator. The dining area consists of the table with two chairs.

Here is a picture of the front door. To the left is the door to the bathroom. In order to take this picture I had to move about 5 feet to my left from where I had taken the other pictures. On the left of this picture you can see part of the kitchen. So from where I am standing for this picture the living area is to the right and the kitchen to the left.
By the time you guys get to read this I will be on a train heading to Bulgaria for the next part of my adventure. On Wednesday I will start to teach the classes. I will post here how they are going and will provide you with pictures of my students. Thanks for following along. Talk with you soon.

A trip to the webcam

For those of you who watched my "surprise" appearance on the Bucharest traffic webcam, here is the building that the camera is mounted on. This picture was taken from across the traffic circle. When you go down the stairs that you can see on the traffic cam you enter a large area under the street. The Metro (subway) is located down there as well as many stores, it is like a small mall under there. Also it is the way that you cross this street. There are too many cars to try to cross on the street level.

Here is a closer view of where the webcam was located. It is on the balcony that you can see there. Also you can see the plants that I had to look over to be seen by the camera. If you can't see it then look here....

There right in the middle, in the white box is the webcam.That is what I could see when I was looking at you. Here is a funny story. When I was standing there and looking at the camera and waving there were many people around. One lady kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye, trying to figure out what was going on. She finally look at me weird and moved as far away from me as she could. I am not sure but maybe the bulldog logo on my shirt bothered her. Ok, it was probably that I seemed to be trying to communicate with someone who was not there. I thought about telling her what i was doing, that there was a webcam and I was waving at people in America, but I was afraid that she would run away screaming. Oh yes, and there were police officers all around helping to direct the traffic out on the street. So, if I had spoken to her I wold probably be writing this from the local jail! I hope you all enjoyed your chance to see me on a live webcam. The next post will include some pictures from my apartment, I promised Ms. Nunes' class that I would take some.

A look at some of the old architecture here in Bucharest

Here is the front of The University of Bucharest. This is the finest university in Romania. It is located right in the middle of the downtown area and in fact is near to the webcam that I will be visiting today.

Here is a statue of Prince Michael. He was one of the first rulers to rule over most of what is now Romania. Behind him is a political party headquarters. I took this photo right after the first one. This is located right across the street from the University entrance.

One more, this one is not important from a point of architecture, but it is important to me. The building is where my apartment is located. I am on the 5th floor (we would call it the sixth floor but here in Romania they call the ground floor the parter and the next floor up is called the first floor). So you have to go to the sixth floor but it say fifth. There is an elevator with buttons for P (parter) then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. One of the little things that you have to get used to around here.
By the way if you want to enlarge the pictures for better viewing just click one time on the picture and it will come up in a larger format. I hope to see all of you ( actually I hope all of you see me) at the webcam Universitate Sectorul 3 Bucharesti.

A couple of pictures and a question

Ok, so for those of you in my class last year or in Mrs.Nunes' summer class you have seen this fountain before. I showed you this fountain from the traffic webcams. The difference here is that you are looking at the fountain from the opposite side. So, the building you see (the one with the big Coke on the top) is where the webcam is located. So now you have seen the fountain from both sides.

Again here is a picture you have seen before from that same webcam. Only this time you are closer and can clearly see the McDonald's logo.

For those of you interested here is the McDonald's entrance from across the street. Check out all the taxi cabs waiting on the street. For those of you in my class last year I have not have a diet coke from McDonald's yet.

Now for your question, this is meant for the summer school students but please everyone feel free to join in. This is a picture of the People's House or the House of Parliment (they call it both). It is a huge building. In fact it is the second largest office building in the world. Hands on the buzzers folks, who can be the first to ring in with the correct answer to this question? What building is the largest office building in the world. Answers in the next posting!

A day without a night

When I got up on Monday morning at 7am the sun was out. Now I am typing this from Bucharest Romania and it is 9:15 pm Tuesday. In reality there had been only a little over 24 hours elapsed since I began my day on Monday (Romania is 10 hours ahead of us), but just now the sun has gone down and it is getting dark. So for all the 24 hours that I have been up, getting ready and traveling here the sun had never set. It was not dark out on the flight at all. The sun dipped in the west and then started back up in the east. The plane traveled north over the southern part of Greenland. During this time of the year way up north the sun does not set. So if anyone tries to tell you that there can not be 24 hours with straight sunshine tell them that they are wrong. You read it here.

I will be posting here again this summer, some for my friends and some for the Summer School students at Junction Avenue K-8 School. Talk to you all soon.