Gospel Music

Today we where listening to gospel music in the office. Ya, who would have thought people here in Eastern Europe listened and know about gospel music? I felt so inspired to hear it that I danced around the office. My co-worker, who is a believer, played this music because a friend of hers sent it to her. She started to have faith in God after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and survived. Listening to this music moved something inside it me. It made me think about home and going to church on Sunday. I miss African American churches. I think I mentioned this before but there are no churches like African American churches in the world. The only time I really feel free is when I am in church dancing and praising to gospel music. Wow!!! I can’t wait to go home in December simply to go to church and have the African American church experience. Ha!

Ahh about football… I did not join the team. I am way to busy at this point training for the Marathon in Athens. Actually, I am so busy that I barely have time for my social life and I am not sleeping or eating as I well as I should. I do see the “Coach” on occasion at the stadium and he always yells for me to join them for practice. My response is to tell him that I don’t have skills in soccer I mean football.

Stumping my feet to the sounds of home,
Crystal

ME, Myself, and Soccer (I mean Football)

Random Thoughts: I have one more year of PC service and I am trying to make plans for the future. Some people might say this is too early but I know its the perfect time for planning. I am not sure what I will do after PC but I know I want to stay abroad a little longer, at least a year, before returning to the United States.

Life in Bulgaria is treating me well. Actually the strangest thing happened to me today. My usual stadium where I jog was locked and closed so I went to another stadium that is about 20 minutes away walking. I got there changed into my running clothes and noticed two people staring at me. This is very typical for BG so I simply ignored them, however; not before taking in a brief discription. The female looked like the typical gay female jockette and the guy, I assumed, was her coach.

They continued to stare at me throughout my warmup and stretching. Just as I was about to hit the pavement running the coach yelled out to me in Bulgarian of course "Hello, are you going to run?". After I answered accordingly he preceded to ask me the typical questions I get in Bulgaria such as, "Where are you from?", "Are you a student?", "Where do you work?". I answered his questions as best as I could without giving too much information away about myself. I was about to say goodbye and proceed with my run, when he said "Let me introduce you to this girl. This is Illiyana (or something like that). She plays soccer for the VT soccer team." I shook the girl's hand and introduced myself. The coach asked me if I could play soccer and if I was interested in playing on the women's team in VT.

I had visions of myself finally playing soccer after so many years of wishing that I had joined the soccer team in high school instead of being class vice-president. I could see myself being a Bulgarian soccer super-star. I would win the MVP award and show everyone that Americans are good at soccer I mean football. With all these thoughts in my head I got really excited until I realized that I have never played soccer I mean football a day in my life. I really suck at the sport and would probably be the worst person on the team. I finally admitted to myself that the dream of playing soccer in High School was simply a dream. I confessed to the coach that I had no skills. He looked at me in shock and told the girl to kick a soccer ball my way. He made me kick the ball back and forth with the girl for about 10 minutes. After he saw my lack of skills he was still interested in training me for the team. Ha! Tomorrow I am meeting them after my BG lesson for more training. I know I suck but we will see how it goes tomorrow. I don't mind warming the benches if I make the team. Heck, I might get to travel around BG for free. Hehehehe. I know its only wishful thinking. I might not join the team at all. We'll see.

Dreaming of soccer,
Crystal

Living in a world with strange situations

They are so cute
Originally uploaded by latsyrc_81.

Nothing new has happened in Bulgaria. Well actually thats not true. A lot has been going on. Last weekend two Roma (gypsy) guys watched me run for about 30 minutes at the stadium down the block from my apartment. I started to get a little scared so I approached them. We had a 5 minute conversation about running and they ran the rest of my route with me for an hour more. The day before yesterday, a random person that I have seen around town and talked to maybe twice asked me if he could move into my apartment because he needed a place to stay. Weird. Of course I said "No". Yesterday, I ran into a friend of a friend. We went out to a disco and spent the entire time talking about his “ex-girlfriend”. I thought this guy was using “ex-girlfriend” as a hidden way of saying boyfriend until we ran into his ex-girlfriend at the disco. I don’t know if I was more thrown off by the fact he actually had an ex-girlfriend or by the fact he tried to use me to make her jealous. Maybe the “ex-girlfriend” was a man dressed in drag. Who knows?

Like I said A LOT has been going on…

Here are pictures of the International Fest in Tarnovo. I had a great time with these peeps.

Crystal