I finally left my region!

After some harassment from a couple of friends, I finally ventured out of the Razlog region to visit one of my BFF's from training, Meg!  She lives in Central Bulgaria so I had a nice 8 hour adventure to get there.  (See why I don't leave?!)  Meg was also having a clean-up project that I was going to help her with.  Friday we hung out with a couple of other PCV's that live near to her and had a fun night.  I also got to meet her incredibly entertaining family that she lives with!

Meg and I

Josh and Anne

Meg's Bulgarian Family

Saturday we woke up early in order to catch a ride up to the area in the Stara Planina (Стара Планина)  that we'd be doing a clean-up in.   A local Eco/Tourism group in her region owns a hija (хижa) a few kilometers from her village.  We went to pick up the trash around the hija and had about 8 teenagers there from the local eco-club to help!

Meg leading the trash pick-up

Clean-up

There were two stacks like this... including two toilets that had been thrown on the ground

After the clean-up we went on a 2 hour hike up in the mountains and got to check out the new wind farm they're building at the peak of the mountains.  Seeing the huge trucks carrying the wind-mills reminded me of driving down I-20 back and forth to Abilene!  There's also the Buzludzha Monument built on one of the peaks that is a prime example of Socialist Architecture.

West Texas in Bulgaria

Hiking... you can see Buzludzha in the background. It's the things that looks like a space ship.

Buzludzha from far away

Sunday morning I headed home... it only took me about 11 hours.  Either way it was worth it to finally get to visit a friend and see a new part of Bulgaria!