2,000 Leagues (give or take) Under the Sea

I finally got out scuba diving again last weekend! I had tried to go once a few weekends back, made the trip all the way south to the city that the dive center was located at only to find that they had canceled diving for the day without telling any of the divers. It ended up being a total waste of my morning and really frustrating because I had been looking forward to it so much. But last Saturday I got my chance. It was perfect weather and we took a boat out and dove one of the same wrecks that I went to last year. The first dive went went well, but it took me a bit to get adjusted since it had been a little while since I had been in the water. We got to spend plenty of time exploring the wreck though, swimming through corridors and making it all the way up to the bow of the ship. The water had the same murky green tint to it that I remember from last time, and was equally as cold. There were occasional fish and some jellyfish hovering around the wreck, but other than that, sea life in the area was fairly sparse. We explored the wreck for about half an hour or so, and then it was time to surface.

Between dives we just hung out on the boat, but there were really big swells and I ended up getting a bit sea sick. It ended up being a pretty miserable wait, and I couldn't wait to get back in the water where everything is more calm. As soon as I got in the water and started descending I felt much better, and the second dive went smoothly as well. We didn't get as much bottom time since the dive was so deep; if we had stayed down too long we would increase our risk for both nitrogen narcosis and decompression sickness, both of which I would like to avoid. But we toured part of the ship once more and checked out a few areas that we didn't have time for the first trip down. After that it was back to the surface, and then back to shore.

Over all it was a good trip, and for me its nice to be able to dive at least semi-regularly so that I can keep my skill set up and not be nervous every time I dive. Hopefully I get more opportunities to dive once I get back to the states, but being how I plan on staying in Nebraska at least until the New Year, I'm not counting on it any time soon.

(Dive conditions similar to Nebraska)

In other news, summer seems to have suddenly ended today. This year brought with it much milder than usual summer weather, which was nice because I got to avoid all the miserably hot summer days, but bad because it was shorter than last years. Today, September 1st, I was greeted with a completely overcast sky and a cool Autumn breeze. Summer is over way too quickly, it seems to have just flown by. Now I just hope the really cold winter weather stays at bay until I return back to the States.

Town Holiday....I think

It is not uncommon for Bulgarian towns to have a town holiday, one day where all the locals come together to celebrate, dance, drink and partake in general merryment. These are very festive events that are greeted with much fanfare and can sometimes resemble small fairs that we used to go to as kids back in the States (although the titl-a-whore sometimes slightly resembles a 30 year old spinning death trap here, and I wouldnt recommend riding it).

Malko Turnovo though has what would be considered the mother of all town holidays, due to the fact that it lasts not just one pitiful day, but for a whole week. Thats right, SEVEN straight days of town holiday! It sounds like a great idea, but the plan went awry somewhere along the way and now it seems more like one days worth of events and booths that were spread out over the course of a week. One day there is dancing, the next there is music, the day after that there is a ballon vendor, and today we are graced with a cotton candy peddler. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.... Having just one event from a fair show up for a day in the town center is hardly exciting, and I would have much rather had them all at once for one day of festivites instead of everyday having one. Makes for a lame holiday. I would show you pics, but honestly there is nothing to see.

Anyway, summer is coming to a close, and the trees in the park are already starting to turn colors. Pretty soon fall will come and hopefully I will get some cool pics of that.

Music Festival Extravaganza!

I am back in Malko Turnovo now, exhausted and a bit sick, after an intense 3 night music festival in Burgas. This year it was really awesome and I had a few friends come in to town to join in the festivities with me. We spent the afternoons relaxing at the beach (the weather was perfect), chilled out in the evenings and cooked some bomb dinners, and then headed to the show around 9 or 10 each night. The set up was similar to last years; 7 stages right on the beach, with music playing until the sun came up. The music catered to almost every taste, including rock, metal, punk, rap, ska, reggae, jazz and at least two stages devoted to techno and house, which effectively turned the beach into an outdoor rave toward the end of the night. It was a wild time.

(Stage 1 of 7, courtesy of spiritofburgas.com)

However, going from such a concert back to the slow pace of life that is Malko Turnovo is quite the transition. Now I am recovering and entertaining a few German couchsurfers that are staying at my place for a few days while they explore the park. The weather is surprisingly nice considering its august, and provides ideal weather for seeing the region. After that I think things quite down a bit until around mid-September, when I have to start prepping for my trip back to the states. Time has been flying lately, and I have a feeling that it will continue to do the same until the big day comes.

Beach weekend

I have definitely been taking advantage of living close to the sea this summer. This last weekend I got out of work a day early (on account of it being my birthday) and headed up to burgas to celebrate with a bunch of my friends that had come in from out of town. We ended up having a relaxing afternoon at the beach followed by a rather epic night.

The next day we headed up north to a town called Obzor to meet up with more people and spend the weekend relaxing on the coast. There ended up being some 25 people or so in our party and it was a lot of fun just chillin and seeing everyone again. Now that our term is almost up there are only going to be a few more events where we can get together, and I have a feeling that none of these upcoming events will have a majority of the group attend. Its kinda weird knowing that after being here 2 years with some of these people, I will probably never see some of them again.

