The end of an Era

Well, I am done with my trip now. Its been over a month and a half of crazy adventures and it has finally come to a close. Its been one intense ride, but I have to admit that I am really looking forward to getting back to the states and starting the next chapter. Although, I have been gone long enough that readjusting to life in the States might just be as exciting as my time in Bulgaria was. Its been almost two and a half years since I was last there, and I'm sure a lot has changed.

(Polar Bear swim time in Ireland)

Just the other day I was looking back over my most of my travel blogs, and I realized that for the most part I failed to accomplish my main goal with this project. I wanted to try and give an impression of my experiences; to relate the stories of the people I met and the feelings I had while exploring all these new and amazing places. Reading back through them though, I can't help but notice that all of them are just simple travel logs. I never had the time even to put details or funny stories in the posts, so while they tell where I have been, they don't do my travels justice at all. It is true that I had a very limited time to type up new blogs, and sometimes would go a week or so with only 15 minutes or so of internet time, but its still a bummer I didn't get more of a chance to write about all my cool adventures. I feel that there was so much more that I could have related and painted a better picture of my journey.

(The red phone booths and double decker buses DO exist in London!)

Hopefully though, once I'm back to the states and I figure what is going on, I will have much more opportunity to tell all my stories in much greater detail. I have so many crazy stories to tell, and plenty more pictures to show. It has been a great time though, and I am really fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to do both my volunteer service in Bulgaria, and the subsequent trip through Europe. Maybe fortune will shine upon me and I will be out traveling again before too long. I can only hope. Until then, peace out

The Islands up north

The travels lately have been going great! I am currently in Dublin at the moment and am getting ready for a crazy Saturday night out on the town. Well, perhaps not too crazy, because the prices for stuff here is ridiculous. A pint of beer is 5 Euro, or about 7-8 dollars in pretty much any pub or bar. No way I can afford to go all night with prices like that. The city itself is great though, today we walked around for a while and ended at the Guinness brewery. After the tour we went up to the bar at the top of the brewery with a commanding 360 view of the city and enjoyed perhaps one of the best pints of Guinness that I have ever had. Way better then the ones you can get in the states.

The Canals in Amsterdam

Its been a wild ride up to Ireland as well. From Germany we rode the high speed train out to Amsterdam and spent almost a week there before catching a flight across the canal to London. London is a very expensive city, but one of its saving graces is the fact that all the museums are free. The history museums, art galleries, everything is free, so you can spend all day in the city seeing tons of cool stuff with out spending a penny. This was a great suprise to us and was probably the only reason why we didn't go broke during our 5 night stay there.

Windmills!

We couchsurfed for part of the time there, but we stayed the last few night with some friends of mine that I met during my travels in Romania this last summer. It was cool to see them again a lot of fun to spend time with them on their own turf. We also got to meet one of my dads good friends from when he used to live in London, and get some good dirt on my dad, info that we will undoubtedly hold over his head when I return home (heads up dad!).

So that about catches up things to now. There are only two more nights left before I have to board my flight back to the states, so I have to try and make the best of them. Tomorrow I hear the plan is to go join this big group of people and jump into the sea, a very Irish tradition apparently. Sounds cold to me though, but when in Rome.....

Fall of the Wall

Its cold, cloudy, and I am lucky to be inside sheltered from the elements writing this update. After spending a few party filled days in Dresden, taking the afternoons to explore the re-built old town, my travels took me up here to Berlin, where we ran in to a bit of bad luck.

(our new friends in dresden)

The original plan was to stay with these crazy Germans living East Berlin that we met in Budapest and partied with for several days. We exchanged several emails and I thought every thing was going to be nice and easy, they even wanted to come pick us up from the train station when we arrived, but as it started getting closer to our arrival date they stopped responding to my emails.

I'm sure its not intentional, merely bad memory or something, but it turn out with Braden and I arriving in Berlin with no where to stay and no phone number to contact. We had a recommendation of a good hostel on the other side of the city, so with no better plan, we grabbed the U bahn across the city to find the hostel, only to discover that it was fully booked. Not only that, but he told me that every other hostel in the entire city was booked as well, and he had turned away no less than 50 other people that night alone! This was cause for concern.

