Has it been a while since the last blog post?  Why yes it has.  And I’ve noted in reading through my previous posts that I generally apologize at the beginning of the majority of them. Well this time, I shall not.   No, I shall ask that we all confirm our suspicions that I shant become [...]

It has indeed snowed somewhere in this country, but Yambol will probably be one of the last cities to see it.  We got some freezing rain last week, but that’s the worst so far.  Still, the picture above is misleading – the view today is of gray, cloudy skies, with a light smoke billowing from [...]

It’s slightly cold today.  Therefore, at some point this afternoon, as I was lazing around the house awaiting the new school year to slap me in the face with a few textbooks, I had a brief image of winter.  Sitting in the apartment, huddled under thick blankets and in one of a few hoodies we [...]

Great Success! (Най на края…) For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bulgarian school related acronyms, let me explain.  Since before the time I stepped foot in this, the eastern corner of what is commonly reffered to as “The Balkans,” I had vague dreams of some sort of project like this coming about.  And [...]

Well, to be honest with you, I’ve just got too much work to do this weekend to write a proper blog.  But things have been happening and pictures have been taken, and y’all have the right to see them.  Therefore, they’ve all been posted on our flickr page, and I’m going to give you links [...]

The weather these days has been unbelievable – somewhere in the 60s, certainly.  Vanessa and I have each, in our own moments, been guilty of faux-spring excitement; well, I’m not sure what the proper term would be, but it’s when it’s kind of warm outside, so you go out underdressed and excited and end up [...]

This isn’t much of a blog post as much as a relaying of what has interested me most in the past few hours, of which I must inform the world.  It’ll be quick, I promise. I found my way to an online stash of old pictures of Yambol (Jambol or Jamboli by old spelling.) These photos [...]

This episode was recorded in two parts, in october and november, respectively. So let’s talk about neighbors.  In Bulgarian, there are two commonly used words for neighbor – Съседи, sasedi, and Комши, komshi.  They mean pretty much exactly the same thing, except that Комши is, in fact, a Turkish word.  Some Bulgarians use the word without [...]

Reading through my blog info today, I noticed that one of the top searches to bring someone to my blog was “narwhal shish kebab.” I’ll consider that a success.  Hopefully the title of this here post will continue that success. Maybe two weeks ago, the news was abuzz with a cold snap in europe, as train [...]

Well a long time has passed since my last post.  The piggy flop epidemic has since calmed itself down.  Rakia (homemade brandy/grappa of sorts) making season has come and gone, and thankfully many varieties of rakia have made their way into our cupboard – as well as the homemade wine it was made from.  Туршия [...]

It’s time for schooooooool!!!! And it has been for over a month now.  Where have you been? 18 hours a week of english-teaching… fun?  Well some of it is anyways. Ok.  To be honest with you, everything above was a post that I started a draft of a little under a month ago.  Things had been moderately hectic, [...]

Well this above picture is actually misleading, as it’s a few weeks after the real event, but it had to be added.  But a few weeks ago, or so, we traveled back to our homestay village for two reasons – A, to help our friend Felicia, who has remained there, to do a project for [...]

It’s a laaaaaaaaazy sunday – that old мързеливия неделя.  The not so sweet smell of roasting peppers is high in the air, at least eight stories high, in fact.  It’s лютеница season, for sure.  Perhaps it was last night’s thunderstorm that did it, I don’t know how these things work, but the visibility is [...]

Almost 20 days without a blog post.  What a jerk. Life continues.  Slowly.  Meetings for school begin on tuesday, and otherwise it’s been a lot of running around and/or doing nothing besides watching kittens chase bugs in the house.  I’ve got maybe 3 or 4 posts to fit in here, but let’s start at home in [...]

Including:  Holy crap we moved to Yambol, Holy crap we actually installed internet in our apartment, holy crap we’re sworn in as volunteers and holy crap we have kittens.  Let’s get this post on the road. Part 1:  We’re volunteers now!  It’s been 10 weeks of madness and we’ve finally been sworn in as official volunteers.  [...]

Well it’s been a while.  We’ve finally got some sun after about 3 solid weeks of daily thunderstorms and unreliable internet connections, but we’re back online, more or less.  Our inevitable move to Yambol is now 10 days away, and we’re getting in as many town/village related activities as possible before we move out.  On [...]

Well this picture was not taken in Bulgaria, but yesterday was Peter Day here in Bulgaria, so I figured it had to go up.  In bulgaria, your Name Day (Имен Ден) is sometimes considered more important than your birthday, and it’s celebrated on the church day of the saint you may or may not be [...]

Well the results are in, and I feel that our new site is big enough to safely tell you the name of our future home for the next two years.  In the end of January we’ll be moving to the Southeast, to the rather large city of Yambol (large for Bulgarian standards, that is).  We’ll [...]

Stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff.  Well, we’re four weeks into this mad journey.  The internet in my house has been spotty lately, so the blog posts have been lagging.  can’t really complain – i mean, i am in the peace corps. We’ve finished out the school year thus far – I taught maybe two weeks of [...]

Sunday sunday sunday.  No one messes with Леля Гинка – Lelya (aunt) Ginka, as I have now been corrected to refer to my host mother, pictured here with Gjorgy and Vanessa getting the dough ready for Мекици – Mekitsi, also known as fried dough.  For breakfast.  I love this place. So I guess I’m not going [...]

Well, I taught my first english lesson today – a little mini one, just 15 minutes, to 10th graders.  Apparently the entire class was the cheerleading squad (the school has no teams though, so i’m not competely sure what they cheer for).  There was one lucky chap who was in the class as well.  We [...]

Looks like we made it… Well it’s been a grueling week so far of hanging out in mountain resorts and moving to our host stay – in another resort town, near Vratsa, with some wicked mineral springs.  Vanessa and I moved in with our respective host families yesterday, in the same town and maybe 3 blocks [...]

It’s been some of the best 2 years and 9 months of my life.  Your chinatowns may smell funny, your trains may run slow (but 24 hours), your pandas may be sad, but you shall be missed.  I’m sorry it didn’t work out.  I hope we meet again some day, and remember, it’s not you, [...]

We begin by waiting – waiting to leave New York City for the land of the Bulgars. What awaits us on May the 20th? Кой знае. Who knows.  Probably something, i don’t know, important? I feel like a dude in a panda suit waiting on a walk sign in downtown NYC [...]