The trip to Varna

Hila here. As Jill mentioned, Neno ferried us across country, past endless fields of sunflowers, through the old capital of Veliko Tarnovo, to Varna on the Black Sea. We didn't stop in Veliko Tarnovo but it was beautiful -- a green mountain town. We also passed a field busy with storks, picnicking on whatever a tractor was overturning. Tzvetanka said that sighting a stork is good luck.

We spent our bus ride talking and singing, and Tzvetanka taught us a heavily ornamented song from the Strandzha Mountains.

We stopped for lunch (kebabche, kefte, and moussaka from the party the night before, bread, and yogurt) in the village of Antonovo. Ramona and I went on a walk and found a mulberry tree with very high fruit. We tried to get the berries fireman-style, with Ramona holding my shawl below and me jumping to grab hold of a branch to shake down the berries. We got just one ripe white berry when we spotted some boys driving a horse cart and Ramona flagged them over to help. We thought to use their cart but one boy climbed the tree for us and started tearing off whole branches to throw in my shawl. Yield: about 10 berries. One of the Cristos (they insisted that they were all named Cristo) blew pretty impressive rings with his cigarette smoke. They can't have been older than 12.

Varna is a pretty beach city, lots of open squares and a promenade of restaurants, girls in summer dresses, street vendors and buskers. Last night we visited Radio Varna for a performance and live recording of two tight vocal ensembles and some talented young instrumental groups. Then we performed a couple of songs live on Bulgarian radio. Our arrangements were not as complex as some of the ones we heard (hooray we can learn them) but we were so well-received. As soon as we sang the first phrase of Rano Ranila the audience began clapping -- perhaps a mix of surprise that a group of raggedy Americans (we sure felt raggedy after our day-long bus ride) could actually pull it off, and happiness that there are people out there studying Bulgarian music.