My First Thoughts of Bulgaria.

I am here.
I am here.
I have been preparing since February to be where I am now.

I officially arrived in Bulgaria on Saturday and it has already been so interesting. I haven't had an internet connection at my room for a few days, so right now I'm in a restaurant using the wifi. Being without internet has also been a little hard, kind of ridiculous how much we rely on technology. Everyone, I mean everyone is not doing too well without internet at AUBG (my school).

Currently, I am in orientation week for freshmen and international students. A lot of the sessions I have gone to, I already know the material, so actually I've been skipping the ones that look like they are for only freshman. I have met so many intriguing people in the past few days, but I'm going to start from a few days back and then explain things as they are now.

I didn't sleep the night before my flight to help get over the jet lag when I arrived in Bulgaria, advice from my dad. I think it did help, because I am for the most part over the jet lag. My dad drove me to the Tulsa airport and we got there quite early, so he sat there and talked to me for some time and I enjoyed that, I wanted not to sleep from the flight from Tulsa to Chicago and sleep on my international flight, but it was pretty hard. I was so nervous about the trip that my mouth became really dry and so I kept drinking lots of water and the outcome of that was going to the bathroom often. I also had some pretty chapped lips for the past few days. I kept praying that God would quiet my nervous mind, because this is an out of this world experience. I also prayed multiple times for me to remember that I am an ambassador of Christ and that I would represent Him well in this totally different country.

I had a close connection in Chicago, but obviously I made it. I flew with Lufthansa, a german airline, and I really enjoyed the flight, good food, good movies (Fantastic Mr. Fox GRANT!), and they even had warm towels. The best part of the flight was who God blessed me with as my seat neighbors. To my left was a woman named Nora and to my right was a man named Phil, they were talkative (unlike most people you sit next to on a plane ride), and really just amazing people. Nora was flying into Kazakhstan to teach with her husband, who was already there, in an American school. Phil was flying into Istanbul to visit some friends. He was a college professor, but he and his wife left their tenure to become missionaries in South America, he served for 15 years doing that. He actually went to seminary in California and he was going on sabbatical around Europe for a month at the time that I met him. Nora grew up Catholic but actually came to Christ later in her life and we were talking about different religions and our own lives. Phil commented that on all his flights, this had never happened and we all believed that this was truly an act of our wonderful and loving God. I slept most of that flight, but God really calmed me with these people. Phil prayed for us when we landed and then I was in Frankfurt, Germany.

The people working in the airport in Germany were not too pleasant and I paid almost 5 American dollars for a bottle of sprite. The plastic they use in their bottles is quite thick, just a random tidbit. Before I even left out of Tulsa, I had a pretty painful knot in my back and the plane rides did NOT help, so I was in pretty excruciating pain lugging my backpack and laptop case around this huge airport, I felt as though I walked about a mile through that airport, at least. We took a bus out to the plane and on this plane I had a weird German sandwich with horseradish mayo or something, but the German coke tasted different than American coke. If you have ever been in a plane, then you know how cool the clouds look, instead of looking into the sky and just seeing white things, you see them 3D suspended in the air, I very much enjoyed looking at the clouds. While flying over Austria, we saw the Alps and they were magnificent, it truly is amazing how many details God had to think of when creating the world. He always seems to blow my mind with just how beautiful He made the earth.

Finally, I am now in the airport in Sofia, Bulgaria on Saturday and going through customs was not terrible at all. Blagoevgrad is about an hour and a half from Sofia, so I was in a van with a girl from Kazakhstan, 2 girls from the University of Maine, and 2 boys from Mongolia. Most of us were jet lagged and the roads were SO curvy, me and Denny (the girl from Kazakhstan) were having a hard time not throwing up, the fact that they drive much more aggressively in Europe didn't help either. Tailgating and passing whenever they want is completely normal, also they drive on the same side of the road as us, apparently only that island with the UK on it drives on the other side of the road really. Myself and Hannah (from Maine) talked a lot of the way and she is a sophomore and we became friends. When we got into Blagoevgrad we had to go get our i.d. cards in order to check into our rooms, so all of our pictures are of us being wonderfully unshowered. Eventually we get checked into our rooms and I'm in Skapto 2, which is more for upperclassman, and to our horror, no air conditioning. But, luckily, it's a lot cooler here than in Arkansas, but I definitely was wanting to rather be outside than inside.

