On July 17, my friend from the Peace Corps and I headed to Macedonia and Albania via Sofia, Bulgaria. We had been planning the trip for months. About two weeks before leaving Sofia, I got a hold of a Lonely Planet “Eastern Europe” travel book and started to do some research. The section on Macedonia, highlighted Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, and Ohrid, which is a small town located along Lake Ohrid. The section on Albania, recommended far more places.

In the end we decided that we would visit Skopje and Ohrid in Macedonia, and the cities of Korsha, Giokastra, Saranda, Durres, and Tirana in Albania. We also decided that we would travel for 10 days, first spending three days in Macedonia, and then 5 days in Albania.

I was able to book hotels for us via the information from the travel book and the Internet. We knew that we would be traveling almost entirely by bus, which has become a way of life for us here in Bulgaria. Jason and I were very confident about traveling in Macedonia, because we knew that we would be able to speak Bulgarian and for the most part be understood because Bulgarian and Macedonia are basically the same language.

However, we did not know what to expect in Albania in terms of the language and the general cloud of uncertainty that lies over the country by the outside world. Everyone who knew we were due to travel to Albania asked “why” and told us to be “very careful.” The reason being is that Albania is considered a country full of corruption, the Mafia, and communist past.

I left Isperih, at 2 am on the 17th via a bus. The bus ride to Sofia was a solid 6 hours. I arrived in Sofia and met Jason. He had just spent a week traveling around with his sister. At 10:30 am we left Sofia. The bus ride to the Bulgarian/Macedonian border was pleasant. The bus was basically empty and comfortable. Getting across the border was cake. Everyone had to get off the bus, show passports, and have all luggage briefly searched.

Upon entering Macedonia, there was a different feeling. The houses looked different, it was much cleaner, the roads were well paved, new European cars were everywhere, and there were new buildings and businesses popping up everywhere.

We arrived in Skopje five hours later. Luckily, the hostel/hotel was very close to the bus station. After checking into the hotel we headed to the center of the city which was only about a 10 minute walk. We withdrew some money from a bank machine and looked for a place to eat. We knew that there was an Irish Pub nearby, and so that is where we headed. It was so nice to eat a big juicy cheeseburger and drink a cold Guinness beer. After our late lunch at the Irish Pub we decided that we would locate the old city which we had read about.

The old city turned out to be awesome. There is a large presence of ethic Turks and Albanians in Macedonia. The city was composed of little streets, shops, cobble stone walk-ways, old Turkish baths which have been converted into museums, mosques, and interesting looking people. Above the old city is a citadel that is very well preserved. From the top of the citadel you are able to see the whole city, which was very breath taking.

Upon leaving the old city we found a little district of cafes and restaurants with comfortable outside seating. We found a place to sit and began to order drinks. Little by little people started coming out and before we knew it the place was booming with energy. There were also many Gypsy kids who came around begging for money every 20 minutes. One kid in particular ended up staying at our table begging for money for around 10 minutes. He went so far as to pull at my arm hair, which was a trip.

We ended the night by going to McDonald’s. Jason persuaded me into ordering a fish sandwich. I had never eaten a fish sandwich from McDonald’s and always thought of them as gross and artificial. However, the fish sandwich ended up being ridiculously delicious.

The next day we woke up early and headed back to the old city. We knew that we had a bus to catch at 3:30 PM so we wanted to get as much out of our remaining time left in Skopje. We spent our time walking around, visiting shops, the bustling bazaar, eating, and visited a modern art museum. We grabbed a couple of beers before heading to the bus station.

The bus ride to Ohrid, was very picturesque. The bus started out cramped and hot, but little by little people began to get off the bus thus making the ride a lot more comfortable.

We arrived in Ohrid, at 7:30 PM and located the home-style accommodation where we had made a reservation. The owner of the house was a really sweet woman who knew about the Peace Corps and had provided rooms for many volunteers. After settling in to our room we headed into the old part of the city.

Ohrid, is a bustling tourist destination primarily because of Lake Ohrid, which is the biggest lake in Eastern Europe. We located a traditional style Macedonian restaurant located next to a 600 hundred-year-old tree. The food was delicious and plentiful. After dinner we found a cool little bar next to the central walkway where people basically just walk back and forth while shopping and socializing. We ended up sitting next to a group of guys who were on vacation. They were all ethnic Albanians who had moved to America, with their families 10 years ago. Every summer they return to spend time with family and the country they were born in. They all live in New Jersey, and one of the guys plays soccer for an Ivy League school. We said good bye to the guys and headed back to the hotel.

The next morning we woke up early and headed down to the harbor. We had planned on making our way up to the area of the city where there are Monasteries, a citadel, amphitheater, old houses, and great views of the city and lake. Instead we ended up meeting a guy that had a little motor powered boat. He offered to take us out for a small fee. The ride was very pleasant. The man who owned the boat let Jason and I both take turns navigating our way around the lake. The boat ride came to an end right below a beautiful monastery located on a cliff looking out onto he water. We said our thanks and proceeded to walk up the stairs leading to the monastery.

The coolest thing about the monastery was the guy who worked there. He was such a nice guy. He was probably around 65 years old and along with his wife looked after the monastery. He explained various aspects of the mosaics and interior structure of the monastery. When we were getting ready to leave he offered us a glass of his homemade “Rakia,” which we gladly accepted.

We then walked up another recently renovated Monastery, which was also beautiful and more intricate. After the second monastery we headed to the enormous citadel and walked around the interior areas of the monument before climbing up to the fortress walls. After the citadel we found a restaurant overlooking the amphitheater.

While waiting for our meal we noticed a group of tourists that were obviously American. Jason, who is from Georgia, heard one of the women from the group mention something about the University of Georgia, where he graduated from. I told him to say hello to the people but he didn’t want to so I went ahead and called down, “hey are you from Georgia?” To our surprise the group of tourists were from Georgia, and lived very close to where Jason is from. They ended up coming up stairs to the restaurant to chat. It turned out that they were a church group who had come to Macedonia to meet with other church groups from the Balkan region. We finished our lunch and said goodbye.

We did a little shopping and walked around some more. In the afternoon we met up with the guy who owned the boat in order for him to drive us to a lakeside beach area. The beach was very crowded with holiday tourists (2,000 people). The water was very clean, deep, and warm. We spent about 3 hours at the beach and then were picked up by the boat guy for our return trip to the town. In the evening we found a delicious pizza restaurant. After dinner we attempted to stay out late having drinks, but were utterly exhausted. We returned to the hotel and got our bags ready for the next days departure.

In the morning we caught a bus to a monastery which lies near the Macedonia/Albanian border. We had breakfast at a hotel next to the monastery where there were peacocks walking around the grounds. We finished our breakfast and walked over to the monastery that looks out onto the lake and nearby Albania. Inside of the monastery there were wonderful frescos and a particular lingering air of incense and old age. Something really interesting that I had never seen before was a beautiful peacock sitting on top of the monastery. After spending time at the monastery, Jason and I had some time to kill before getting on a bus headed to the Macedonian/Albanian border. We grabbed a couple beers and just watched all the people on holiday enjoying their day of sun and relaxation.

The bus arrived a little late. With the exception of Jason and I, there were two younger women with backpacks who were obviously fellow tourists. On board the bus Jason and I exchanged our Macedonian money into Euro and Albanian lek with a man on board.

Passport control at the border was a breeze and along with the two younger women we began a 400 yard walk through "no man's land," which is the geography that exists between the two countries. We got to the Albanian signpost, which was riddled with bullet holes and took pictures before arriving at the Albanian border crossing. Our passports were stamped and before we knew it we were in a taxi headed to the nearby town of Prozadec.

At this point Jason and I did not have money, and we had to pay the two women back for the taxi ride in which they had picked up the tab for. We located bank machines, withdrew a decent amount of money, paid the women back, and located a bus headed for the town we would be spending our first day in, Korsha.

The bus ride to Korsha, was only about 1 hour and the people on board the bus were very curious as to who we were and where we came from. Using all available means we explained that we were from America, but lived in Bulgaria.

