Somewhere Over The Atlantic!

My reception in the Peace Corps office when I arrived in Bulgaria was a giant ego boost! My former language trainer tried to subtly ask me if I was on steroids, while the Peace Corps doctor pretty much accused me of being on them, and gave me a health schpiel about how they're destroying my kidneys and liver! One of the Americans on staff just said I look the same except I'm much bigger, like I'd spent a lot of time at the gym. I'm sure there's a cultural diplomacy difference to be addressed with all that, but I'd rather address the fact that no one said anything about my awesome mustache! Well, until I got to Varna, where everyone asks me if I'm from Texas.

In Varna, I had to wait a few days for my counterpart, Iliyan, to return from a summit in Brussels on transparency in eurofunds for Bulgaria. I asked him what I should do until he gets back and he told me to exercise! =) I arrived to beautiful weather and made use of it by reacquainting myself to my old home.

Guy taking a break from the day with 1.5 liters of wine and the company of Old St. Nick, the giver of fish!

Gal filling up her old water bottle with some stank mineral water that tastes like rotten dragon eggs.

My apartment is amazing compared to last year. It's brand new and no one has ever lived there before. I really like the cleanliness, but the construction methods leave a bit to be desired. While everything is new, most of it is cheap Chinese crap. I broke the toilet seat on my first sit, and I burned out the light bulb in my entry-way before the end of the second day. Nevertheless, it's quiet, clean, safe, and pretty much perfect.

In actively striving to make the most out of my time here, I decided to host some guests for my first Friday night. I love being a guest, and I love hanging out with people, but it's another matter entirely to host guests in Bulgaria. Here, the host has the responsibility of making sure that there's enough food and drink for everyone, that everyone's glass is always full, that the temperature is just right, that everyone's having a good time, etc. It's more along the lines of being a server at a restaurant than simply hanging out with your good friends. But it's still a very good time - especially with such great people! Helene, the French gal with whom I used to volunteer in 2006; Darina, the woman from whom I asked for 10 children for a project, but my Bulgarian accidentally said that I wanted to make 10 children with her; Nora, the gal who teaches me most of my Bulgarian slang; and Aaron and Sara, a young married couple who are currently serving volunteers in Varna.In the middle of our fun, Darina endearingly called me a "fucker" or at least that's the closest translation we could find. Aaron and Sara, not knowing me very well, and wanting to learn more Bulgarian, did some research on the word in the following days. Someone told them that it meant, "a guy who has lots of sex with lots of women." Pretty literal, I guess. Later in the week, I was expressing my concern to Iliyan that I think these two were getting the wrong impression of me. He pointed to the wall where he keeps a collection of Bulgarian proverbs. The one he pointed to translates to something like this: "Everyone can be a hero. It just depends on how his friends talk about him." Not quite the consolation I was looking for, although he insisted it was a great compliment.

My first day in the office was more of a reunion than a productive day of work. Iliyan called me around 10am and said, "Are you coming to the office?" =) We "caught up" for the first hour or so and then opened a bottle of a whiskey. We talked and joked a bit more and then migrated towards our computers.In attempting to be consistent with Bulgarian traditions, I brought a box of liquor-filled chocolates with me to work. Typically, when someone gets something new, or has a birthday or whatever, they "treat" their colleagues or friends with some kind of chocolate. So, I walked around all day saying a rough equivalent to congratulations on your Andrew, and handed out treats!

My first day of work just happened to be International Volunteer Day, and their just happened to be a big party after work. Iliyan and I headed there with one of his friends. I had no idea what to expect; all I knew was there would be food and drink. For the first hour, the entire hour, two announcers took turns announcing peoples names to come forward and receive a gift package. I tried to keep clapping, but when volunteers went forward two, and three, times, I was done. When the food and the drinking commenced, I found myself extremely uncomfortable.The girl to guy ratio was about 3:1, all the food and drink was free, and there was a DJ playing rock music that slowly changed into pop as the night progressed. This is pretty much a recipe for a great time! The problem: everyone was 15 or 16 years old... And that's just the beginning of my discomfort. They started playing games.One game involved some gal running around the room with a pen writing letters on everyone's hands. Then an MC would try to line up their hands so a word was spelled. All the words were somehow related to sex. Rough sex, hard sex, strong sex, etc. And they thought it was so funny! They were really having a good time. I got out of it with my good ole faithful standby excuse: I'm allergic. I can practically get out of anything with that. And no one ever questions it! Thank you, ignorance!After a while, though, I started dancing and having a blast - even when a drunk Portuguese guy tried to steal my dancing partner.This first week has been super great! This is going to be the best winter ever!