A Backwards Story about a Backwards Doctor's Visit

I stepped out of the cab, my husband handed me a bouquet of flowers, and I walked into the hospital to have my ultrasound. It went well, confirming what I already knew and nothing more and I was sent home with 3 ultrasound photos.

(5 minutes prior)

The cab driver couldn't break a 20 so to pay our fare Brock had to find the nearest item he could buy so we would have smaller bills, hence the floral arrangement.

(22 hours prior)

The male nurse present who was doing the translating for the doctor explained where to go the following day to have an ultrasound performed. The doctor wrote me a prescription and then uttered to me the only English words he seemed to know: "you pay me 20 leva for write this prescription." I handed him a 20, got no receipt from him, and realized I had actually paid him for writing me a prescription and nothing else. At least he's honest, but talk about a corrupt system!

(15 minutes prior)

The nurse gave me my diagnosis and also said I had too much sugar in my urine and that is bad, although this was subsequently not addressed. Perhaps the nurse had just had a donut for breakfast....

(20 minutes prior)

The male nurse who spoke some English handed me a cup to pee in without trying at all to avoid touching the inside of the cup with his bare (possibly sugary) hands. I walked into a dirty bathroom which was void of hand soap and void of that nice little door where you can discretely deposit your urine and walk out of the bathroom with some self-respect. No, I had to walk down the hall to the lab with my cup in hand in front of those waiting to use the bathroom. The lab nurse finally asked for my name, scribbled it down in Bulgarian on a scrap of paper and placed my urine cup on top of the paper and asked me for $4 to cover this part of the doctor's visit.

(5 minutes prior)

After following a nurse up and down the stairs a couple of times, she found the man she was looking for and she snatched my insurance card out of my hand. The two nurses read the card and noticed the part about my needing pre-approval before a surgery, cat scan, MRI, etc. Somehow this led them to believe I needed an MRI and they explained that I needed to take a cab to another facility to have this done. I reminded them of why I was here in the first place. They said I would then need a urine test and a blood test. I told them I was pretty sure just a urine sample would suffice, so they went to find a cup.

(20 minutes prior)

After following my landlord's not so perfect directions to a nearby clinic, I finally found it, entered, and asked if the receptionist spoke English (she did not), so she rounded up a nurse who did and I explained the reason I was there. She picked up the phone and called someone to explain very loudly and clearly in Bulgarian for all present to hear something about my being there that of course, I could not understand. There was no waiting room (just a couple of chairs), no weighing in, no taking temperature & blood pressure, no asking for the date of my last period, they didn't even ask for my phone number, the nurse just asked me to follow her.

(52 hours prior)

On a bus from Istanbul to Varna, I realized something was wrong with me. I felt worse and worse as we finally approached the bus station at 5:30am. I walked as fast as I could the mile or so home from the bus station, and for the next two days I hoped things would be ok and that I would not have to go to the doctor. I have never in all of my time spent overseas had to seek medical attention, and I sure didn't want to start in the country ranked 103 for health care, just above Iraq and just behind a couple of countries I have never heard of. Finally, I realized it was better to be safe and go get checked out.

In conclusion, I'm fine, thanks to the drugs I was sent home with. And I am definitely not pregnant, I just found it amusing how the circumstances could have been misconstrued as such. I figured that my story about such a backwards system deserves to be told backwards as well. I sincerely hope this was my first and last experience with the Bulgarian health system. The clinic resembled a very old home with skinny hallways and many small rooms. It was far from handicap accessible considering the steep and cracked six steps leading into the facility. Nothing about the place felt remotely sanitary. However, the staff was accommodating considering my inability to communicate in their language and they did do whatever they could to help me, albeit with plenty of confusion. In the end, I must say that the US health care system is looking pretty darn fabulous after this excursion.

This Dog's Life

I'm used to seeing stray dogs all around town. But there are some that are just a little more friendly & affectionate than others.

I saw this dog walking along the water today while we were lying on the beach. I yelled something like "hey dog!" Usually dogs will glance over and keep on going if there's no chance of getting food. This one took that as an invitation.

At first he laid down near us, but not too close.

Then he nonchalantly got a little closer.

Once we started petting his ears he decided to try and get real comfortable by crawling on our beach towel between us, but there wasn't room for all 3 of us so instead he dug himself a hole right beside us...

...which he laid down in, but kept getting up to dig more and to make it just right.

After just a few minutes of hangin out with us, he took off to follow some people who were picking up garbage on the beach.

Освен на делфините! (Save the Dolphins)

The Bulgarian town where I now live, like most cities of its size (pop. 356,852), has plenty to do. There are concerts, plays, tons of restaurants and cafes, an opera house, a zoo, a dolphinarium... I made plans to take advantage of all of this while I'm here and I was especially excited to visit the dolphinarium since I have never seen a dolphin show before.

