Cultural Differences #3

As we near the end of the semester, it occurs to Anne and Mark that there has not been a 'Cultural Differences' posting since November.  Today is May 4, making the temporal gap between these important public services far too long.  And although there is not a definite theme to tie together the differences pointed out in this posting, each difference is clearly of the utmost importance and worthy of note and a worldwide audience.  So, today, it's time to light up the potpourri of cultural differences (take 3).

First up, more parking issues.  Mark has been quiet about this for a few months, but don't take that to mean that the parking has gotten better.  Or more coherent.  Or that Mark has gotten over it.  Quite the contrary.  The parking is still crazy and mysterious.... as is Mark.

Decent ride, but that bad turning radius will lead you to crash this into a snowbank if you take that hairpin turn too fast.

The yellow car in the photo above (which cinephiles may recognize as the same model as the car used by the Soviet agents who were trying to tail/chasing Rocky during his training montage in Rocky IV) is parked on the sidewalk.  No big news there.  After getting out of the car, the driver noticed that the right, front tire was hanging over the edge of the sidewalk.  The intrepid driver must have realized that this could not possibly be good for the tire.  We assume that the driver first thought to move the car and park it straight.  But that must have seemed like a tremendous waste of time, resources and energy.  Plus, he realized, I can simply prop it up with some rocks.  Bulgarian ingenuity.

This one makes me wonder, though.

Is that a cat under there?

It looks like the guy ran off the road and crashed into a building, knocking part of a fence and debris onto the sidewalk.  Luckily, the driver found himself in Bulgaria, so he could just leave the car there for a couple of days - as if he were parking it there - and act like he meant to do that.  Cool.

So, if this blog has been nothing but a huge waste of time, at least it has accomplished one thing: describing the parking habits of Bulgarians.  It is something that is done differently here and this blog is happy to be the first to document the differences.

Other things that are different in Blagoevgrad and other parts of Europe:

Feminism

I do not remember an equivalent of this event at Grinnell College.  Mary B. James was probably the closest?

Bears in trees in Thessoloniki

Yeah, but why?

Covert operations in England

You can tell it's covert because the man is crouching.

And, of course, pledging fraternities in ancient Greece*

"Hey, just do it.  No one will ever find out.  What are you afraid of - that someone is watching us and that person will carve this scene onto some pottery and that pottery will somehow survive for centuries and then some smart a** Americans (whatever those are) will put it on the internet (whatever that is) and then the whole world will see it?  What are the odds of that happening?"

*Editor's note: the management of this blog is informed that this is actually exactly the same way that pledges are prepared for admission to fraternities in undergraduate facilities in the U.S.  Last entry to be re-filed under "Cultural Similarities."