The Day of Thanks

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Is it because of the copious quantities of hella good food that come out of the kitchen? Maybe it’s because you get two days of work and it makes for one heck of a good Wednesday night out on the town. Is it because you get to see your family and friends from home, get to play a little tackle football in extremely cold weather and then go to a home town bar and have weird, almost scripted conversation. For me, I think it could be because I don’t have the stress of buying gifts for everyone I know. Don’t get me wrong, I love the holidays but always get stressed out with the present giving thing. Will they like it, What size should I get, Would they use it, Would I even use it, How much should I spend, Will they be able to return it? These are the types of questions that make the Christmas season stressful, and why I enjoy Thanksgiving so much. So with that said, Happy Thanksgiving to all my family, friends, co-workers, government officials, priests, the Cubs, bums, stray dogs, Oprah, Moe from Chicago, and to you.

Nice watch Jimmy-

As most of you know (if you don’t know, please refer back to 4^th grade), Thanksgiving is an American holiday thus is not celebrated here in Bulgaria. The week of Thanksgiving was pretty busy for me and my coworkers. One of the organizations I work for put together an International Youth Forum and took place this week. The Forum consisted of two other countries besides Bulgaria: Vigonza, Italy and Hajdusamson, Hungary. This was a very good forum that focused on youth action in civil societies. Its purpose was to allow the youth of the European Union an opportunity to build ideas from scratch and present them to other countries. Some of these ideas focused on a festival that encourages youth participation, environmental awareness amongst the youth, and sports programs to decrease crime and vandalism within the communities. This was good experience for me because it allowed me to hear good ideas straight from the mouths of the youth, not filtered by an adult. It was also entertaining to me to hear Italians, Hugarians and Bulgarians speak English to communicate their thoughts. There were two days of meetings and then culture trips to Veliko Turnovo and Pleven. I met some real cool people from both countries and hope to visit them in the future.

Some Pictures from the Forum.

The English speaking group-

The Bulgarians-

The whole group, I am on the bottom by the flags-

So, I was unable to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday and decided to join other volunteers near Starza Gora for the weekend. I left Belene a little before 11 on Friday. Just so you guys at home get a picture of what it is like to travel in Bulgaria, let me tell you the details of my trip. First off, by no means am I trying to say that Bulgaria is the worst country to travel in; I know there are countries that have worse transportation then Bulgaria. I am simply comparing Bulgarian travel to the States travel. I arrived in Starza Gora around 6 oclock. About a 7 hour, 300 km (186 miles) bus ride. All in all not a bad ride. The scariest part of the trip was going up and then back down the mountain. The road is two lanes and very curvey. The crafty Bulgarian drivers seemed as if they have watched Fast and the Furious way to many times. They were passing freight trucks around 180 degree bends. I almost had to change my underwear a couple of times because of this. I made it to Starza Gora safe and spent the rest of the night enjoying the big city life. For the sake of the people involved, I will not describe the events of the night.

Below is a picture of Bulgarian style bottle service on ice. (Top that SoBe)

The next morning, we headed to Anita's house for dinner. Anita is probalby my favorite person in the Peace Corps. She is a retired woman from Texas, who has lived in the Middle East for a time, and settled down in Florida. She has a daughter that was in the Peace Corps and she herself decided to try it out one day. She reminds me of my grandmother. The nicest person in the world. Any way, she was hosting about 18 other volunteers in her apartment. A lot of people and even more food. Some how Anita got her hands on 2 turkeys, so it was on like Donkey Kong. It was a fun time, and a good break from work. Below are some pictures.

Check that table spread. Paper plates and Plastic cups full of boxed wine.

Eat your heart out Martha. Mom, check out the carrots on the right, I had to use honey instead of maple syrup.

So with all of this, I would like to give my thanks: To my parents, brothers, family, friends, coworkers, ESPN, Fantasy Sports, peanut butter, SoBe, Moe's, Ditka, The Art of Pizza, Q-tips, Bake Rolls, Sports of Chicago, and you, the tax paying Americans that are financing all of this.

Again, I hope you all had a great hoilday. Take care and Stay Classy.

Chase