The 22-Hour Field Trip

...was actually a 24-hour day for me.

I woke up at 2:30 a.m., brewed some coffee, found my yogurt had frozen in my fridge and settled for some Bake Rolls for breakfast instead. I got dressed in an outfit I had laid out the night before (I knew putting together a matching, weather-appropriate outfit would be too complicated for me at 2:30 a.m.) and even managed to brush my teeth and hair.

At 3 a.m. I called Rosie to make sure she was out of bed. Fifteen minutes later we met oustide of my block and made our very dark way to the train station.

The students were waiting for us...All 44 of them. The 4 other teachers took roll (I think they thought of me more as a guest than an actual chaperone) and we waited in the light rain for the train.

Before 4 a.m. the train had arrived, we got on, woke up some sleepers in the compartments to make room for all of us, and settled in for the 3-hour ride to Varna.

We arrived shortly after the sky began to lighten. Though we had left the slow drizzle of Straldja behind, the sky was gloomy and the temperature had dropped about 5 degrees making a bone-chilling cold, damp day not too unlike our previous excursion to northern Bulgaria.

Our first order of business was to eat. The kids were set to their own devices and told to gather at the planitarium at 9:30. Most of them flocked to the McDonalds (as did I) and got Big Macs for breakfast. Once 9:30 came around we retraced our steps towards the planitarium for our first activity of the day.

Most of the presentation consisted of a powerpoint presentation and a film (the presentation being in Bulgarian and the film being in English with subtitles). In the last few minutes the woman running the show did the typical (and really cool) star presentation. After using the toilets, we headed out into the cold again and crossed the huge waterfront park towards the "Dolphinarium."

Talk about random activities...We saw a dolphin show. Not only did we see it, one of my sixth grade students got to participate. They put her in a raft and sent her across the pool and the dolphins had to push her back. She was delighted, and everyone was snapping photos on their mobile phones.

Once the show was over, we boarded a bus and headed to the Aladja Monastery. I didn't even knew it existed...It is a monastery that is carved into the face of this stone hill where monks lived in the 12 to 13th centuries. It was a truly bizzare spot, but very attractive. Some gardener found us and told us all about the monks' cells (which were little more than round indents in the rocks) and the bigger indent that had served as the chapel.

Once we had exhausted all of the views from the monastery, we got back on the bus and I finally asked Rosie where we were going next (up until that point I had simply been following and arriving.) She told me the name, but I didn't understand what it was. "It's like Stonehenge," she said.

Okay, so there is a Stonehenge in Bulgaria too. Go figure.

We arrived at the next site and I found out what she was talking about. It was an entire field filled with huge, naturally-made, weather-worn rock formations and sand. The kids took to climping the rocks, and the adults just tried to stay warm in the bitter wind.

After some time, the kids began complaining of hunger, so we again boarded the bus and headed back to the city of Varna. Again we split up, and the 5 teachers found a pizzaria. Let me just say it wasn't the best pizza I've had here, and it was by far the worst price.

With full bellies we met again and went to see The Legend of Zoro in this discount movie theater. I must say there was a certain amount of internal gloating on my part when some of my worst students watched me enviously as I watched the movie, not reading the subtitles. In my head I said, "Wish you had actually studied now?..."

The film was over shortly after 8, so we headed back to the train station and hung around the train sucking down coffee and hot chocolate for warmth and energy. The train left at 10:20, we got back home at 2 a.m., and I absolutely and profoundly crashed.