Worst.Friday.Ever.

I'll keep this short because to try and explain the ridiculousness that was my 20 hour trip to Sofia, the lovely capital of the place I call home, would be impossible. I'll keep it to a list of things to remember in the future and for any travelers that may come this way.

When walking to the train station at 2 am, bring a flashlight, street lights are a luxury and don't exist even on some main roads nor is a cellphone an acceptable device for illumination.

Don't mace dogs, they don't like it.

Don't assume that you'll be able to find a free seat on a train at 2:30 am. Don't be afraid of waking up people, they aren't afraid of waking up you.

If a so called "teacher" wakes you up, remain calm and don't leave your seat until she starts with the assault. For men, it's best to leave the vicinity before the altercation turns physical otherwise you will be henceforth known as the man who got beat up by a lady. For women, please suppress the urge to mace her. Even though she deserves, it the last thing you want is to end up in jail...a Bulgarian jail at that.

Airport and bus station sound a lot alike. Make sure you repeat yourself.

If you find yourself 40 km from your town with no possible way to get a train or bus home for another 5 hours, remember that a look of desperation coupled with whatever you have left in your wallet will get you a taxi home.

Turn up the chalga and enjoy the ride.

Chau

We mustn't dwell... no, not today. We CAN'T. Not on Rex Manning day

Aloha!

I'm going to make this pretty brief as I'm sitting in boiling hot teachers lounge on this fine Tuesday afternoon. Some of you may wonder why I am sitting in this fine establishment as opposed to the comforts of my own home, well, during last weekend's storm I guess I over estimated the effectiveness of my surge protector and managed to blow up my power cord. It wasn't pretty. I'm back to the feelings I had my first couple of days here when I didn't have my internet. My time is spent between reading, looking and the ceiling, and rolling around in bed while watching the same commercials over and over again on my favorite channel. AXN crime. It's a godsent because all of the shows are in English with Bulgarian subtitles. I mean I can handle a good subtitled movie every now and again, but isn't the purpose of watching television an excuse to be passive and get away from the laborious chore of reading? Kidding. I love books and if you come across any must reads feel free to ship them to me! I would say give me the title but I went to a book store in the near by city of Veliko Turnovo and the selection was very sparse. I think I had a choice between Crime and Punishment and what looked like a used SAT prep book.

Ok well I should run,
I'm worried I'm going to get locked in this building. That would make for another interesting story...

Today we salute you Louis Goldenberg!

For those of you who don't know (and don't have the spare time that I have to peruse Wikipedia...seriously you can get lost for hours on that site you start off looking up who invented the washing machine then 3 hours later you're looking at the the holiday celebrations of an indigenous people in a remote village of Costa Rica. I mean not that that happened, I'm just saying) Louis Goldenberg invented the first electric washing machine. A luxury I do not have, but I'm working on it. This brings me to today's life lesson from Bulgaria. I'm not nearly as domestic as I thought I was, or um as I thought I could be. I know my mom would disagree but I think I'm pretty capable of taking care of myself. She was legitimately worried that I would (will?) starve to death here. Mom just so you know, it was touch and go while I went 2 weeks without a refrigerator but now don't worry I'm completely satiated. However, now my attempts at domesticity straddle the fine line between comic and tragic. Let me share with you a couple encounters I've had since living on my own.

Toast. Possibly the easiest food to make in the history of foods. I decided I wanted to get sassy instead of just eating bread, that I would just warm it up a bit. I'm not really sure how to work my oven but I figure hey all you need to do to make toast is get it a little warm, any monkey with opposable thumbs is capable of this. So I throw some bread in the oven and continue to get ready for school. About 2 minutes later I walk back to the kitchen to see smoke billowing out of my oven. I have a new oven, and with that oven came some new manuals that I just forgot to take out. Whoops a daisy I hope it wasn't important. Side note. I still ate that smokey almost toast.

