Bulgaria!

I am here! I had about two pages worth of journal entries saved on my laptop, waiting until I had internet access to post them, and of course this morning the converter broke and my battery is dead, so I can't get to them! So, I will post them later, but until then...things are great here in Bulgaria! We had meetings all week in Strelcha, and we finally met our host families yesterday afternoon. Our group of 50 split up into small groups of 4-5, so I am now in the town of Koloyanovo with three other volunteers - one of them just happens to be Tia, the friend of a friend that also went to KU! Who would have thought! She is from Coffeyville and was a friend of Abby, a friend from my study abroad trip in Spain, and we know a bunch of the same people from home. Weird. We will be doing our language training and teacher training here until July 8, when we get sworn in as official Peace Corps volunteers and get our permanent placement.

Anyway, my family is a middle aged couple, Petar and Tsetsa. They have a 24 year old son living in England and a 27 year old daughter, Maria, who is 27, married, and also lives here in Koloyanovo. She has been my tour guide since I got here last night and is great. None of them speak English, but there is one guy who works for them who speaks English pretty well, so when he is here he helps out a LOT! Maria took me all over last night, introducing me to everyone, and everyone wanted to feed me. We had coffee with Maria's aunt, Milka, and Milka's mother and 2 small children, then we went to Maria's house (she lives with her inlaws) and they insisted on giving me vodka and pepsi and brought out practically all the food she had in her kitchen. The town is very small and Maria knows everyone we pass, which is nice - it reminds me of home! Koloyanovo is unique for Bulgaria because over 30% of the town is Catholic, including my family. I think that as a whole, something like 90% of Bulgarians are some sort of Orthodox???, so I feel really lucky to be placed here. I am excited to get to actually share their religion with them.

My family is wonderful. I cannot explain how fortunate I feel to be placed here. They are great to me. They have a beautiful house, and I have the entire top floor to myself - 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room with a tv and satellite, a dining room, and bar area. Petar is also going to talk to the internet guy and see about getting internet in the house for me since I brought my laptop. I am overwhelmed. I don't know how I am always so fortunate, but someone is looking out for me.

The internet club is right next to the school where I will meet my group and our language trainer everyday, so even if we can't find a computer (they are going to look for one in Plovdiv, the second largest city in Bulgaria, which is where the English speaker lives, for a new one), I should have regular internet access. It is only 1 lev ($1 = 1.50 lev) per hour for the internet.

My family is taking me out to eat today, so it should be another interesting experience with me an my dictionary right at my side! Its pretty frustrating not to have any language skills whatsoever, but hopefully we will be learning quickly. Body language is the biggest help, but it can be a problem since their head movements for yes and no are opposite ours. AHHH!