My new home

These are some pics of my new apartment on Ivan Vasov Street in Pleven. I love my new neighborhood- there are lots of families, I live across the street from a school and there are several nice shops and cafes within a minute or two from my front door. I live on the first floor (you can see my laundry drying in the bottom left side of the photo) and the apartment gets a lot of light during the day. Right now it's getting very cold in Pleven and I've been coming down with a cold but I'm staying indoors and turning my heating on (or at least trying to! haha). 

Weekend in Plovdiv

Plovdiv is the third largest town in Bulgaria and I think it is by far the prettiest one I have seen. It's an ancient city with Roman ruins, historic buildings in the old town, wide tree-lined boulevards and plenty of sidewalk cafes. I met up with five other ETAs and another one who lives in Plovdiv. He took us to an Armenian restaurant the first night we were there. I had never tried Armenian food before but it was delicious. Lots of garlic and lemon, and good desserts, too. We also went to some cool bars in town. Compared to Pleven the nightlife there is amazing. Coincidentally, there was a group of a couple hundred US Air Force officers in town who we met at a pizza place near the center. They invited us to their hotel party, which was fun but also strange and made me really appreciate what I've learned here so far.

(Me and fellow Fulbrighters Olivia and Hillary in Plovdiv.) I loved seeing my friends and meeting new ones, like a few other researchers and ETAs who arrived after we left Bansko. It's going to be a great year if we keep it up with these reunions! I miss everyone now that I'm back in Pleven but it's also refreshing to get back into the school week and do my own thing here. Tomorrow morning I start Bulgarian lessons at the Medical University with a tutor so I'm pretty stoked to learn how to say some basic things. I know I won't become fluent but I'll try to learn as much as I can. Two weekends away is my trip to Warsaw to visit aunt Zofia and my cousin Andrej! I can't wait to see them. It's been a year and a half since I visited while studying abroad and will be my third trip to Warsaw. So much to look forward to in the coming weeks. :)

Minor Annoyances

I finally have a washing machine! Only problem is, I don't know how to use it. Tomorrow I'm picking up the instruction manual from whoever has it, though, so for the first time since I've been here I will be able to do my own laundry! The past month or so my fellow teachers have been helping me out with this, doing my laundry for me. But I really want to be able to do it myself like a grown-up so I'm really happy it's finally here.

In other news, the Fulbright Commission has informed me that there is a Regional ETA Conference in Krakow in November, and I'm super psyched to go! Literally two days before finding out about this I had booked a flight to Warsaw for a long weekend at the end of October. Needless to say I am a little miffed about making two trips to Poland in a month. BUT there may be the possibility of changing my original flight and getting Fulbright to cover part of it... I'm waiting to hear back on that. But that would be freaking fantastic. I could be in Poland for about 9 days and both visit the family in Warsaw and attend the conference in Krakow. Fingers crossed on that one.

To finish this whiny little post, my AC adapter for my laptop decided to stop working completely last night. So I had to go buy a new one. The same thing happened to another Fulbrighter here so I'm wondering if it has something to do with the different voltage. Or maybe I just have bad luck. Anyways, so far this week is feeling like a drag because of these little upsets, but I do have the weekend to look forward to: I'm meeting 6 other Fulbrighters in Plovdiv for a mini-break! I'm really excited to see everyone. I haven't seen most of them for over a month so it'll be so great to catch up on things. :)