Nothing of Consequence

It's not that I have anything pressing to say, I just have a few odd moments and do not know how else to fill them.

The weekend after the excursion was a nice as the excursion itself. On Saturday morning I caught the 8 a.m. train west via Plovdiv (that particular train and I are quite bonded...) and arrived in Pazardjik shortly after noon to meet Ned. He was the only of my tainingmates I had not seen since swearing-in in July. Needless to say, it was a nice reunion.

The two of us took a cab into the Mahala (the Roma ghetto) to attend a fellow volunteer's Multiculture Day, the highlight of which was a concert that included Bulgarian folk songs, Roma and Indian dances, and lots of horo. Ivan was in town doing work, so he met Ned and I to make plans for Sunday. We also saw other new and old volunteers, which is always nice.

After the concert, the two of us took the bus back to Plovdiv and began a search for a hostel. We found an absolutely beautiful place in Old Town (for 20 leva a night...a tad steep for our volunteer pocketbooks) and reserved our group's 5 beds. In the process we throughly confused the woman in reception who had apparently never had to register guests with lichna kartas (Bulgarian IDs) instead of passports. But the papers were worked out, and we headed out to pick up the first of the other arrivals at the bus station. (I'm not sure if any other training group learned Plovdiv as well as we did, so we tended to lead the gang). With Matt in tow, we headed for some "awesome-for-Bulgaria" pizza and registered him at the hostel. That's when we met Martin.

Martin was the Northern Irish lad sharing our room with us, and he quickly became one of the group. When Ned and Matt went to fetch Scott and Rachel from the bus station, Martin and I found a nice jazz beer garden to chill in until we met the other 4 in the center. After more food, the lot of us happened upon a very Western-style, chilled-out bar to talk to some Bulgarians in. They were NUTS! Ranting about Macedonia and the problems in Yugoslavia...It gave our Bulgarian quite a workout. We finally left at 4:30 a.m., officially making it my latest night yet in Bulgaria. It's not something I do often, which allows me to do it at all...

The next morning I woke up early (payback, I suppose) and got as clean as I could without shower supplies...i.e. soap, shampoo or towels. At 11:30 Ned and I met Ivan at the mosque in the center and went for some salad and French fries for lunch. After that we made our way to another cafe for a nostalgic beer together and ran into the others (including Martin) so they joined us, as did one of Ivan's "real" Bulgarian friends. (I must say, it was fun to meet someone he actually chose to be friends with instead of folks he was stuck with, like us.)

However, all good times must come to an end, and by 4 p.m. I was on a train headed east again. By that time my lack of sleep hit me, and I dozed on and off on the ride. I crossed my threshold shortly after 8, and there I stayed until bed an hour later.

Yesterday and today have been more of the same as far as school goes. My counterpart translated my rules list and contract for the students, so with any luck things on the discipline front with improve. Tomorrow I have off (there are no foreign languages at my school on Wednesdays) so I will have a chance to get caught up on my housework...Paying bills, washing dishes, finishing odd projects for the Business Center in town, and planning lessons for the rest of the week. Not terribly exciting, but I enjoy a good day of catch-up once in a while.

And, I'm spent...