You know you've been in Bulgaria too long...

...When you're watching the Bulgarian equivalent of America's Funniest Home Videos and you're more impressed with the fact that they have a bathtub in their house rather than paying attention to the actual content.

....When you're watching a soap opera where one person is sick and the other one tries to force her to drink whiskey to feel better and that seems normal. And when she refuses you immediately know it's because she's not sick, she's pregnant. 

....When you find validity in the statement "Pearl Harbor is better than Titanic." 

...When you get into an argument over who is more attractive:

Hristo Botev

OR

Vasil Levski

**My vote was for Levski. 

This is what the last day of school feels like.

Today was a magical day. I am DONE with my first year of teaching. I officially have to be at school on Monday and Tuesday to work on end of year reports but I was told that the children aren't expected to come to school. All of my grades are in. There were hugs, there were tears but now it is OVER. 


This was pretty much my reaction as I departed from school:



Happy Summer!

Well that was a first

This week has been rough.

Rougher than most.

I can't explain why but I've found myself getting angry and annoyed with everyone. Colleagues treating me like a dumb child. My students trying to bargain their way into better grades than they deserve. Being a girl who went through puberty in New York, I have a thick skin when it comes to boys and the comments they make. It's degrading and upsetting to a point where I don't want to leave my apartment some days in fear that I'll hear someone yell "Kiss my penis"....and that's not even the worst of it. 

I think part of this funk is that I also realized that soon will mark the longest that I have lived continuously anywhere since I was 13 years old. I went away to boarding school coming for holidays and summer, followed by college following the same routine. I never spent more than 9 months in any one dwelling. The same followed after college. I went from New York to Buenos Aires to New York to DC to New York and there I stayed for a year waiting for my Peace Corps invitation. Around that 9 month mark (about the same amount of time I've been at my site) I started to get that itch. That vagabondy-wanderlusty-itch. I started applying for other jobs, I looked into going back to South America or Spain. To have that excitement of going somewhere new and different is exhilarating and addictive. 

I grumbled to myself as I went to meet my tutor. Where as my life was once exciting and fresh, everything seems so mundane and banal now. See I'm in a funk I know. Things turned around a bit when I met up with my tutor. As she was making dinner she gave me an assignment to write a postcard to her pretending that I was in America over Christmas and New Years the post card went something like this:

Dear Slava,

How are you? 

I'm fine. Last night I decorated the Christmas Tree with my family and then ate a lot of food. My mom made a cake. I'm now the fattest woman in the world. What are you going to do for New Year's? I'm going to a party with my friends and we're going to drink champagne all night. 

I miss you! Send my greetings to your mother, father and Vicky (the cat)

Kisses

Ellie. 

This letter ,I kid you not, brought her mother to tears. She acted like I was leaving tomorrow. She made me promise to call and write. I told her I would, but that I wasn't even leaving until next July, She dried her eyes. I thought to myself as we were sitting around the table having dinner and watching the news "I'm going to miss Bulgaria" Well that was a first. I never thought I would miss Bulgaria. I thought I would live my two years here, look back on it fondly but readily and happily move on. I think about the time I spent in Greece, Argentina, Costa Rica, Italy, and so on. I love all of those places, but I don't miss them. When I was in most of those places I was more likely a glorified tourist. I had a place to live but it was only temporary and I knew that. 2 years is not temporary. At least not for me. The excitement that comes with travel is amazing but what I'm doing here and now is more than that. It's settling in. It's making friends. It's getting adopted by a surrogate family. While I think my life is anything but invigorating now, I think that one day in the distant future I will look back at this time as possibly being the most stirring event to ever have happened to me. I guess we will see....

EFF: Emails From Friends

As an ode to such time passers/wasters (whatever your perspective) such as texts from last night and FML I want to acknowledge some of the funnier moments from my friends back home.

it's suppsoed to be 89 degrees today

i'm going out for drinks with my team after work

I FORGOT TO PUT ON DEODORANT THIS MORNING

great.

Anyways, when I introduced myself to her mans (forgot his name) and said I was your friend, he said he knew all about me....including us running naked down the streets of FI. I love that both our mothers continue to relive this story to every person that has anything to do with Fire Island as though we did it last week. I mean, I also used to shit myself...but its not something I go advertising.

Guess what, I'm going to a party in Zurich tomorrow night dressed as Maverick from Top Gun!! (80's icons). Thought you'd love that little gem! 

http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2009-01/koala-water-bucket.jpg

Note: My response was "That looks like what I do my laundry in"

i really want pizza.  after having seomthing as sweet as this, i need something savory.  thus begins the never-ending cycle of me just eating my way through the day.  awesome.


 Other than that just looking forward to the time when I get you stateside and we have a dance party to rival all others.


....I'll see you guys in 2 1/2 weeks but keep these gems coming. They make my day!

