Mountain, Extreme Way

Today two Ukrainians and me were hiking the mountain, where the Cross is. It was a long hard road out of hell. First part of the way  was the most difficult, because we climbed up and up, through rocks, stones, trees and animals' feces. But there were  good smells of needles, fresh air, no radiation, yay.

After 1 hour of climbing, we got to Cross, and there was fantastic and picturesque  view on Blago. We saw Main Building and our Skaptos from there... Then we met priest, and we had a small talk with him. Also, we asked him about shorter way to Blago, not through the forest....Soooooo, we decided to go "shorter" way...Oh, yeaaah.

 

It was a road, I even thought about hitchhiking :D  It was a reallllly exotic way.
Firstly, we met lots of goats there!!! Pictuuures! I felt in love with one of them....It was soo cute. Ahahah, they were laying on grass and were chewing grass ( all together )... They were soo cute.
Then we met a cute horse! And we took pictures with it too. It was really pretty, grey horse. We realized that instead of short way, we went long way, because we could see the whole Blago far away behind us.





And the most exotic moment, was gypsys' smth. like holiday, fest, music i dont know. Suddenly, we heard music, and it sounded like bagpipe or smth. And i could see a crowd of people, and some more people coming.... O__o.  We could see the buildings, that more looked like Jordania: white houses, heat, field...almost desert, strange music...uhmmm.



Being scared but still we decided to go almost to that mini-city...Houses were strange, strange part of a city...was it Bulgaria?  Then we saw real people, and i calmed down. Shop...photos...houses.

Then the houses more looked like a village, loud chicken and a really strange  duct, with falling water from it , sticked out of house. Later, was an awesome street, it looked like the US or GB !! Terraced houses, with small  flower gardens, fences, and there were trash-bin in front of each wicket!!! WOW. And the road there was better than some central roads in my country :\\\ .  This is how from" Jordanian" houses, we got to the US houses :DDD




And finally, we saw a 1.1 km  Kaufland sign...then Prego and HOME sweet home. It was quite short way you know, if we started from market-park side, and finished with in front of prego sign.

Two weeks, too impressed.

The orientation week  finished with a big cake and  picnic party. I was lucky to talk and to get acquainted with the President of the  University and his Wife, who also gave me a very useful advice. It was so nice of her. Surprisingly, I didn't recognize them at the first glance but i was pleased and surprised, when  discovered I was talking toTHEM! My American scarf attracts people.

The 2nd week was good. I became a coffee-addict...literally. I will drop off if I don't drink a large espresso without sugar. My typical break-snacks are coffee and kit-kat...too American. Thanks to AUBG we have a really good coffee-machine with a nice coffee, which makes coffee not only instant but also natural. As I wrote before, we have really fun lessons, which are just more American.

I went to acquapark, where water was quite cold. I go to the gym almost every day.  Such a pleasure finally to be able to exercise. I've been pretty busy these days, homework, tests, events, food......food....and food.

Here are some specials, events and impressions of mine:

• Floor party !! Suddenly, we had  ice-cream floor party, where we had looots of ice-cream ( of any kind) cola, juice and cookies. GOSH I was at the gym that day and ice-cream party made it special to me. Furthermore, I met a Ukrainian there.YES.So we spent 3 hours chatting. Finally found a Ukrainian soul out here.
• A door access broke down! The whole night with the beeeping sounds. This is Skapto life
• I attended the lecture which was about elitism-populism because I love history. I was curious about the way, the lecture was taught and given. After the lecture finished  a small-food-party occured ...again food but  nice cookies, blue cheese, which I've never tried before) and other appetizers  made it special.  I got acquainted with the Professor of History and we discussed the difference between Slavic languages and their history.  I really like Professors' attitude here because you can easily  come to any of them for an advice, asking a question or presenting an idea. They usually welcome to hear and to talk to students. There is no wall or upNdown feeling.
• Also, I signed up for a Cooking club. On wednesday we had a meeting  hence we will prepare some food  for its club's birthday.  I couldn't decide which process  I wanted to participate in as far as  there were lots of options but my choice was cooking brownies. What's interesting that I'm in one group with a Professor. Unusual to see your teachers in my case professors being involved in the same projects along with students. Hence on Monday we'll be cooking brownies in the professors' home. The fact we'll be there is very surprising to me as a student studying and living all my life in a different society.  Moreover, as far as I'm fond of GB suddenly I'm hearing a very strong British accent. Exactly, British. Unbelievable but we have a chef from Manchester! Still can't believe it. Where is Blagoevgrad and where is Manchester, where is American University and where is England. I've never thought that  I would ever meet a true british (especially not a student) in this university.
• We have sushi in the canteen. Isn't bad, huh?
• We had a Ukrainian Party where we sang Ukrainiansongs finishing with the Ukrainian Anthem. I was wearing the embroidery shirt. Hearing the Ukrainian language was so nice.
• We had a test which I passed! But I need a higher result so I will work on it.  By the way, tests are evaluated in percents ( the passing score\percent is 64).
• Today was a nice running across the city because a shop sign stated visa electron cards are accepted there. So I wanted to buy a sim-card and already signed up to get it when it figures out they don't accept paying by cards. It was a Sunday evening banks were closed (to exchange the currency) the sale assistant spoke neither English nor Russian  so he stared  at me without a piece of understanding what I was saying. So I was trying to explain everything in BulgarianoRussian.
• I took part in the community service because I've always dreamed about being a volunteer and helping others. Actually the territory was clean enough so in vain did we volunteer.

Also, I love doing my homework sitting on grass which doesn't appear here as smth. bad or awkward. The last time I was sitting on grass was in my hometown when suddenly someone started taking photos of my friend and me, while we were eating  ice-cream.

Anyway, living here is fun but hard. You can observe a plenty of students in lobbies studying. But it's impossible to study here because every day at the same time at least 3 events occure and almost every of them accompanied by food. America.

This is too pretty to be able to concentrate on  homework

   

To be continued...