Another pivotal landmark was baby's first time doing laundry. Now I used to silently stew about rummaging through cubbies to get enough quarters together to do laundry and dragging myself to the elevator to go downstairs to the laundry machines. Never again. I'm not even sure what I'm doing. It's not like at wilderness camp where they at least gave you one of those scrubbers and a tin bucket so you felt like you were really roughing it which makes you really excited about doing your laundry by hand. No. It's a plastic bucket. In fact it's a pink plastic bucket. It just screams Troop Beverly Hills. So I do some scrubbing, I do some swirling, then I just kind of let it sit there for probably 2 hours after changing the water a couple of times. I don't know is that right? Washbasins don't come with instruction manuals and if they did they would be in bulgarski. I just don't know, a washing machine just seems more efficient than I could ever be. I've already acknowledged the fact that my clothes will not be downy soft for the next two years but I think a washing machine is a necessary investment OR a very nice birthday present from a very nice mother in America.

I hope everyone is enjoying the last month of summer! Oh and if you don't like to send regular mail, emails are fine too. I like getting any form of contact from you people back home. Next week it'll be 3 months since I left!

Chau

Safe and Sound

Allo!

Sorry it's been a while but trying to get settled into the new place has left little time for bloggery. Also the fact that I have to stand out on the balcony with one foot balanced over the railing to pick up one bar of wireless is a very frustrating endeavor. Things are going well here, it's taking time to become settled but it takes a while to make a house a home. Luckily I have a the best site mate in the history of the Peace Corps and she's been great at showing me around town and providing me with sustenance since I don't have a refrigerator yet. Oh yeah and my shower broke yesterday...on my head. It's fine though, now more than ever I am able to laugh at myself. In the words of my role model Tim Gunn you just have to make it work. Things don't work out ever according to plan in life, but it just seems especially funny here. It's just another episode of "What is my life?". For example, the other day I tried to find a screwdriver to put blinds into my apartment, I go to the baba next door not only do I not get a screwdriver (she gave me a pair of tweezers) I get a bag full of pears and some chocolate. She dropped off some peaches too. Delish. Got to get in with the babas. Yeah my life is pretty funny on a day to day basis, mostly because I don't know what I'm doing and I think I constantly have that deer in the headlights look about me. The first couple days I was here all I would buy at the supermarket was water and pepsi light because that's all I was comfortable saying (you have to point out what you want in most stores you can't pick it up yourself) but hunger won out over my nerves and now I'm fine. Other than my apartment woes, things at site are picking up. I started my summer school classes today, did I mention they were optional? I had 2 girls show up this morning, one of which is the daughter of a teacher at the school, but it was fun! I'm trying to get an in with the kiddies now so they won't be bad come September when I start grading them. Ok well I'm off to look busy and see if I can find someone to fix my shower. I'm carrying around the shower head with me right now because at this stage in my mastering of Bulgarski props come in handy. Also I'm having my mail sent to my school so if you want my address drop me an email and I'll send you the latin and bulgarian copy of it! That's a not so subtle hint that I really like letters...and packages if you're so inclined.

I'll try to get out there more and practice my bulgarian so that I have something a little more interesting to blog about next time!!

Suerte

I got 99 problems but Mama T ain't one.

Well folks,

The time has come for baby bird to leave the safe PST nest and become a full fledged volunteer. That's right, every thing is ready to go and I swear in tomorrow morning taking my oath and officially becoming a volunteer. Today was our final HUB day and a reminder as to why I am so ready to get out on my own. However, something to brag about is that I came in second place in the community passport challenge, which I didn't know was a challenge...I just had a lot of free time during my site visit....and I won 2 books and a cd. One book is a couple of short plays in English, but set in a Bulgarian context and the other is a book of poetry in Bulgarian with the English translation. Again while I was really happy to win, another part of me was reminded of the fact that I will have to lug all of this stuff to my site on Saturday. I don't know if I did justice to the state of the railway system here because when I mentioned walking over the tracks, people seemed to elicit imagery similar to the T in Boston. Ok. Bulgaria sooooo not the T in Boston. Imagine 1980s New York graffiti on diesel engine trains. Granted not all trains are like that but this one certainly was. Also you have to hoist yourself and your luggage a solid 3 feet in the air since the trains are all above the platforms...if there is a platform. It's a little Wild Wild West but this is the last time I will EVER have to do this. That is not going to be fun but the great thing about physical pain is that you know that it will come to an end. I mean maybe that's not the "great" thing but you know what I mean. It's hard to believe that I've been gone for only 2 months, but at the same time it feels like I've been gone forever. I think that's partly because Bulgaria is trapped in this weird time warp when I sometimes feel like I'm still in the 80s or some bizzaro land. But I guess that's perfect for me since I thrive in the awkward moments of this place. Anyways I should finish packing. I'm not sure when I'll have internet again but I'll be sure to update everyone as soon as I do! When I find out my permanent address I would absolutely love some mail! Letters make me feel special and you may just get a postcard in return

The next time you hear from me I'll be a legit volunteer and living on my own...I'm not even going to talk about the irony right now in that I had to become a volunteer to afford living in my own one bedroom apartment.

