The picture above is the National Museum of History in Sofia with the mountains in the background.Today we learned a lot about Bulgarian history and I will just give you a brief summary for now. I'm sure I'll include more later :) Anyway, get ready to learn! (This is especially for Monica, Lonya, and Ismael.)
Bulgaria is a very old country, back in the 6000 BC time period the people living in Bulgaria were called Thracians. There are old Thracian towns and burial sites still that you can tour when you come to Bulgaria.
In terms of more recent history: Bulgaria included Macedonia (you remember this country from the history of Greece information, right?!?). In 1396 the Ottoman Turks invaded Bulgaria and ended up ruling for 500 years. When the Turks left Bulgaria they also left Serbia and Greece. These three countries ended up fighting over the Macedonia piece of land. BUT since the Bulgarian army was still in the East fighting the Turks out of their land, Greece and Serbia divided the Macedonia country between the two of them. Bulgaria was not very happy with this. When World War II breaks out in 1941, Bulgaria decides to fight on the side of the Germans because Hitler promised to give Macedonia back to Bulgaria. When Bulgaria realized that Hitler was going to loose though, they tried to back out and become neutral. The president of Bulgaria, Boris the Third, went to visit Hitler for this tense conversation. On the plane ride back to Bulgaria he died of a "heart attack". The people still aren't certain if he died of natural causes or was poisoned. Right after Boris' death the country becomes communist (1946). The building above was the old Communist Headquarters. In the main gallery there is a huge embellished sun on the ceiling, which was where the Communist leaders would hold banquets and balls.
In 1989 The Communist Party is defeated and democracy becomes the government of the country. Now in 2008, though, people look back fondly on Communism because now a days there is no funding for the arts, education, etc. The people seem to have less options of activities they can afford to do. BUT hopefully that will change because Bulgaria is now a part of the EU (as of 2007). They will be switching from the lev (Bulgarian currency -- This is the answer to your question, Yousef) to the Euro. The lev is about equal to the U.S. dollar at the moment. They will switch to the Euro starting January 2009.
As for the U.S., Bulgarians definitely do not like U.S. Policy (similar to the Greeks). But most people here who are educated have taken English language classes. I haven't had many problems communicating at all. It is difficult since the street signs are in the Cyrillic alphabet, but most younger people know at least Bulgarian and English (many times several languages even). That should answer Daysi's, Mari's, Cindy's, and Karla's questions about language. For more information read the previous post. I included a picture of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Anyway, as a side note: many of the main streets here are brick meaning for very bumpy rides. I have been taking my Dramamine every day when we go on long trips, but since today was going to be short I didn't. What a mistake! From now on I will take a Dramamine every morning even if it doesn't say we're going to be driving anywhere :) The picture to the left is of the brick streets here in Sofia.
Cheers,
Ms. G
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