Today I got back to Malko Turnovo and I realize that I am pretty much finished with work here. All my projects are finished, all my secondary activities are over, and the office has slowed down for august, so I am not sure what I will do to stay productive and fill my time. Office hours are definitely starting to drag. I did get my confirmation on my final day though, and I am happy to announce that on October 7th, I will officially be finished with my job here! Time to start planning my after-service trip.......

The End is Near.....

Last week was my Close of Service conference, the last big gathering of my group to discuss final paperwork and begin preparations for finishing up our work here and heading back to the states. It was good to see everyone again, but going over readjustment information and final tasks for Bulgaria really makes it seem like I am almost finished here. There are a still a few months left before my contract is up, but since work at my office is so slow, I have a feeling that I will spend a fair amount of time in my office getting ready to head back home. There are a number of things I have left to take care of, but they should all be pretty easy and I have already begun to finish them.

I also need to start thinking of what I want to do once I get back to the states. I was hoping that I would have some sort of epiphany while I was here, with my plan for the future instantly becoming clear and laid out before me. Unfortunately, when I was envisioning this scenario, I was not taking into account that these sort of things never actually happen in reality, and I have no more idea of what I want to do in life then I had when I first got here. So much for that plan.

The good news is that I finally got to see the last major site in Bulgaria that I hadn't seen yet but wanted to. Its a place called Belogradchik, and its located only a few hours away from the conference site (which was itself some 13 hours from where I live, and explains why I haven't been there before). Since I was already that close to it, I went the rest of the way with a few friends of mine to go hiking and check out the area.

Belogradchik is a region full of really cool rock formations scattered about in a forest, and the main rock complex has the remains of an old roman fort built right into the rock. It somewhat reminded me of Garden of the Gods (minus the roman fort), right outside Colorado Springs, only this site was not climbable. I had a good time though exploring though and just sitting on the rock pinnacles gazing out at the region.

Falling apart around me

Sometimes I get so frustrated with things here in Bulgaria. I have been having plumbing issues in my apartment ever since I moved in; both my faucets in the bathroom and kitchen leak, and I have had a coworker of mine come over two or three times already to fix them, but then a week later they break again. This time my bathroom faucet handle completely snapped off and started spraying water all over the place. I attempted to turn off the main water valve to my apartment, but that doesn't work either so I had to rush to my office and get help. We ended up having to purchase a whole new faucet assembly and install it, which isn't a hard task, but in Bulgaria sometimes (actually quite often) a simple task can become inexplicably difficult.

Anyway, we finally fixed it and got it working great, but then only a few hours later the hot water gasket sprung a leak and started spraying scalding water all over the room. I shut off the boiler and attempted to fix it myself, but the new faucet that we had just installed was a complete piece of crap, and the bolts on it snapped, leaving me with a faucet that i couldn't reattach. The next day my coworker came back over, equally frustrated, and wanted to know where the old faucet was. I of course had thrown it away since it was busted, but then he got all upset. "why would you throw a broken faucet away?!?"

I have a decent amount of experience doing home repair stuff, but Bulgaria takes it to a whole new level. Stores never sell the part you need, and if they do it will probably break all too soon. Sometimes it seems like everything is in a perpetual state of disrepair. In fact, today I just saw a truck driving down the road with a drivers side door that didn't shut, and the driver had to hold in closed the entire time he was driving.

In other news, this next week is my Close of Service conference, where we have to go over paperwork and things to prepare finishing up our work here and get ready to transfer back to the states. Time has been going by very quickly lately, and I have the feeling that I will be done here before I know it. Only three months left!

parties and injuries

So my brother has been here for just under three days and It has been a fairly crazy adventure so far. I picked him up from the bus station on Wednesday morning around 1:30 am, took him to his new flat to drop off his bags before taking off to celebrate 'july morning'. July morning is a pretty cool tradition here in Bulgaria that started way back in the 70's with the hippie sub-culture, rebelling against the way the people lived and society. It has slowly changed since then and now mostly entails jamming out rock concerts along the black sea coast, dancing around bonfires, and drinking until the sun comes up, at which time everyone goes swimming in the ocean. It is a lot of fun and really cool to party all night long on the beach with so many people.

Unfortunately, Braden had a bit of bad luck and happened to step on a broken glass bottle just an hour or so before sun rise, and cut his foot so bad that we had to take off and get him cleaned up. His was bleeding all over the place, and the apartment looked like a crime scene before we cleaned it up. The next day I ended up taking him to the hospital and had to try to explain to the doctor what happened. He got a few stitches, and other than hobbling around like he has a bum leg, he is ok. In the mean time we have been busy setting up his apartment and taking care of everything he needs to get settled in to the groove of things. Tomorrow we are hosting some people for the 4th of July and hopefully it turns out well.

In other news, I found out what had happened with my computer. Apparently the motherboard crapped out on me, so now im stuck with a broken pc and no sure idea with what to do with it. I will try to take it to another store to see how expensive it is to replace a motherboard, but the guy at the last shop just suggested I buy a new one. That totally sucks because I dont have near enough money to buy a new PC, and malko turnovo is super boring without one. Hopefully the next place I take it to gives me better news. We'll see.

Other than that, the weather is great, the beach is fantastic, and the summer is still young. More updates as the happen. peace out