Another week in the lives of Tony & Hollie

As I wait for Tony to upload some videos for the blog on our laptop, I've decided that I'd write a little post on the internet zala computer.

I would like to say that we've finally gotten ourselves into a routine, but we haven't. Every day is a new adventure. Last Thursday we traveled to Sliven for our "medical exams" which consisted of no shots, no needles, no drawing of blood, but one, "simple" sample. I'll spare details, because I personally think it's really gross and embarrassing, but don't let your imaginations wander too far! :) We worked as usual on Friday, and we were both excited for the weekend.

We had planned a little outing to the nearest city, Kotel. We left on a microbus and wandered around for the day. We bought some peppers from a little pazaar on the street, and even witnessed a Bulgarian wedding celebration complete with the hora dance and a little band playing traditional Bulgarian music. There was a clarinet player attempting to be the violin in the band and he did a pretty good job! When we got home, Tony and I figured out that their song was in 7/8 time. Crazy! Kotel was a really fun little town, and we hope that our next place we live is similar to it. It has the same small town-ish feel that Medven has, but it's got a little more variety as far as stores, restaurants (it actually HAS restaurants), and things to do goes. We got home that night around 6:30.

Sunday we got up to begin our journey to church. We are assigned to a branch in Sliven, which is about an hour and a half away from here if you're driving a car. In order to catch the right buses to get there in time, we went out to the bus stop at 6:30am to board our ambulance that belongs to the orphanage that takes us to the bus station in Kotel. We then boarded a bus to Sliven, and arrived at the church building a little after 8:30...church starts at 10.

The branch was full of wonderfully nice people, who talked to me like I was a normal person, not some weird foreigner. I really liked Relief Society. It reminded me of young women's in Indiana. Just a few women sitting around the table, so tightly knit because they are the only few of their kind around. It felt "real" and genuine to me, and that's the first time in a while that I've felt that way about Relief Society. It was quite refreshing. I couldn't understand the lesson, but my heart was still touched by the faith of the women there. They love each other and you can tell they truly believe in this gospel.

After church we ate lunch with the sisters and elders serving in the branch. It was cool because one of the sister missionaries was a Bulgarian, who Tony baptized while on his mission here. It was nice to get to talk with some Americans and see some familiar sights.

We boarded our bus at 3:30 to go back to Kotel. One thing I don't understand about Bulgaria is that they keep selling tickets for the bus even if there are no seats left. We stood most of the basically 2 hour drive back. What was additionally frustrating is that Tony and I had purchased our tickets an hour before the bus arrived, and most of the people shoving their way in front of us were buying their ticket on the bus. We arrived at Kotel, safe and sound, ready to get off of the bus full of teenagers who thought we were German and who also didn't realize that we spoke/understood Bulgarian. Tony embarrassed them quite a bit when he started speaking to another lady on the bus! They kept trying to figure out what to say to us and trying to take pictures of us...it was weird. So, we're in Kotel, waiting for our little ambulance and what do you know? He forgets us! Again! Yay! We eventually got home at around 8:30 that night. So church from 6:30am-8:30pm....wow. Luckily, we're going to Russe this weekend to visit our friend Krassy and we won't have to ride the bus all over to get to church!

The kids are still wonderful, and we are starting to get to know them and determine goals we want to work on with them. I love being here, it's such a great experience for me.