A Quick Note from Bulgaria

hey gang,

gee wiz, i'm having a blast!!! within a weekend i had
50 new, very close, friends! it's so great! then we
went to bulgaria and things got better! food's good,
people are nice, temperature was great, blah, blah,
blah...

spent 5 days getting some rough intro's and whatnot in
a tiny town that doubles as a mountain resort.
borovits, or something like that. i was bursting with
so much positivity and excitement, and i couldn't
contain it! most people responded well!

went to pazardjik to meet my new family. it went well.
they're nice. i'm staying in a town of 9,000 called
krichim. since my arrival my stomach has been in
knots! i went from 50 friends to not having a clue of
what's going on. my new sister kind of speaks english
but not really. they shout at me when i don't
understand and i try not to laugh! they're feeding me
lots and lots! too much even.

i think my internet time is going to expire soon.
follow this link for a few pictures so far:

http://picasaweb.google.com/00Judkins/PeaceCorpsBulgaria20052007

i'm trying really hard to understand things, but i've
been here for 4 days and today was my first language
lesson. i gathered my host father likes to hunt, as he
keeps bringing out his gun to show me. he implies that
he wants to take me hunting, but i'm not allowed to
touch a gun in the peace corps. i told him i'll go
with him, but i won't need a gun! ha! he was showing
me pictures of him hunting - standing next to his
kill. he looked so proud in the picture and so proud
to show it to me. so i asked what it was. 'dog' he
responded! ha ha ha!!! oh man! i laughed really hard!
turns out it was all a misunderstanding, he was trying
to tell me 'doe'!

in anycase, misunderstandings have been a wonderful
source of laughter!

my host family haven't been giving me much 'andy-time'
i'm always being shown around town, introduced to who
knows and whatever else they have planned. i had to
sneak over to the internet cafe after my language
lessons today. but they're probably worried sick cause
i'm not home for dinner. so away i go.

super excited, and having lots of fun,

andy

Peace Corps - About to Begin

hey gang!

well, it's early, early in the morning and i've still
got stuff to do. this last week or so has been
extremely hectic getting everything in order. and my
adventure is beginning a little bit roughly. i snuck
in a camping trip with some work buddies and came home
today, my last full day at home, with a big list of
things to do. the first thing on my list was to sell
my car to a friend at work. but as luck would have it,
when i got back from enjoying the forest - i found
that someone had stolen my car. nothing really
significant in the car except for my checkbook. oops.
so i spent the better part of the day filling out
police reports and closing accounts. fun, fun.

although it bummed me out quite a bit, tomorrow i'll
probably remember none of it as i'm stepping on to the
plane headed for a great journey.

i'm starting out in washington d.c., where i'll be
going through an orientation for a couple days.
sunday, a bunch of other hippie volunteers and myself
will fly to sofia, the capital of bulgaria for another
orientation. we're there till friday, at which point
we get bussed to the the southern town of pazardjik.
this is where i'll be doing my 3 months of "training"
but the training is mostly just the language course.
in bulgaria they speak bulgarian, in case you were
wondering. i've already kinda learned the cyrillic
alphabet - it's a start.

at the end of the training (october 28th) there's a
swearing in ceremony and site announcement. this is
when i'll learn which city i'll be doing my service in
for the following 2 years.

then, the environmental education begins! don't quite
know exactly what i'll be doing yet, but they've told
me that i'll be working with municipal governments,
small businesses, schools, and the local community.
should be great fun! but they're making me dress
business casual... that's a much smaller hurdle than
figuring out what to do about a stolen car in one day!
ha!

if you didn't get this email and would like to, let me
know. if you got this email and don't want to hear it,
let me know.

peace out all - i'll write when i can.

andy