Reflections after my first 24 hours in Plovdiv

in #life8 years ago (edited)

My situation is very precarious and highly speculative, but at the same time, I could not be in a better place right now for leaping off the cliff and starting another fool's journey.

There is some reasonable possibility that I have an Angel watching over me, who has got solutions in the works, but even outside of this, this place is really special.

People here have been so friendly. I am sitting right now in some mall, I'm not sure exactly where, but already 3 times people have passed and started up conversations with me. Everyone is in a bit of a party mood at the moment, this week starting Thursday is a very long public holiday period, starting with Bulgarian Independence Day (Bulgarski Nezavisimnost Den). In the first hour I was walking around, random strangers twice said 'Dobur Den' to me (good day), like I was already part of the village, so to speak.

There is a hackspace here called Hackafe, http://www.hackafe.org and when someone is finally in, I will be able to sign up and pay my 10 lev membership fee and it'll be a place where I can go, charge my gadgets, and talk to the local geeks. I am hoping that today I will check their website and discover someone is in, a bit later, maybe after lunch. I don't know whether there isn't already folk from there signed up on Steem, but I will certainly be doing my best to market it.

My angel friend seems to think that these people may even know somewhere I can get some work, and maybe some help with accommodation in the meantime.

Plovdiv is an amazing place, and I am glad I finally took the plunge and broke out of my comfort zone and went. Bulgaria is a very special place, and I cannot recommend enough that people come here and have a look. If you have a similar kind of mindset as me, and love freedom, this is the place for you. This country has a lot of history of being subjugated, and as a consequence, freedom is of very great significance to people here.

American 'patriots' have nothing on the Bulgarians. Bulgarians are humble and brave people, they can take a while to warm up to you, and they are not suckers for a marketing pitch. The language even has a special and quite unique tense for expressing doubt about reported claims of other people. It is formed through a modified tense, there is no need to use prefixes to your phrases to express your dubious feeling about what someone says, just a couple of specific suffixes on the verbs and adjectives.

A giant flock of jackdaws just alighted near me now. On my first day in Sofia, back in, I think it was May 5th, 2013, as I wondered through Yuzhen Park (Southern Park) in Sofia, I walked through a flock of them strutting around all over the grass. I didn't know what kind of bird they were then, to me they just looked like little crows with distinctive grey areas over their backs. In Amsterdam I got to know these birds better, and the Corvid family as a whole has thoroughly charmed me in this part of the world. They are very significant in the culture of Eastern Europe, for a very good reason. They are everywhere. I remember in Slovenia they featured prominently on many kinds of decorations on roads and bus stops.

Jackdaws are especially funny. They have this funny call, and when they are sitting and do it, they flare out their wings and puff up their chests when they make the sound.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_jackdaw

There is also varieties of larger birds with similar grey and black markings, that seem a lot more like crows. In fact, haha, some just flew overhead and called as they were passing. Bulgaria does not seem to have the regular all black crow.

I love birds... and especially Corvids. I grew up in Australia, and the crows and 'magpies' of Australia have always been favourites of mine. Especially the magpies. They are more like black and white crows, but they have these most amazing songs they sing. You can walk past them and they are very bold, not at all afraid of humans, and they will be there warbling away at these jazz-like tunes to you, staring right at you...

Well, anyway... Greetings from Plovdiv, I hope this finds you all well. Thankyou to all my loyal fans and I will keep you up to date on my doings as things progress.



We can't stop here! This is Whale country!

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Great post again mate :)
Its random, but ever since a week long heavy trance/trip with datura many moons ago i seem to be tracked by crows.. Long story, but i have a wierd link now i cant explain and this just reminded me lol ..

You grew up in aus? Which part?

Mostly a crappy little regional town full of close minded people known as Toowoomba. Then I escaped that little bucket and went to Brisbane. After about 10 years there, I started to travel a bit, and thanks to my father having Dutch citizenship, I got my passport, and escaped the Australia bucket and went to Europe, where after a little while I traveled to Eastern Europe, a place that I became fascinated with after several games and movies influenced me by showing me something of this part of the world.

Thats hilarious, toowooba has grown (brissie urban sprawl) but its pretty much the same bogan mindset afaik. Im still in brisneyland, always planned to travel europe but kids happened ..

Im jelly of your adventures, appreciate this freedom :)

another great post man!
and hey, do you know, what is the most famous jackdaw in the world? ;-)
...
this one :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka

(jackdaw is "kavka" in Czech, which is pronounced the same as kafka, hence the logo of The France Kafka Society :-)
http://www.franzkafka-soc.cz/franz-kafka/

edit: it actually inspired me to write my very first post, so thanks again :-)
https://steemit.com/writers/@tomino/what-is-the-most-famous-jackdaw-in-the-world

That is very cool :) I have not read Kafka but I have a fine tuned sense of irony so I hear of his name mentioned a lot in things I read.

Kafka is great. Guessing from your posts I think you'd like him. And his sence of irony is quite developed as well :-)

I see by mentioning this bird you got inspired to make a post :)

Interesting post. When I was a schoolboy I had a friend in Plovdiv. He lived in Sofrony Vrachanski street there) He sent many viewc of this city to me. BTW thank you for following (followed you too)

Nice bird. In russian it is called "галка", but frankly I have a speccial affinity for magpies. :-D Which are really beautiful with all those subtle greens and blues in their feathers. :-D

Man That
Is A Pretty Crow!
America has got some
ugly crows for sure.

Check Out Peerhub.com.
They allow You to sell stuff
for bitcoin and Steemdollars.
You can sell services too!

yeah, you can already find in my blog I resteemed peerhub's announcement post. I also have been contributing a little towards raising the profile of a #usesteem tag to get people to work on making businesses that accept Steem as a payment method, and to bank their capital in Steem.

It is a Corvid, but not a crow. Yes, they are absolutely gorgeous birds, not just how they look, but also their behaviour and sounds. They are flocking birds, and gather in their hundreds or sometimes even thousands to pick around for worms and bugs.

I love animals, and animals play a very significant part of my life and my spiritual perspective. Corvids and felines are my two favourite animals.

OH Cool,
I Will Check Out
#usesteem
A Beautiful Corvid, Wow,
I didn't Know They Flock.
Felines Are A Gift For Sure.
I Have 2 Felines.
It's Been Hot Here In Midwest USA
They Rest More In Hot Humid Temps.

Nice anti-american undertones in your report.

I am not anti-american, per se, but the story of US independence is tainted by much political machinations. Bulgaria is a country that has risen and thrown off its dictators so many times in its history, this exceptionalism is hilarious. The USA has many valuable assets, but mostly its people. Bulgaria has been taken by conquerers repeatedly because it is a vital supply line and a rich, especially food, resource.