Once in Korsha, we located a hotel, took a long nap, and then upon waking up headed into the town. The town really didn't have much to offer. We found a nice little restaurant to have dinner. The food was delicious. There is a strong influence of Greek and Italian cooking, so needless to say our dinner that night was a needed break from Bulgaria's somewhat boring dishes. During the evening we stumbled upon a trendy new bar. We were due to leave Korsha, in the morning so we headed back to the hotel.

At that point in time we didn't know what time the bus would leave so I asked a guy who worked at the hotel. He told me that there would be a bus leaving in the morning. When I asked at what time exactly, he really didn't have an answer. When I said maybe at 8 am, he said yeah.

With all that said Jason and I got up around 7:30 and headed to the bus stop that the guy had explained there would be a bus. Low and behold there was no bus leaving to our location, but we were shown where the bus station was. We soon learned that there is only one bus a day to Giokastra, and it departs at 6 am. Because we were on a tight scheduale and had made reservations for the upcoming days that would now be delayed by one day, we were shocked. We debated hiring a taxi, but it would have been ridiculously expensive. We opted to just stay in Korsha, and manage somehow to kill the time until the next day.

We checked back into the hotel we had stayed in the night before and walked over to the local bazaar. We then grabbed some pizza for lunch and then looked for an Internet club to inform the hotels of our series of late arrivals.

Shortly after arriving at the Internet cafe a guy walked in who was obviously not Albania. When I asked him where he was from he replied, America. When I asked him what he was doing in Albania he said that he was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Talk about a small world. We instantly began to bond. When we told him that we had no plans, he told us that there were other volunteers in town and that we should all meet at the local "Beer Garden."

The three of us ended up meeting three other volunteers at this cool brewery/beer hall where pints of delicious beer cost about 60 cents. For the next two hours or so we basically just hung out there exchanging stories about each other's PC experiences. After the beer hall we headed to a crepe cafe where I basically stuffed my face with chocolate and almond filled crepes. After the crepe festival we said good bye to the three volunteers we had met up with and headed the local theater to watch Star Wars 3. After the film we headed to a really trending club and proceeded to dance, drink, and converse. When the night ended we said good bye to the volunteer from the Internet club and headed to the hotel. Being that at 6 am we would have to catch a bus, getting some sleep was definently a priority.

At 6 am we were in our seats and headed to Giokastra, which we naively thought would only take 2 hours max. to reach via the legend on our travel book, which illustrated that it was only about a 120 km distance. It turned out to be a 7 hour trip that took us through a series of cliffs, two way roads, along rivers, and other captivating geography that felt like something right out of a National Geographic magazine. In the meantime we sweated our asses off, wondering if we were ever going to get there, and passed by about 120 road side monuments of people who had died in vehicular accidents crossing the territories that we were traveling across.

In the later part of the afternoon we finally arrived in Giokastra, and caught a cab to the hotel I had reserved for us. The hotel ended up being awesome. Our room was located on the 5th floor, and looked out onto the main blvd. located in the center. After resting for a few moments we headed out.

About a month before I our arrival, Giakastra, had been added to UNESCO's list of the most interesting and historical places in the world. The majority of Giokastra, is set on a sloping hillside. All along the hillside sit old houses ranging from 100-400 years old. There are steep streets and hidden pathways everywhere containing beautiful flowers and stunning architecture. On the highest point of the mountainside sits a 500-year castle that was used as prison up until the fall of communism.

In order to get up to the castle we first made our way up the steep hillside weaving our way in and out of the neighborhoods. We then walked around the old city looking for a cool place to grab a late lunch. At one point while walking through the street a group of older men sitting in a little cafe/bar yelled out hey "Cameroon," pertaining to me. Jason and I laughed and said no, America. They then proceeded to invite us in for a drink that we couldn't refuse. For the next two hours we attempted to communicate, laughed, took pictures, and clashed glasses of "Raki" while yelling "Guzula." The owner of the bar' son ended up arriving. He spoke great English, and so we were able to have a great dialogue.

He explained to me that one of the men at the table had been in prison for 5 years during communism for doing absolutely nothing, that everyone had to take mandatory target practice classes during school. He also explained that the approx. 800,000 bunkers that litter today’s Albanian landscape cost a little over 30 million dollars and took 8 years to complete during the years of 71-78. The plan was for every Albanian to have a place to take shelter if there was to be an attack from the western powers. The Dictator Hohan, who was in power for roughly 40 years before his death is 83,’ mandated this. Another interesting bit of information about Albania, was that leading up to the fall of communism, cars had been outlawed. Also, unlike many other countries under communist control who relied upon Russia and other communist power houses, Albania, was in essence regulated their own version of communism. Anyhow, we said our good-byes and found a restaurant with a beautiful view of the city.

The food was incredible; spaghetti with shrimp and fresh bread.

After our early dinner we headed up the castle, which was basically deserted. The castle contained an old tank, a downed F14 U.S. aircraft, cannons, a clock tower, various chambers, look out points, and a Mosque which I someone how managed to sit right on top of. I came to realize this when some of the ground workers started yelling at me to get down. These same men proceeded to call me Mohammed Ali when they realized that I was from America. After a bit of joking around and failed attempts to communicate, we headed back to the hotel.

During the later part of the evening we found a cool bar looking out onto the bustling street. While having drinks surprise, surprise we ended up meeting up with some Peace Corps volunteers severing in the area. After some chatting we said our good byes and wished each other all the best.

In the morning, we made our way to the next stop on our whirlwind tour of Albania, Saranda, located on the Ionian Sea coast. The voyage only took a little under 2 hours. We were able to easily find our hotel, which was located right on the beach. This day also happened to fall on my birthday. We spent the entire day lounging on the beach, swimming, and people watching. After freshing up, Jason and I found the local post office and called our families. We then located a classy restaurant where we were seated at the best table in the house overlooking the sea. The food, waiter, and views were unforgettable. Jason also ended up ordering a bottle of red wine that went well with the dinner and my birthday celebration. After dinner we ended up meeting with some young guys we had met at the beach. After a couple drinks, Jason and I were ready to pass out being that we would be waking up really early for the long bus ride to Durres, located on the Aegean Sea Coast.

The next morning, it took about five hours to get to Durres, which we quickly realized is a bustling city. Our initial thoughts after getting off the bus were that we had arrived near the hotel. Why? Because of the little handy travel map of the city which made Durres, look easily navigable. Wrong! After talking to a guy at a bar about the best way to get to where we needed to locate, we jumped on a claustrophobic city bus headed in some direction. For whatever reason we got off the bus after 10 minutes, and asked a person on the street if they knew where the street of our waiting hotel was. Of course, we couldn't understand anything he said so we just grabbed a hotel on the bustling coastal street we had ended up on.

The hotel was located 10 meters from the beach. After checking in, we put on our swimming trunks and headed down to the beach. We found some beach chairs and made ourselves comfortable. The beach and water was packed with way too many people. In comparison to Sarranda, the day spent on the beach was kind of bland.

In the evening, after learning that we were in "Beach City," we caught a taxi to Durres. The city is set in a quiet harbor with sidewalk cafes and very little traffic. We stopped off at an Internet cafe and then found an outdoor restaurant. The dinner was of course delicious and not too expensive. After dinner we walked down to the boardwalk for a quick glance at what was there. It was of course bustling with evening walkers strolling around. We then walked around an old area of the town that included a Byzantine wall and amphitheater. Towards the end of the night we searched for a souvenir store where I found some nice gifts for my mother and sister, as well as a beautiful Albanian rug. We caught a taxi back to the hotel and prepared our bags for the next day's journey back to Bulgaria. This would involve a very long bus ride from Tirana, the capital, to Sofia. We had read in the travel book that there was a bus everyday at 2:30 PM.

In the morning we located a bus headed to Tirana, (1-hour drive) thanks to a really nice man who said he would help us locate the travel agency with the Tirana/Sofia bus service. Without the man, who talked to us about the olive oil producing company he owned, all the relatives he had in America, and his sincere desires to get us on our way safely, the chaos of Tirana, would have made our quest very difficult.

However, we soon learned that there was no 2:30 PM bus to Sofia, from the tour agency we had learned about via the travel book. However, there was a bus leaving the next morning at 7 am. Because we had told the Peace Corps we would be back in Bulgaria, staying in Tirana, the rest of the day plus the night would not work for us. We ended up finding a travel agency that had a bus leaving to Macedonia, at 8 PM. Once in Macedonia, we would be able to find many buses headed to Sofia. We would arrive back in Sofia, on the date we had told the Peace Corps about. We paid for our tickets and left our baggage in the travel office.

