Eventful

There is no better way to explain the past two weeks of my life then to simply explain them as they happened and let you be the judge.

Two weeks ago I received a phone call from one Ms. Ingrid Robledo who, at the time, was living only six km away from my village. Her unnaturally deep voice sounded distressed and finally told me she had made up her mind to return to Miami. This was quite a devastating blow not only to me personally, but to the morale of the B25's in general. Not to sound overly dramatic, but for me this was especially hard. She was basically my site mate and more than that, my friend. And she still is my friend, but I just cannot jog to her village and see her anymore. SO, Elizabeth and I decide to help her out and get her, along with her 2 giant (and I am sure, overweight) bags to Sofia. This turns out to be a little harder than we imagined.

To begin, I had to find some one to watch Bernard and get out of an all day teacher's meeting. Easier said than done, as are most activities here in BG. Eventually it happened and all was seemingly good... well until I wake up Tuesday morning to meet Ingrid and Elizabeth on the train. Its a little known fact that when I leave, even for just one night, I have to thoroughly clean my house and since my new vacuum cleaner is broken, I decided to sweep my carpets with a hand broom. JOY and ELATION. This, in turn gave me the sinus infection from hell. So now, I am on a train at 7:00AM half deaf and immobilized by pain; both physical and emotional. Halfway to Sofia, our train breaks down and it starts raining. Pretty much par for the course at this point. We eventually make it and all is relatively well. I go to the PCMO and after a random EKG (I still don't know why) I get some medicine which makes life all the better. We say our good byes over "Mexican " food and enjoy a night.

I get home and have 2 days before I have to travel back to Sofia for Jill's birthday. Jesse brings his dog, Ambrose, to stay with Bernard at my place while we are away at IST (which began after Jill's). Back in Sofia, we have the BEST Indian food ever and decide we wanna go out. WHATTA BUST! I will say that I had more fun finding these alleged "clubs" than I had while inside of them. It also served as a reminder that no matter how much weight loose, I will never be accepted in my community... boo. Now, lets move on to IST...

IST is the 1st time we have seen each other as a group since swearing in and of course we celebrate accordingly. Some of us more so than others. I only wish I had eaten more than a Caesar Salad before the celebration had begun. It also didn't help that I have more or less stopped drinking and trying to drink like I used to was not the best of ideas. I am not 20 anymore apparently. Thank God for good friends and my innate ability to stay Professionally Appropriate. Not everyone has that ability though as proven by the fire extinguisher some one sprayed in my room. I am just glad he owned up to it and did not let me and my room mate take the blame. I just love the irony of me and my baggage being flame retardant. There was also bowling, go-go dancing and other events that would take entirely too long to explain. IST ended with an 8 1/2 hour train ride back to my site in which I was wearing my winter jacket, a sweater, running shorts and tennis shoes, as well as Kay's rainbow sunglasses. My companion on the train was Jesse with his miniature guitar with the inscription "This Machine Kills Fascists". I feel that we looked like the saddest travelling musicians in all of Europe. The plot thickens (believe it or not) when we got stuck in a village near mine and had to ask the local police for a ride back to my house. They took one look at us and decided they had to call some one from my village to prove that I am who I claimed to be.

At the end of the day(s) I feel that "eventful" barely scratches the surface of the past two weeks. Who knows what will happen this weekend when 10 - 15 volunteers descend upon my village to attend what promises to be the most non-traditional, traditional Thanksgiving meal of our lives. The potential for disaster is high and who knows what non-sense the fates have in store. Tune in next week for the continuation of this never-ending saga.

Love, Laughter and Music (and certainly not brevity)

Cory

PS - SVINSKI GRIP!!!!