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?