Horo'ed All Night Long

Last night my Municipality had a Christmas/New Years party. We celebrated with Peshtera and Batak in a restaurant in the mountains of Batak. There was at least a hundred people there. I danced all night. Slow dancing, fast dancing, I even did the horo. The horo is a traditional Bulgarian dance where every one holds hands. You don't form a circle though. The shape is more like a snake with a leader and an end. It wraps around itself over and over again. It sort of has a life of its own. You have to see it for yourself.

When ever I got a chance to sit down and rest my counter-part would say, "haiday(come on) Matyoo." But most often it was this one lady who kept grabbing me over to dance. Sometimes she would pull me over when I was already dancing. Finally I asked her where she lived and she said, "you don't remember me". "NO I DON"T REMEMBER YOU". Actually I didn't say that I just pretended I didn't understand her. That's the good thing about being a foreigner. Here I am everything you hate about foreigner's in the US. If I don't want to answer a question, I pretend I don't understand you. And if you say something that I don't understand, I just say "yes" all the time. LOL! Well what else am I supposed to do. They'll just keep talking. I also like to mispronounce words on purpose to make it sound like something else. For example there is this guy named Zhorro. I call him Zorro like the masked character. I think it's funny. Getting back to the lady...I'd swear I've never seen her before in my life, but she acted like we were old high school buddies. She even knew my name. We must have met once when I first got to Bratsigovo and she remembered me.

My counter-part asked me if I wanted to do a little speech about Bratsigovo. "Uhhh...ok". And he imediatley grabbed me up on stage. "Ugh...Hello....how are you?" I wasn't sure what to say. Of course I have to talk in Bulgarian. "Bratsigovo is a great town and has the best Mayor in all of Bulgaria." They seem to like that kind of talk here and of course everyone from Bratsigovo cheered. "Happy New Year." And my little speech was done.

Later on that night the DJ called my name. "Matyoo Wolgren." Everyone cheered. I didn't know what to do, but that one lady grabbed me and put me in the middle of the dance floor where I had to strutt my stuff for a few seconds. He he! I was the center of attention all night. I noticed people kept looking at me. "Hey look, it's the American"

When I did have a chance to escape to the table, we did a lot of drinking and toasting. "Nasdrave Matyoo." I got back in the wee wee wee wee small hours of the morning about 15 minutes before 5am. I was planning to take a bus to Chepalare this morning at ten, but since it's already noon, I think I'll take another bus. At least I don't have to work like most everyone else. I have to meet with the Mayor of Chepalare now. The mayor of Bratsigovo found out I was going to Chepalare and it turns out she is friends with the mayor of Chepalare. So I have to meet with him and tell him "Pozdrave". I am not sure what it means, but it's probably some sort of wish of good health for the new year. Well I think my bus will be coming soon so I better haiday.