We decided that we would kill the next 10 hours watching a movie, walking around, eating, and having a beer or two. And we did just that; watched "War of the Worlds," walked and walked, had a beer here and a beer there, changed over some money, and grabbed a snack. We excitedly waited for the bus to arrive and got mentally prepared for the long trip back. Before we knew it the time was 9:00 PM and then 9:30 PM. At 10:00 PM we were told there were some problems with the bus, and we would have to walk down the street to another bus stop where the bus would soon arrive.

By this time I was skeptical that the bus would even come. At close to 11:00 PM we decided that the bus was not coming, and that we would have to find a hotel and catch the 7 am bus to Sofia, that we had been told about earlier in the day.

We hailed a taxi and told him to take us to a hotel near the travel agency that we would have to buy tickets in the morning. The taxi driving nodded that he understood and proceeded to basically hot-wire the car. Side note: Albania has the most stolen cars in Europe. The hotel was very expensive, but we were happy to be able to take showers and get some rest.

We got up at about 6 am the next morning and headed to the travel agency where the bus would be coming. When 7 am came and went, we began to think that maybe the bus was coming at 10 am and we had just misunderstood the woman. At 10 am there was still no bus, but the travel agency opened up. When the woman saw us she asked us what we were still doing in Tirana. When we explained what had happened and that we wanted to travel with her bus, she told us that it had already left. This was the point when true shock and panic began to set in. However, she then said that for 50 Euro a person a taxi could be arranged for us from Tirana, to the Macedonian border. Once we got to the border there would be another taxi to drive us to a nearby city where we would have to catch a bus to Sofia. The plan sounded brilliant so we paid the fee and waited for the taxi to pick us up.

The taxi soon arrived and we were on our way to the border. The drive to the border was comfortable and fast; under 3 hours. Once we said goodbye to the driver and crossed the border on foot, we proceeded to ask a couple of waiting taxi drivers if they were one of our drivers. What do you think the answer was? How about "NO." Jason was a little irritated about the last 12 hours or so of events. I on the other hand was just happy to be in Macedonia. We quickly stomached the fact that we had been hustled and hired a taxi to Ohrid, in order for us to catch the evening bus headed to Sofia.

At the bus station we purchased tickets, stored our bags away, and then headed into town to grab a few needed beers and some food. Four hours later we were on the bus headed for Sofia; 10 hour commute. The journey was surprisingly comfortable and quick. From Ohrid, to Skopje, the commute was 4 hours. Little by little we became very hungry and thirsty, but the only money we had was Bulgarian Leva which was not recognized at the bus station. From Skopje,, to the Bulgarian border we slept, and soon after arriving in Bulgaria the bus pulled over for a break. By this time it was 3 am, we were hungry, thirsty, and a little out of it. I quickly purchased some sodas and a big bag of chips for us to eat. We then headed back to the area outside the restaurant where the bus was waiting for the last leg of the trip.

This is when I had the most bizarre moment of the trip. While waiting for the bus to leave I had the sudden urge to pee. Instead of going inside the restaurant to use the toilet, I decided to walk across the road to pee in the bushes. As I was finishing my business I saw somebody walk by me in my peripheral, but I didn't think anything of it. As soon as I returned to my place by the bus, the person who I quickly realized was a drunk man, started to scream at me. I could make out that he was holding something from the overhead lights of some building or house he was heading to. I tried to understand what he was saying to me while eating chips and fighting exhaustion. The guy kept going on and on with his rant, so I decided that I had better go over and try to talk to him. When he saw me approaching, he droped what he was carrying and advanced toward me with a aggressive posture. When we came face to face I noticed that his fists were clenched and that he was drunk as a skunk. The next thing I know he is swinging at me. His swings were very clumsy and I managed to block them all with one arm while my other arm held the bag of chips. He continued to yell at me, while I just gave him a hateful stare and stayed silent. At this point I figured there was no point in trying to talk to him in Bulgarian, so I just raised my voice and told him to chill out in English. A minute later we walked away from each other and I got on the bus refusing to believe what had just happened. Welcome back to Bulgaria right! Anyhow, I was soon fast asleep and an hour or so later I woke up at the bus station in Sofia, thus concluding the trip.

A couple short weeks after I got back from the whirlwind weekend in Romania I jumped on a plane headed for Kuwait. Why? My wonderful big sister was getting ready to get ready, and it was time for another overseas adventure.

I flew out of Sofia, on a Saturday afternoon, but before doing so I met up with my ex-girlfriend Dema for an afternoon of conversation and coffee before catching my flight. Things were definitely different between us, but overall it was a pleasant meeting. At the conclusion of our afternoon together it was clear that there would never be anything between us again. We said goodbye to each other, and I jumped in a Taxi headed for Sofia International Airport.

Everything went accordingly before catching my flight, and the next thing I knew the airplane was thousands of feet in the air headed for Athens, where I had a night and half of a day layover. My sister had purchased my ticket, and she told me prior to my departure date from Bulgaria, that I was supposed to have a hotel arranged for me.

I found the airline customer service agent, and yes indeed, a hotel and transportation was waiting for me. The drive to my hotel was very visually stimulating. Athens, is very beautiful, developed, tourist friendly, and covered with olive trees. The hotel was very nice and located in a neighborhood next to the sea. I ate dinner and went to bed.

In the morning, with about seven hours to waste, I caught the trolley to the center of the city where all of the interesting sites await the eyes. The rail line to the center of Athens, went right along the beach and then uphill (Athens is very hilly). I got off at the recommended stop that lies right next to the Acropolis and Old City. I spent the next couple hours walking up and around the Acropolis. Talk about breath taking! However, I only took three pictures. Talk about passive photography ha! After that I grabbed an expensive Euro priced luch that was very tasty. With a couple hours left to kill before my flight I took the trolley back to the beach area near my hotel, and spent about two hours sitting on the beach taking in the beautiful water, sunshine, people, and experience. I got back to my hotel and caught the arranged van transport back to the airport to begin the next, and most important leg of my trip, to Kuwait!

The flight to Kuwait, was only about three hours. I arrived in Kuwait, close to midnight (approaching Monday). Walking off the plane into the airport was like entering a new planet. Everywhere, where Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, etc. in their attire. Very cool stuff!

Last time I was in Kuwait, around three years ago, my sister had to bend over backwards to get me a visa. The world, and not to mention the American government and Army's role in Kuwait, has changed that. I walked up to the visa-issuing desk and handed over my passport. The man who took it was very kind and when I told him I wanted a Visa for the week, he said, "How about a visa for 3 months," with a smile. I collected my bags and walked out of that section of the airport and into the area where Erika and her then fiancé Adrian were waiting for me. We got my baggage to her GMC Yukon SUV, which she bought brand new two years ago.

The drive back to their apt./house was once again a trip. Every where I looked there were mansions covering several square blocks, palm trees, winding freeways, American restaurants, etc., etc.

We got back to their apt., which they have been living in for about a year. Until that moment I had seen a couple pictures and heard about it. Walking into it was a totally different experience. Huge, shiny, slabs of marble meet me; high ceilings, recessed lighting; huge living room about the size of my house; a just as big kitchen, TV room, three bedrooms, three working bathrooms, one smaller storage room, and another bathroom that is not used. Ridiculous amount of room! We spent the early morning hours hanging out, talking, listening to music, etc.

When we woke up later that day we went to the Bazaar to drop off 12 pairs of my jeans I brought with me from Bulgaria, to get the waist adjusted, drove around the Gulf Coast road, and then headed back to the house because a surprise was awaiting us. What was the surprise?

About a month or so before my arrival in Kuwait, my sister and a neighbor of hers met one night while she was walking her dog. He is a forty something year old Kuwaiti man who owns a couple gold and jewelry stores. When the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, Iraqi soldiers looted his store and kidnapped him. Anyhow, right off the bat, Erika and this guy really enjoyed each other's company. When Erika told him that I was coming, he asked Erika what kind of food she liked the most. When Erika told him that she really hadn't tried traditional Kuwaiti food, he said that he would send over some homemade grub for lunch upon my first day in Kuwait. Kuwaitis tend to have maids, cooks, drivers, etc. However, he told Erika that he would cook the food himself.

