Bulgaria Year 1 in Review

It's been a year since we moved to Bulgaria.

We've traveled many places and made wonderful new friends (and we've already even had to say goodbye to some of them). We've worked harder than we thought we could: I discovered that teaching in a new place with a new book and curriculum was more like being a first-year teacher than a veteran, and Shannon overcame her personal fear/terror/difficulties/loathing... of teaching, confrontations, and taking authority.
We yelled at the sky and shook our tiny fists at the roadblocks and frustrations Bulgaria (and living abroad in general) threw at us.  Sometimes we wanted to buy something that would be so simple in the US (just a quick trip to Target or Wal-Mart), but we didn't know if it was for sale at all, if it was for sale where it would be, how to ask anyone to help, or even how to get there.
We dealt with the surprisingly difficult loss of independence that came from losing a car, bikes, phones, knowledge of how everything works, and the ability to communicate. I sometimes felt like an infant throwing a tantrum - I couldn't express the difference between whether I had a poopy diaper or was just hungry, so I'd just get upset about it either way. Waaaaaaa!  I couldn't say anything in Bulgarian, and lots of times just that knowledge prevented me from even trying in English (which many Bulgarians speak well).
We did things and went places that we had to keep pinching ourselves were really happening to us. It sometimes felt so normal, hanging out at a coffeeshop in London or on a rooftop terrace in Istanbul, or even grading papers at Starbucks (in BULGARIA!) that I sometimes couldn't decide whether to be amazed by it all (I'm in BULGARIA!) or underwhelmed by the ordinariness of it.

When we went back to the USA this summer, I had a hard time responding to the obvious question of "How's Bulgaria?" I don't know. Amazing. Wonderful. Frustrating. Maddening. Lots of work. Lots of fun. Exhausting. Beautiful. Ugly. Exciting.

We had some tough times this year. I hope not to have to repeat anything like the month of May again, where we spent half the time in hospital for a variety of awful things. But even in May, in the midst of many bad times, we still managed to fit in a long weekend to Prague and a road-trip around Bulgaria for a friend's wedding.

"May you live in interesting times," as the saying (sometimes called a curse) goes. We certainly do.  Whatever life in Bulgaria has been, it has always been interesting. Sometimes interesting-awesome, sometimes interesting-weird, sometimes interesting-sucky. Hopefully down the road even the interesting-sucky will just mellow out into a good story to tell.

For you Harper's Index fans out there, here's a recap by the numbers:
Countries we've visited this year: 16
Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Albania, Morocco (just Shannon), Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, Norway, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, USA, Germany

      (We only drove through Serbia and Macedonia, without spending much time, and we also got passport stamps from Germany and France, but haven't really seen too much more of these countries than the airports, although we did it make into Frankfurt for a beer by the river on a hot day during a long layover, so maybe that one does count after all.)

Seas swam in (collectively): 4
Atlantic Ocean, Black Sea, Adriatic Sea, Aegean Sea


Mountains climbed (collectively):
Maroon Bells Peak (Colorado, 4315 m/14,156 ft), Cherni Vrah / Vitosha (Bulgaria, 2290 m / 7,513 ft)

(hmmm...will need to get more peaks in next year!)

Students taught
293

Care packages received
6 (THANKS!)

Power Outages
Innumerable

Laptop Deaths 
2

International Visitors
7 (Heather, Bajji, Spike, Tom S, Dad, Scott, Paul)

Medical procedures requiring overnight hospitalization 
2

Cipro (super-strength antibiotics) prescriptions given
6


Furthest North we traveled

61'44 (Jostedal, Norway)



Countries we already have plane tickets to visit in September:
3
 (tee hee)
 
Here is a short video from our postcard wall.  There are postcards from some places that we had wonderful wonderful trips (like Istanbul, and Lake Como) that we somehow never quite got a chance to do a blog post about. Maybe there will still be some "blast-from-the-past" make-up blog posts, if new adventures don't take up too much time.



We have often thought how much more difficult this year would have been without the support we received from friends and family around the world. (Thanks to the easy communication provided by Skype, Facebook, this blog, email, and the internet in general-- it's so much easier to stay connected to those we love on different continents than it would have been 10 or 20 years ago.)
Thanks to all who read our blog (especially when you make comments!), gave us phone calls, sent emails, sent birthday cards, sent care packages (you are our true heroes!) and just generally kept us in your thoughts.

Until next time...
Jeff