And then there were gnomes!

Created in the 1980s, these gnomes became an absurdist calling card of the political Orange Movement, an underground peaceful protest movement. There are at least 45 in Wroclaw, but these were the ones that I ran into...

This one took me two weeks to find and ironically was one of the closest to my hostel. I just didn't think to look up for gnomes...

outside my morning coffee spot

on the square

outside a pub on the square

on the mail drop outside the post office

outside a local store

A real live gnome found walking on the square

outside a local hotel

outside of the Art Hotel

outside of a church on the square

a couple of blocks off the square

right by the fountain

near the local museum

right outside my hostel window

next to the local merchant booths

outside of a local shop

in the middle of the doors of a drugstore

Next time I'm in Wroclaw I'll find the rest of them!

Bulgaria the Beautiful

I'm finally here!  I have never been so excited as to have my own room where I could take my things out of my suitcase.  My feet are happy to have their nails polished and lotion applied, my hands are happy to have time for the blisters to heal, and those around me are happy to smell that I've had a good shower. 

I got into Sofia on Thursday morning and was greeted by Sasha and Jed two of the instructors of the workshop.  Sasha I've met and worked with before and Jed I'd heard about in stories.  I got hugs from both of them and got my bags carried.  It was heavenly.  We went outside where Jared, my professor from SU and artistic director of one of the companies that runs RITL, was waiting to drive us to the art hostel where most of the students in the collective were staying.  (I'd like to note that Jared should never drive a standard.)

The art hostel was not the nicest hostel I've stayed in, thirteen of us in one room.... wow.  But it was only one night and it was fun to see people from SU and meet new students from Carnegie Mellon, UCLA and some smaller schools like SU.  There are 12 students from SU in all and I think 13 others.  Yeah.  There are a ton of us and I'm doing my best to meet new people, but its hard to avoid the Southwesterners.  (p.s. if you live in the Austin area, you can check out the Pflugerville Pflag for an announcement from Southwestern about my involvement in the program.)

We got into Smolyan, about 4 hours outside of Sofia, late Friday and checked in and got settled.  We had a huge dinner downstairs with everyone in the laboratory.  Its a lot of fun when we have these meals because there are a lot of families here.  Husbands and wives who teach together or who have just brought their significant others to participate and lots of little children running around and wanting to play games.  Its like a family reunion.  :)

The past couple of days have been some light lectures about the myth we're basing our work off of this summer, Eshu, the trickster god and the Yoruba religion, and we had an introduction to tango, a particular type of African tribal dance, and traditional greek dances that will be integrated into a workshop of Aristophanes' The Birds.  My favorite workshop has been the one we had this afternoon though where we will be working on creating pieces in "the found space" or creating theatrical experiences outside of the theater.  I've dabbled this a bit last year in my directing class, but I'm excited to go further and to be pushed with this experimentation.  The professor who teaches this is a directing professor at Carnegie Mellon and from my impression of him so far, I feel like his classes will be extremely beneficial.  

Beyond the classes, Smolyan is beautiful!  The mountains are gorgeous and surround the town.  Its been raining the past few days and as a result has been really cold, probably in the lower fifties in the day.  It should be getting warmer this week though, probably with a high of 80.  Apparently this weather is very unusual for this time of year, but I'm definitely not complaining.  

Food here is better than most places too.  I'm getting used to the heavy cheese, meats and breads.  That's all they eat here, but I've found certain things I'll eat and a good pizza place in town.  There's a cafe that's actually part of the theater where most of the laboratory eats for lunch and dinner.  It takes a long time to get food because its like one old lady making the food, very mom and pop kind of a place, but its pretty good. 

More later on Bulgaria and RITL! 

The view from my balcony today, sunny and gorgeous.

The view out the right side of my balcony when it was raining.  Hannah Rose is next door. :) 

I'm always waiting, but what am I waiting for?

The past few days have been interesting.  I left Poland last Wednesday.  I had a flight from Wroclaw to Warsaw, and Warsaw to Brussels.  Both flights were delayed more than a couple of hours, so I spent a good part of the day in the airport.  By the time I got to Brussels it was after 11:30pm and all of the public transportation had shut down. :(  So, I had to take a taxi to my hostel, an expensive venture, and a disappointing one when I figured out my hostel was in the red light district.  Awesome.  

So, I left Brussels and went to Amsterdam.  I met two Australian girls on the train,  gave them a bottle of water and became "besties".   I went with the two girls to their hostel, The Flying Pig, very cool with a bar downstairs and a very chill atmosphere, and stayed there for two days.  Unfortunately after checking-in I lost the two girls because we weren't in the same room, but I made friends in the room full of guys I was staying with, 3 Canadians and 2 Australians.  The Canadians proved to be a load of fun and adopted me for a couple of days, watching out for me and not letting creepers bother me.  (I don't know what it is about this part of Europe, but there are creepy men everywhere!  I've been proposed two twice, one more serious than the other...) 

Sitting in the train station waiting to leave for Milan, I actually ran into two guys from Argentina that I met on the train on the way into Amsterdam.  They too were traveling to Milan and we had the same car because we'd both purchased our tickets last minute.  

  

In the sleeper car on the train.  On the left is Fabriccio, and the other guy is Emiliano.  

Now, only one of them speaks English making conversations between the three of us interesting, but they're both incredibly nice and gentlemanly.  When we got to Milan it worked out for the three of us to share a hotel and we hung out the past couple of days.  They left this morning for another part of Italy, but I'm only here one more day before I fly to Bulgaria.  

Me and Emiliano right after we had to walk back 10 blocks in the rain.  He's picture crazy. ;)

On a side note, the last play I saw in Poland, a piece called Nefes by Pina Bausch, was supposed to have the director come speak afterwards.  They made an announcement after the show that she was sick and wouldn't be appearing.  I was disappointed because she never ever does talks and thought it would be really interesting to hear her speak... unfortunately, she died the following day from cancer.  I saw the last show she'd ever direct.  

weird, eh?