(Berlin)

The first course of action was to find an Internet cafe and start doing some searching. Sure enough, hostelworld.com (the main Internet database for hostels in any country) listed every single hostel in Berlin as unavailable for that night. Unbelievable. After about an hour of some stressful head scratching and brainstorming, we decided that the best course of action (one of the only available courses of action actually) was to try and book a hostel for the next night, see if they could hold our bags the current night, and party till the sun came up and we could officially check in. After some cross referencing we found a place that was close enough to walk to that was available the next night and agreed to hold our bags for a day.

(All Braut, no bun, the way real Germans eat it)

Luck was finally on our side. We headed out to the place and talked with the guy at the desk and explained our story. He did a bit of investigating and discovered they had one remaining free bed, and one woman that was double booked, meaning we had two beds free at the hostel! Booyah! We quickly claimed them, excited that we would not have to stay up until 3pm the next day, when the check in hours started. After that it was time for a nice celebratory dinner and a few pints.

(Brandenburg gate ready for the festival)

Turns out Berlin is completely booked out right now because tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, quite possibly one of the most significant events of our time. There will be a huge celebration tomorrow at the main center of town, including a symbolic display of 1000 gigantic 9 ft high dominoes that run along the old path of the Berlin wall that they will knock down. Excitement is incredibly high right now every where you go, and I can only imagine the scene that will occur tomorrow. Mikhail Gorbachev and Kofi Annon are included as guests of the event as well.(the Berlin wall)

Quick update

Its been a while since my last update, but I have very limited time online, and have been spending as much time as possible out in the cities exploring. Even with so much time to travel, sometimes is seems that there is never enough time to see half of the things that I would like to. The trip is still going well though, and right now we are Prague. All these cities never cease to impress me with the grandeur of their architecture, and the richness in their history. Just when you think you have seen the most impressive city you can imagine, you travel across a country boarder to yet another equally impressive city. Its crazy.
Vienna was (of course) great, and one of the cool things about it was that we stayed with a guy out on the edge of the city where the vineyards start. Our first night in we went to this little hole in the wall restaurant that serves only a hand full of different dishes, but they are all traditional and all the wines they have on tap are produced locally, sometimes less than a kilometer away. During our next days there we wandered around the town and were lucky enough to encounter several cool festivals. From there it was off to Brno for a night, and then out to Krakow.

krakow!

Krakow is totally sweet: clean, fun, lots of good bars and restaurants, tons of history, the architecture, and as a bonus, super cheap compared to the cities we visited before it. The first day, however, was a bit of a somber one because we spent the day out at Auschwitz. It is a very powerful experience, and it made me reflect and wonder how such atrocities are possible in todays world. Its so sad. The rest of the time in Krakow was much more upbeat though, and it was definitely worth the journey out there to see it.

Well, got to go now, time for dinner and perhaps a few beers. Its is, after all, the Czech Republic, the country the consumes more beer per capita than any other country in the entire world. Cheers!

Non stop action!

The days have been super busy lately, and it feels like we are just touring around non-stop. We have been meeting up with tons of cool people as well, both through couchsurfing and also people that we run into at the hostels (the few times that we are forced to stay at them). We had a couple of action packed days in Budapest, and I have to admit that it is now one of my favorite cities. It has so much to offer, and we were lucky enough to plug into a fantastic group of people there that was able to show us around part of its extensive night life.During the day Braden and I would wander around and do the touristy things, but then in the evenings we would meet up with the couchsurfing groups and stay out until all hours of the morning. The bars there are pretty sweet, huge multi-level places with open atriums and DJ clubs accessible from random entrances. Pretty crazy. The last night we were there (before having to get up way too early and run across town in the rain to catch a 6:30 train) we were at a place that had a reggae party DJ contest down in an old converted wine cellar.
Now I am laying low in Bratislava, trying to recuperate and catch up on sleep before shooting over to Vienna and possibly starting the whole process again. However, as I am writing this I have been informed that instead that the plan for tonight might be to go to the pub for the rugby game before heading over to this club in an old converted nuclear fallout shelter. We'll see how the night ends up.....

PS, got a new album up on picasa, check it!