You're welcome Bulgaria.

Well it's official I'm the biggest thing in this country and not just because of the amounts of hlab I eat everyday. Watch out Madonna. So here's a little backstory. Part of our requirements as trainees is to put together a community project at our satellite site. We had a meeting with members of our town (mainly just our host families) and decided to clean up a park (i.e, fix some swings and do a lot painting) and then play some games with water and the kids. So yesterday the local cable television station shows up and they do a 2 minute interview with the boys in my group while I stand there trying to look natural and not hobgobliny. They told us that they would come back today which kind of made me nervous since we had no idea how many people were going to show up today to help us. Luckily, it was a success. It was so great to have the entire community rally around not only us but to see them take pride in their community and want to fix their park. Ok that was my sappy lifetime television for women moment. Soo then the camera crews show up. Yes CREWS as in plural. It was kind of like when your friends are taking candid camera shots but you know that they are taking them so you try to look like you're having a lot of fun and kind of doing that "breazy, I'm having a lot of fun without noticing you" pose. Wait no one else does that? Um yeah me neither. Weird. This was also being done while I was covered in enough paint to be in a stand in for Blue Man Group. The camera men loved it, I'm not really sure why. The day was great though, we did a ton of painting and then played with water balloons with the children. Even after all that the kids wanted to play more games so we took an afternoon siesta and then went back for a game of kickball. Ok. Kickball is probably one of the most difficult games to explain to children ever. It was hard enough to get them to run to the bases let alone explain balls, strikes, fouls, stealing bases, when you can run and when you can't. Basically all we could get across was kick, catch, and run. So my crowning moment, and this story is going to sound a little terrible, was when I was up at bat. Ok so you know how some middle schoolers tend to go through that fat stage, and you either have the one that's fat but he's so sweet and doesn't even realize how big he is and then that kid who's the big bully? Well when I got up to plate I had the fire inside me and well I may have kicked the ball a little too hard and um well directly into the stomach of the bully. I think the best part was the hollow drum sound it made when it hit is his belly. Don't worry it didn't even phase him. I'm sorry I'm really competitive and I don't think playing down to kids levels will make them any better. I think this also the reason I got the nickname "Ronaldinho" during a "friendly" game of football aka soccer. I'm sorry just because you're 12 doesn't mean I won't school you if given the chance. You'll just have to be be better next time.

One more week until I get to bring this mindset to my permanent site as a volunteer.

Hope you're ready kiddies

In case you missed it!

Ahoy!

Sorry I've been kind of absent with this blog, but my life isn't nearly as interesting as everyone thinks. With 12 days until I become an official volunteer I'm getting railroaded with hours of Bulgarski and Peace Corps policies and procedures. It's all a bit mind numbing but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. While I have been crazy busy there have been a couple "seriously is this happening?" moments. One of my favorites is the morning we went to meet the local archaeologists at my satellite site. The people there just handed us shovels and were like ok go see what you can find. I spent 30 minutes digging up ceramic pots from the Roman Empire. Seriously. This happened. I was like umm do I need more direction than just dig? I thought there would be a little more precision but there wasn't. I may or may not have broken the piece of the pot I found. Whoops a daisy. Send my regrets to the municipality.

Another one of said moments was at Roma Minority Day. It was really great to get a chance to hear from leaders from the community and get a chance to see traditional Romi dancing. Then they invited the entire group (about 40 of us) to join them and dance. This was all fun and games until the Macarena came on. As someone with Spanish heritage The Macarena is an embarrassment to the language. I put it in the same category as Taco Bell. I watched in horror as people proceeded to dance The Mac and mumbled through the lyrics until they got to "Eyyyyy Macarena Aiightt!" Seriously? Mortified.

I'll try to be better about keeping up with this thing!

Chau