Armin in NYC!!

So I went to NYC on friday to go and see Armin van Buuren at Pacha. We left Pittsburgh around 2pm after waiting for people to get organized, etc. There were 4 guys and one girl, Con, who we picked up in Harrisburg. En route to NYC it seemed like we were destined never to get there, it snowed, it rained, it poured, and there were many miles of non-working one lane road works. We got to NYC without too much hassle, but from the Lincoln tunnel in, it was one lost hell. The tunnel was crazy with about 5 lanes of traffic going down to two. After the 20 min crawl in the tunnel, we got really lost because it was pouring and hard to see anything. At one point we were in the middle of an intersection when the light was green for the other direction (the traffic was at a standstill, not dangerous, just crazy). We got more and more lost until Con remembered that she had GPS on her phone. It was our savior. We followed the directions it gave us and we ended up at our destination in queens around 10:30, 30 min after the show had started. We quickly all went to the bathroom, got changed, and followed john's friend to the subway station. We got into downtown to find that it was raining harder, fantastic. We stood under shelter for a little bit waiting for a bus to take us near the club. We finally got there and I found that they were in no mood to move quickly, even though we were getting wetter by the minute. We got to the club around 11:50pm, hoping that Armin wasn't starting at midnight.
I got in the line and managed to huddle under a someone's umbrella while the line moved. I got to the front and showed my ID. He said it was no good, I panicked a little. He took me to someone else and they said I was fine, I just couldn't drink, duh. He told the bouncer not to give me a wrist band, but the bouncer seemed a little tipsy himself, slightly slurring that he didn't really care and decided to give me a wristband anyway.
One of the guys, Sanders (or Jason), had brought a camera, but decided to leave it behind because they might take it away and charge him to store it. Of course, they didn't care at all, so we lost out. Thanks to YouTube, though, all is not lost. I did take a few pictures with my phone, which I know sounds dumb, but I actually took some really good ones and one that is inexplicable. It just came out really well and I can't figure out how, but it's fantastic.
Anyway, we finally made it in the club and it was good. It was huge in there and plenty of people. John went to the bathroom and we lost him so we went downstairs to the dancefloor. Everyone else decided to go check their coats downstairs (the first of 4 floors) but I decided to get as close to the DJ (DJ Remy at the time) and stay there until Armin came out. I didn't want to lose my spot or miss Armin, so I just put my coat on the DJ booth, and there it stayed for the entire evening, safe and sound in plain view.
Remy played until about 1:30am and then, finally, Armin came out. Now, it was crowded before, but as soon as people saw him coming out it went crazy. I have never been in contact with that many people at the same time. I had to time my jumping up and down with the people around me because that was the only option I had. It was amazing, the #1 DJ in the world, playing in the best Superclub in the country, with the best sound system (115 Db noise ratio). I went crazy and just kept going. We lost each other quite a few times, but managed to find each other through a random slew of "where r u?" text messages and pure chance.
The population was very diverse. It ranged from middle aged professionals to crazy E fiends dancing like their life depended on it (I was actually asked twice if I wanted to buy some, which I politely declined). Armin loved every minute of it and had a huge smile on his face the entire time. He played a lot of stuff I didn't recognize and a few that I did, but it was great! Eventually the rest of the group tired out, but I refused to sit down and rest (despite my lower back being really sore). By 6am the crowd was mostly gone, although the dancefloor was still busy. Armin finally finished, but the crowd managed to coax him into playing a few more songs. You could tell that he didn't want to stop, but it was getting early. He finally stopped at 6:50am after many cheers and attempts to keep it going. When we went outside (through one of the seemingly infinite fire exit doors) it was light.
We walked the 7-8 blocks to the subway station, which I regretted when I found out how sore my feet were. We were going to swipe our cards when a nice new yorker (they do exist!) pointed out that we needed to be on the other side. We went to the other side and John tried to find a bathroom so I tried to figure out which stop we were going to. In about 30 seconds I heard my name and saw the rest of the group in the subway car waiting for me. I tried to swipe my card and get on before the doors closed, but my card didn't work so I hopped the gate without anyone seeing and got to the car, but the doors were closed. I tried to pull them open, but that wasn't happening. Then I watched the train leave like a kindergarten kid watches his parents leave him on his first day of school. I just sat and waited for the next train and found that they had gotten off at the next stop and waited for me. We got back and after getting breakfast (my first meal in 15hrs) and walking through queens in the freezing cold we left NYC. We got lost a few times before we actually made it out and finally got home around 5pm. Then Teddy from downstairs had his 21st birthday party last night and we had a keg of rolling rock, a welcome change.
I'm coming home on monday the 19th, I changed it last night, luckily it didn't cost anything. I also finally applied for the Southwest Credit card. It has an annual fee, but it's worth the points I'm going to earn w/ it, hopefully going to Hawaii for spring break. I'm thinking that I want to go back to Pacha w/ Carolyn on the 22nd to see Oakenfold, hopefully she'll be up for it.
On a more somber note, I got rejected for the internship with Aldi, depressing, but from what I've heard, not as depressing as the internship itself. Oh well, you can see how much I care by the amount of space I've devoted to talking about it, haha.
I actually have work to do today, which is probably why I decided to sit and write this whole thing out to kill time.

