Your Monthly 'Andy' Update!

the tourism association i'm working for threw a
christmas party for all of its members. there were
about 60 people. there were some food and a bunch of
drinking, and they had some wacky activities planned
as well. i really couldn't understand what was going
on with the activities, but when the people at my
table all stood up, i followed. we sang and danced
till way late at night. i'm normally not much for
dancing. in fact, i normally do my best to avoid it at
all costs, but i'll tell you what, after a glass of
wine or two, and some lady is grabbing me by the hand
and dragging me onto the dance floor - well, that's
another story. so, i danced my little heart out all
night long! i had no rhythm whatsoever, and after a
while i wasn't even trying to pretend like i did have
it. i just tried to shake my hips as fast as i could
to keep up with everyone else! ha! in these group
gatherings, and also for small parties or something,
eventually there'll be some kind of classic bulgarian
music going and everyone gets up and dances the "horo"
(the stress is on the second 'o' in case you're
wondering). the horo is one of my favorite things,
next to rakia. the whole crowd gets hand in hand, in a
huge horo-line, and you just kind of dance together in
a rotating circle. i like it cause it's mostly easy to
figure out and everyone's involved. throughout all
this dancing and fun, a local gal named dora was
following me around everywhere. she kept wanting to
dance with me, despite my persistent casual attempts
at leaving to dance with everyone else. but she was
way aggressive, and would literally drag me back to be
with her! that was kind of funny, and also, she knew
what she was doing, and i, very obviously, did not. so
she was throwing me this way and that like a rag doll!
at one point, i think she wanted me to dip her or
something and she leaned back while holding on to me.
well, we both went down to the ground - me falling on
top of her! ha! oops! the whole town was teasing me
about it the next day!

christmas was amazing!!! my friends came from all over
the country! there were 10 of us in all! half were
here for friday night and it was just kind of quiet
and nice. everyone else came on saturday. we did group
cooking and cleaning and had an absolute blast! it
didn't quite feel like christmas, but it felt great
anyway, and everyone stayed way positive - no drama at
all! christmas eve, the tradition here is for a guy to
go out with a group of his friends (all men) and go
sing christmas carols to a girl he likes. if she
thinks he's doing a good job singing, she lets him in
and they all have a party! well, our group was too big
to tag along on the singing extravaganza, but we heard
different groups on the streets all night long! my
bulgarian friends said they were out till 4 in the
morning, singing and drinking wine. red wine is the
winter drink here, and they stay so close to tradition
that you have a really hard time finding a restaurant
in the summer to serve you a glass of wine. only in
the winter! christmas morning, i cooked everyone the
best scrambled eggs they've ever eaten! at least, i
kept telling them that until they believed me!
christmas dinner was amazing too - we had a ham! i
know it doesn't sound like a big deal back home, but
here - you can't find ham! i didn't quite get the full
story of how we got ours... a couple gals in our group
did the searching and when they tell the story of
their search they always end up at them inside a
larger grocery store in a bigger city and one gal
pushing the button to call the butcher over to ask a
question. but the "butcher call button" as she
referred to it, was actually the fire alarm! so she
set the damn fire alarm off while trying to ask her
question... and the funny part was, no one did
anything. not the butchers, not the other shoppers, or
other staff! how funny is that! we didn't have a
christmas tree, but i made everyone a stocking with a
deal of candy on it. my buddy alex brought all of his
christmas presents that his family had sent him with
him to my house to open on christmas morning! so after
we had eggs, we all sat around and watched alex open
his presents! ha!

and to follow up christmas, just when i thought things
couldn't possibly be any better - new years happened!
what a holiday! i traveled to sofia, the capital, to
meet some friends. the first night we stayed in a
hostel and just kind of took things easy. new years
eve, we ate at a vegetarian restaurant, which was
really good despite the lack of meat, and met up with
everyone else in town. there were about 20 volunteers
from our group of 50 and we gathered at a couples
house who live and work in sofia. we told all kinds of
stories from our sites and had a great time. just
before midnight we went to the center of town for the
public celebration. there were thousands of people
there, a stage with some wonderfully annoying chalga
music, and happy faces everywhere! i got so excited i
ended up getting separated from our group and i was
dancing in huge horo lines! it was magnificent! i
ended up back with my friends a time or two, but
mostly i was having a blast just dancing with the
locals! there were some fireworks at midnight and i
tried singing the new years song "auld lang sine" or
something like that, cause i had printed the lyrics
off the internet. no one was joining in with me, so i
sang louder and louder till i was just yelling! that
kind of singing skill doesn't get a person invited
into his girl's house on christmas - but gee wiz, i
was have fun! you're probably all curious as to what
my new years resolution is. ok, i'll tell: i'm gonna
run the athens marathon! it's in november, so there's
plenty of time to train, and a big group of us
volunteers are going to make some kind of team out of
ourselves and do a fundraiser for "habitat for
humanity" i think. i'm really excited for that!

