We (62 trainees) found out our permanent sites and got to visit them. I'm so excited about mine! I'll be moving to a small village outside of Bansko which is the #1 ski resort in Bulgaria. (Guess it's about time I learn.) This also means there are plenty of places to stay when people come visit me!!! I'll be working in their community center and hopefully starting a scouting troop. I've got the Rila Mountains and the Pirin Mountains surrounding me and lots of places to go hiking. CAN'T. WAIT. I'm in the southwest area of Bulgaria so I'll be 2 hours from Greece and 2 hours from Macedonia. The visit itself was so much fun, the people were great. They have an awesome group of women that I'm hoping to become BFF's with!
My only concern: Let's be honest, I'm from Texas and the winters are... mild. Obviously moving to BG was going to be a change. So I asked on my site visit how the winters were and this dude says, "This past winter wasn't too bad. The snow was about mid-thigh. No big deal." NO BIG DEAL??? Seriously??? I asked if that was a 2 year old mid-thigh, but no. Like my 5'4 mid thigh. I've never even seen snow for an extended period of time. So yeah, I think I'm going to be living in all my winter clothes and probably never have less than 2 sets of long underwear on.
(I didn't resize any of the pictures so they're all going to be big.)
A couple of my favorite ladies - Meg is going to central BG and Stephanie is going to the beach!
Satellite group before we get split up over the country
They drew a huge outline of BG and called us one by one to our permanent sites. I was the 2nd to last person called. 
The morning I was introduced to my new community
Then I dressed up! (Emi is getting a traditional BG dress made for me! So excited!)
It was rainy the whole visit but still beautiful!
Lots of mountains!
The folklore meeting group and they gave me an instrument to play. Good thing their voices covered my playing.This is a short video of the group singing a traditional folk song. It's not the best quality and live is much better but you'll get the idea!
Meg's host brother had his 25th birthday and we celebrated all night long!(And feel free to leave comments... they make me feel cool and I want to make sure I get more comments than Dan.)
10 comments:
I'm glad I get to be the first to comment! I am SO. STINKIN. EXCITED!! You are going to experience so many fabulous things and neat adventures. I just can't wait to come visit! Love your guts!
Love the pics! I haven't watched the video yet but I'm about to. Thanks for the update...and for calling me! I picked up my phone the other night and almost called your old number...then I remembered you're in Bulgaria. Boo.
Love the updates, so cut that lazy stuff and give us the news on a regular basis!! You look great in the pix and I am so pleased that Sweet Emi is getting you the traditional outfit...you look great in red...you so should have been a GATA!! How's the language training going since they introduced future tense?
Great pictures Valerie! I'm excited for you- what an adventure! We need to send you some of those warming socks or something to help you make it through the winters...
i'm so excited you get to be in the snow! i love you and miss you little val!!
Veeves, the Bansko link didn't work for me. Also, I am wondering why the comment I made on Dan's blog the other day did not appear to be there. Hmmmm
My favorite part is still that you get to start a scout troup. How do you say Samoas and Tagalongs in BGian?
a scouting troop? how cool is that!!! let me know if you need any supplies to get it started. can you get scouting stuff from an international office someplace? the scouts should start up a program to send people into other countries to just start up troops!
here is a project for you and the scouts - translate this into Bulgarian - http://www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are/facts/pdf/facts_gs.pdf. it's only been translated into about 6 languages so far.
i dont even care if you have more comments than me Val...well... maybe a little bit.
good entry, im going to miss being able to cross check our facts.
Post a Comment