Every day is a holiday :)
Ok ok, not every day, but here's the thing: back in the States there are only a few holidays set apart each year for people to take off work and have a get together with family and friends. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, 4th of July, and a few others. Birthdays are not always a special occasion; some people do not even celebrate with much more than a quiet dinner out.
I've lost track of Bulgarian holidays. Seriously. There are so many of them that I cannot keep up. Basically I'm to the point after two years that when my wife says "there's such-and-such coming up this/next weekend" I just nod my head and get ready for the night of my life.
Bulgarian holidays are never reserved. They are never quiet. These are moments when food must be attacked with a voracious appetite reserved for men who spent the last year starving in a prison camp, when drink is quaffed with such vigor as to imply that this will be the last night anyone will ever be allowed to enjoy spirits, where the music is loud enough to have your ears ringing, and dancing is as much a part of the experience as breathing air.
American holidays are usually reserved, especially if they are in a public place. What I want you to do is picture going to Olive Garden or the Outback Steakhouse or any restaurant you care to name, and insert the following experience. Think of how many lawsuits would occur. Just think about it. Enjoy!
I want to give you a brief example. Last Thursday was my wife's name day. We don't have name days in the United States. A name day is a day of the year associated with a particular root name. Some names can be celebrated on more than one days (what a lucky person!), and in Bulgaria, this is a HUGE tradition. EVERYONE is invited to these celebrations, not just friends and family.
Last Thursday in particular was a celebration for everyone sharing the root name of Ivan. (Ivana, Ivan, Ivanka, etc.) Close to 500,000 Bulgarians have some form of the word Ivan in their names, which makes it one of the most popular name days out of the year.
In any case, I have been to many Bulgarian parties over the last couple of years, some of them particularly wild, but last Thursday was out of this world. First, we show up at the restaurant (which was up at a mountain resort; we had a mountain retreat last week) and there are around 40-50 people inside. There is a cultural band playing folk music: drummer, keyboardist, some other stuff. There is a vocalist, but mostly it is everyone in the room taking turns on the mic singing some of the traditional songs. It is LOUD. Loud enough that you cannot hear someone shouting in your ear unless they are shouting IN your ear, and repeating themselves several times.
Everyone is drinking. EVERYONE is dancing. And not quiet, reserved dancing. I'm talking cultural dances, people joining hands and working their way through complicated steps of traditional folk dances. EVERYONE learns the cultural dances here; it is a part of growing up in Bulgaria.
The spread on the table is out of this world. There is salad, chicken, pork, beef, cheeses, wines, beers, whiskeys, vodkas, rakia, and much, much more. You eat until you are stuffed. You drink until you feel as though you could breathe fire. Then you drink some more. Then you eat some more. And you dance. You dance until the sweat is pouring down your back and forehead, until your feet ache.
The keyboardist is jamming out. The drummer has a portable drum stand which he is moving around the room with the people dancing. People are pouring alcohol over him. Pouring water on his drums, on him. He moves his drum stand onto a chair. Women suddenly step up onto the table, their feet delicately placed between the plates of food, and they are dancing. Wild, jiggly, belly dancing that has everyone in the room roaring and cheering and laughing. Fists are pumping in the air with the music, everyone is singing at the top of their lungs, everyone is applauding. Everyone is shredding napkins and blowing them into the air like confetti. It is wild.
The dinner starts at 9 p.m. Everyone is fairly sauced up by 11. The party continues until 4 a.m.
This is only a brief example of the night. There was much more, but I was pretty liquored up myself, so there are a few elements which escape me. I did, however, attempt to dance some of the traditional dances, and I danced with my mom-in-law. I never dance. I suppose this shows how much I'd had to drink :)
Most Bulgarian holidays involve dancing, singing, lots of food and lots of booze, but I'd never seen people dancing on a table before. Evy says it happens frequently, just not always in the circles we run in. It's a cultural thing. Wild times! Can't wait for the next :)
