October Its getting Cold

This blog is comprised of different blogs that I started and didnt finish over the past week. They are pretty interesting...

Someone asked me why I am counting down the days of my Peace Corps service. I am counting down the days to put my life in perspective. I am in Peace Corps but I still need to plan for my future and my life after my service. It has nothing to do with my life being terrible as a PCV. If I was having a terrible time in PC I would go home and wouldn’t think twice about it. To the contrary, I am having a good time despite the fact that I am living in a culture totally different from my own and have problems here and there. I don’t think an outsider (i.e. someone who has no experience as a PCV) will understand anything until they volunteer. Also, this particular person said something about tax payer’s dollars. Believe it or not I am a tax payer as a PCV and I paid taxes before joining the Peace Corps, so, if anything I feel like I am funding myself while I am here. Your money was probably spent on medical care for the older folks in the states or the war.

Ok now that that is out of the way... this is the post I wrote a couple days ago with a little extra at the bottom. ENJOY!

My close friend and I was just about to end our evening after a nice dinner of tradtional Bulgarian food when I remembered the armwrestling championship. We passed the hotel I knew they were staying at and I asked the receptionist if there were anymore matches. She informed me that everything was finished but that a party/ceremony was going on at a certain hotel near my apartment. We decided since it was only a 5 minute walk away that we would give it a chance. I also wanted to say goodbye to some of the women I met on the Brazillian team.

So we basically crashed the party! I think we got in unnoticed because everyone thought I was Brazillian and an armwrestler. I don’t think I have muscles nearly the size of the women or men that where their but I think they had a category for people with little to no muscles like me. The entire night people kept commenting on the strength of my "teammate", the brazillian women I met on Monday before I left for my Mid-service training. Her arm muscles were about the size of my head. Well actually she was like a giant muscle. I dont think she had any body fat. Being there made me really happy because I love International settings. I was reminded of H.S. when we had kids from all over the world working together for a common goal. People at this party were from Japan, Brazil, America, Canada, Russia, Jordan, Azerbijan, and Bulgaria of course. I had A LOT of fun hanging with the arm-wrestlers but unfortunately I did not have my camera with me to take pictures.

I wrote this today...
My B-day is this weekend and I will have a small gathering with a couple friends from VT. Ohh the politics of putting together a party in BG is driving me insane. I invited one friend and forgot/ didn’t want to invite another. This particular person heard about the gathering and texted me yesterday saying “Goodmorning, I hope you have a bright and sunny day. Happy Birthday. Thanks for the invitation...friend”. Urggh. This is the reason this person was not invited.

Last weekend I ran 21 miles. Wahoo!!! The Marathon is on Nov 4th. 2007 Athens, Greece.

Counting down the days to the Athens Marathon...

Crystal