Bring it to Poland

It feels I am  a one step forward and I am going my destined way.

 Two years ago I contemplated studying in Poland yet I chose a different path.  One week before the deadline I had gathered all the documents required and applied to the American University in Bulgaria(AUBG). Undoubtedly, the AUBG summer camp in 2012 left too many good memories which led me through the next, the hardest one, school year so I was eager to come back and revitalize them. It took me a year of intensive daily courses of the English language in AUBG so to become a fully accepted student. Could I but not believe I would ever be able to pass the SAT successfully. In May 2014 one of my "child" dreams was succeeded,  I was accepted to the American University having been a mediocre pupil in school, who had not got any diploma of excellence. Yet my destiny chose me the another path. Because my family couldn't cover the tuition offered I was ought to change my place of studying.

Considering different conditions and opportunities it is Poland where I decided to study. I was not excited at first to be going to Poland yet the very first day changed everything! I can not describe but be grateful for being able to study here and not anywhere else. To clarify: I will be studying at the university in Kielce, Poland and at the moment I am having a 2 months course of Polish. Right, I will be studying in Polish considering the fact that I am a complete zero at it yet I believe everything will be fine as far as I am ready to study hard.














It feels like home here, I have never experienced the feeling of being satisfied and relaxed in the place where I lived. I do not want to go anywhere at all. I do not want to go home or any other country, I am fine here. The feelings I have are confidence, satisfaction and happiness. Lviv ( Ukraine) and Poland are the places where I am happy to be. Just watching out of a window, glimpsing random pedestrians passing by, I understand that I was meant to come here. What is interesting is that this city in Poland resembles me of Blagoevgrad a little bit!

About Polish people and University:
I am literally LITERALLY  in such a huge over-emotional amazement of hospitality that it is really hard to be described. It was not like this in Bulgaria though we did have an orientation week yet what we have here is wordless. It is not even an orientation week here as we do not have a free day to spend in front of our laptops. Every day we are asked and offered to go somewhere.

Some situations that left me numb:

• We were on our way to a Centre when we were asked to wait near a supermarket. Could not we but imagine to be treated with ice-cream for no reason just right there and later with juice and cookies in the centre, in which people did not have any affailiations with whom we were. 
• After telling how we boil rice and sausages in a kettle with the students ( because currently we do not have kitchen) the next day huge! pockets with food were brought to us for no reason just right there. 
• We went to the grill-party in the local restaurant where we ate fried sausages and meat for free. 
• On the first day of our lessons we had a very good breakfast and lunch- for free. 

I also should mention that we have lots of fun with Polish people here, jokes and smiles are always on our faces. I am seriously mesmerized and can not describe my emotions. Though I am sure they have lots of fun with our (or my) pity tries to speak Polish. So hard to do Polish when Bulgarian is screaming out loud in your head! Also it is hard to forget when we sang the Polish song about Sokoly and Ukraine at the party.

I love it here, I feel numb but I am happy to be here. I like the architecture, style and buildings in Kielce. Nothing happens for no reason.

I will try to enhance the topic of living and studying  later.

Svishtov or Bulgarian London?

 As far as I have not been posting anything at all for a long time I have decided to catch up on these  margins beginning with my Christmas trip to Svishtov or as I call it mini-London.

I was impressed by the huge amount of fog there. Clearly, due to my fascination of London and the UK I preferred to imagine that I was in London. Never have I seen so much fog in my entire life! Hardly could I see what was towards me!  No people due to holidays and so much fog recalled me of the city nearby Chornobyl.

Shortly, the city is so small that my Bulgarian friend and I were able to cross the whole city within 2 hours.

I loved the archaic architecture in the city and people estranged by our talks in English. There it was aka celebrity life, meh not fascinating though.

The city may not have anything in common with old London but my will and imagination made it similar to it.


I observed Dunay river (or Danube, nah Danube?) and Romanian border from the bridge. Plus a one point to Europe, surveillance cameras were everywhere even on the bridge.

Next day I visited my friends' both grandmas' houses and yeaahhh food and customs. I do not know why but due to my observations Bulgarians usually eat meat, fish, salads etc without a garnish. As far as I understand,  garnish ( like mashed potatoes) with fried meat is too heavy for stomach. Many times I saw people eating fried meat without even rice.  Oh these Ukrainians with their food habits :)

Anyway, I tried a lot of new stuff in Svishtov like Pitka ( baked huge bread with my faaaavorite sirene) those rolls made of grape leaves with minced meat inside and much more other food .