Then I watched The Cove last night which is a documentary about the constant mass slaughtering of dolphins in Japan for our entertainment. I was disgusted that I had previously been excited to watch the dolphin show. I was ignorant in believing these trained dolphins to be well cared for and happy when in fact they are constantly dying prematurely due to the stressful living conditions and they are performing mainly because they won't be fed otherwise. For every one dolphin that makes it into a show, hundreds or thousands are needlessly killed and even though their meat contains poisonous amounts of mercury, it is sent around Asia for human consumption.

Last year while spending 4th of July in Coronado, I got to witness some dolphins cruising back and forth across the beach, flipping, diving, and playing. It was beautiful. I swam out as far as I could in the freezing Pacific to get a better look. I now know this is surely the best way to see these amazing creatures, in their natural environment. They'll still put on a show, a free show, but it will be of their own will to entertain and will not be at the expense of thousands of their own kind.

(This is the best picture I could get of one of the dolphins)

Check out these sites for more information about the movie and the actions being taken to put an end to this brutal industry:

http://www.thecovemovie.com

http://www.takepart.com/thecove/

Death on a Sidewalk

Today seemed like a pretty ordinary day at first. I slept in, took Majerle for a walk on the beach, did some reading at a nearby cafe, watched a few episodes of Arrested Development.

Late in the afternoon we decided to buy some produce at one of the outdoor markets downtown to fill our empty fridge. On our way there, we chatted about restaurants we'd like to eat at this week, the recent Coyotes victory over the Red Wings, the wind surfers I saw out in the sea today, regular stuff.

Then I noticed an unusual gathering of people on the street across from the Cathedral. And then I saw a man's lifeless body laying on the sidewalk near a bus stop, with a blanket covering his head and torso, but tattooed arms and legs remaining in view. Here laid the body of a deceased man. A few police officers stood near the body, visiting causally with each other.

We stopped for a moment to take in the fact that a man was lying footsteps away from us, dead. There was no blood and seemingly no urgent pursuit of a criminal, so we assumed that this was a natural death of sorts. There were a few blocks of cheese on the ground surrounding the man's head, so like us, perhaps he too had just decided to go buy some groceries.

As we walked towards the market, our demeanor having drastically changed, our dinner plans didn't seem so important. After we bought a few items, we again passed the bus stop just ten minutes later. The body was gone, the police officers were gone, and most of the people gathered had dispersed.

I was present in the hospital room when my grandpa died 12 years ago. Since then I have not been in such close proximity with a death. This was on my mind for much of the day afterwards, but really life just went on, back to planning our dinner and evening. But for awhile today, that man's death affected a lot of people. While the rest of us go on with our lives, surely he leaves behind family and friends who will be forever affected.

Part of the experience today makes me wonder what I am doing so far away from home and from my family, but I'm also reminded that I'm here because I'm trying to make the most of this short life while I can.

Learning Cyrillic (Живот Кирилица)

With all of the free time I have on my hands and because I would hate to live here three months and miss out on the opportunity, I am determined to learn to speak some Bulgarian. My first approach was to learn and master a new phrase every day. By the end of my first week in Bulgaria, I could say "good day", "thank you", "hello", "good evening", "have a nice day", "see ya soon!", etc.

During week two I realized that knowing these phrases is fine, but it only gets you so far. It doesn't help you read a menu and while pointing to a menu item and hoping for the best can be fun and suspenseful, I want to have at least some idea of what I'm eating.

So I buckled down today and decided to learn the alphabet. I found a few websites and youtube videos that went over the basics: the letters, sound pronunciations, and examples. I wrote the whole alphabet down the little notebook I take with me everywhere and all day I studied, practiced, and quizzed myself. While laying at the beach I closed my eyes and visualized all of the letters I could remember.

Later in the day, Brock got a hankering for a kebab at a street-side stand and while waiting for it I perused the menu and was stunned that I recognized the word falafel in cyrillic! I pointed at it and excitedly shouted "FALAFEL!!" Of course this led to a bit of confusion with the guy making the kebab who now thought I was placing another order.

We walked over to a restaurant with a patio on one of the main squares to have a drink. The waitress brought us menus in Bulgarian. Usually they bring the English versions once they realize we aren't from here. I started proving to Brock how my new alphabet skills would help me figure out the menu items. My first drink was a chai tea, mainly because I was thrilled to be able to read the word. After seeing what she must have thought was us struggling with the menu when in fact I was studying the menu, the waitress brought us an English one. So Brock used the English menu to quiz me on the components of pizzas, pasta dishes, and salads from the Bulgarian menu and I realized that just simply being able to sound out the word in cyrillic can lead one to figure out the word since there are a lot of words from English and French as well as those from many other languages in Bulgarian. This is the same reason an anglophone can generally muddle through French, Spanish, and Italian, picking up a few things here and there in print because the alphabets are so similar, as are many words. Now I may not always know what I'm reading, but at least now I can take a stab at the pronunciation and then I'll learn new words along the way. I can't stop reading everything I see now. I realized that the hair salon below my apartment also does pedicures! Very useful knowledge of course.

