A Truly Good Family Has No Bounds

At first I was not so impressed with Bulgarian hospitality. I have met many new people through Zdravka and Mitko, and I am always given an earnest "kchhhello!" and then completely ignored. It has actually been pretty disorienting to hang out every day with people who are speaking in a language I don't understand. I am always the last to know what is happening, and sometimes I will receive only crude nonsense explanations. The car will stop, and everyone will get out, and I have no idea why. I call it the Bulgarian mind meld. Everyone knows the plan and no one can explain it very well to me, so I am having to get used to being unprepared. It is true adventure.

This weekend, however, was incredibly refreshing. Not only did we get out of dirty, smelly, noisy Sofia, but I found myself finally transcending the language barrier and engaging with some really great people. We drove about 3 hours to Mitko's parents house in a small village in the mountains called Batak. There, I was met with beautiful scenery, incredible homemade food, and wonderful music. Mitko's Father, Dafcho, doesn't speak any English, but spent many years in Germany as a watch maker and clock restorer, so we were able to speak minimally in broken German. The whole family was very warm, and I earned their respect by attempting to copy their speech and to act as if I was one of them.

After dinner the first night, Dafcho began to sing Bulgarian folk songs and I tried my best to follow along on the drum through the strange beat cycles and odd forms. Eventually his wife, Tzetsa, began to sing along, and the music soared, their voices so loud and strong, were perfectly harmonious. I had to put the drum down eventually because my body turned to mush. I just looked around the room at all of the smiling faces and thought what a shame it was that I hadn't brought digital recorder. They sang and sang, and we all fell in love, and I felt as though I had finally found my home away from home in Bulgaria.

The next day, Dafcho showed me his bees and we had very nice tea with his homemade honey. Tzetsa made Breakfast, which was a traditional Bulgarian dish called баница (banitza). First she lightly boiled and then chopped some greens which we had picked from their garden earlier, and mixed them in a big bowl with cheese (something kind of like feta), egg, yogurt, butter, and a little baking powder. Then she spread the goo onto filo sheets, rolled them up and arranged them in a spiral shape in a large pan, drizzled oil on top, and then baked it in the oven.





Their oven is 40 years old and the settings are simply: 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. She set it to 4, and just took it out when she thought it was done. They cut and served it like pie, and we all ate with our hands.

Later that night, after dinner (including greek salad, stuffed peppers, cucumbers with dill yogurt, grilled chicken, a wonderful soup made of their beautiful large homegrown beans, and plenty of homemade Rakia), more singing, and some much needed loafing, we made our journey back to Sofia, but not before exchanging some of the most heart-melting farewells I have ever experienced. It seems like I was wrong about Bulgarian hospitality, or maybe I just didn't understand it. Maybe in previous situations I had been a little too reserved, and in this case I allowed myself to really come out. Maybe I just needed to find a small town, like Batak, where people don't need internet to get what they want, and where not every other word spoken is "super." Whatever the case may be, I felt that I have just met and become a part of one of the most beautiful families I have ever known, and I hope I can come back again some day.

Tonight I will see a performance by Bobby Mcferrin at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, and then get directly on a 7 hour bus to Bucharest. When I arrive tomorrow morning, I will have half a day to kill with no plans whatsoever before I catch my flight to Milan.

The Things People Say...

I was sitting at a little cafe yesterday, having something to eat, and I overheard a Bulgarian word, "супер" (pronounced "super" -- it means just what you think), which I have heard maybe 500 times in the 5 or 6 days I have been here. A couple were looking for a table, and when they found the perfect one, the girl said, "Super!" This seems to be just about the only thing Bulgarians ever say to each other. I remember in Greece, too, there was a word that seemed to be a staple. Οραία (oh-reh-ah), which means "lovely", or "beautiful." Someone brings you food. Οραία. You look at a photo. Οραία. Good news? Οραία. Everything. The Greeks love to use that word. Maybe every language has these words that people are just dying to say. I wonder what the most commonly spoken word is in English? Well, I know what it is in American English. It's that incredibly annoying speech-filler, "like." People use it to dog-paddle their way from word to word, and sometimes will even start a sentence with it, as if they need something to get them going. It has no meaning. Pardon my conjecture, but it would seem that:

• Greeks are quite fond of beauty
• Bulgarians think that everything is super
• Americans are obsessed with the meaningless.

Bulgaria!

