Happy Student Day!

Today is Student day in Bulgaria. Students and former students celebrate their accomplishments. Today at lunch we went to the bar in the municipality building and drank Rakia and ate salami, cheese, nuts, and other snacks. Then we went back to work. They have a lot of holidays in Bulgaria. Yesterday was St. Nikoli day. That's a different kind of holiday though. It's a name day. Every Bulgarian has a name day and on their name day they hand out treats to everyone and have a Na Gosti at their house later that night. Every week there is someone coming into my office offering me a chocoloate (or bon bon as they call them here).

I thought it would be a good idea to layout my day for you so you can imagine yourself in my shoes. I get up around 8:00 in the morning to start work at 8:30. It's cold now so i wear a warm leather jacket and put on my gloves, sometimes I wear long John's. Then, when I get to the municipality I climb a couple flights of stairs to my office and strip. My office is really warm and I haven't figured out how to turn off the heater yet. Neither has the other lady in the office; she always opens the window instead.

Me and my counterpart travel durring the week sometimes. We've gone to Sofia, Plovdiv, Pazardjik, and villages within the municipality. Right now work is few and far between. I don't have enough information to start projects independantly. I often search the internet for funding sources for certain projects that my counterpart has told me about. My counterpart used to just tell me to search for funding and I'd say, "search for funding for what", and he'd say, "it doesn't matter just search for funding." I had to explain to him that I can't search for funding if I don't know what I am searching funding for. So he gave me a big list of project that need funding.

Now the main project I am working on is creating a new website for the municipality in English and Bulgarian. That should take some time. I am not using any web creation software, I have to type all the HTML commands myself. My counterpart comes in and check on me often. Actually there's a lot of interuptions. People are always coming in looking for Petia. I have to keep telling them that she's not in the office and I don't know where she is. And if she is here then they sit and talk forever. It's very distracting. Top that with the flys. There aren't that many flys here, but they are much more annoying than in the US. They keep landing on me and getting in my face and eyes. They drive me crazy sometimes. Ha ha ah!

I go to lunch at noon and come back and 1 o'clock. After work I either have piano lessons or Bulgarian lessons, depending on the day. They last an hour long. After that I cook dinner and usually eat around 8pm. I don't watch much tv. I've been reading instead. I've read Angels with Demons, Omerta, Easy Prey, and listened to Travel's with Charlie and Rich Dad Poor Dad on audio book. Now I am reading Executive Orders by Tom Clancy. It's over 1400 pages. That's a big task for me;I've never read a book that long. It's about a terrorist attack where an airplane was purposely crashed in Washingtong D.C. and killed the president, and most of the Supreme Court and Congress. Now the Vice-President(Jack Ryan) ,who was just sworn in a couple of hours before the attack, takes the helm as president and has to put the country back together. This is not a new book; it was written about 7 years ago. Like I said this is a long book, so I am reading The Fourth K by Mario Puzo too. Maybe this will give me more instant gratification in my reading. I play on the internet a little bit and then it's off to bed...