Cooking According to Peace Corps

I've let it be known on numerous occasions I'm in no way a master chef. At home PPC (Pre-Peace Corps) I had moments of excellence but those were mostly in part to Trader Joe's doing most of the leg work for me. Also the amount of kitchen tools I had at my disposal made cooking less of a culinary art and more of a paint by numbers activity. Here, I am equipped with an oven that looks like a Hasbro on steroids Easy Bake Oven

Measuring cups are also something I lack here. So I do a lot of eye balling and guess work which usually manages fine except for the Snickerdoodle Thanksgiving fiasco of 2009. "No they aren't chocolate cookies, that's just a lot of cinnamon....and banana"


I keep telling myself that I'm going to buy a blender. I always say next month when I get paid. Seriously NEXT MONTH...wait I'm going home, maybe July?

Another problem is that I hate doing dishes. In the winter it was out of survival as I didn't have heat or hot water in my kitchen. I could barely wash a glass without my fingers going miserably numb running into my room and hiding in my sleeping bag for the rest of the night.  

Today though I managed to make dinner and dessert successfully, and by successfully I mean I made dinner, ate dinner, and then didn't have to eat pepto tablets for dessert. I've decided to share these recipes with you, and how I've adapted to my Peace Corps lifestyle.

Main Course: Roasted Eggplant and Zucchini. 

Ingredients:

Eggplant or Aubergine depending on how long you've been teaching British English in your classroom.

Zucchini

Olive oil or the cheap mix of olive oil and "clean oil" that I got from the CBA

Salt

Lemon Juice

Pre-Heat your oven to around 230 C. Also if you have the capability heat from both top and bottom.

Cut Eggplant length wise and score it. Meaning I kind of cut it with my dull knife but not all the way through. Sprinkle some salt on it and let it sit there until Megavideo has told you have watched 72 minutes of video today. 

Wring out eggplant or blot with paper towel. Cut up zucchini then coat both of them in olive oil.

Line a pan with tin foil! This is key as you won't have to wash the pan when you're done. 

Put in the oven checking on them after about 15 minutes to stir.  Roast until desired consistency I like my food practically charred. 

Sprinkle with salt and lemon juice to taste. 

Dessert: Vegan Chocolate Cake.

Ingredients:

Cocoa Powder

Flour

Sugar

Oil

Warm Water

Salt

Baking Soda

Vinegar

Vanilla

Pre-oven to about 170-180 C. I'm still working on which temperature is the best for this. 

This is where it gets tricky since I don't have measure cups, so I work more with proportions.

Take standard glass and fill it 1/3 with cocoa powder. Then add 1 1/4 flour, 1 cup sugar. 1/3 cup oil. 1 cup warm water. Again since I don't get warm water in my kitchen I get it from the bathroom. A little salt and a little baking soda. A couple of splashes of vinegar...trust me you won't taste it later. Then one of those  of the butter/vanilla flavoring that come in the tubes. 

Put in oven. Go take a shower until your hot water runs out, then get dressed. By the time you're finished doing that the cake should be done. (Approximately 15 minutes)

Let cool or burn your fingers while snagging a bite.

Enjoy!

Happy Anniversary

Whelp.
I've been here a year. One year. A year? Sometimes it feels like I just got here, other days I can't even remember what America is like. I think we all know how challenging this year has been, firsts of everything usually are. So I thought instead of dwelling in self-reflection I'd dedicate this post to a couple of my favorite "seconds" as I look forward to my second year in the BG.

Second CD ever purchased: Now & Then Soundtrack. What little girl doesn't remember loving this movie?



Second Choice High School & College: I think the saying "first is the worst second is the best" is fitting when it comes to Kent and Colby. These are two places that I still consider to be home and think they were the best fit for me. I miss all of you dearly and there are few things I wouldn't do for a sandwich from Stroble's or Riverside/Big G's right now. Seriously.

Second time I ever left the country: Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica.
Second city I ever lived in (post-college): Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Second year out of college was spent repeating. Thank you for calling Anthropologie 5th Avenue, this is Elani. Not the most glamorous job, especially when you see "ladies" get crazy when they think they see a sale rack. However, laughing at the situation with all of my favorites in the stock room made it worth it. First day? Thank you.

Second concert ever attended: Dispatch .
Second cat owned: Doc. Other aliases include "No Diggity, no Doc", "Diggity", "Digs", "Monkey" and "Baby Cat". My companion during my post-workout ritual of eating breakfast while Maury Povich revealed paternity tests. It's his favorite.

My mom's second choice for my name: Elani. It was A LOT better than the alternative.

 We may fight, cry, bicker, and gossip but we also laugh until it hurts, remember it's silly to hold grudges about anything insignificant (in all likelihood it probably is), and dance party our hearts out. Here is to our SECOND year in Bulgaria, I look forward to starting it with people who I once thought of as friends but now I think of as my family.

1 month until summer

Only the Governator can get me through



No fear.