I got on a train in Athens on Saturday night and arrived in Sofia on Sunday morning but, because of a long detour through the mountains (visiting a sustainable community--which was really 2 people and a donkey plus some short term visitors, "sleeping" with 2 other people in a 2 person tent, spending half a day by myself in an abandoned barn meditating and eating warm yogurt, and then finally jumping into waterfall fed pools to rinse off the 3 days and 2 countries worth of grime), I didn't make it to Zdravka and Mitko's house until very late Monday night. They have a very sweet little place with cheerfully colored walls and a well equipped kitchen with herbs growing in pots. I have an entire room to myself, because one of their roommates is out of town, so I am free to do my thing as I want to. I have been cooking for them in the mornings and evenings, and spending the days by myself while they are at work. It is perfect. This morning before leaving, Zdravka told me, "Be careful when you go out. If you go this way, it is towards downtown and the shops and markets. If you go that way it is toward the Gypsies--do not go that way."

I discovered a little corner store nearby run by a simple Bulgarian man who's dream is to move to the US, become a perfect english speaker, and marry an American woman like from Playboy. He was so excited that I was from California, and he wouldn't stop talking to me. It was kind of cute the way he was showing off his terrible english. He talked and talked while other people would zip in and out, getting just what they needed. He performed smooth money transactions and opened a beer bottle for one guy on his way out, all the while spraying his silly little ideas at me though his crooked grin. Finally I was able to get down to business with him, but he was constantly making suggestions about what I should buy. It was very difficult because a lot of what I wanted was behind the counter and he had to want to give it to me. Actually, I did OK, and got out of the store with only one unnecessary item--a package of those individually wrapped single slices of fake cheese, which this guy assured me was the best for making sandwiches. Ülch!

Last night we went to a bar called Куфара (The Suitcase). It is a very old building made of stone like a castle and has many rooms and hallways that connect to each other. There was a piano in one room where a few people were sitting and drinking, and some music was playing on the radio. Zdravka asked the bar tender if I could play, but it seemed like it wasn't going to happen, so we sat down for some beers. Then she told me that she recognized some of the old people sitting across the room as bulgarian jazz musicians. I told her that I really wanted to play, so she went back to the bartender, and they spoke a lot of bulgarian back and forth for a while. He looked annoyed, but some other people in the bar overheard and I think they must have convinced him that it would be OK. Anyway, they turned off the stereo and I started to play. It felt really good and I was flying, full of new ideas. After a while people were clapping and the bar started to get very lively and more and more people were coming. Zdravka told me that the musicians were all watching me closely and smiling. Eventually, I stopped and people started to leave (it was late), but the whole vibe had been transformed. The bar tender was very nice and so warm towards us, and it seemed like everyone was exceptionally happy. On our way out, the bartender and I were gesturing lovingly back and forth and talking (using Zdravka and Mitko as translators) about this and that. I told him what a beautiful bar it was, and he showed us the old-style butter churner which they still had from way back when, and eventually we walked home. It was drizzling very lightly which was perfect on such a warm night.

Stella in Melissia

What an unexpectedly nice day I had with Pop-Star-George at his home, in Melissia (a suburb of Athens). Right when I walked in, I noticed a beautiful baby grand piano sitting in his living room, and an old upright against the opposite wall. Okay!

We sat and chatted in his living room about all sorts of things (we seemed to get along instantly) while his mother brought out various Greek refreshments. She kept coming back into the living room and interrupting us to talk about the food. She was quite adorable. She showed me ingredients and explained how some of the things were made. I was served spoon sweets, a tradition of Greek hospitality, and a kind of cold cherry drink on ice (made by boiling down cherries and sugar until it is a syrup, and then mixing that with water--very yummy). later she brought out some cookies that were made with wine, sugar, and cinnamon.

George took me into his studio and played me a bit of his new album, and we talked more about music and production and all sorts of other things. He is very talented and the songs, a mixture of Greek folk music and various pop/rock influences, were very well done. He records everything himself and brings friends to his house to record them (including a 200 kilo guy with an amazing voice).

Finally, he told me that I was welcome to play his piano as long as I wanted, and we went back out to the living room, but to my surprise, the very big grand piano in the living room was actually fake! It was an electronic keyboard built to look like a baby grand! I tried to hide my disappointment, and I asked him about the upright. "That one is out of tune, you don't want to play it." This is where George and I are very different. I was all over that beat up honky mother faster than you can say "robotic musical nightmare."