BUT food was very good and tasty so I liked it. Also, I just love my friends' family as they bought SAALO (lard) for me. My gosh, I was crying of happiness, it was soo nice of them. Have no idea where they got it but it tasted kinda in a Bulgarian way ( chubriiza) but it was still salo, I ate it whole day by day.  Typical me.

I liked everything in my trip:  the weather, the people, the architecture, salo and hospitality.

Also, there was a very small cute cafe with cakes and coffee. I loved that place.

All in all, I liked my trip and yeaa Christmas in Svishtov. I would definitely love to come there again.
Coffee and fog must be at the place where I want to be.

And Turkish channels on a TV made my trip.

Bulgaria. What is it like? The useful words, the differences.

I’ve been living in Bulgaria for 2 months already hence I noticed some differences. In other words, what is so special in Bulgaria? Here is the list of my first impressions.

1. Greetings. Politeness? Mostly sales assistants  greet with customers and wish a good day. It’s unusual for me either because they speak Bulgarian or I forgot how it was back in my hometown. In a grocery I'm not asked whether I need a bag with me or not I'm wished a good day.

2. Zavkyshte is the most useful word in a café which means – to go. Almost in any cafe, even the smallest one, it's possible to order food to go.

3. Huge portions. Here for a cheap price I can eat 600gr of pasta with meat or 400gr of salad despite the usual 150\200. Impressive!

4. Most of the cafes here are open 24\7. It’s okay to go to the cafe at 2am. Some of bistros pizza places  opens at 12 or 2 am!

5. Mayo, ketchup, chili pepper, vinegar, oil are in the usual kit on your table in any café for free.

6. Crazy drivers. Always be very careful while passing the road here, sometimes cars don’t stop. They just make a lower speed, slow down for a while and as soon as you 1 cm forward, a car will very fast run out behind your back. Watch out !

7. Police. Here is the law that forbids listening to loud music from 2pm-4 pm. While we were shooting Lip-Dub in AUBG someone called to the police because we were playing the music. The campuses are pretty far from ordinary houses and not many people walk by dorms. Uhm.

8. Tradition. I don’t know if this is a tradition or not but I’ve noticed  “posters” with a picture of a person that died and these “signs” ask you to pray for him\her. This is creepy.

9. Roads. Roads here are mostly good. There used to be huge hole on the way to the university but after a month, maybe,the road was repaired but not perfectly.

10. It’s almost clean here. There's no "doggy stuff" on your way.

11. Horses. Sometimes you see horses on a road  ridden by  Romans. By the way, there are many romans around the area.

12. A large amount of European food and even the water from South Korea can easily be  found in shops here .

13. Usually, at 8 am there are no empty tables in cafes. Bulgarians like to have a cup of coffee chatting with colleagues on the way to work. Unusual, to see crowds of people sitting in a cafe at 8 AM!

14. Sirene. Bulgarians adore putting sirene (white salty cheese) everywhere. Very popular here are banitzas ( baked filo pastry with sirene).

To be continued…

Mountain, Extreme Way

Today two Ukrainians and me were hiking the mountain, where the Cross is. It was a long hard road out of hell. First part of the way  was the most difficult, because we climbed up and up, through rocks, stones, trees and animals' feces. But there were  good smells of needles, fresh air, no radiation, yay.

After 1 hour of climbing, we got to Cross, and there was fantastic and picturesque  view on Blago. We saw Main Building and our Skaptos from there... Then we met priest, and we had a small talk with him. Also, we asked him about shorter way to Blago, not through the forest....Soooooo, we decided to go "shorter" way...Oh, yeaaah.

 

It was a road, I even thought about hitchhiking :D  It was a reallllly exotic way.
Firstly, we met lots of goats there!!! Pictuuures! I felt in love with one of them....It was soo cute. Ahahah, they were laying on grass and were chewing grass ( all together )... They were soo cute.
Then we met a cute horse! And we took pictures with it too. It was really pretty, grey horse. We realized that instead of short way, we went long way, because we could see the whole Blago far away behind us.





And the most exotic moment, was gypsys' smth. like holiday, fest, music i dont know. Suddenly, we heard music, and it sounded like bagpipe or smth. And i could see a crowd of people, and some more people coming.... O__o.  We could see the buildings, that more looked like Jordania: white houses, heat, field...almost desert, strange music...uhmmm.



Being scared but still we decided to go almost to that mini-city...Houses were strange, strange part of a city...was it Bulgaria?  Then we saw real people, and i calmed down. Shop...photos...houses.

