The Big Field Trip

In Bulgaria, people hang up Martenitsas, which are red and white bracelets, to celebrate Spring coming. The white on the bracelets represents purity, and the red on the bracelets represents blood and ancestry.  The name “martenitsas” comes from Grandma Marta. In English Grandma Marta means Grandma March. She represents the month of March. People think [...]

This is a Traditional Bulgarian Folk Tale. Our language teacher’s husband, Petko, told it to us. Petko told us that Bulgarians are very clever, they have morals and hidden morals. 
                  Once upon a time there was a very large man-eating brown bear. It had been eating people from a village nearby its lair so the villagers [...]

One of the most difficult things about traveling is learning different languages. It’s uncomfortable when I am sitting next to strangers on an airplane and I want to speak with them, but I don’t know if they speak the same language as I do. Sometimes I get nervous when I walk down the street and [...]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzip! Splash! Uh, oh, my turn. I walk to the edge of the cliff, then jump.
We had been going on a tour all day. We were somewhere outside of Lencois, Brazil. We had been to Devil’s Hole, a pool so deep that its water looked black. If you held the water in your hands, it [...]

Sofia is a city of people. People live in apartments that are drab gray blocks of cement. Trains rumble by on iron tracks, and people look out of the windows and talk in Bulgarian. Dull black wires bring electricity to people.

From The Big Fieid Trip – London and Sofia, September 2009

Sofia is also a city [...]

Chili peppers and their cousins the sweet or bell peppers are almost everywhere. From Eastern China to Mexico, there are peppers. Peppers play an important role in many cuisines world-wide.
Chili peppers were being cultivated in Peru more than 6,000 years ago. From the coast birds brought the seeds inland. Chilis are not spicy to birds, slugs, snails, [...]

We got to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, a week ago. We’ve started homeschooling and Bella and I wrote poems. The first one is mine (Cyrus’s), the second one is Bella’s.

From The Big Fieid Trip – London and Sofia, September 2009

Moss and grass grow between the cracks in the sidewalks
Crunch, I step on an empty green aluminum [...]