I put my little digital recorder on the piano, and played away for a while. Just what I wanted. Yes, the piano was a bit out of tune, but that's how life is. Pianos are like people, I think, and even the ones that are really out of shape have some exceptionally beautiful qualities.

Below is an excerpt of that session. I played "Stella by Starlight," in a way that I had never played it before. It sounds to me like the beauty of longing and the satisfaction of exploration. You can hear George in the beginning, trying to make sure I'm comfortable and offering the "nicer" fake piano again.

Stella in Melissia (mp3)

He offered to have me for dinner, but I had to go and perform my last non-sleep-a-thon with my little brother. He very graciously gave me a ride to the subway station, and told me that I was welcome any time and that he would love to show me the good places to eat and hear music. I'll definitely have to come back to Greece someday and take him up on that.

School-Teacher-Electra to Pop-Star-George

After spending almost 3 weeks on a remote Greek island without doing anything musical (besides singing arbitrary funny sounding Greek words and drumming on my body), suddenly, despite being told numerous times by the locals that there was definitely no piano on the island, I found out that there was in fact a piano on the island. It was apparently inside the school, and a very nice woman named Electra, one of the teachers at the school, told me that I could come and play it when she was there.

Electra had told me everything I needed to know--how beautiful the piano was, when she would be at the school so that I could come and play it, and just how happy she would be to have me play while she was working (very!)--but what she didn't tell me was that there were two schools, and that the school I passed every day on my way into town was not the one she was talking about.

So this morning, my last morning on Folegandros, after going down to the post office to send various greek novelties back to the states (including numerous 2-liter bottles of Nikolas' father's homemade raki, and a rechargeable battery powered cheese grater), I went to the wrong school and waited around for my date with Electra. It was the one opportunity I had to play, and she wasn't there. Luckily, I saw her much later as my family and I were leaving for the boat, and she explained to me that I had been waiting at the elementary school (duh!), and that the high school was, in fact, over by the post office.

Now I'm back in Athens, sitting in my room at the Plaza Hotel, not playing the beautiful grand piano which sits lonely in the bar downstairs (which is nearly empty), because when I asked the bar tender if I could play it, he said, "No, the piano is off. We have piano players."

But my quest for a piano doesn't end here. Fortunately, during tonight's dinner at a very beautiful restaurant called Millioni, I was introduced to the owner, George, a very nice young DJ who said that his friend, George, who was a very popular pop star in Greece when he was young, had a piano in his studio that I could play. DJ-George (who's forearm was freshly tattooed with the name of his dog) called up Pop-Star-George on his cell phone, and within 30 seconds, DJ-George handed me the phone, and I was talking to Pop-Star-George, arranging a time to meet. Tomorrow at noon, I will call him, and we will meet at his studio, where he will play me tracks from his latest album. Perhaps I will get to play piano tomorrow, perhaps not. I think my meeting with Pop-Star-George will be more of a social thing than an opportunity to spend some time by myself at a piano, but it still sounds interesting. He also invited me to come to his concert the following night, but I will be getting on a train to Sofia, Bulgaria.

5-year-old Philosophy

Jake and I were having dinner together, just the two of us, and while we were waiting for our food to arrive we had a very interesting conversation.

It started out very silly. I was eating lots of bread and he was playing ghost chair with his feet and he asked me, almost as an extension of all of the other gibberish he entertains himself with, why I was always eating bread. I told him, "I'm not." Maybe he thought I meant that I wasn't eating bread at that moment, when I clearly was.

Jake: How come when you're eating bread you're really not eating bread?

Me: And when you're not eating bread?

Jake: You are eating bread... and when you're up, you're down!

Me: And when you're in?

Jake: You're out!

Me: And when it's night?

Jake: It's day! ... And when you're nothing, you're everything. And when there's a ladder, there's not a ladder!

This made me laugh a lot, and I can't exactly say why. It was just the genius I perceived in it, and the apparent randomness. But it didn't matter what we said. This theme afforded us almost an entire dinner of enjoyment. There was, in fact, a ladder behind me which was leaning up against the building, and he made sure to point that out to me.

The thing that really caught me off guard, was this: When my Dad walked up after we had finished eating, Jake ran to him and said, "Daddy, Jason and I were saying that when you're God, you're not God." Maybe I misheard him, because I know that we never said those words to each other, but he did seem to summarize it well. I had already been trying to remember what we had been saying so that I could write it later. Sometimes the things that children say are meaningless, and sometimes they are just beyond understanding. He can't put his own "sun scream" on, but he sure has some deep teachings to share if we listen.