Wow, it's been awhile

So my last post was on Valentine's day, I guess it's about time to put up another entry. I had a really rough summer, but I learned a lot and am really glad that I did it. Now to the present and future.
I just found out that I am going to be accepted into a program to volunteer for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing!!! Crazy, I know. I got early confirmation from the director because I found a "cheap" ticket at $1400 and it is going to expire soon. The price of the whole thing is going to be about $4000, which is a lot, but this is the experience of a lifetime and I know it's going to be crazy! I really hope I get to watch men's water polo and swimming. Also excited to travel. I'll get to do my own thing for about 4-5 days out of the 14 day period. I just downloaded the chinese learning programs and I'm glad I have time because this doesn't look easy. I can barely pronounce the sounds, once again, it's gonna be really fun!!
The director actually let me know early also because of my expansive knowledge skills, haha. So hopefully when I get there I will speak German, a little Dutch, a little Afrikaans, some Bulgarian, and basic Chinese all in addition to English.
I have my first big meeting for the SHRM thing today, hopefully people will show up and we can the the show on the road. I'm going to try and get an agenda together of what we need to do before I leave in two hours.
I'm going back to Aldi tonight even though I went yesterday because I was in a big rush yesterday and Mark (from SIB) said he could take me. Now I'm going to take a really good look at everything and might buy that camera if they have it (the computer is tempting as well). I have the dinner for Aldi tomorrow night and then the interview on Friday morning. Not too nervous, especially seeing that I've already had a mock interview with the lady from Aldi.
Don't know how much of polo practice I'm going to be able to make, but I really want to go and see if they're up to anything tonight (considering it's halloween). I want to go out tonight and rock my Napoleon outfit once again. I've been wearing the Vote for Pedro T Shirt today, and it seems like that's all people need to get the idea.
I love how things are just working at this point and falling into place. I just hope my ticket is available tomorrow and stays that way.
I am definitely living life to the fullest considering the Michigan game, Cancun, the Penn State game, Skydiving, buying Carolyn a signed Led Zeppelin III album, and organizing to go to China have all happened in the past month and a half.
I am also throwing around the idea of traveling somewhere (maybe S.E. Asia) with dad. Mom said he's as crazy as me and I guess I can't really go alone. It would definitely be a good time and we'd come up with some crazy ideas and stories. I just have to get dad into shape. I don't know when it would happen, but maybe after I graduate (which is Dec 13th, 2008!).
So all is well and I hope to be busy and excited enough to keep this thing going for quite a while!

Ugh

Well, I'm finally hitting that wall i've been running at for a while. I just don't feel like doing anything right now. The snowday yesterday didn't help much either. I just found out that the guy i'm supposed to retain this suite with doesn't have guaranteed housing, so after panicking about trying to find people so that I can stay here, it was never an issue because I can't stay here anyway. It's such a stupid system. Now I have to go and look for an apartment, that should be fun. I also have to do these spreadsheets for Qlique, which aren't bad, it's just a little tedious. Sklyer still hasn't called me back about the internship. I need to know things so that I can book my flights home, etc. It's weird how quickly things can change. I know that everything will turn out well soon, it's just that right now i don't feel like dealing with all of it right now.
Growing up sucks