Exactly around the time that he said he would drop off the food that Monday afternoon, Erika and I watched him jump in his car with his Indian maid in the back seat and drive down the street with our lunch. Erika and I met the maid downstairs, and were literally handed a golden platter with three huge bowls of food covered in tin foil. When we got the food into the house, low and behold, there were mounds of catch of day fish cooked in a curry seasoning, and an equally huge bowl of traditional rice with shrimp, fish, and vegetables, not to mention a bowl of tomato sauce dressing. Welcome to Kuwait! We ate the delicious food in total awe, and waited for Adrian to get back from work.

In the evening, Adrian and I went to a special barbershop where we got precision haircuts and facials from two really talented Egyptian barbers. After the barbershop we headed off to meet one of Adrian's friends to pick up two cases of Corona. Mind you, alcohol is prohibited in Kuwait, but there is always a way to get it. The two cases of beer ended up costing us around $300. That night after the pick up, we enjoyed our beers and then called it a night.

On Tuesday, we basically just hung around the house. Oh yeah, I can't forget to mention another platter of food was sent over. In the evening Adrian and I went to play basketball with some of his buddies. All of the guys there, mainly Kuwaitis, were really good basketball players. The experience and exercise was great and we went home.

The next day was to be my sister's wedding day. In the morning we got ready and headed to the Kuwait Ministry, which is where both host nationals and expats must go to get married. After some waiting around, they called my sister and Adrian in to the special room and pronounced them man and wife; with an Arabic twist of course.

After saying goodbye to Adrian's two witnesses and good friends, we headed to the Gulf Coast area for lunch. We ended up eating at a decked out Chili’s with a beautiful view of the water. We went home after the huge lunch and relaxed until the evening.

Erika and Adrian had planned a wedding night party of sorts at a really nice hotel. An international jazz band was to be performing a concert outside, and there was to be an incredible buffet. Their plans went accordingly. We met with 7 of their close friends for a really pleasant night of music, food, conversation, and homemade red wine, which Erika's friends brought with them.

The next day, Adrian and I headed to the Gulf Coast to rent jet skiis. We ended up riding up and down the coast for about an hour racing each other, chasing boats, jumping waves, and soaking up the moment. We went back home where more food from the neighbor was delivered for third time.

On Friday, we went out for some really good Indian food, and then in the evening, Adrian and I went to play basketball again. This time at the national arena, with some really talented young guys who play for club teams in Kuwait.

On Saturday, Erika and I went to eat Thai food and to get me a new ticket issued because a couple days prior to that day her dog shredded the ticket to bits.

In the evening we headed out to her friends villa very close to the border of Saudi Arabia. The drive took a little over an hour. A DJ had been hired and there was tons of red wine. All of this for about 15 people. We ended up partying there until 3 am. During the early morning hours, Erika's friend asked everyone to go outside because he wanted to play his traditional Kuwaiti guitar and sing some folk songs. Listening to him sing and play his guitar in the middle of desert was a really exotic experience, and great conclusion to the night.

On Sunday we picked up all of my pants that were successfully tailored, shopped, and then headed home. In the evening we went to this incredible Lebanese restaurant. All the tables were situated in a garden with a running river. We had a delicious meal and then smoked hookahs.

Monday, ended up being my last day in Kuwait. We kind of just hung around the house watching movies, and oh yeah, ate one last delivered lunch from the neighbor.

In the evening Adrian took me to a barber. My hair had been long, but I decided to cut it off because middle eastern style barbers and haircuts are like no other. The majority of the haircutting is done with a razor and scissors, and with serious precision.

At around 10 pm we headed to the airport where I was initially hassled about the weight of my bags. They wanted to charge me around $250 because they were over the weight limit. My sister ended up confronting the ticket guy about the fact that the airline had let my bags go through on the way to Kuwait. He ended up letting the bags go though minus the fee.

Before my flight left we sat down for a snack and beverage at Starbucks. I said goodbye to Erika and Adrian and boarded my flight. The flight back to Bulgaria meant that I had another layover in Athens. However, this time only for the day.

I arrived in Athens, at 8 am, and immediately jumped on the metro that travels to the city center. I basically spent half the day walking around the Old City, shopping, eating lunch, and people watching. With still a couple more hours of free time left, I took the tram back to the beach that I had visited a week earlier. I had set my hopes on getting in the water, and so thats what I did. The water was FREEZING, and so I could only hang a couple minutes before getting out and sitting on the beach. The I took the tram back to the center, and then the metro back to the airport.

The flight to Sofia, was fast. I ended up spending the night in Sofia. During the night I went out for some beers alone. At one bar I met some guys from Afghanistan. Really cool guys! The next day I returned to my region of Bulgaria.

What else have I been up to? About three weeks after I got back from Kuwait, a good friend of mine came out from the states. She ended up spending a week here in Bulgaria. We spent that week traveling all over northeastern, central, and western Bulgaria; 8 cities in all.

As far as my life here in Isperih, it has been great! I have some really good Bulgarian friends here, girlfriend, tons of kids to hang out with and crack jokes, and the weather is warm and beautiful.

My sister will be visiting me around July 1st or August 1st. My friend and I will take a weeklong trip to Macedonian and Albania from July 17 until the 24th. I will either be in Macedonia or Albania to celebrate my 26th birthday.

When I return from the trip I will attend one or two camps with the kids on Black Sea, or in the mountains. I will also soon be celebrating my year anniversary of life in Bulgaria on August 9th. That is basically what has has been going on with me in one big nutshell.

This past weekend my friends and I finally made it to Romania. We had been planning the trip for months, and several set of circumstances caused the initial date of the trip to be delayed for about a month.

The five of us all met in Ruse, last Thursday. Ruse, is the biggest city bordering Romania. One of the guys that went with us on the trip lives in Ruse, so it was an ideal place to meet.

The original plan was that we would spend Thursday evening partying, and then would leave on a train from Ruse, around 4 am. Well, we definetily ended up partying; too much. When 4 am came around we missed the train and instead had to find a hotel.

Luckily we were able to find a cheap and comfortable hotel to sleep a couple hours. In the end, missing the train was good ridence. The 6 hours of sleep that we were able to get was more then helpful. If we would have caught the train at 4 am as planned, no one would have been able to sleep, and by the time we would have arrived in Bucharest, everyone would have been delirius.

Anyhow, we caught the 2 pm train out of Ruse, on Friday and were well on our way to Bucharest. Crossing the Danube was a great experience, and before we knew it we were in Romania, which looked exactly like Bulgaria; landscape, houses, cars, etc. The train ride went as expected and we arrived in Bucharest at around 5 pm.

The first thing we had to do was find a money machine to withdraw the millions of Romania Lei we would need for the weekend. The money is a trip! It is basically made entriely out plastic; coins included. It is very large, colorful, and decieving - because of all the zeros.

After locating the bank machine we headed to guess where??? McDonalds! After treating ourselves to some "Royal with Cheeses" we caught the bus that would take us to our hostel. At least that is what we hoped.

The ride was very visually stimulating and novel. The architecture is very gothic, the city is bustling with people (capital city), and the people are very, very attractive.

When it came time to get off at our stop, that is exactly what we did and then proceeded to look for the address of the hostel. Surprise, surprise we couldn't. We walked a very long way, while at the same time asking people if they had heard of the street or hostel that we needed to find. There were a lot of "No" and "Go that way." In all, we ended up getting on two buses and one tram before experiencing the first nutty aspect of Bucharest.

Oh wait a minute! First, I caught a gypsy girl trying to steal stuff right out of my friends backpack as we were crossing the street.

After hustling to get on a tram, we soon started hearing yelling and such from the people on board. The tram was filled to the max, so it was difficult to find the source of all the yelling. Before we knew it a Gypsy kid who had gotten on right after us was getting beat up by three men. The men basically took turns puching and kicking the street kid in the head and body. The people on the bus were all watching, including us, and laughing, not including us. Finally, I couldn't take any more of what I was seeing and reached out to grab the kid while at the same time telling the group of guys to stop beating the kid and to chill out. They only understood the word "man" coming from me, and I only understood the words "is there a problem man." We basically just glared at each other for a minute, but they didn't proceed to hit the kid again, and after several stops he was able to jump off. The whole event was very uncomfortable to watch and be a small part of.