had a language class and stayed late for a small
nagosti with my teacher and her cousin. we were
chatting and eating and drinking and such and she
offered me some kind of meat that looked like a
sausage but rolled up into a disc. of course i took
it, cause who can resist rolled up sausage, right! she
told me it was called "carnage" ha ha ha!!! oh man, i
don't know a quicker way to kill a good thing than to
associate it with "carnage"! of course this was how
the bulgarian word was pronounced, and it has a
different meaning when translated to english... but i
couldn't stop thinking that i was eating 'carnage' and
it made getting through my wonderful piece of rolled
up sausage, quite difficult!

on january 5 there was some kind of concert to welcome
in the holiday on january 6 - yurdonov den or
something like this. anyway, the concert was really
cool. there were dancers, singers, actors and
musicians each putting on a small show. my favorite
were the singers, they had magnificent voices, i think
they're called a choir or something. it all appeared
very traditional because of the music, outfits, and
dance. but then a couple of dancers did a number to
"i'm so excited" i had to laugh, it was pretty funny.
the day following this tribute to the national here
hristo botev, is called "yordonov den." it's one of
the most significant national holidays in bulgaria. it
starts out with wine, very early in the morning. i was
awoken by some friends around 7. they came into my
apartment with a 2 liter soda bottle filled with home
made wine. they looked drunk already and continued to
pass the bottle around. that's really unpleasant to be
drinking that early in the morning, and i quickly
bowed out. after a while we joined a crowd of about
700 people gathered around a particular spot of the
tunja river that runs through town. there were about 3
or 4 inches of snow on the ground, and it was snowing
and cold. and here comes the rest of the tradition: a
group of guys jump into the river on one end and walk
toward the crowd while playing some traditional music
with drums and a wacky thing that looks like bagpipes
but sounds awful. then a priest throws a wooden cross
into the center of the men. whoever gets the cross
first, gives it to the youngest kid in the river. then
they dance the horo and sing. this is when my friends
and i jumped in! it was soooo cold! we all joined arms
and danced the horo! i tried to sing along to keep
excited and not think about the cold, but i didn't
know the words, and no one had printed them out for
me! we worked our way slowly around the horo circle,
several revolutions, for about 10 minutes. the deep
part of the river was high on my chest almost to my
neck and the shallow part was still above my waist.
after the initial shock of the cold, my legs felt like
they were on fire! it hurt! what a feeling! we all
exited the river at about the same time and went to
the road where the band was playing. there we did the
horo for another 10 minutes in the snow, completely
soaking wet! after 20 minutes of temperature torture,
i decided to head back to my apartment. i had been
separated from my friends and couldn't find them, so i
just left. my body was shaking soooo violently i could
barely get my key into my door! i've never shaken like
that before, not even when i was dancing at the
christmas party. ha! it was intense! the legend is,
that if you don't get sick from doing that, you'll be
healthy all year! but i think that's hogwash - cause i
didn't get sick, until 2 weeks later - and now i'm
sick as a dog!

well, due to an ongoing personality conflict with my
counterpart here in kalofer, i will be moving to
another assignment. i've had several meetings with the
peace corps and the solution will be for me to move to
varna, a 6000 year old city on the black sea coast,
where i'll be working with an environmental
organization that does beach cleanups, environmental
education for youth, they run a recycling program, and
they're pushing for some kind of alternative
transportation in the city, mainly promoting bicycles.
i'm stoked! this is way more of what i had wanted to
do in the first place, and i met my new counterpart
and he's a goofball! it sounds perfect! the plan is
for me to move at the end of the month, but i need to
travel there and help find an apartment first. of
course it's not all fantastic - the town is something
of a tourist resort for british and german vacationers
and i'm not sure how well i'll be accepted as i am a
foreigner also. plus, i'm moving from a 3500 person
mountain town to a 350,000 person costal paradise -
there's good things and bad about this. but the
important thing is, i'll be working with really cool
projects!

that's it for now, hope all is wonderful on your end.
write me back and tell me your new years resolution!
it's supposed to be in the minus 20's all over
bulgaria tomorrow! that's less than -4 degrees F! hot
damn! that's fun!

andy