second update

Sorry that it has been such a long time since my last update, but lately I have spent more time traveling than I have spent in Simitli. Things are still going well for me though, and I have gotten to travel a lot around Bulgaria. I am getting used to living in Simitli, and know a lot more people here, which is nice. For a while we were having intense language classes everyday from about nine to six, with a break to go home for lunch.
We also started working on a community project, we had to host a community meeting, come up with ideas, and now we are in the process of implementing them. It has been tough though, because things don’t work the same way here as they do in the states, and it takes some getting used to.
More recently however, I have been doing a lot of traveling. My host family took me up to the town of Bansko, which is this huge mountain resort town that is famous for its skiing. It is a beautiful area, but there is tons of European investment in the area and I think that it has become way over developed. It is almost like a sea of hotels under construction. But the mountain is still beautiful, and on the second day there we hiked up to a lake just under the peak of Mt. Vihren, the second tallest mountain in Bulgaria. It was cloudy weather so the view wasn’t great, but it was good to get out in the mountains.
The next weekend me, my host father, brother and my buddy Tyler went up to Rila Monastery, the largest monastery in all of Europe. It was built way up in the Rila mountains, and is a huge place. The monastery itself is beautiful, brightly painted buildings covered with hand painted motifs surrounded by a giant cobblestone courtyard. We spent the day up there walking around the monastery and then went on a hike to see a cave where the founder of the monastery lived for several years while he meditated. It is an orthodox monastery, and it was interesting to observe what went on there. The weather was cloudy again, but I still had a great time.
On September 10 I had to go to Dupnitsa where I found out what my perminate job would be and which city I would be living in for the next two years. I also got to meet my counterpart who I would be working with. Turns out that in the end of October I will be moving to Malko Turnovo, which is in the southeast corner of the country, about 45 minutes or so from the Black Sea and less than six miles from turkey. I spent a few days there to see what I would be doing and what it was like before heading back to Simitli.
Malko Turnovo is a quiet town of about 2,000 people or so and is quite a drive from the next big city, Borgas. There is not a whole lot in the town, just a few restaurants, cafes and such, so I will have to take the bus out to Borgas to do any real shopping or other activities. I am kind of nervous about the coming winter, whether or not I can find stuff to do in the town. It also sucks that MT is so far from Simitli, because I wont be able to travel back often to see my host family. My baba (grandma) said that I should request a new position so I could come visit her every weekend.
On the flip side, my job sounds like it will be pretty sweet. I will be working with the national park strandja, which is the largest national park in the country. The park covers all the land in the southeast corner of the country, along the black sea and the Turkish border. It is all low rolling mountains covered with old forest, with a few small villages scattered about here and there. The park is beautiful, and I think that it is kind of funny that I left the country to become almost a park ranger. I am not exactly sure what all I will be doing or what my average day will be like (I wont know that until a few weeks in to the job) but I have an idea.
My first task is to get acquainted with the park, and when I was there I spent one day hiking through the park with a class of Swiss graduate students working on a thesis program. The park has lots of animal and plant life, several rivers, many miles of undeveloped coastline and I think even a small system of caves. My options for work will include improving things already in the park, monitoring of wildlife, working with conservation initiatives, coming up with new programs the park offers to help increase tourism, and networking with other parks, organizations and NGO’s. Just my kind of job. I will know more as time goes on though.
This last weekend me and all the other trainees in my group went hiking up to the Rila mountains to see the seven rila lakes. It was a great time and nice to get some time off to relax with friends. The lakes were beautiful, crystal clear water surrounded by towering cliffs, and each one was successively higher until we reached the last one, which was just below the ridgeline with an awesome view. There was lots of cloud cover, but at the last lake we were above it so it was like looking out over a sea of clouds.
Outside of my frequent travels, I have been spending as much time with my host family as possible. I am starting to get a hang of the language, and I can talk about more complicated subjects. We still always have a big dinner at about 8 or 9 at night, and I can carry on a conversation (however basic) for about an hour or two.
Last week I got to help the family harvest this seasons grapes, and then we made wine with them. I have never seen such a huge pile of grapes in my life, and it took a day and a half to harvest and process them. Making wine is a very messy business, but it will be well worth it. The wine is currently fermenting in huge casks in the basement and wont be ready until December, but I think that we made close to one metric ton of wine. Hopefully enough for the winter.
With the leftovers from the wine my host father will make homemade Rakia (traditional Bulgarian liquor) aka moonshine. I went to tylers house when his host father was distilling Rakia, and it is very interesting to see. He gave me a sample right out of the distiller, and let me tell you that pure Rakia has some kick. I was about 130 proof! It is hard to try and condense one months worth of activities into a short blog, but once I get to my perminate site I will have a lot more time to write more frequently. Hopefully I can write again week after next. Also, if any of you have skype, I am on occasionally in the afternoon (your time). later