The weekend is almost upon us, and with some adventures planned, here is what adventures have already happened!

Tuesday was another day at Missionis, and we are making quite some progress. I had a meeting planned in the afternoon with Miena, our local mentor. We met at this cute cafe for a drink and some cheesecake. I arrived a little early, hello Dutchie, and asked the waitress if she spoke English, which she did, even though just a little, she gave me the menu and I texted Miena I was there. She arrived a few moments later, and when the girl came back with the menu, she also brought her colleague, who asked me if it was okay to make a photo with her. I mean, sure why not, and when I asked for the reason, she just said that I looked cute. Miena joked that I was now famous and a celebrity in Targovishte. After our snack, we went outside to go for a walk in the park and to see the lake. More like a big pond, but don’t tell them that, it is kinda the pride of the town. When we had walked around it, she pointed to the art gallery and told me about the exhibition that was on display at the moment, of a local amateur painter, who is a lawyer by day, and makes art in his free time. Of course they know each other, and since she hadn’t seen the exhibition yet, and I was curious about, we decided to continue our chat inside and to look at the paintings. Inside, we paid the lady 2 leva, which is 1 euro, and we were in. It was quite a big hall with a lot of paintings, and they all had names obviously, so Miena translated them for me, and together we admired his work. When we were finished in the first hall, we ran into the manager of the gallery, a man named Plamen Prodanov. He spoke a little English, but with Miena’s help, he showed us the works of the painter the gallery is named after, Nikola Marinov. Next to those paintings were some of other local artists, including one of the manager man Plamen. Obviously I had to take a picture of it, but then Miena offered to take one of me with Plamen, since the artist was present, I now was the fangirl taking a picture with the real celebrity. We had to leave after, but I promised Plamen to return with my fellow volunteers to show them around as well.

Later in the evening, all of us volunteers and some locals gathered at one of the parks for our first cultural evening. It was Bulgaria and Greece, so we had helped Kate with preparing souvlaki for 20 something people. Before we started dinner though, the Bulgarian delegation had a quiz organised for us. But then it was time for food, and everything tasted amazing, there were fresh and big tomatoes, home grown, spreads and dips, traditional banitsa, which had eggs so not for me, local cheeses and meats and more, and then of course Kate’s Greek souvlaki with tzatziki. When we all had enough to eat, it was time to dance. They all learn their traditional dances from a young age, and are more than willing to learn people who don’t know them. The day before, when we were working at Missionis, I started chatting with Rad about those dances, and he told me that there is this dance which is on a song called ‘wild roses’. So when they started dancing, I looked at him and he knew enough. Even though the first few dances were at a beginner level, this one was a bit more difficult, and I still wanted to learn. So it was just me with all the Bulgarian people, and after a few try’s, I think I got the hang of it! It was so fun to be a part of something so unfamiliar, and I felt really welcomed into their culture.

We didn’t make it too late that evening, because we needed to get up bright and early the next morning for Missionis again. Monika came with us this morning, and after we were almost finished with our work, our supervisor Vesko, a guy in his sixties, wanted to show us his hut on the mountain. It was a small walk of the beaten path, and lead us to this little selfmade shack. He would sometimes stay here, if he wasn’t in the mood to go back down the mountain when he would be working there. Cool and kind of creepy at the same time, but you do you Vesko.

When we got home, Andrey and I had plans to go to Shumen in the afternoon. The others didn’t want to join or were too tired, so the two of us took the bus. We wanted to see the big monument on a plateau above the city, the Monument to 1300 Years of Bulgaria, or the Founders of the Bulgarian State Monument, to commemorate the 1300th anniversary of the First Bulgarian Empire. Since it is located on the plateau, it is quite the climb, with a 1300 steps staircase, so we decided to take a taxi to the top, and walk those steps down. At the busstation, we were trying to figure out how to get a taxi, but the easiest way was to just walk up to one and ask if he could take us there. The first one in line was an elderly guy, and he willingly drove us to the monument. The moment we stepped in the car and I wanted to put my seatbelt on, he just motioned no no no, not necessary, so I guess that is the Bulgarian way of saying he drives safely. Fingers crossed then. Because on our way up, we ran into a roadblock and he had to diverse his route. Since he was not prepared for this, we had to take a road in the opposite direction. Praying no one would drive into us, we luckily arrived whole at our destination. You can see the monument, according to Google and our little information guide, from a 30km distance, so you can imagine it is pretty big. To see it up close though, even more impressive. It was finished in 1981 and designed by Bulgarian sculptors Krum Damyanov and Ivan Slavov in a Cubist style. We just thought they looked like transformers, but were actually super impressed by the whole thing. After a walk around, we started our descent. Passing people who were on their way up, we considered ourselves lucky we opted for the taxi. We arrived in the city center, which was quite quiet, and had some interesting buildings, some just left unfinished, and made our way to the mosque. Once we got there, we made some pictures of the outside, and when we wanted to take a quick look inside, we were told we had to pay to see it all. Not in the mood for this, we went on our way back home. This time we took the train, and after a little wait, it was an easy ride back.

Thursday at Missionis, I started to feel a headache coming up, so I tried to get some rest in the shadows, and when we got back home in the afternoon, I went back to bed. Alissa and I were due for cultural evening, but since we both were not feeling our best, we asked to reschedule it. The Latvian part still happend though, and since the weather was not looking that great, with raining on the forecast, the decision was made to have it at our flat. If I don’t go to the party, the party comes to me. Great. Luckily, and we don’t have that much space for all the people from Tuesday, it was only the volunteers who came over for dinner. My Latvian flatmates made some classics, like the cold beetroot soup, potato pancakes and the rye-bread desert. Brought back some memories! But I soon retreated back to my room to get some sleep.