On Sunday morning, I woke up and found a shop with bread and ate this strange bread with a cheese baked on top, all the labels were in Bulgarian, so I did not know what it was except for how it looked physically. I read 1 John chapter 3 and it was good, God keeps reminding me to be righteous and not fall into temptation. I also looked over my notes from 1 Peter from about a month ago and that really helped me as well to not worry about being "uncool" because even if I am persecuted, at least I have the name of Christ with me. This will not be easy, I know, and it is settling in more and more in fact. Then me and a some girls from Maine went to the Health Center and then to a pool. Now, everyone in Bulgaria, I mean EVERYONE wears a bikini in Bulgaria and all the men wear euro trunks, they also listen to Ja Rule, G Unit, and all those other people from middle school, kind of a blast from the past. That night was the Presidents Welcome Dinner and I met many other Americans doing exchange. Actually, I met a married couple studying at Missouri Southern and the guy grew up in Prarie Grove, PRARIE GROVE, that's about 30 minutes from where I grew up, crazy............ I also met a couple of girls from Belarus, who are very pretty and skinny, some people from Turkmenistan, the guys were quite funny. That night I slept well.

Now we are on to Monday, which was yesterday for me. We had some orientation things, I felt like a freshman, because they were explaining how college works, but I already know and as I said earlier, now I am skipping out on the things that seem like they are for freshmen. I met a few people from Russia, a girl named Redina from Bulgaria and Israel, she spent most of her life in Israel and actually she was supposed to enter the Israeli army at her age, because it is law for all Israeli citizens to be in the army, even women, I didn't know this law. I also met many people from the country Georgia. One thing that I like a lot about this school is that people from so many countries come here, I am really learning about the world. All of the students seem to be tri-lingual or know more, many know Russian, I think that it would be a very valuable language to study.

In Europe, the drinking age is not 21, so alcohol is very popular here and many people smoke. I have seen so many liquor stores and everything is quite cheap. There is no alcohol policies in the residence halls, actually reslife puts on parties with alcohol. My RA's door has a sticker on it that states that he is not an alcoholic, because alcoholics go to meetings. Most everyone drinks here, as far as I know, I'm the only one who does not. During orientation, there was a skit that the RA's did on how not to act in a classroom and two of them were legitimately making out on the stage in front of the administrative staff, that was a bit shocking to me. Things are so different here, everything is so much MORE casual than in America. I've been praying quite a bit actually and I actually could use some, because the influence of everyone here will be for me to not do things that are glorifying to God. I have faith that He will use the Holy Spirit to keep me accountable, but man, everything screams to not be righteous.

The food here is cheap and everything seems to have chicken in it. There is no such thing as refills and the the drink that you do buy, comes in a small portion. The oil that they use here or some kind of seasoning, makes the food have a very distinct taste, I'm not too sure if I like it, but I'm sure I will soon. The coke tastes the same here :)

I'm just praying that God will use me in this place, that I will learn so much through this experience of His character. I believe in the power of prayer and that is all I can desperately hold onto throughout the next few weeks. The rest of the students show up this weekend, please pray that I will find at least ONE person to have fellowship with. I am also hoping to find a missionary family in Blagoevgrad and meet with them. The church is of the Bulgarian Orthodox which is part of the 14 churches in the Orthodox church, I have learned this from a Georgian, who I had a short discussion of religion with already.

This experience has already shown me so much, please keep me in your prayers and keep reading my blog, I don't want to be talking to myself. I am off to advising right now, may God bless you as you start back to school and whatever else you may be doing, I still pray for you.