We're there...

*This is the same message as the "mass email", so if you recieved that there's no need to read on. Unless, of course, you'd like to read it again. It will be different once we get more pictures and videos taken.*

Wow, we're really here and it's been an adventure already. We arrived yesterday at around 2pm Bulgarian time (9 hours later than Mountain time) on time and to my surprise, with all of our luggage! I thought that they would lose our luggage for sure with all of the crazy connecting flights we had to go through. After we arrived and got our bags, we grabbed a taxi at the airport and headed for our hotel. Holy cow---Europeans drive like madmen! I couldn't bear looking out the front window for fear of crashing into the car ahead of us. It's a very different style out here, more of a "fend for yourself" driving attitude. Same with walking around town, you really have to be confident and kind of just step out in front of traffic. Don't worry, though, Tony and I are nowhere near as confident as the Bulgarians. We usually just find someone to get behind as they cross the street, haha :)

After paying our taxi driver waaaayyy too much money for the ride, we checked in to our hotel and went up to our room. All I can say about our room is... "hahahahaha!" There are two very narrow, very hard, very separate beds to sleep on. In the bathroom, the toilet and shower are basically the same thing with just a curtain separating the two. If someone takes a shower, the floor gets completely wet and drains through a drain in the middle of the bathroom. It's really funny! After sleeping from 6pm to about 2am (we were exhasuted!) we decided to start our day this morning...another fun adventure :).

Our hotel comes with breakfast, so at 7:30 this morning we went down to eat. This morning before breakfast I jokingly commented that I wasn't in the mood for breakfast consisting of hot dogs and cucumbers and that I hoped we had something else to eat. I totally called it! They brought out these pre-prepared plates with...HOT DOGS, cucumbers, tomatoes, a boiled egg, some cheese, and a big loaf of bread. Funny, huh? I tried everything but the hot dogs, and it was really tasty. These cheese was way yummy and I loved the bread. They also served us some herbal tea with breakfast, which is customary here. Herbal tea is something I'm going to have to learn to like. I think it tastes a lot like warm, watered-down kool-aid, but Tony likes it and everyone here seems pretty fond of it so I suppose I can learn to appreciate it. Like almost everything here, it will take some getting used to.

After breakfast, we began our voyage out to the city of Sofia. Yesterday we ventured out to find some food, and because we were so tired and so culture-shocked it wasn't very fun for us. One good part about yesterday was the yummy fruit we got from this adorable little fruit stand in town. I want to go to another one today, but I think we've got enough fruit to last us. I just really liked the little stand :). Today has been really fun! We actually looked at a map to see where we needed to go, which always helps, and decided to head toward the Alexander Nevski cathedral. Wow, that church is really cool. We ran into a church that we thought was the cathedral on the way, but it ended up being a smaller version of it. We walked in to both of them and witnessed some authentic Bugarian Orthodox worship complete with chanting, incense burning, and people constantly crossing themselves as they kissed pictures of different saints. It was a really interesting experience. Sitting in Alexander Nevski was actually an uplifting experience. Even though our beliefs are different from those of the church here, it was still very spiritual. I loved it!

Heading from one spiritual to the next, our second stop was at the LDS Mission Home. We actually just came from there. We talked with the mission president for a while about what branches we would be in, branch president's numbers, and all of that kind of stuff. It sure made me feel a lot better to talk with him about Bugaria. President Bennett gave us his GSM number in case we ever need him. It's comforting to know that more and more people are watching out for us around here. He told us that there is a senior missionary couple living in our Sliven branch, and so maybe we'll be able to get a ride and be on time to church! We were afraid that we would get there 30 minutes late every week because the bus only runs a couple times on Sunday from Medven.

It's funny for me here because after 10 months of learning Bulgarian from Tony...I can't understand a word. If you've ever seen the move The Best Two years, you know the part when Kirby Heyborne first arrives as a missionary and first speaks to a Dutchman and then he says "that's not the language they taught me in the MTC."? That's kind of what I feel like. Today, being more alert and awake, I can understand bits and pieces of things people say, but I'm going to have to work so hard! And the nodding the head the wrong way is confusing the heck out of me! For "no" they nod their head up and down like we would for "yes", and for yes, its like we would shake our heads back and forth for "no". AHH! I think I've confused a couple people and heaven knows they're confusing me. It's nuts! Even the missionaries do it! I don't know if I'll ever get used to that, but hopefully I can fake it well enough to get by.

We still have yet to find an internet cafe near our hotel, but President Bennett gave us the name of a girl who works in our hotel building so hopefully she can help us find our way around Sofia. If we find a cafe close by, you can expect a couple more emails from us before we leave for Medven. After we get there, it's going to be a different story. We'll have to find out where the cafes are in Kotel. But never fear! We'll let you know every step of the way.

Sunday is our last day in Sofia and we will take a bus to Kotel to meet the director of the orphanage. We'll be working at the orphanage starting on Monday. I'm so excited!!! We'll send as many updates as we can! We'll get some pictures up once we've actually taken some. We only have a couple right now.

Until next time...