Instead of going to Missionis the next day, Kate needed my help at the museum. She is taking pictures of artefacts to digitalise them, so it was a welcoming change of scenery. That afternoon, the plan was to go to Veliko Tarnovo, another town in our area. Andrey went earlier to the busstation to buy the bustickets, but when we left the flat, he realised he only bought one ticket instead of two. The confusion was that it was a two way ticket, and the lady at the desk didn’t realise we needed one more. So when we arrived at the station, there was no more space left on the bus. Quickly making a new plan, I would take the bus, and Andrey would go to the train station and go by train. It would take him a little longer, but we would arrive within a 30 minute time gap. So when I arrived at the busstation in Veliko Tarnovo, I tried my best to buy a new ticket for the way back on the next day. Thank God for Google Translate, but I managed to get one. After I checked in to our hostel, I waited a little for Andrey to arrive, and then we were on our way to explore the city! It definitely felt bigger than Targovishte, and it was, but it also was more touristic. It looked like this little Italian village in the mountains, with amazing views and food. We strolled around town, had some ice cream, and made our way to the monument in the park, where there was a small festival happening during this month. It was a small stage, and every night a different puppet show would take place. Tonight, a Turkish puppeteer would perform his traditional show. Together with his family, they performed in Turkish, so we still didn’t understand, but luckily he chose to do some more modern pieces as well. And in any case, it is a puppet show, so you don’t really need a language to understand it.

During that night though, my stomach spoke a language to me I would understand all too well. Remember that ice cream? Well, sometimes they put eggs in ice cream, and I can tell you, they put some in there. I didn’t sleep for half the night, and I will spare you the details, but having an allergy to food is no fun and is spend on the toilet. If felt a little bit better in the morning, so we made our way for some (not really tasty and long waiting) breakfast and then to the cities old fortress. But during our walk, I could feel it bubbling again, and I wasn’t sure I would survive this trip. When we entered the fortress, I needed a break, and told Andrey to see the area for himself, and I would look for a spot where I could lie down near a toilet. So he walked up to see the church, which clearly from the photo’s looked amazing, and the area surrounding it. Not in the right mindset and mood to take the 40 minute walk back to the busstation, we took a taxi instead, and waited for the bus to take us back home, and straight back to the toilet and bed.

Staying home the next day, to work in our home office, there was a little miscommunication with the organisators, they expected me to work from the office at the museum, I worked on our Dutch translations for the audio tour. We were due to record them the next day, which turned out to be nerve wrecking for me. I asked Alissa if we could do the audio tour together, seemed like fun to me. But when we were in that studio the next day, like a professional recording studio, it all seemed it little less fun. I would do the introduction before the exhibition, which had a lot of local Bulgarian town names. Monika wanted all of us to pronounce them the Bulgarian way, in their accent as well, so me being sort of a perfectionist, put some pressure on myself. Also, not used to be in a studio and to hear yourself talk, is a challenge. We didn’t have the time to rehearse with the sound-guy, to ease into it, because in this case, time was money, so we had to get a move on. We would do my part in three sections, and the first and second one were not amazing, but also not terrible. At least I pronounced those names right. When I finished with all of it, there was of course this sense of relief, but I think if they would have given us a bit more time, I would have enjoyed it more. But hey, good training in (public) speaking, right?

That morning, before the studio, we went down to one of the house belonging to the museum, where we were invited to join in on some of the workshops they offer to school kids, or kids in general if they want to. They explained to us about some traditions and local stories, and we had the opportunity to dress up in some Thracian clothes.

Later that evening, it was time for our next cultural evening, this time with Spain and Tunisia. Thankfully, my stomach felt a lot better, and Isabel and Wael were so kind to make me separate dishes without eggs.

Next morning, I met up with Alissa to work on our own little project. We started brainstorming back in Sofia to make our own game, a walking tour through Targovishte, but in the form of an escape room. Today, we would go scout some locations for our potential stops and questions. We made a small walk around town, passed by the stadium and the lake, and came across the art gallery again. Fulfilling my promise, I showed her around, which was not really the main part of the plan, we actually only wanted to see if we could use it for our tour, but the lady recognised me from last time and opened up everything for us. Such a sweet gesture, we obviously couldn’t resist, so we did a quick lap around the exhibitions. Feeling like we had enough information for now, we headed back home to get ready for our next event.

Some of the volunteers had organised a language cafe, where locals who were learning English, were invited to come and speak with us. Since all of us speaking clearly English, they could practice all they liked, but some of them could also practice a few of our native languages. Some people would go and practice their Greek with Kate, their Turkish with Yunus, and I even met a lady who lives in Utrecht and speaks Dutch! See, those license plates do tell the truth, there are Dutch people here in Targovishte. We also met a lot of local teenagers, some of who we had met before during our cultural evenings, and most of them we met the day after on Thursday, when the Italian/Turkish delegation made us some amazing food. Meeting the girls again, but this time outside and with a lot less noise, we could have an actual conversation instead of trying to hear each other over all the others. It felt again really nice to be a part of a local community, even if most of them are at least 10 years younger, for them it was just as cool to meet new people from different places.

Alissa and I probably will host our Dutch evening next Tuesday and are planning on making poffertjes and a zomerstamppot. If you have suggestions for some other traditional, and please some tasty, recipes for Dutch food, don’t be shy to reach out! I will let you know the outcome next time.