Then the houses more looked like a village, loud chicken and a really strange  duct, with falling water from it , sticked out of house. Later, was an awesome street, it looked like the US or GB !! Terraced houses, with small  flower gardens, fences, and there were trash-bin in front of each wicket!!! WOW. And the road there was better than some central roads in my country :\\\ .  This is how from" Jordanian" houses, we got to the US houses :DDD




And finally, we saw a 1.1 km  Kaufland sign...then Prego and HOME sweet home. It was quite short way you know, if we started from market-park side, and finished with in front of prego sign.

1-2nd Days, first lessons, I’m an ELI student, impressions

Monday 8:30 AM !! YES, so early!  We had a meeting in AUBG with our future teachers. And guess what again? I just felt  and guessed, who will be my teacher. Have no idea how, but I just looked at her and thought, that “ Yes, she might be my teacher”. And it happened. I wasn’t impressed that much, but it was a little unusual. As I  already have my lessons, I feel as I must write everything without mistakes…oh-oh.

Soooooo, my impressions.  I love green color. )))) Okay, the lessons here  are COMPLETELY different from those I had in my school.  The same situation is with language courses.

• ·         We don’t feel here (finally) pessimistic energy from teachers ( Well of course not everyone were so pessimistic in my school, but sometimes it happened. For example ( we don’t know anything, shouting at the whole class, if you want to express your opinion it means you are bad and you are arguing with a teacher, you’re shaking because you’re scared to be asked by a teacher or to receive a bad mark etc…But again not everyone and everything was so bad)  So, back to ELI, we have a relaxing atmosphere in a classroom. The lesson is fun, interesting but at the same time full of important and necessary information. We learn everything in a completely different way. Like: associations method( that really works), nobody shouts at the whole class… Well teachers just love what they do! And when they do love their job, you really feel like a human, like a happy human.  We receive positive energy here.
• ·         New classrooms, air-conditioner…BUT we don’t have a window in classroom, I’ve just noticed it ( buuut it doesn’t distract your attention from lesson, that’s plus).
• ·         Different countries , I already have students from India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Bulgaria in my classroom. But believe me there are much more nationalities here. There are students from Belgium, Tanzania, and my rockfriend from Macedonia.
• ·         We have long lessons, but frankly speaking, they are really fast. We have 30mins break and 1:30 hour lessons.
• ·         We have good teachers, with real accents!!! There are two of them who lead my lessons. What is really  really really amazing, that our Bulgarian teacher has a real American accent….Well if I didn’t know, that she’s from BG, I would think she’s  an American. And that’s great!!! Because we listen to  a real  American, and  good English. Also we have a teacher from the US, and yes, he has an American accent too. :D
• ·         Different way of giving an information to students and different way of teaching… English tenses, my gosh, believe me  it’s  completely COMPLETELY different than what we have in Ukraine. None of my teachers has never explained this topic in such easy way. It’s really different. And in reality it’s much easier than we thought. Now thanks to lessons, all English tenses are in a proper list in my head. You just think” What kind of action is it” And yay, you use the right tense. All clue words ( like if we see “always, usually” in a sentence it means we must use only Pr.Simple and that’s all, NO it doesn’t work! It depends if it’s a single or repeated action, if we have specify time or not, etc, etc, etc…). The way we learn here, is much better and more understandable. Love it!
• ·         We’ve already written 2 essays, we have homework every day, and we learn vocabulary…not just simple words and their translation BUT we always do a collocation using this word, synonyms, antonyms…And it also impressed me. But again, it’s amazing and helpful, because now, you know not just a word, but you can explain its meaning, and you can say lots of synonyms to this word.  
• ·         OH AND YEAH, WE HAVE A COFFEE AND A SNACK MACHINE IN OUR CENTRE!!!! Yeeeeeeeees 

In conclusion, my general impression is  great, and I really enjoy the lessons. I feel relaxed, happy and smart here.  Moreover, Boryana and Dave  know what they do and they also love what they do, anyway, they have soo cute and sweet story of their marriage, that even inspired me….too sweet.

Okay, that’s all for today, future journalist needs a rest.

Romania-Bridge-Bulgaria-Twins reunion-Sofia-Starbucks!