Anyhow, we also got off after the kid, and then asked a couple taxi drivers if they knew where the hotel was. They didn't even know! At this point we had been patroling the city for 3 hours. Exhausted and giving up all hope, a guy who spoke perfect English ended up taking time out of his life to show us where the hostel was via a tram ride and 10 minute walk.

When we got to the hostel we were ready to collapse from exhaustion. Although we were tired, we kept telling each other, "hey we are only in Bucharest, for so long; let's get on it."

We ended up trying to find a restaurant to eat at, but they were all closed; it was around 12:00 am. We finally came upon a glowing sign that said, "The Red Cafe." No one was really excited about going in so I took it upon myself to go in and ask the guys working there if there was any food being served and of course beer. The three guys, two of which were huge security guards and the boss who was dressed to the T, looked at me like I was crazy and said no. A minute later the boss said, "go ahead and go downstairs. There is food and drinks."

When we walked downstairs, we basically entered one of the most decked out clubs/bars I have been in. Beautiful waitresses came up to us with glasses of champagne and prepared plates of ordurbs. It turned out that it was the club's opening night. There was a camera crew from MTV who went around the room taking shots of everyone. If you see me, please let me know okay! We basically spent the next three hours drinking delicious German beer from the tap, mingling, and jamming to the DJ's music.

We all stumbled out of the club at 4 am still wanting more. At least three of us did. The other two guys went back to the hostel. Me and two other guys jumped in this old communist style cab with an old communist looking driver. A combination of Spanish, Bulgarian, Italian, English, and the good old power of non-verbal communication got us to the club we had been told about.

Right outside the club were four guys who approached us speaking great English. They explained that the club sucked, and that they knew of another one. We followed them to a hardcore tecno/house club. The vibe inside was very cool.

However, my buddy ended up passing out on the bar right by the cash register area where the waitresses pick up their drinks. I tried to help him get up, but he didn't want anything to do with that. In the end a big security guard dragged him out of the club and that basically ended our first night/early morning club experience.

The next day we planned to visit the "People's Palace," which is the second biggest building in the world. It was built my Romania's last and most terrible dictator.

On the way there we came upon a huge Gypsy festival that was starting to get started. The women and men were all wearing traditional dress, and there were several arts and crafts stands.

We then decided that we would try to find Pizza Hut. Do you see what being out of the country does to Americans? On the way to the Pizza Hut we totally lost one of the guys who was with us. Before losing him we were all hip to the plan of going to Pizza Hut, so we figured we would just see him there. Well after walking around for 2 hours, we couldn't find the Pizza Hut. We ended up getting some chicken sandwichs from a little take-out stand and desert from an Italian cafe.

We then went to the "People's Palace" where we basically just took a couple snap shots from the outside and left. We stopped at two bars on the way back to the hostel, and basically just watched people.

When we got back to the hostel our friend wasn't there. He had gone out of dinner with a guy that had come to Bulgaria with us, but left the first month after arriving in Bulgaria, and moved to Germany. The guy ended up being in Romania while we were there, and came down to meet us.

Instead of waiting around for the guys to return, we decided to invite two women who were staying at the hostel to have some beers with us. The women ended up being from Slovenia. They were both very intelligent, but a little too nationalistic, anti-America, and cocky. To make the long story short we had some interesting conversations; politics, religion, America, Bush, pop culture, education, health care, why Slovenia is the best country in the whole world ........

After saying good bye to the ladies, we headed to a club. The club ended up being in a gothic style basement. The music was hardcore, the crowd was huge, the music was loud, and the women were once again rediculously beautiful.

This reminds me! Romanian women are probably the most attractive women I have seen in all my travels. They have great bodies, exotic/full features, dark hair, great sense of fashion, confidence, and when they speak Romanian it sounds really sexy. The men were all handsome and looked like models for all the females that are reading this.

We ended up leaving the club at an early hour, 3 am, and heading back to the hostel. When we woke in the morning the group split up. My buddy who lives close to me here in Bulgaria, and I decided to leave early. We ended up almost missing our train because we got on the right bus, however, it was going in the wrong direction. After one more stop at McDonald's in the train station, we were on our way back to Bulgaria.

Upon arriving back in Bulgaria, we ran into a British woman who had only intended to come to Bulgaria to get her passport stamped before returning to Romania, the same day. It turned out that there were no more trains headed to Romania, for the day so she was stuck in Ruse. I ended up taking her around to a hotel to translate everything for her, then to the bank, and last to a cafe. I left her with some meal options for the evening and said good bye. And that was my first weekend outside of Bulgaria!

This past weekend my site mates and I decided that we would travel to a small town named Vetovo, which is located in the nearby region. The primary reason was so that we could watch the Super Bowl. There is a fellow volunteer from Boston, living there who happens to have a satellite. By the way, our original plan was to go skiing and then hang out in Sofia, but we decided upon heading to Vetovo because it would be a lot easier on the pockets and time wise.

So on Saturday we left Isperih, by way of train. Our train left at around 4:30 pm. We traveled to another town about one hour away where we thought we would only have to wait an hour before having to get on the train to Vetevo. Because of the recent snowstorms that have hit Bulgaria, many trains are not running. We ended up having to wait 3 hours in all at the freezing, freezing train station. This time was spent drinking coffee upon coffee from an electronic coffee maker.

When the train finally arrived, we got on and found a compartment. None of us had ever been to Vetovo, before so we were all a little anxious as to where to get off, because during the night it is hard to see the city signs hung up at the train stations. A ticket lady ended up coming to our compartment to check tickets. We asked here how many stops there would be until Vetovo, and she said 7. So that we would not forget the amount of stops, my site mate carved marks into the glass of the window, which had frozen over inside the compartment leaving a thick sheet of ice.

As we were nearing the seventh stop, the ticket woman appeared once again and told us that our stop was coming up. Although the train had only stopped five times, we listened to the woman and quickly grabbed our bags in order to exit the train. As soon as we stepped off the train something didn’t seem right, but because the train basically only stops for thirty seconds before departing once again, we didn’t have much time to comprehend what lay ahead.

The lights on the front of the train illuminated a building that we thought was the train station, but as the train picked up speed, thus leaving us, everything soon became eerily dark and quiet. When we got up to the building the reality of where we were hit us.

The building looked like it had been bombed. There wasn’t a soul, light, or sound around us. It became very evident that we were officially in the middle of nowhere. Coupled with the fact that it was one of the coldest nights thus far in Bulgaria, and none of us were very prepared for the elements, panic soon began to set in.

Luckily we all had our cell phones. My site mate immediately called up the volunteer that we were supposed to be meeting. We asked him if the train had reached his town yet, and that we were the epitome of stranded. We calculated that Vetevo, was far away from where we now stood. As the freezing temperatures continued to drop, we really began to get scarred. The volunteer’s friend in Vetevo asked us if we saw a road nearby, in which our reply was, “NO!” However, 20 minutes later we saw a bus driving in our direction. We tried to stop the bus, but the driver didn’t see us.

In the end it was entirely because of him that we realized there was in a fact a road behind the disheveled building. We called back the volunteer and his friend who in the meantime were trying to figure out how they could rescue us. When we told them that there was in fact a road, they managed to find a guy who had a jeep who would be able to drive out to where we were only after shoveling out his jeep and filling up the tank with gas. We were told that he would arrive in the next half-hour. It was a freezing half-hour of waiting to say the least, but before we new it the headlights of a vehicle came into view. We jumped inside and thanked the two guys who came to pick us up for saving our lives.

We were soon at the apartment of the volunteer who lives in Vetevo. To our surprise, two other volunteers had also come to watch the Super Bowl. Tea was soon prepared, and after huddling in sleeping bags for an hour to warm up, we felt great!

The six of us then headed to a restaurant to have dinner and drinks. We left the restaurant at around 12:30 am, and next moved on to the discotec. We left the discotec at around 3:30 am and headed back to the volunteers apartment. I ended up cooking a late night snack for everyone, and the festivities continued well into the wee hours of the morning.

