- Get started relatively early, before the daily heat hits full-blast
- Stop for lunch at a historic/beautiful spot, possibly meeting with a professional ensemble that will play/sing for us and blow us away
- Arrive at a hotel in the afternoon and relax in air-conditioned rooms with WiFi (or, as yesterday, swim in the pool) and avoid the 100+ degree sun beating down
- Around 8:30 p.m., go to dinner in some folksy restaurant, where we will again be serenaded by a professional ensemble that knocks our socks off and runs down the battery of our recorders
And around midnight, or even later, I sink into bed thinking "ohmygodohmygodohmygod."
This afternoon we met with the women's choir from Ensemble Pazardzhik, which Tzvetanka used to direct (the choir, that is). They sang a few songs for us, and then three of the singers gave us each a private lesson.
The current choir director, Ivanka "Vanya" Paunova, also directs a choir of "grannies" in a nearby village, and last night they dressed up in all their traditional finery, presented us with flowers, sang several village songs for us (accompanied by Vanya on gudulka), and then invited us for dinner that they'd prepared for us: a selection of salads, banitsa (cheese-filled filo dough), and a variety of cakes. The room was sweltering hot, in spite of a fan in the middle, and although everyone was positively melting, we all sang and played and danced for and with each other until midnight. Food and music are excellent means of communication when languages fail!
Tonight we are in Plovdiv, and on the agenda is another private dinner at the house of members of a professional ensemble. I already know how I'll feel afterwards: ohmygodohmygodohmygod...!
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