the christmas party

things are still moving along ok, but i can tell you that malko turnovo does not offer much in the way of entertainment during winter. fortunatly, however, my real counterpart has returned from Germany and i now have someone else to interact with after work. he spends a lot of time up in borgas, but when hes here we usually hangout. the good thing is that im meeting new people in town through him, so hopefully i will know a lot more people here soon.
i have also started working with a woman that runs an afterschool program for kids. i have to admit that i havent been very useful yet, as im not the best with kids, but the kids seem to enjoy talking to me and once january comes i will begin teaching them english. I also went to an english class taugh by a teacher from out of town and i think i will continue to go to them because i will be able to help give them an opportunity to speak and it is helpful to me to learn new words and grammer. the class is taugh mostly in bulgarian but that makes it a perfect learning opportunity for me. the other people in the class are nice, but i feel silly because its just me and about ten married ladies. interesting class dynamic.
the weather has gotten cold, and this weekend a big snow front moved across most of the country. nothing as bad as in the states recently, but malko turnovo has gotten a decent amount of snow and right now there is fog so thick i can bairly see across the street. it was nice though because we had a huge christmas party for all the staff from the nature parks on this side of the country held up in a mountain lodge in central bulgaria. ten of us left in two russian jeeps (a rather uncomfortable setup) early saturday morning and drove all day to Kotel where we met up with the people from the other parks. it was a parking lot full of identical russian 'lada nivas'. it was pretty funny looking, but i had neglected to bring my camera. sorry. anway, it was about 25 of us up in this lodge in the forest with snow falling all night and we had a huge banquet with games, prizes and dancing. get that many excited bulgarians in a room together with all you can drink and it will be a memorable experience. it got pretty crazy, but most of the time i had no idea what was going on. but it was still fun.
now its back to work for a bit before i take off for simitli to spend a traditional bulgarian christmas with my host family. im taking my camera this time so i should have a lot of pics to post when i get back. take care and you all have a great holiday