We all didn’t end up falling asleep until 9 am. The only place to sleep was on the floor, which was good and bad. The good part was that the floors of his apartment were heated. The bad part was that you can only get so comfortable on a floor, which resulted in me only sleeping one hour.

The Super Bowl was not due to air until 1:30 am Monday, which meant we had a long time to wait. We spent the day snacking, preparing some disastrous spaghetti, watching the first season of Dave Chapel, feeling exhausted, and wondering if we could catch a nap in order to be alert for the airing of the Super Bowl. Neither one of us got any sleep that day, and when it came time to head over to the guy’s house that had the satellite, we all asked ourselves if there was any reality in staying awake.

The game was aired on a Polish station and in Polish, which we could amazingly understand because it resembles the Bulgarian language. At the start of the game we were all awake, alert, and excited that we were actually watching the Super Bowl half way across the world. I mean after all, my site mates and I almost froze to death 36 hours previously during the commute in order to take part in the Super Bowl culture.

Prior to kickoff we had all made a friendly bet as to who would fall asleep first. I proudly professed that I would be the last one to fall asleep, but as it turned out I basically fell into a sleep-deprived coma after the first quarter. I woke up just as the Patriots were celebrating their third Super Bowl Championship in the last four years. We all managed to get a decent sleep the rest of the morning, and at around 1:30 pm Monday, my site mates and I jumped on a bus and headed to the nearby city of Razgrad.

On the way to Razgrad, we passed the abandoned building. We could actually make out our footsteps in the snow, and remarked that it would have been dangerously impossible to walk to Vetovo, if the jeep had not been arranged for us.

We got to Razgrad, without any problems, and headed to an Italian restaurant to have lunch. We then hired a cab to drive us back to Isperih, which went smooth.

Hello there, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday with friends and family, and are gearing up for the New Year! Wow, 2005!

I am doing well! I returned to Ihtiman to spend Christmas with my host-family and Dema. It was very different being in Ihtiman without the other three volunteers I had the opportunity to live with for those two months, not to mention my wonderful Bulgarian language instructor Iskra. However, I had a great time in the company of Dema (girl I have been dating), Bobbi, Atone, Kirilka, Angel (family I lived with), my friends from the Internet Club (a very wonderful couple who own the Internet Club), and a few other people that I got to spend time with while I was there for three days.

I received quite a blow on Christmas day though! Upon calling my mother to wish her a Merry Christmas, I learned that she has recently been diagnosed with skin cancer. However, because the doctor’s caught it early enough, she should be in the clear after some treatment. If she had waited another 5 months let’s say, it would have been too late. Moving on to a less depressing topic.

After spending a couple days in Ihtiman, Dema and I headed to Sofia, to spend a day and night there. Sofia, is the capital and biggest city in Sofia. While there, we walked around the center, which offers much to see (old churches, important buildings, tons of shops, restaurants, and of course people). We basically hit up a couple cafes, walked around, saw Bourne Identity 2 at the theater, and I can’t forget to mention, ate at good old McDonald’s.

I am presently back in Isperih, looking out the window of my office at the snow that is pouring down. All day yesterday it rained, and I predict that it will snow all of today. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and my director just told me that there is no work, which means I can sleep in, read a book, and just lounge around. However, in the evening I will accompany a couple of my colleagues and my director to a restaurant/hotel party right across from where I work. Should be fun!

Two days before Christmas, a large group of us (around 20) spent the evening and night in the neighboring city of Razgrad, which is bigger, and only a half an hour’s drive from Isperih. A huge Christmas party had been planned for some time, and as the day approached, it was the talk around the office.

We ended up arriving at the Razgrad Hotel around 5 pm where the dinner party was to be held. Everyone was to be staying the night, with the exception of me. I was to catch a bus at 4 am to Sofia, and then onwards to Ihtiman by train. However, I ended up sharing a room with one of my favorite colleagues named Costa.

He ended up having to run some errands, and so I relaxed in the hotel room and watched T.V. Watching television is now a treat for me because I don’t have one. I ended up watching the a world championship dance contest, 50 best sports moments of the year, and a European soccer match all the while huddled next to the little heater that was in the room. As soon as I stepped away from the heater my breath could visibly be seen.

In the early evening I met up with my buddy Jason who is also a Youth Development Volunteer who came to Bulgaria in the same group as me. We headed to a café where I had a couple Cappuccinos and a whiskey/hot tea mix. After two hours with him it was time for me to head back to the hotel to get dressed for the big party.

Two weeks ago my sister sent me two wonderful packages full of food, decorations, and clothes. I ended up wearing a nice long sleeve shirt (yellow) and some thick dress pants (navy blue) she had tailor made for me in Kuwait.

The party was held in the basement restaurant of the hotel. It was a wonderful set up; band, great decorations, tons of food, alcohol, and the cheerful presence of my colleagues and other groups of people celebrating the holiday in similar fashion.

About two hours into the dinner party my counterpart grabbed me by the arm and led me outside the restaurant where my director was waiting for me. Unknown to me up to that moment, I was to be Santa Claus. If that wasn’t enough, they wanted me to get up in front of the restaurant of around 100 people and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and explain who I was and where I came from; all in Bulgarian of course.

Getting up in front up everyone went off okay. However, for the next 15 minutes I was a sweaty mess underneath the heavy Santa Claus (Diado Kolada) outfit. If that wasn’t bad enough, the fake beard was on the brink of causing my face to break out in a rash. For those 15 minutes or so I handed my director bags of goodies from a huge sack, which were then given to my colleagues.

The rest of the night at the restaurant went well. Several times throughout the night, everyone in the restaurant got up to dance the “horo” (national dance), which is actually very fun and quite easy. Everyone grabs each other’s hand and then in a whirling circle you make movements with your feet. Besides dancing to the “horo” I danced with several female colleagues of mine to various folk-pop/gypsy/Greek music much to their delight.

Meanwhile, the time was nearing that I would have to get to the bus station. At around 2 am we left the restaurant, which had died down, and walked next door to the hotel’s discotec. My friend Jason met us there and for the next hour and a half it was a rush to dance and drink. At 3:30 am I caught a taxi to the bus station, and soon thereafter was in route to Sofia.

With the New Year just a day away, I find myself trying to figure out several things. First, will my mother end up being okay after-all? Second, will I learn to get a better grasp on the language, and start meeting more people? Third, what can I do to help the kids and feel like I am actually making some kind of difference? Fourth, I can’t wait until March when I will be in Kuwait, for two weeks to take part in celebrate my sister’s wedding and see my mom. Fifth, can I, will I, or do I even want to stay in Bulgaria for 22 more months? What keeps me in line are the kids that I have an opportunity to be around, my very sweet colleagues, the fact that the last four months have been full of novelty, I will only get a chance to do something like this once in life, everything is challenging as hell, and what lies ahead after the 22 months has ended; one huge trip through a variety of off beaten countries, around $8,000 of Peace Corps re-settling money which will help pay-off my my student loan debt, not to mention allow me travel for a month or two, and the opportunity to live with my sister in Kuwait in absolute comfort after a 2 year roller coaster.

However, these are all futuristic thoughts. The reality of my life it that it is December 30, 2004, and I am sitting in my office trying to figure out what I can do with the kids the rest of my day.

I will close this out by telling you briefly about last night with my neighbor. In a nutshell it was around 11 pm and I had just got out of the shower when my doorbell sounded. I had spent the evening reading about 160 pages of a book I started that evening, cooked a delicious omelet, and spent what was supposed to be a quick run to the little market by my house to buy some smokes and something to drink, but like usual I was there for over half and hour talking with the lady that works there 365 days a year from morning until the late night.

Anyhow, back to my neighbor. He invited me over to drink some Rakia and of course I couldn’t say no. For the next two hours or so we drank Rakia, ate sliced Salami and pickled peppers which are close to Jalapenos, and did our best to have a conversation. Oh yeah, I can’t forget to mention the pieces of sliced pig skin we ate which came from the pig he killed the day before right outside of our apartment by slicing it’s neck open. Ymm! All the while his seven-month Rotrieller named get this, “Jessica,” was spastically running around his little apartment jumping all over us.

