Thursday, December 26, 2013

4 months in AUBG\Meeting the Bulgarian President

Despite studying in ELI  many unbelievable things occured during my surviving.

First of all, I was lucky but surprised to meet the actual President of Bulgaria. Accidentally did  I meet him. I was surprised by the fact that no huge-preparations were done. Nobody was obliged to wear uniform or follow only a particular path. The day seemed completely the same as the any other day. I did not even know the President was coming although there were some ads but I didn't pay any attention on them. Rosen Plevneliev gave a speech at the university, which I didn't manage to attend because I was making varenyky. In fact, I  was surprised how the atmosphere was so  relaxed and unpretentious. I faced with the President of Bulgaria on the  first floor of the campus I lived on. Basically, everything happened all of a sudden. I was giving back an iron when the  President came. Unbelievable it may seem. The President shook hand with the students, who were there at that moment. Someone said : "Guys, if you don't speak Bulgarian say "hi" in English". I did not expect to meet the President and I've been in shock for a long time since then. I'm really impressed there were no huge  preparations; nobody stopped the traffic or blocked the road ; in my country when the president even a mediocre politician  comes all roads are closed and the traffic is stopped. Surprise.

Secondly, we had a Christmas Bazzar in AUBG and we raised over 100 euro. The money will be spent on shoes and clothes for the local kids house. I'm happy being involved in charity and  volunteering. I spent the whole day selling food  albeit I had been tired couple days before but I enjoyed selling and serving.



The most interesting part of these 4 months was making  varenyky. To begin with, I had spent 3 hours cooking them and 5 mins cleaning the kitchen from dough-mess because  I was run out of time. Everybody liked varenyky. I was so happy to bring a piece of the ukrainian culture on campus!  Later, I was teaching how to make varenyky to Americans and not only to them. I must say we managed to make a huge number of varenyky for 1.5 h. Amazing! Varenyky a little bit  resemble dumplings but can be made with both sweet and salty inside.

Also, I was taught to do CPR.
These 4 months were significant with Ukrainian meetings. We  cooked  Ukrainian dishes only such as : borshch, mlynzi ( pancakes), salo with bread, crabstick salad and kiev's cotelettes. I'm happy that  Ukrainians are gathering on campus time to time. So  we spent hours  talking in Ukrainian. Also, the day before leaving we gathered again and ate salo. Although we were happy eating salo we also watched movies and on the 3rd movie we dropped off. It was so unusual but sweet to sleep in a coat sharing a bed with 3 other people. It was pointless to leave a room because most of us had to wake up at 7am.

 I passed my finals successfully so Step 3 is waiting for me. These 4 months were full of changes but full of obstacles. Step 3, here I go.

No comments:

Post a Comment