Croatia and Hungary

I am currently chilling right now in the town of Pecs, Hungary, staying with a friend of mine that couchsurfed with Braden for a while back in Bulgaria. I have only been here for two nights, but they have been two very action packed nights. Last night we went to a wine tasting party out in one of Hungary's most famous wine producing regions, and the day before we met up with a bunch of the local exchange students for some interesting presentations on different countries around Europe, followed by some time checking out local bars.Today was a relaxing day going out to a natural spa just outside the city where they have a collection of geo-heated pools, and we just hung out and and recovered from the last week of travel.Before coming here we had a few days out in Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia. They were some fairly low keys days, we but had some great hosts and it was a great time hanging out with them and touring the city together. Zagreb is a really cool looking city, with interesting architecture all through out, but there really isnt all that much touristy stuff to do, so while it was fun wandering around, it didn't take long to see all the major sites.
Overall the trip is still going great, but every day the weather is getting colder and colder, and I fear that winter is closely approaching. Ugh, winter sucks.

Pictures!

I got two new photo albums up on my picasa page from my trip so far, check them out!

Raining on my Parade

I am sitting inside right now in Slovenia, waiting for a thunderstorm to pass over so that I can go out on a day trip I had been planning to a nearby town. The weather here has been less than stellar the last few days, although we did get a break yesterday and had absolutely perfect conditions to go out and visit lake Bled.

(Bled Castle)

The lake was gorgeous, and was even cooler looking than I expected. We spent the day strolling around the shore, visiting a few nearby towns, and visited the castle overlooking the lake as well.
The first day here though it rained half the day, and we got soaked trying to get to our place to stay. It cleared up after lunch, and we got a chance to go check out the old town of Ljubljana, but then we got caught in a bit more rain. Ljubljana is a sweet city, and if the weather clears up then hopefully we will get some more time to wander the center tomorrow, but the bummer part was that on Saturday and Sunday, practically everything is closed. Even all the markets are closed on Sundays past noon, so while its cool to walk around and look, there is hardly anything really to do. Hopefully today and tomorrow will turn out better.

Belgrade or Bust

Well, after a few more days of wrapping stuff up, I finally finished up my work here in Bulgaria and started off on my grand adventure. We set off a day later than I had been hoping for because the night train that I had been planning on taking left the country before midnight, which I was not allowed to do since I was still officially a volunteer until midnight on the night of the 7th, but there was an early morning bus up to Belgrade the next day, so it all worked out.

We ran in to a few problems after reaching Belgrade, however. We were supposed to meet up with our couchsurfer in the afternoon that day, but after waiting around that the pre-arraigned meeting spot, she never showed up. We asked all the people we could find if we could borrow a cell phone to call her, but no one was willing to help us out at all. Serbs are apparently not the friendliest people to strangers, but then again, maybe it was just bad luck that all the ones we were meeting were rude. Either way, we got stuck having to search out a hostel at the last minute and found a place with the least friendliest and helpful staff that I have ever stayed at. The receptionist couldn't even point us in the direction of a restaurant for dinner, she just said "They're out there, I'm sure you'll find one." Gee, thanks lady.We ended up having a nice time walking around the old city though, checking out the sights. We even got to watch the old guys in the park playing speed chess, which was pretty sweet as well. Belgrade is a lively and interesting city, but it also still bears scars of the war. Bombed out buildings still stand in stark contrast to all the improvements and reconstruction that has been completed, and it serves as a reminder of the dark history that Serbia is still working to overcome.
Anyway, it was a nice day that ended with a crazy dinner. We finally found a little diner-cafe joint that we sat down at to have our meal, and after looking through the menu for a while at a bunch of dished we didn't recognize, we decided to ask the waiter what he recommend. He pointed out two items that he said were "fantastic" so we each decided to order one of them. I ended up with a Serbian style hamburger, and Braden got a plate of sausage. It sounds good at first, until you realize that ALL I had was one giant two pound hamburger, sans bun, toppings or side dish, and all Braden had was a mound of sausage, also with no side dish or dressing. It was just one giant pile of meat. There was no way either of us could have hoped to finish such a meal, and I remember just looking at each other laughing at the ridiculousness of it all when the plates were served. Crazy old Serbia....
The last night in Serbia ended up with Braden and I catching a night train out to Slovenia. We reserved a private room for the two of us complete with bunk beds and a little table/sink. Braden set up his laptop and we were able to enjoy a movie before going to bed while the train whisked us away to our next destination.