This year I was lucky, cuz. I’ve had quite good neighbors in a train-room, than last year. I’ve practiced a bit of Bulgarian , and relaxed for 2 days. I really liked a train station in Bucharest, Romania, that time we’ve had 40 min of break, so I decided to come out of train and breathe  a real Romanian air.  Well, my impression ( of what ive seen at least) of Romania, is that this is  a country of differences.  It has an awesome train station, and even double-decker trains!!! Yes, ive never seen them. BUT at  the same time you can see really old, broken seats, walls, old buildings. A really nice mix. People are really different you can see poor people, local citizens, and really European style people the same time. Also, there was a strange runner at 12am on a bridge 

AND finally I came back to Bulgaria for 3^rd time already!!! And I was really happy about my coming because guess what? My Bulgarian sister-twin-best friend has met me !! This is sooo sweet that I want to cry even now. Twins   have too much in common, like she came with Katelyn (cuz volunteers were allowed to bring their students) and then I became Katelyn Junior. We both have tooooo much stories to tell about, and yep we’re left-handed…so im really grateful that I met Pavlena.  But let’s stop the crying sweet story, and just move on :D

Just after I’ve arrived, I screamed “ Starbucks” OMG!!! And I did it!!! AAAAAHHH…. We went to Starbucks, I took Frappuccino-mocca-crispy with cookies and then Americano.  Ive felt American, like, you know, coffee cup in your hands, American style ahahh, nice…).  Then we hanged around a city, and oh my gosh, I tried Bulgarian subway, there is even subway there in Sofia! :D It’s nice, it’s new, I really liked the idea of historical posters ( mini-museums) in subway, but ahah, my first words were “ OMG it looks like public toilet” Well, don’t take it really close, because what I’ve seen next!! Impressed me,  super-new –European carriages which I didnt expect to see. Then I’ve visited Russian shop, that had Ukrainian salo , but didn’t have Ukrainian sweets and ice-cream.  ALSO, I tried Bulgarian tram, wohhoo! Then there was a strange guy-actor-chaplin, who wanted to take a pic with me. And the best part of Sofia, was a completely brilliant present from my sis – frame with photos of us ^_^  and sweet. Cute, honest, nice words on its back. Now this present is on my desk in dorms : )   Sofia was great, but I’ve had a bus at 5 pm.

On a way to Blago there was huge thunderstorm! So, surely after I arrived to Avtogara, I decided to take a taxi, and to go right to Dorms. Well nothing really changed completely, but I have ants in my room. Just imagine, nice morning, coffee,  and there are crowds of ants in your bread,  good. But, hopefully, they fixed it, because I wrote in a book of damages about this problem, and actually there are still ants in my room but not so much…( they still hope that I’ll leave bread for them in  a shelf) .

Let’s move on, this year I live in a Resident Assistant room…woohhoo! On the 2^nd floor. My neighbors are from Russia and Moldova…so actually we have a Russian-speaking community in my room. :D  Unsleeping, insomnia, homework, starving are almost my everyday “friends”.  And yes, I might be on BgTV, because at time when I was signing the papers, the television began to shoot us. Awwww.  The first day was okay.

Visa-Jumping in the Embassy

This week was, perhaps, the most nervous I’ve ever had.  Right after I came from camp GLOW, I applied for a Bulgarian “D” visa, which is a really long and terrible process.   I’ve booked train tickets on 22^nd of August, and had to arrive on 24^th. ( right on Independency Day of Ukraine). For a week I was calling to Embassy with a hope that I got my visa, but every time  I got the answer that my visa is on agreement process. The worst words to hear really. Sooo, time flies, time comes,  a date of departure is closer and closer and I still don’t have visa.

21th no visa. I asked them if there were a possibility of receiving it on next day, but as they explained; I could get it only if Bulgaria accepts my application between 9-10am, then maybe I can get it. But well I was ready to sleep over at the Embassy, begging for visa, because acc I’ve had 2 options either I return my train tickets and maybe come late, ( and just not really cool when everything messed up and you need to start everything from the beginning) or I come in the morning ( because I had to take translated docs )and my parents will bring me my luggage, that ive packed, again having no idea what to expect.   This awkward feeling, you know, when you are packing clothes, having no idea of what will be the next day, of this visa, of nothing at all!

Well, it’s better to call everything as “ A long hard road out of hell”. Earlier, before applying I just joked that “I’ll receive my visa just on a day of my departure” And actually, I don’t know what happened, but it was a Miracle, a real Miracle!!! At 11 am I was already at the Embassy, I waited for a long, again I met an awesome Bulgarian guardian : ) , waited, and I was informed that I’ve already got my visa. I was too shocked, I jumped and screamed just right there in a centre of the Embassy made other laughing. I couldn’t believe, I thanked to everyone there, hysteria!

Then I called to parents, and yes I go…I go to Bulgaria.