Believe it or not, but it is moments like that which make me step outside of myself and trip out on the fact that I am in Bulgaria.

Along with learning Bulgarian and integrating into the community these last two months, my training group and I were also required to come up with a community project with the hopes that it would be a sustainable one.

Doing so was definitely a challenge because for the most part none of us have really tackled such a task before. However, the Peace Corps has been great in helping us with the necessary steps to do so.

The first step was to invite members of the community to talk about what they are most proud of, and what they feel is lacking. Because of time constraints, we were not able to advertise when and where the meeting would be held in great length. In the end, members of our host-families only attended the community meeting.

We chose to use a technique called "Community Mapping," along with the help ouf our language instructor and technical trainer to facilite communication. The group of adults broke off into one group, and the teenagers broke off into another group. For the next hour or so we had them draw and talk about sites that they were most proud of and viewed to be positive; town center, several cafes, library, school, church, etc. We then brought the two groups together and compared and contrasted what they had expressed via the maps. Althogh this event was definitely a positive one, we were only able to draw a few conclusions as to what we could hopefully assist the community with.

After several brainstorming sessions, we decided that a trash campaign of some sort would be feasable considering the fact that there is a big problem with trash in Ihtiman.

However, the whole idea of a community project is for it to be just that, a community project and not solely a Peace Corps volunteers project. Therefore, we decided to compile a survey that included several general project ideas ranging from a sports club, to a book club, that would help us get an idea of what the citizens of Ihitman would possiblity be interested in. We then handed out 25 of these surveys to people ranging from 15 years of age to 25 years of age in the town center.

When we compiled the results, an overwhelming amount of people felt that trash in Ihtiman was indeed a big problem, and that they would like a project geared towards tackling the issue. This was a great finding for us because it meant that we could now direct all of our attention towards planning a project aimed at trash awareness.

At first, we were going to meet with several classrooms from the high school to ask them if they would be interested in participating, but in the end we decided to target teenagers from the smaller school where our Bulgarian classes are held. The reason being that we just didn't have enough time or resources to tackle such a large group. Regardless, the art instrutor from the smaller school was very excited about the idea, and after meeting with her students, it was more than obvious that the project would be a success.

We asked the students if they would like to create Ihtiman specific anti-trash posters that when finished would be posted in several shops located in the center of town. The students expressed interest, and so last week we showed up to the class with the necessary art supplies, snacks, and music to make the event a fun one. The group of 10 teenagers only had 2 hours of time to spare, but at the end of the two hours, 8 great posters had been made.

Earlier this week we hung the posters in the museum, 2 pharmacies, internet club, cafe, and a jewelery shop. We also wrote up an article talking about what the kids had done, who had participated, where the posters could be seen, what the Peace Corps was, who we were, etc. that our language instructor translated into Bulgarian. The plan is to give the article to a couple newspapers, schools, and the local municipality.

In Ihitiman, Bulgaria, my days start around 8:15 via the alarm from my GSM (cell phone). I stumble out of bed, make my bed, say good morning to my host family, get dressed, and get my books together for class. When I first got to Ihitiman, my family made it a point to make sure I ate breakfast. However, they soon learned that I do not like to eat breakfast upon waking up.

At around 8:40 I walk to school. Class starts at 9:00 and luckily I only live 10 minutes away. Lately, I have been stopping at a cafe for coffee to supplement my morning cigarette. From 9:00 until 10:30 I have class. From 10:30 until 11:00 I have a short break, which is spent at my favorite cafe. From 11:00 until 12:30 class continues. From 12:30 until 2:00 I have my lunch break.

Every day since school started my host-mother packs me a delicious sandwhich. Now that the weather is getting cooler and we must rely on a space heater to bring some warmth to the classroom, I place my tin-foiled enclosed sandwhich on the heater, which then turns into an even more delicious melt. Like always, it takes me no time to finish my sandwhich.

The next task on the agenda after finishing my lunch is to walk to the internet club. I rush to write as many emails as possible before making the 10 minute walk back to class.

From 2:00 until 3:30 class continues. By the time class ends I am totally exhausted and confused by all of the new vocabulary and grammar rules that have been thrown at me.

My reward is a dunar sandwhich and a couple cold beers at the Pileto (Chicken restaurant). I will then work on homework/Peace Corps mandated stuff or head back to the internet cafe before making my way home.

On average, there is usually no one home. My host-mother works at her pharmacy until 7:30, my host-father works out of town, and my host-brother is usually still at school or with friends. I definitely enjoy having time alone after a long day. How do I spend this time? I watch BBC, MTV, HBO, and what ever else.

Dinner is served at 8:30; delicious meals have you. After dinner I take a shower, study, watch some television, and then hit the sack. My days are not the most exciting, but I stay more than busy.

My weekend scheduale is definitely in total contrast of my week day scheduale. For starters, I usually sleep until 10 or 11 which is a thrill. Upon getting up, I get myself together and motivated for the day.

The Saturday that just passed for instance was somewhat novel. I lounged around the house waiting for our big Saturday lunch to be prepared. When that finished at 2:00 I headed down to the school to play some basketball with the Ihitiman youth. After that was over I took a shower back at the house and then met up with my Peace Corps buddy Donald to study Bulgarian at the Air Sofia Hotel Cafe. A girl that I am seeing from Ihitiman joined us an hour later and helped us with our homework. A couple cold beers was part of the study/social event. When that was over I went over to Donald's host families house to talk with his host-mother and check out some pictures on his computer.

At around 10:00 we walked back towards my house. Along the way I stopped off at the ATM for some money and Donald grabbed a bite to eat from the Pileto (Bulgaria's McDonalds). We stopped off at my house for a minute to drop off my bag and then met up with Dema; sort of my Ihitiman girlfriend.

From 11:00 until 3:30 am we partied at the local club; good times. At 4:00 I was finally in bed. I didn't wake up until 11:00 which felt great.

For the next couple hours I watched a couple movies on the tube and then had a wonderful lunch. After lunch, I went with my host-brothers to watch a futbol match at the stadium. All-in-all, great entertainment. My day will end with a delicious dinner, followed by some studying and a shower.

The first day that I moved to Ihitiman, I came across a flyer near my house which was attached to a tree. There was a picture of a woman and some other information. Initially, I took it as a missing person notice, but some days later came to find out that it was an obituary. As the days progressed I saw them everywhere.

I soon learned that in Bulgaria, when a person dies, their obituary is posted all over town and left up for a year or so. It is some what creapy to see them all over the place; primarily because there is always a picture of the deceased person.

Additionally, if there is a black ribbon posted on the door of a house, it means that a person who lived there has recently passed away. When the anniversay of the person's death rolls around, the family will get together to honor the day with specific foods and such.

I hope that I havn't depressed you, but I thought it was an interesting aspect of Bulgarian culture to share.

At least in the small towns (grad) and villages (celo) of Bulgaria, the community as a whole gathers the necessary wood to get through the winter. If people live in an apartment building (blok), everyone will do their part to make sure that there is enough wood to fuel the centralized heating unit that rests in the basement (maze).

It has been very interesting (interestno) watching and participating in this activity. For instance, last weekend I helped my host-dad (bashta) and an uncle cut down a tree that was tearing up the grandmother's (baba) pavement and exterior walls of her house (kushta); roots that is.

My host-dad started the process by using a regular old saw to cut the high branches, and then some guy from the community showed up with a chain saw to expedite the process.

While observing the sawing, a piece of wood/saw dust got in my eye. Five (pet) days later, my eye remains irritated. Hmm, I wonder if it will get serious. Keep your fingers crossed.

Anyhow, after hauling the cut up tree away from the street (uletza) we took a break (pochefka) that consisted of a huge Sunday (nedelya) lunch (obyad) outside. My host-mother (maika) who can cook like no other put together quite a meal. On this day we had rabbit (Zika) stuffed with bacon, ham (shoonka), and mushrooms (gubi). In addition to that, there was tons of bread (hylab), salad, rakiya, champagne, caramel cream desert, and peppers (chooshki).

When the meal was over. I headed in the house to take a shower (dush) and relax. However, shortly after getting out of the shower my host dad and host-brothers asked me to help them outside. For what I did not know! It turns out that I was to help with the cutting of various lumber. My role was to carry the huge and heavy pieces of lumber to my host dad who was operating the table saw. It was a great bonding activity.

