Spring break

Things are still going really well. work has been very busy lately because my counterpart had a big project he was working on. some german researchers came in to malko turnovo a few weeks ago to do a bat monitoring project and i got to help out. we went out every night around 7 pm and set up mist nets outside of a different cave entrance every night and captured bats. we then identified them, measured and weighed them, and a few of them we tagged before releasing them. i really enjoyed it and i learned a ton. the first two night we caught over 70 bats each!
they were long days though, and i usually didnt get home until 3 or 4 in the morning. now i have to help write a presentation for my counterpart to present at a bat symposium in romania in august. however, it hasnt just been hard work for me.
I just returned to malko turnovo and started work again yesterday after a short 'spring break' and easter holiday. orthodox easter was on april 27th this year and we had the monday following off (same as in the states). i was fortunate enough to spent a traditional easter with a bulgarian family this year, which was pretty cool. i was in razlog, a beautiful mountain town on the far side of bulgaria visiting my girlfriend Kristen for the weekend and we were invited out to celebrate in traditional festivities.
on saturday night at midnight (technically sunday morning) the entire town went out to the orthodox church and lit small candles from a large candle that the head priest was holding (the head priest in bulgarian orthodox churches is called the 'pope', very confusing at first. my host brother once told me 'look, theres the pope', and i got excited only to find thats not what he meant). however, lighting these candles is harder than it seems. since there is only one church in the whole town, everyone and there mom shows up for this lighting ceremony and all try to rush in through the main doors of the church to get these bad-boys lit. it was by far the most aggressive group of people i have ever seen try to enter a church to celebrate jesus. i was getting elbowed and passed by old hunchback grandmas 2 feet shorter than i was! plus half the people had fire. fortunately it didnt spiral down to chaos and there was no bon-fire that night.
once you get the candle lit and the midnight bells ring, then we had to try and get our candles all the way home without letting them go out. this is a rather difficult task when we had to walk across town with a breeze. i didnt do so hot at that one.
the next day we went over for the big easter feast and spent the day just talking and eating way too much good food. there were painted easter eggs and the egg contest, where everyone takes a hard boiled egg and taps them on each other to see whos egg is the strongest. its supposed to bring good luck for the whole year to the winner. our host even made an american desert for us, strawberry cheese cake. awesome. it was a fun time and interesting to see how similar some of our traditions are.
after easter it was a two day work week before the national spring break. technically its only tow holidays, one on thrusday and one on the preceding tuesday, but they just take off all the days in between and call it good. i sure didnt mind. i did a bit of traveling and visited plovdiv, and ended up in burgas, my usual hangout spot. i met up with friends and went out every night for pints and pool, not a bad way to spent vacation. i even got a day trip up to this town called nessebar, which is out on the coast (the old part of town which i visited is actually on an island 200 meters from shore) and used to be an old byzantine fortress. its a beautiful small island with old fortified walls, quaint little roads between two story original architecture houses and more 5th through 17th century churches than i have ever seen. one out of every like 10 buildings was an old Church. it was a good time though and im glad i got out there early in the season because i heard during summer the place is just a tourist death trap.
anyway, now its back to work and getting ready for summer. hope you all are doing well and i will write you later