I will try to get more pictures posted soon, but my net is super slow at the moment and I was lucky even to get these ones posted as it is. I should have a new post up in the next few days. Peace

Sofia!

So far I have made it to Sofia, and things are going great! I had a decent sent off from my organization, followed by a weekend of visiting friends and final goodbyes in Burgas. Then Braden and I caught a train across the country to Sofia, where we have been for the last few days taking care of the last bit of paperwork before my volunteer service is complete. I have another two nights here, then it’s off to Belgrade, the first stop on our trip.

I got all my stuff down to one backpack (although barely) that I will be taking with me. The weather is great and I am pretty much prepared to go right now. I Just have to wait until midnight of my last official day before I am allowed to leave the country. Until then, I’m pretty much just hanging out. Here are a few pictures of the last days out in Burgas.

The Final Stretch

Well, as you have probably already noticed, I have made a few changes to my blog in preparation for my trip. I added an event calendar that shows the tentative plan of action for the next month and a half, and I created a map that more or less plots the course we will take during our journey. The itinerary is not set in stone; we will be buying train and bus tickets as we go along, so we have the flexibility to stay longer in any city if we really like it, and leave early if we really don't. In fact, the only thing that we really cant miss is our flight out of Amsterdam on Nov 15th, so as long as we get there before then we are fine.
In the mean time, when I'm not sending out couchsurfing requests and double checking train times, I am cleaning up my apartment and sorting things that I will need to bring with me during my travels. I plan to take only one backpack with me, so everything that comes will have to comfortably fit in there. There is nothing worse than starting a huge adventure like this and having to lug around 100 pounds of unneeded stuff across an entire continent. Lightweight is the name of the game.

I am getting pretty excited about the whole thing though. I have been itching for a change for a while now and the moment has finally come. By the end of the week I will be homeless, and come next week I will be unemployed as well! Hurray! Um, wait. Ok, so hopefully I will only temporarily be homeless and unemployed, I imagine that is not a state I would like to remain in indefinitely. But in the mean time, it will nice to have unlimited freedom to go where I want, do what I please, and pretty much just enjoy life for the next two months. Im sure reality will waste no time in crashing down on me once I return to the states and I realize that I have to find a job ASAP, but oh well, I will worry about that when the time comes.

Anyway, wish me luck as I wrap up the last few things here, and I will post again as soon as I can. Peace

Contemplating Bulgaria

I just got back to Malko Turnovo the other day from a few more work related travels around the country. I had to go to Sofia to start filling out some of my end of service paperwork, get checked out by the doctor to make sure I haven't contracted any strange diseases while I was here, and get my teeth cleaned (good news: I don't have any strange diseases). It was nice though because I was able to leave a few days early and go see my host family one last time over in Simitli. It was good to see them again, and gave me some time to reflect on my service here.

(Me contemplating things)

It was strange being back in Simitli two years after I had first got there, and was interesting to compare how I am now to how I was then when I was living there. My perspective on Bulgaria has certainly changed, not better or worse necessarily, but has definitely become more complete and informed. Bulgaria is no longer this new strange place that surprises me at every turn. It has become normal, and after long trips to other countries I return here and am greeted by a sense of familiarity. That being said, I can never see myself feeling completely at home here. I think that the general outlook and way of life for many (but by no means all) of the people I meet here is different than my own, and after spending so much time here I still feel very much like a foreigner in my day to day exchanges. It's a hard to describe situation.

(Field work with the Germans)

The time is almost up though, and pretty soon it will be on to new things. I have less than two weeks left here at my office, and most of that time will be spent finishing up reports, cleaning out my office and apartment, and working with a group of German researchers that just arrived in town today to continue with some bat studies in the field. I have a feeling it will be a very busy two weeks.

One month left!

I will be finished with my service here in exactly one month! Time has been flying by lately and I have already begun to organize my things and pack up my apartment. Next week I will travel out to Simitli to visit my host family one more time, and my brother (who is out gallivanting in Greece at the moment) will join me there. I'm looking forward to seeing them and getting the chance to say goodbye. After that I head to Sofia to take care of some paper work, get checked out by the doctor, and go to the dentist. Then its out to Plovdiv for one final group gathering, and it will probably be the last time I see many of the other volunteers here that are in my group. It should be a good time though, and its nice that we can have one last gathering right before we all head our separate directions.

