Alaskan Bulgarian

And Finally, Last Weekend

Hmmm. I have to stop this strung out storytelling. It gets dull after awhile. I mean, the past is passed, right? Anyway, to close things out, we stayed at the Sheraton in Sofia for a night last weekend in order to get the family out of the country in a more orderly and peacable fashion than taking an all-night bus the night before the flight to London. Great, big monolithic place, the Sofia Sheraton. The rooms were great (one cockroach in the bathroom had to be removed. You just can't help it here I suppose), and the location had everything we needed when the day turned unbearably rainy. The center of town is always a really nice place to be.

Saturday saw a trip to the Natural History Museum, reconfirming my belief that natural history museums in general are creepy houses of death. It was nice going in there and seeing what Bulgaria had on hand, but five floors of dead animals can get a bit overwhelming. I don't care how many of them may have died of natural causes, when I look at animal behind glass all I can think of is that scene in the original Planet of the Apes when Charleton Heston sees his colleague in a display case. Seeing Bulgaria's prize-winning bear really did it. He had a medal the hunter had won in dangling from his paw. After I saw that, I suppose I was pretty much ready to go.

We went from the museum back to the hotel, where we grabbed our stuff and checked out. We luckily managed to grab an O.K. taxi in the pouring rain and I had a great conversation with the driver about everything from my family's great time in Bulgaria to my love of the Lakers. One expensive lunch at the airport later and the family was through the security check and I was back in a taxi toward the center.

That night I went to Murphy's with a group of B-12s, the veteran volunteers. They were in town for their completion of service conference, which is happening this week even though the group won't be leaving until late June or July. The pub was packed full of people rooting for the French in the big England-France rugby game. One guy was dressed in a pink shirt, red, white and blue suspenders, and a beret. He spent most of his stime standing behind me and cheering as the French won what turned out to be a reasonably close game. After the fans had all left, we volunteers spent our time writing funny things down on the free advertising postcards floating around the bar before calling it a night.

Sunday morning was basketball time with various government-working Americans and Bulgarians affliated with PC or the embassy. For some reason, most the Americans coming to Bulgaria seem to be giants. The average height in a few of the games was literally around 6'4. I was the tallest, but that only meant I got banged around more when I went anywhere near the paint. Still had my share of blocks and rebounds though, and I even scored when the mood hit me right. About seven full court games to eleven later, we all left exhausted and I took a shower back at Peace Corps headquarters. I hauled my tired legs to get to the bus station before the three o'clock bus left and made it just in time. A relaxing and peaceful trip home followed, and the long week ended.

So, that's that. More topical news coming tomorrow. I have to write a test for my eleventh graders now. It may well be a long night.