Showing posts with label new years. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new years. Show all posts

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Mimicking Without a License

My Christmas in Varna was wonderful. Great people, old and new. We had a gift exchange (I got a beautiful new scarf from Kerri along with some kick-ass American candy, which I consumed within 24-hours), ate amazing food, played games, and enjoyed the unique holiday atmosphere that is Peace Corps Bulgaria.

Italy was amazing. A stark difference from Bulgaria in terms of people and culture and I swear I actually experienced a bit of culture shock. But in a good way. We mostly ate. And ate and ate and ate. I pushed my stomach to the limit and am really proud of the amount of pizza I can eat in one setting and the fact that I can always manage to squeeze in some gelato. I’m like a pro.

I won’t go on and on about that trip cuz I know that type of thing gets boring so I’ll just highlight:

• There was a two-story, paper frog in the center of Bologna. This frog was set on fire at the stroke of midnight and we all cheered and kissed and watched it light the sky ablaze while Italian firefighters and policemen patrolled the area. It was surreal. Our new hostel friend, Richard kept saying, “There’s a f*ing frog on fire. I mean, there’s a f*ing frog on fire!” It was epic.

• An Italian boy ran past me when we were walking down the streets of Bologna so, naturally, I start to run after him in a mocking fashion. He suddenly turns around, sees me chasing him, and then I burst into convulsive laughter because I was totally busted. He mocks my laughter, grabs my shirt sleeve, and marches me down the street saying something about a “magistrate” before I realize he’s taking me to the police station. He’s basically putting me under arrest. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. We later saw the same little boy dancing the cha-cha in the town center surrounded by 50 or so people. I chose the right little boy to mock.

• We ate a lot of pizza. Pizza is good.

• Where’s Matt? We never knew.

• We saw the statue of David. Well, kinda.

• Lots of girl talk. It was fun.

• We found the most delicious beer in the world called Kwak. Yeah, Kwak.

All in all, I had an amazing vacation and have spent the entire day today in bed recovering from it. You always know it’s a good vacation when you need to take an extra day off just to sleep in until noon.























Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Time to get back to work and make the world a better place!


-Age

Sunday, December 19, 2010

The Next Two Weeks are Gonna be Awesome!

The holidays are coming up and in just a few short days I'll be off for a two-week adventure. First, I'll be taking a 7 hour train ride to Varna to meet my best buddy, Tom. We'll explore Varna, eat Mexican food, and buy a cute hat cuz my head has been cold, especially my ears which is actually quite painful, what gives? Then we'll meet Katelyn, Priscilla, and Mary and have a sleepover at Tom's place. FUN!

We'll then all head back to Varna to Hannah's Holiday House to celebrate Christmas with about 15 or so volunteers. We'll be cooking lots of delicious food, opening our secret santa gifts, and having a merry time. Then Tom and a few others will be off to Sofia to catch a flight to Italy. I'll stay with Hannah and Lexi and we'll hang out for a few days in Varna until it's our turn to return to Sofia and catch our flight to Italy. While a big group of volunteers is going to spend New Year's in Rome, Matt, Lexi, Evan, Hannah, and I will be going to Bologna and Florence. I. Can't. Wait. My mom is even mailing me a special New Year's dress that should arrive on Tuesday (hopefully).

I get a couple extra days off of school for this trip and when I get back, it'll be the end of my first semster and the beginning of a very long winter. But I've got big plans for semester #2 so I'm kinda looking forward to the challenge.

Here are some pictures of my first snowfall:

The view from my balcony


Some of my 5th graders having their first snowball fight of the year


View from our English classroom window




-Age

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Drinkin' Outta Cups

So, I recently went to a wonderful Thanksgiving feast with some lovely Bulgarian and Peace Corps friends and took some fun pics. We had a GREAT time - I missed family and friends from back home but Bulgarian Thanksgiving was uniquely fantastic and I'm excited to do it again next year. After Thanksgiving, we all traveled to our In-Service Training which was also a lot of fun as well as highly informative. I'm also giddy with excitement when I think that in just a few, short weeks I'll be celebrating Christmas in Varna and New Years in Italy!!! Does life get better than this? I don't think so. And one more thing: it's not snowing. (Well, not yet anyway)

We ate

We smiled

We cheered

We made awkward faces

We laughed

We ate some kick-ass cake (thanks, Evan!)

We played Dirty Mind (of course)

We were drinkin' outta cups (but not bein' a bitch)

It was a lovely time at Red-Headed Mary's!

-Age