(Goodbye Malko Turnovo)

After I am done in Bulgaria, Braden and I will begin our epic European tour. I haven't planned out all the details yet, or an exact route that we will take, but its going to be the biggest trip that I have taken yet. We will travel for a month and a half through Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungry, Slovakia, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, England and Ireland, before catching a flight back to Nebraska on November 23rd. I am super excited about it, and have been doing a bit of research on all the stuff we can see and do while we are there. It is sure to be a vacation full of sweet adventures and general tomfoolery. The plan is to couchsurf as much as possible as well, to try and meet lots of people, and so that we don't run out of money after the first week. The good news is that I can get money in lieu of a ticket home from Sofia, so my flight back from Dublin is pretty much free. Not a bad deal.

(Lake Bled, one of our first stops on the trip)

I will do my best to update my blog as often as I can during my travels and post pictures as well, so keep checking in for updates. Also, if any one is interested, I can send out some post cards as I meander my way across Europe. Just email me your address and you will be sure to receive a kick-ass, personally autographed post card from any one of the aforementioned countries. What more could you want?

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

Disaster has struck!

Misfortune has fallen upon me recently and my computer has died. This is a serious event, since my computer contains pretty much everything that I use on a day to day basis. Malko Turnovo was a boring place to live before, but now it has become mind numbingly so.

(The victim)

I'm not sure what went wrong with it, and I took it into a shop to get it repaired last Wednesday but I don't even think they have looked at it yet. I'm hoping its something easy and cheap to repair and I can have it back and working again by the middle of this week. My worst fear is that its some major issue with the hard drive and the computer place loses all my information. Music and movies aside, this would mean the loss of all my trip pictures, all my documents and pretty much all my important information. I had been getting ready to back up all my info when the 'incident' took place, and in retrospect I should have been a bit quicker with it.

Aside from that though, things are going well. Tourism in Bulgaria this year is slower than normal and as a result we are getting less visitors in the park. It means less work for me because last year I spent a good deal of time working with foreign visitors and this year not so much. The flip side is that I have more time to hike, work on projects, and do other things. Still though, work in general is slower than I would like it to be. Things seem to be winding down already though, and I recently received a packet of information on stuff I have to do to prepare for my 'close of service' seminar, which will be held next month. I have less than four months left here and I have a feeling that the time will just fly by. It seems that it was just beginning of May a few weeks ago and now its moving into July. The summer will be over way too quickly.

(The Black sea)

My brother is also on his way over here to spend a bit of time, and I am super excited for it. I secured a pretty sweet apartment for him in Burgas and he should arrive here tomorrow or the day after. After that, it will be a lot of laid back beach weekends with him and my friends from the coast. Cant wait!

(the brother)

East of East

I have just returned from the last big trip I will take during my service here, and quite the trip it was. I traveled more than 2,200 miles by car, bus, train, taxi, hitchhiking, walking, and running (only one time when I was late for my train) in about a week. I set out on this adventure by myself, but I met so many people all along the way that other than my time spent in transport, I was almost never alone. My goal for this trip was to really get out there and go places that no one goes to, to get the 'real' experience, away from all the tourist infrastructure, away from food menus written in English, travel around country where I cant read the signs. Turns out, I should have gone to Africa, because this place I had envisioned doesn't actually exist for me in Europe. Transport was easy, signs in Romania are in English, and while the signs in Moldova and Ukraine are in Russian, I can read Russian so it wasn't a hindrance.

I think that with globalization proceeding the way it is, the far far away destination spots no longer exist. Everywhere you go you can find the same products, the same services, and the same foods. McDonald's in Odessa, Andy's pizza in Chisinau, the list goes on. This trade and connectivity is of course a good thing, but sometimes makes me wonder what it would have been like to travel abroad some 100 years ago, before everything became so homogenized.

