traveling around

Hey guys, long time no see! Apparently I'm not doing all that well at putting up several blogs a month, but I have been very busy the last several weeks and haven't had any time. I will do my best here to catch you all up with what I've been up to. Summer is officially gone now, replaced way too suddenly by winter. The warm weather just vanished one day (right after I left my town for two weeks with a pack full of shorts and t-shirts actually) and was followed by a solid week of cold, dreary rain across the whole country. Its finally sunny out again, but its only a matter of time before the featureless gray clouds eventually settle in for the whole of winter. ugh.

I did get to head out to the beach once at the end of august for a big birthday party though with a bunch of friends. We went up to a place called 'Sunny Beach,' which is basically a way over-developed city for foreign tourists, a complete blight on the environment with over priced drinks, but I didn't organized the event, I was just invited. There was a good group of people there though and I ended up having a great time. Its been difficult sometimes to meet up with people from my volunteer group (I'm the 'Bulgaria 22' group, or B22) since I live in the complete corner of the country. Most of the people from the beach party were all from my group though and I was a good chance to reconnect with people and catch up with what everyone has been up to.

On September 10th I set out for Sofia for two and a half weeks of traveling around for work related stuff. I had to go to Sofia for my regular dental and medical check up, but it was a good time because a bunch of my friends that were heading back to the states soon were in town. We got to hang out and say goodbyes because, unfortunately, most of the people that were there I will probably never see again. It seems weird that all these people are all finished with their service here and get to head home, while I'm only half way done.

After Sofia I had a couple of seminars teaching the new group of trainees that just recently got to country. They seem like a good group, but none of them will be living anywhere near me. I honestly think that once my buddy Tye leaves Burgas, that I will be the most remote volunteer in this whole country. Lucky me I guess. Anyway, the training sessions went well and afterward I got to spend a decent amount of time hanging out with Kristen, cooking good food and just chillin (we actually made 100% from scratch egg rolls one night. We had to hand make the batter for the shells, fry them individually, make the filling, roll them, then fry them up one at a time. took way to long to do, but they turned out fantastic).

For those of you who know him, Wyatt Stebbins (a good buddy of mine from college), ended up coming out here to Bulgaria from Ecuador to attend his brothers wedding, and he gave Kristen and I an invitation. Its the most random thing ever, and I was quite surprised when he first emailed me to say he would be out here. It was great to see him again though, and it also gave me the chance to see a traditional Bulgarian wedding, which is vastly different than a traditional American wedding. Wyatts brother was marrying a Bulgarian, and other than the immediate family, Kristen and I were the only Americans in attendance. It was an interesting ceremony, held in an Orthodox church, and afterward there was a big reception at a local restaurant. We got to meet tons of new people and became good friends with the brides family. The reception had started at 6 pm, and we ended up being one of the last groups to leave at around 4:30 in the morning! It was a great time though, with good food, drink, and dancing around the restaurant all night long.

The next morning we met up with the wedding party in the hotel lobby for 3 hours of chatting over coffee, and turns out some of the Bulgarians there were from Omaha! They had come in just to see the wedding and then were going to head back to the states. One of the ladies was super excited when she learned that I am from there, and that my parents still live in Nebraska. She made me promise to give her contact information to my mom so she could invite her over and make her some traditional Bulgarian food. Small world indeed.

After a while Kristen and I had to head out in order to catch the last bus out to her town, but the married couple invited us out to the brides village to celebrate again with her extended family, and they wouldn't take no for an answer. They even offered up their apartment that night if we needed a place to stay! The next day was a holiday and we wouldnt have work anyway, so we ended up going along, and everyone piled in to cars for the 30 minute trip out to the mountain village. We ended up arriving at the little town of around 500 people, and the towns main (and probably only) restaurant had been reserved for us. We sat down and pretty much continued the banquet that had gone on for almost 11 hours the night before. Big salads and drinks were already on the tables when we arrived, and the main course for the day was whole roasted lamb. We didn't get back to town until 10 or so that night. It was a great time, and I am now invited back to the brides parents house anytime that I am in the region.

That next week I had my Mid-Service Conference, a big gathering of all the B22s to go over peace corps policy stuff, talk about projects, and prepare for the second year. Sessions were very boring, and they had decided to hold this conference in this remote hotel way up in the mountains, next to nothing at all. I felt like I was in the Shining, even more so since it rained non-stop the entire time we were there. Again, it was real good to hang out with the group, but after 4 days of being couped up in one hotel with 40 people, I was ready to get out of there. I had one last stop to make at my host families house before I would start the 14 hour trip back to site.

My host family is still doing good, and they were very excited to see me, but disappointed that I was only staying for one day. I would have loved to stay longer, but I had been gone too long already and I had work to get back to in Malko Turnovo. It was a great time and I even got to go out to the vineyard with them and help finish harvesting the grapes. I It was a good year for grapes, and my family will have 2000 liters of wine this winter!!! I'm not even sure its possible to drink that much wine, but my host father wants to see if he can mail some of it to me once its finished. We'll see about that one.

Now I'm back in site, catching up with stuff and staying very busy. I'm still doing well though and I'm looking forward to this weekend so I can finally take a break and relax.