so i finally figured out how to post pics on blogspot. here are a few pics from earlier that i have taken. unfortunatly i can only upload them one at a time, which takes forever so i cant post a lot yet. this first one is me, my host family and two of the other trainees in simitli

this is the rila monastary that we visited a couple of weeks ago. it is a very impressive building and the inside of it looks equally cool, but you are not allowed to take pictures. you will just have to go there to see it yourself (or take my work for it)

here is the courtyard and surrounding structure around the middle sanctuary. this outside building is where all the priests and monks live.

This is me and my baba (grandma) in the backyard. she showed me how to pick grapes and in the afternoons she often helps me study and practice my bulgarian.

this pic is taken from the garden up in the mountains that the family owns. up here is where the bee houses are and many different kinds of fruit trees. down below on the right side of the pic is simitli, and in the back ground is pirin mountain.

this is the back of the house where we used to eat all of our meals before it started getting colder out. there is an outdoor sink for preparing food and right now my host father is building a new outdoor kitchen just to the right of where the picture is taken. overhead is all the grapevines that provide shade and good food.

travels

So I just got back from another whirlwind week of traveling around Bulgaria. I spent two days in Dupnitsa going over more training and information before I took off to Gabrovo to meet and shadow a current volunteer. Gabrovo pretty much in the exact center of the country, and it took about five or six hours to get there. It is a pretty city with lots of traditional architecture surrounded by low mountains.
The volunteer there works for the central Balkan national park, and I spent the day getting a feel for what his day is like and what kind of projects he is working for. Nature Park Strandja, the park that I will be working, for has more land area than Central Balkan National Park, but has a smaller budget and staff because it is not a national park. So my job will vary depending on what kind of projects I want to work on and because there is less infrastructure, but I am excited about it because I will have the opportunity to make more of an impact. I also got to meet a bunch of the people that work for two of the different parks in central Bulgaria, which might be useful later if I ever need to network with them later for a project.
Also living right now in Gabrovo is Casey and Lindsay, a married couple that trained in the same town as me last year. I got to hangout with them for a while and on Friday night we all went over to their place and had a big dinner. It was nice to just relax for a while and take a break from everything.
On Saturday I headed out to Veliko Turnovo, one of the ancient capitals of Bulgaria. It is a sweet city, all built on the side of a steep mountain above a winding river. Buildings were practically built on top of each other, and two parallel streets less than a block from each other could be ten floors different in elevation. The city is also famous for a huge walled castle complex built on a small mountain on the edge of the city. It was a huge fortification, and at the very top with a view of the whole area was the craziest small cathedral like church that I have ever seen. It was normal brick from the outside and the inside was covered with murals and portraits. The strange part was that the paintings resembled more of a gothic frank miller graphic novel (think sin city) than it did traditional religious artwork.
Anyway, other than seeing the castle I really didn’t have a whole lot of time to do stuff in Veliko Turnovo, but I really would like to go back if I get a chance. So far I think that it is the most interesting city that I have been to yet in the country, and there is a lot of history there that I would like to learn more about. Yesterday I headed back to Simitli and will be here for a few days before I head back to dupnitsa for more training. No time for a break i guess. there is only about two and a half weeks now until i move out to malko turnovo for good, so my time here is winding down. I have no other real interesting stories to tell other than my travels, but I will try to write again soon. later

pics???

by the way, if anyone knows how to post pictures on blogspot, or even if you can, please let me know because i cant figure it out. and brett, i cant leave the country until january, sorry

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

first update

hey everyone!
so i am pretty sure that this will post on blogspot, but let me assure you that it took me forever to figure out how to post something on here, not because its complicated, but because my password didnt work and everything is in bulgarian. the help menu, the emails blogspot sent me and everything. but finally success.
life in bulgaria has been great so far. i attend language class every day and study all day after that. my group is working right now on setting up a community project, and we have a big meeting with community leaders for it tomorrow. i also have a placement interview tomorrow, and in two weeks i will find out where i will be living and what job i will have for the next two years. it will be a big day, but im not too worried about it.
life with the host family is going great. the langauge classes are starting to pay off and i can carry on meaningful, albeit simple, conversations with the family members. i still miss most of whats said, but im progressing. everyone has been really helpful and patient, working with me and assisting my studies. sometimes i will sit with the grandmother or my sister for an hour or two while they quiz me on vocab or correct my grammar. dinner is always a fun time, we usually eat around 9 at night and have a long relaxed meal with the family.
the food is still good, lots of salt and oil, but everything is delicious and i will not go hungry anytime soon. i will be dissapointed when it starts getting cold out because there is so much good fruits and veggies coming from the garden. i think at the end of next month i will get to help the family make wine from the grapes in their vinyard, but it wont be ready to drink until winter. i will just have to come back and visit the family then.
i will try to write again soon, and maybe post pics if i can figure it out. talk to you all later

justin