Still, my trip was a good time, and Moldova and the Ukraine are about as different from the states as you can get in Europe without going to Belarus (good luck getting visas to that place). These places are still dotted with reminders of the communist rule; the soviet star adorning the train station in Chisiau, the hammer and sickle on top of every column in an art gallery, and good old fashioned soviet style tenement apartments everywhere you look.


Of all the places I visited though, I enjoyed Braşov the most. It is an absolutely beautiful town nestled up in the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania that has preserved its original character, feel and architecture from when it used to be fortified. There is lots of hiking around the town, and in the center is seems there is always something interesting going on. Its just a good time walking around the streets exploring.

(Brasov)

Moldova was a good time as well. I didn't spent all that much time there, but for my first day I met up with a volunteer who is working there and he showed me all around Chisinau (pronounced Kishe-now). Its an interesting city with a surprisingly large number of parks and shaded boulevards. In fact, the entire city looks like it was almost built in a forest from the number of trees that are present. It make for a pleasant place to wander around and relax at. It was nice though being there with someone that was familiar with the area because I was able to learn a lot about the place in a very short amount of time.

(Train Station in Chisinau)

From Chisinau I was off to Odessa. It turns out that pretty much everyone that lives in Odessa speaks Russian instead of Ukrainian, so I got plenty of chances to brush up (aka 'start learning') Russian. Actually, I can already understand some Russian because of its similarities to Bulgarian, so I was able to get my point across most of the time without too much difficulty. I was also able to somewhat follow along with the topics of conversations, if not any of the details.

(Learning Russian in Odessa)

From Odessa it was a long and tiring trip back down to Bulgaria, and I got stuck one night in Varna before I finally made it home. It ended up being a sweet trip though and it was over way to quickly. Now its back to work again and, unfortunately, it looks like I will be doing some in-country travel for work as well, which means even more time stuck in trains and buses. No rest for the weary I suppose. The good news though is that my brother should be here in just over a week and then summer beach weekends can begin! Summer here rocks.


Check out all the pics on my picasa page http://picasaweb.google.com/justinrobarge

festivals and adventures

Its been a busy last few weeks and it doesn't look like things are going to change in the near future. The end of last month I got invited by my counterpart to go camping for a night along the sea with a couple of other friends. I had nothing else going on that weekend so I joined him and it was a good time. The weather was great and the black sea is just finally starting to warm up. We spent most of the day relaxing and catching crabs and shells out of the water to cook for dinner. I had never caught (or cooked) crab before, but it turns out it isn't too hard. We boiled them all over an open campfire that night and everything was delicious.

The next day we had to attend the traditional festival for the fire walking people out at a sacred site in the forest. There were a lot of people that attended, and once the main icon blessing ceremony was over, we spent the next few hours just hanging around eating and drinking. I took some video of the event, but unfortunately (and rather ironically) my offices video camera that I used is too advanced for the computers here, and I cant transfer any of the footage (If anyone knows anything about using a canon XM2, let me know...). It was a great day though and a good finish to a great weekend.

Last week I had some friends come out and visit me for a few days to attend the main fire walking festival that is held on the 3rd of June and is open to a lot more people than the first one was. It was a good time, and I got to guide my friends around the park for a few days before and we even got invited to a banquet out in the forest with a group of Irish folk singers. Needless to say that It was a crazy time, and we spent the whole night learning Irish folk dances. The next day we made it out to the main festival and aside from a bit of rain in the afternoon, it was a great time.
This last weekend I traveled out to the other side of Bulgaria to visit another volunteers eco-center that his organization is working on. To make it worth my time to travel 12 hours by train across the country though, I also coupled it with a white water rafting trip down the struma river. The rapids were nothing intense, mostly 2s and 3s, but it was still a good time and nice to finally get back out on the water like that. My guide was super cool, and told me that I was the best in the boat after only the first set of rapids (Not much of a statement though if you had seen the other guys I was with). It was definitely worth the money.

The day after rafting I went out to see the green eco-center. I got some good ideas I want to try and introduce to my coworkers after seeing the place, and it was refreshing to see a project like that underway out here in Bulgaria. After visiting the eco-center and learning about the work going on there, we took a short hike out to a cool waterfall and took a reprieve from the oppressive sun by swimming in a small pool between a smaller 10ft fall and a larger 100ft fall. It was a great time.