It must have been pretty entertaining for anyone within earshot to have heard my attempts to sound out these words, especially the ones I ended up knowing. It may have sounded something like this: "B... B... AHHH, Nnnn AH... N? BANANA!!! K- Koh- Kohnnn -ya. K. COGNAC!" I relayed this experience to my sister who said it sounds an awful lot like her witnessing her three year old son learning to read.

I was proud to go back to O'Neill's to tell Nikola to bring me the Bulgarian menu, because I can read! Sort of.

Gypsies

While we had no luck finding jobs in Paris, we figured that our chances are better here to teach English since unlike Paris, Varna is not saturated with native English speakers. So last week we headed to some local English schools with our resumes.

We met an American at one of the schools, a teacher who has been here almost a year so gave us the scoop on things. He told us all about the local traditional foods & beverages we should try, including Rakia, a fermented fruit liquor that every Bulgarian man prides himself on making. We've seen homemade versions being sold in old coke bottles on the streets surrounding the markets. I'm not yet brave enough to try such a concoction in an unsanitized state, but maybe eventually.

He told us about some peculiarities we will notice, for example, when being served meals in a restaurant, there is virtually no effort made at bringing out a group's meals at the same time. One might be done eating before the other's appetizer is ready. We witnessed this immediately at our next lunch.

He also warned us about the local mafia, skinheads, and gypsies, the latter being particularly crafty thieves in this city. He told us know about an annual gypsy tradition where fathers parade their daughters for sale as brides. I gotta see this. This gypsy culture peaked my interest. I found out that they came from India long ago and live in very poor, run-down communities all over Europe, having no real country of their own. We were told that children can be those most worth avoiding; they move in groups and will follow someone and continually torment them until they get some money (scenes from Hostel come to mind; maybe I should carry some gum in my purse). We were at a restaurant the other night when a young gypsy girl came in selling some sort of dried flowers in plastic bags. She kept just saying "please" in a very whiny voice, like a small cute version of Murray from Flight of the Conchords pleading for a record deal. There's a gypsy open-air market where, as long as one holds on tight to any purses, bags, and wallets, it's supposed to be an interesting experience.

I'm pretty used to getting warnings about being careful when using cash machines, not being too trusting of people, or sticking to bottled water, but it's funny to me that I'm now being warned about mafia, skinheads, and gypsies. Where am I?

An Irish Night in Bulgaria

Last night we went bowling. I can't remember the last time I bowled, as evidenced by my terrible scores. The bowling alley across the square from our apartment is nightclub style with couches instead of plastic seats and vodka for sale by the bottle instead of fountain soda in plastic cups.

A few floors below the bowling alley is an Irish pub called O'Neills. We heard about this place from the American woman who runs the English/Russian bookstore in town. So we headed on down to check it out. There was a band playing Sweet Home Alabama with thick Bulgarian accents as we entered. It wasn't very busy, maybe 15 people in the whole bar including the staff. We sat at the bar and ordered a couple of drinks, enjoying all of the American music being played. I loved the atmosphere, and the menu included all the traditional Bulgarian foods in addition to Irish meals.

One by one, nearly everyone in the bar including the owner, the band, and the bartenders came over to ask where we were from and wanted to know how in the world we came to be living in Varna. They don't get very many Americans in this part of the world, apparently. I had to admit that even a couple of months ago I had never heard of this place, so coming here was kind of like throwing the proverbial dart on the map.

They started showing a replay of the San Jose vs. Colorado playoff game from the night before, so even though we knew the outcome, we got to see the game on the big screen. The bartender, Nikola, was very into hockey and was knowledgeable about the NHL. He told us he worked in this bar because it is the only one in town that shows NHL games. (Now we know where we'll be watching the Stanley Cup Finals!) Nikola is a Red Wings fan, and since the Coyotes are playing the Red Wings in round 1, we have a friendly rivalry going.

At one point one of the band members came over to point out to us that "He made score during the power time!!" He wanted to be sure we noticed that Colorado had scored.

Nikola told us about the local football (soccer) team and said that while they're not very good, he'd like to take us to a game sometime. He also wants to introduce us to some of his friends who may be able to help us out with getting jobs here. After being here just a week, we're already hoping to find jobs to be able to stay awhile.

As people left the bar, they all came by to say goodbye to us, even the ones we had not really talked to. Everyone was so friendly and warm.

We were the last ones to leave the bar as we were still chatting with Nikola. He brought us our bill, 11 leva, roughly 8 dollars, for 3 tall local beers (Zagorka) and a plate of fried potatoes with cheese. I still can't get over how much we get for our money in this country.

We were encouraged to come back again the next night; the same band is on again. We'll be there. And since it's about 75 steps from our apartment, we'll probably be spending a lot of time there over these next few months. Nikola told us that while Bulgaria may not be the greatest country in the world, at least we chose the best city in Bulgaria to live in. Couldn't agree more.