"a friend came to visit..."

September has already started to fly by!
The weekend before last I and two other of my friends went back to my training site of Samokov for the annual Rock Festival, Rock in Rila (Rok v Rila) in the village of Beli Iskar just outside of Samokov. The three of us stayed saturday night with my host family. It was really great to be back "home" and to see my host family. It's weird the sense of comfort and home I feel when i go back there. I think part of it is that, that was really home for us and where we "grew up" in a sense here in Bulgaria, like it was our childhood. Anyway, saw the family out in the village, had lunch and then us girls walked up the street and hung out all afternoon and evening listening to rock, blues, classic rock, even a little "RESPECT" by some girls that could use some singing lessons. I always love going back there! Of course I was hounded more this time about how I need to visit my host brother who know lives in Colorado and how he has a car and whatnot....oh they're funny. I was there first girl volunteer out of 4 volunteers they have hosted, and i like to think that they broke the mold :)
That next week, one night all of us sitemates and Patty who lives in village Trud just outside of Plovdiv so we call her a sitemate, got together and tried our hands at making a peach pie from scratch. We made two pies and they were awesome for our first go at the art of pie making....though i guess there were 4 of us, soo....;)
I know my Gram and DD would be pleased to hear of me making and eating peach pie since every year when Gram makes her peach cobbler, I always refused because of not liking peaches...well times have a changed and I now love peaches, and bananas (esp. w/peanut butter), and I cook with vegetables that I never really cared for. Oh and the cherries, man, when cherries are in season here, which is the first of summer, WOW those are great! The tomatoes this season haven't been the best and I think that's from the really premature hot summer we got.

Anywho, enough rambling about food. This last weekend I went with my sitemates Emily and Kate to meet up with our friend Leslie in a town just north of here, about 4 hours by train, called Koprivshtitsa. I had been there before though in winter, because the man our school is named after was born and raised there so we visited his house where there is a monument of him out front. I knew in the winter that when that town was in full bloom it would be 10 times more beautiful. So, we met up and had stayed both nights, just takin it easy and having a relaxing weekend in the mountains. The two hotels we stayed at were beautiful and the people were great! Oh and I bought some homemade strawberry (яагоди - yagodi) jam....mmhmm, reminds me of the strawberries I would pick in my grandparents garden in Midwest City....those are definitely the best kind of strawberries...the small wild kind!

I returned sunday and turned right around monday and got on a bus to head an hour and a half south to the city of Haskovo to visit my friend Katie. She was one of my sitemates in Samokov during training and she and I went back to Samokov together last Christmas. I went down for this last minute visit because she had decided to go back to the states, for good! So, I went down yesterday morning to spend the last day and night she would spend in her city before she traveled with all of her stuff to Sofia today. I am really sad to see her go and will miss her a lot, though of course I'll be in touch with her, it's just that our training group is a group of people that know each other in a different way than some of our other friends we have here. You experience all of those first things in Bulgaria and language training together. But, I understand and respect her reasons for needing to go home, but will miss here being here. I did, however make out with some great stuff of hers from her apartment...my loot included: a Sheraton robe, Q-tips - actual q-tip brand!, a knife set, slippers, blank cd's, a huge pan, marker/highlighter/stickers for school, AND a printer!! maybe a few other little things, but you get the gist. The printer will be great for when I am teaching my own english classes and need something for the kids or myself. They are really tight and protective about printing/copying anything!

So, this week there is the huge national holiday, Unification Day on Sept. 6th which also happens to be Den na Plovdiv, Day of Plovdiv. Each city has they're own celebration day. There's going to be a half marathon in which some of my volunteer friends will be running in. That day should be fun yet exhausting.
Well, I'm down to 29 days till I am home I believe!!! So excited! School starts on the 17th so I'm just trying to think of last minute things I need to do before school starts up. It'll be great to see the kids again! Trying to meet with them over the summer didn't quit work out as easy as I had hoped. Though I am going to try and meet with some of them next week at a cafe or something and just catch up with them.
So, Thursday is the big day of celebration and then saturday or sunday I'll probably go with another Plovdiv volunteer to Trud where Patty lives to check out their village day celebration. Patty, though, will be visiting her boyfriend who is working in Egypt right now! After this coming weekend I may go back to Samokov if that is the time that they are going to be harvesting the potatoes (I forget when exactly they do that and I'd like to help out again this year) or go visit my friend Jelly in Blagoevgrad. Then the last weekend is hopefully going to be my second and last trip to the beach for the year and THEN it'll be time to pack up and head to Mid-Service Conference and then at 6am on the 4th, HOME!!!!!! :)
*sorry for the rambling and possibility of it not making sense ;)

(pics are rock festival (Grace, Katie and me), pie night, 3 pics from Koprivshtitsa and last pic I have of Katie and I this morning as we waited for her bus :(