Well, everybody's here, and we're having a great time. Mom sees Bulgaria in this great light. Everything's beautiful here, apparently. She doesn't see the garbage, or the old, crumbling blocks that I've been looking at more and more. Instead, we've been focusing on all the old, antique buildings Silistra has along and near the river. It's been awfully refreshing.
At the same time, spring is coming in force. The weather has stuck in the mid-sixites, trees and flowers are blossoming all over, and ant holes are popping up out of the cement along every sidewalk. The weather has been breezy, but just warm enough, and life has been good.
In the class visits, the results have been mixed. As much as the kids have been dying to see my family come, they were shy, nervous, and noisy when everybody did show up. Things got so bad in one of the eighth classes that Dad had to ask everybody to quiet down. After that, he saw how great telling them to be quiet can be in the short-term, but five minutes later they were just as loud. I gave them a stern talking-to today while the gang was relaxing at the hotel, and they were quiet throughout the hour. We'll see how long that lasts.
All in all, the week so far has been a great change of pace, just as anticipated. It's been fun ordering food for everybody, getting them to try all the Bulgarian stuff, and seeing their reactions to everything.
Above all though, it's great being around the family again. I could tell myself that I'm never really homesick in Bulgaria, but it wouldn't be true. Sometimes, on the harder days, the thought of home comes close and lingers longer than I'd like it to. Having my family here is a great reminder of all that I miss, and also all that I'll love returning to when I head back a year from now.
Life in Bulgaria is great, sometimes I wonder how I'll ever leave, but this week I'm reminded about how much I'll have to go back to. It will make this next year easier, and I'll value each day in Bulgaria, in this quirky, lovable, and great country that much more. Mushy, kind of non-sensical, I know. But true.
Also This is fun! After messing up and not closing the more recent comments sections, I've decided to leave them open until I fix up the anti-spamming stuff. This Tom/Anita/annoying person apparently has nothing better to do than post a bunch of messages every day to each of the comments sections below. So I propose that we find out how little a life he/she/it has. So far, we're at three days of silly, grammatically incorrect comments. Each day where I get new comments spam will only add to his/her/its record of lifelessness. Let's all wish him/her/it luck in the goal of being completely useless.
Posted by Rob at March 24, 2004 02:33 PM