For some reason I thought that only my host-family was taking part in this activity. However, all this week, everywhere that I turn there are people doing the same thing. Not just men! I have witnessed 60 year old ladies operating a table saw and hauling off wood.

Sure puts the constant pursute of heat during the witer back in the states in perspective. All that we have to do is hit the thermostat and sit back.

Many kilometers later I have finally been able to see where I will be living and working for the next two years. Getting to Isperih involved a 6 hour bus ride to the northeastern corner of Bulgaria. Two of my colleagues, Polina and Veneta, accompanied me which was great. Polina is a social worker and Veneta is a teacher. In the later part of Wednesday afternoon we arrived; the voyage had more or less started at 8:00 am that morning in Pazerjick.

Once in Isperih, I was checked into my hotel which was convenietly nestled right across from the orphanage/insitution that I will be working at. The hotel was really, really nice. If my apartment is not ready by the time I move there October 21st, I will stay in the hotel which I wouldn't mind at all.

After resting in my hotel for a couple hours, Polina and Veneta showed me around Isperih; shops, stores, movie theater, gym, bank, internet cafe, park, schools, restaurants, memorial, etc. After the tour, we went back to the hotel to eat dinner.

It just so happened that the owner of the hotel and his wife were also eating dinner there. They invited us to sit down with them for "nagosti" (get together). The wife spoke perfect english so for the next 3 hours I had someone to explain who I was and what I planned to do in Isperih, and vice versa. It was great being able to know what everyone was saying in Bulgaria. Many beers and much food later, we called it a night; a good night.

Thursday morning I visited the orphange/institution. For the first hour or so we sat around in the secretary's office smoking cigs, drinking coffee, eating, and trying to communicate. Around lunch time I toured the facility which I found to be very sound.

The kids who live at the orphange are categorized into four teams; clover, dolphin, teenager, and owl according to their ages and whether or not they have parents or other interested relatives to take care of them part-time. Most of them are Roma's aka Gypsies. On each of the two floors they live dormitory style. Each floor has a huge toilet, sink, and shower room plus a kitchen, living room, and many bedrooms. There are also offices on each floor for the array of teachers, psychologists, social workers, seamstress, cleaning ladies, etc.

The kids were really cute and looked at me in awe; can't blame them. They were all excited that I played basketball and seemed to be on their best behavior. Most of the kids live in the orphanage permanently, however, there are those that have families that still stay in contact. There is also a group of gypsy kids that come in for activities and lunch.

My colleauges are very excited about having me. They are expecting a lot of me, which I hope I can live up to. I realized how important it is for me to get a good grasp on the language, which means that for the next month I have to get my stuff together.

In the afternoon I met the director of the orphanage/institution. She is a really cool lady who made our initial introduction really laid back. She was excited that I smoke, amongst other things, and so for the next hour guess what we did? Smoked cigs, drank coffee, and tried to understand each other. I told them that in addition to the projects that they feel are most important, I would like to spruce up the outdoor basketball courts, fix the baskets, mark the appropriate boundaries, coach, and make playing basketball safe and fun. She was very happy about that. In the afternoon I went to a cafe to drink coffee and smoke more cigs.

After the cafe, my director drove me out to an amazing Thracian tomb near the city. Entering the tomb was a trip! There was a huge computer programmed steel door that had to be opened via remote. Before going in I had to cover my shoes with plastic covers. The temperature inside was cool because in order for the preservation to continue there has to be a perfect temperature maintained inside. Inside, was the tomb of a king and queen that was in amazing condition. After all, they died 2,500 years ago.

In the evening I met up with two Peace Corps Volunteers who have been living in Isperih for over a year; a couple. They were super cool and made me feel at home. We went down to a cafe and had a couple beers. After that, we met back up with my director and headed to dinner.

My director was such a sweetheart. She wanted me to stuff my face and and drink as much as I wanted. The volunteers spoke flawless Bulgarian, which gave me hope that I may in fact be able to learn Bulgarian. The night ended in goodbyes and good nights.

In the morning I woke up early and walked over to the orphange to have breakfast with the kids, and drink coffee with my director. At around 7 am we headed to the nearby city of Razgrad, where the bus I would be taking back to my region, Sofia, was waiting.

It was once again a 6 hour journey! The last two hours went by fast because they finally put on a movie; in English with Bulgarian subtitles. Once in Sofia, I walked over to the train station and got me ticket to get back to Ihtiman; 1 and a half hour trip.

While on the train, I met a 5th degree Bulgarian black belt. Before we actaully started talking, I noticed that he was writing Japanesse coligrophy. He was a really nice and intelligent guy. At around 4 pm I arrived in Ihtiman.

After talking with my host family and unpacking I found another salon in town to get a haircut. The woman actually knew what she was doing and hooked me up with a nice edge up. All in all, my 2 day experience was great and has me really looking forward to my future here in Bulgaria.

One of the hardest things to get used to is the way people say yes non-verbally. Most of the world signifies this form of expression by shaking their heads up and down. In Bulgaria, people shake their heads from left to right to say yes.

To this day I still have a hard time figuring out if a person is saying no. A sign that I have been fully integrated into Bulgarian society is when I do the same. Who knows, I may come back to America with this behavior.

On Friday I found out that I will be living in Isperih, which is located near Romania; Northeastern part of Bulgaria. I havn't been able to gather too much information other than that. On Wednesday I will visit Isperih for two days, and will undoubtedly have a lot to talk about after the visit. However, as of now I do know a little bit of information that I would love to share with you.

The population is pretty small; 10,000 people or so. There are a lot of Turks who live in the area, so in addition to trying to refine my Bulgarian, I will also have learn some Turkish.

I will work at a well-established orphange with a good repuation. There are apparently a lot of kids who live at the orphanage year round, and then another group of children that go home to their families during the weekends and holidays.

They would like me to help develop sports programs and other healthy outlets for youth expression. In addition to helping to develop programs, I will write a lot of grant proposals. I am up for the challenge! The Peace Corps sets aside time to teach such skills; primarily formatting grants and such.

I will live in my own apartment, which I am very excited about. I didn't bring anything with me to make it feel like home, but in time I will get ahold of the necessary items to make my place feel more homely.

I have already visited a beautiful town by the name of Valeko Turnovo, which has many artisan shops. I now know where I can buy some things. I am also looking forward to getting my hands on some rugs; hopefully Turkish. The Peace Corps will give me a decent amount of move in money. It shall be interesting.

For those of you who are pondering the idea of visiting me, my door (Vrata) is open to all.

For the most part dinner is not served in my host family's house until around 8:30 pm or 9:00 pm. In Bulgaria dinner time is a major event because after a long day of work the family can finally sit down and talk about their day. I guess this is similar to the states in happy homes.

My host mother, Kirilyka, owns here own pharmacy here in Ihtiman! She opens up shop at around 8:30 am and doesn't come home until 7:30 pm. My host dad, Angel, is in the process of fixing up the upstairs portion of the two story building that houses the Pharmacy (Apteka). He busts his ass all day on that when he is not working his normal job as an armed security guard for a fuel company. Talk about a long day ha!

Within an hour or so of being home Kirilyka has prepared something truely amazing. Meanwhile I am salivating in my room (spalnya) or in the living room (hol).

The first item served is the salad, which consists of tomatoes from the garden, onions, salt, vinegar, oil, onions, a feta like cheese (sirene) and some garnish. In Bulgaria, people generally drink Rakiya with their salads. After the salad is served, the main course follows. Last week for instance we ate some delicious fish prepared in a beer and flour batter with other spices.

For the most part drinks are not really served. However, in my house beer is generally what we drink. The beer comes in plastic 2 litre bottles and is damn good.

Despite the fact that I am usually full after a serving of salad, the main course, and a couple slices of bread (hylab), there is no way that Kirilyka will allow me to stop eating. After loads of food, we will have ice cream sundaes or some type of fruity cake that she has prepared.

All the while, I try to understand what is being said in Bulgarian. At this stage of my life in Bulgaria, I am only able to pick up bits of what is being said. On average, we are at the dinner table for an hour or so. And so that is how the dinner proceedings go in my host family's house (Kushta).