Weddings and Bulgaria

So in the last extremely brief post I mentioned how AWESOME it was to see my sister and Jason get married!! Well, incase you somehow didn't pick up the vibe, it was incredible to be home, and especially for such a momentous occasion!!!

Concerning other weddings, two of my favorite people in Bulgaria - randy(pcv) and petya- we married this sunday! I had the honor of serving as one of their witnesses, the best man as it were, for the ceremony. As a witness, I had to confirm that Randy and Petya were a good match and that I would always be there to give them good advice and such things... of course I said the equivilent of "I will!" As soon as I can, I will also post pictures from their wedding. We did lots of fun and zanny things, including making Petya's bouquet ourselves, and buying silly gifts after the ceremony.

Jumping back in time, I want to share with you a brief summary of my return trip to bulgaria. Let's put it this way...it was LOOOONG!! I started out my travels at 6am in SD, and about 60 hours (approx. 2:30am bulgaria time) later I made it to my apartment! The day(s) that I traveled happened to be the same as the big rainstorms out in the east. When I got to Chicago, my flight was already delayed, and as the day wore on the delays continued to increase. After 5 hours of waiting (around 11pm), we boarded the plane- mintues later we learned our plane had failed safety tests, and that our new flight would depart the following day at 3pm!!! United put us all up in various hotels around the city, so in groups of 6 or so, the passengers all started to become aquainted with one another. I expected a lot of german people to be on my Germany-bound flight, but instead, most people were US citizens returning to their home countries in Eastern Europe to grab a few weeks vacation. I met several families from other Balkan countires, and we had a good time comparing the similiarities of our languages, I met a lovely greek couple who live in Athens, and quite a few Bulgarians!! The bulgarian families that I met were really nice to me, and as we dealt with all the delays and such that we faced, it was nice to speak freely in BULGARIAN rather than ENGLISH infront of the customer service ppl! Well, by the time we finally arrived in Munich, everyone had missed their connecting flights by more than 16 hours and almost no-one would find a seat to their final destination unless they took additional connections or stayed another night in Munich!!!! I wound up being re-routed through Frankfurt and arrived in Sofia at midnight on friday, about 36 hours later than estimated arrival. As luck would have it, one of the bulgarian families were not only traveling to my city, but they also lived on the same street as me!!!! I was exteremly lucky, as I otherwise would have spent the next 7 hours inthe train station, waiting for first train to my town! So, after a crazy long trip, I was extremely glad to have met loads of new and interesting people, but mostly, to have arrived to my apartment!

It was also been great to be back in bulgaria! I have been busy catching up with friends, "remembering" Bulgarian, and planning for several youth camps that I'm participating in, and celebrating coworkers' birthdays!

okay, well we have to go run and catch a night bus, but I will write about this mutli-ethnic youth camp when I get back!