Back from work

As promised, i'm writing after i got back from work. Worked kind of sucked today because we only had 2 people instead of the normal 4. So justin and i had to work twice as much.
I have to turn in my 5 pg paper today, hopefully i did a good enough job. I sent it to be reviewed, but she only reviews the outlines, so she didn't have time to look over my paper. I can't send her an outline because i didn't make one. I just wrote the paper. Oh well, we'll have to see what happens. I'm not feeling as bad about all this work that i'm going to have to be doing, even though i have a ton of stuff to do when i get back from class today at 6pm. I have to revise my german paper, do my german hw, i have a hw, extra crdit, and test in financial accounting all tomorrow, and a an exam in oragnizational behavior (one of 3, the only thing our grade is based on). So tomorrow should be a barrel of monkeys. thursday i have a test in ethics and probably some reading to do. writing down all the stuff i have to do is good because i can see how much i have to get done. I didn't really realize how much i have to do for tom until i wrote it all out. I also have to try and find more people for the Qlique thing before friday. I have two people confirmed (i think) and i need a few more. I sent out facebook messages, but they hardly ever work, even if the person is interested, it sucks. It's amazing that no matter what i do, it seems like they're doing a favor for me, even if they get $60 for me asking them to do it. People that i recruited already made $30 so far, and are going to make another $50 on friday, you do the math. I know i'm going to get something good out of this. It's nice to be able to get paid in two different ways at the same time (lifeguarding and qlique). I would like to get a little more for the recruiting, but i'd rather leave it to later to see how well i actually did. I hate asking because i feel so greedy, but it is warranted to ask for a little more, i guess. We'll have to see how it turns out. If i can manage all this stuff that i have lined up for the near future, i should be in really good shape in a few different areas. Let's hope i can handle being spread across all these different tasks.

Here it comes

So I haven't been posting at all lately because i haven't really had anything to write about. Now that i'm working in 20 and need to leave soon, i have the sudden urge to write. I got my internship w/ college works painting for the summer, so that's going to be fun (i hope). Right now i'm still helping Qlique by recruiting more specific people. I get $5 a person, and then the people i recruit get $10 initially, and then $50 for a second session. It's kinda crappy that I get paid $5 to pretty much give someone $60, but I get more out of it surprisingly. They are only part of the process for a week or two, where as i'm on a long term basis. So i would rather get paid a little and eventually be the manager of the entire campus than get paid more for a short period of time. unfortunately, the internship and possibly being the manager of the campus might happen at the same time, so it's going to be fun trying to balance those two, water polo, and 6 classes. I know that school is the most important, so i'll have to keep that in mind. I'll write some more when i get back from work, gotta go!

All is well

This is weird writing a blog about just normal things now. I don't have any crazy travel stories or adventures to write about. Everything is going well over here. I got my Polk audio system for christmas and I love it. I'm currently lying in bed listening to it while I'm typing. I also got the perfect companion for this system by getting an external hard drive. I got an 80GB one at first, but it encrypted everything and my itunes, etc. couldn't see it. Then I synced it to my comp after i had put everything onto the drive and deleted it from my comp. It almost deleted all my pictures and music forever! Thank god i had put my most important photos on my mp3 player. I returned that one and got a much bulkier, but reliable and simple, 160GB hard drive. Now I will never have to worry about losing space again. I'm just downloading everything i've wanted and the speed is really good over the wireless network in the house.
I've been eating like a king lately, we had fondue last night, I just had croissants for breakfast and all the normal kind of dinners for christmas before that. I've been to jarryd's a lot and I have fun over there. Then again, jarryd's house is the place to be after christmas, lol. I'm going to go paint balling with him and some other people on friday, should be fun. Everythig is going well between carolyn and I, we've been enjoying ourselves while working through the list of things each of us has to do before we go back to school.
I am very happy with the way that everything is going now and I couldn't ask for more. I'm off to bouquet gardens on tuesday, funny, the fact that i'm staying there is the only reason i'm not dreading going back to pitt. Everyone's busy helping with preparations for indonesian dinner tonight, 15 people need a lot of food. I think we're going to go out for dinner for new years and then i'm gonna have a little something here at home. I won't get plastered, but i wouldn't mind enjoying myself with my friends before it's off to pitt once again.

Going home

So this is my last entry in bulgaria. It seems like my flight will be leaving on schedule and everything should work out. I'm sad that i'm leaving here, i really enjoyed it. It's going to be hard to leave and i know i'm going to miss everything and everyone. if i could spend more time here, i definitely would. Not much to say about this, don't want to dwell on it too much. I'll be home in a few hours!

Done!

Finished, klar, finito, the end. I'm done with everything! I just finished my finals and all the other paperwork i had to do. I have nothing else to do but pack and be on my way! We have dinner at 4:30 and then we're "hosting" a party in our suite tonight. It should be a lot of fun. I have had such a great time here and it's going to be hard to leave, but at the same time, I'm very ready to go home. I'm going to find a book to read on the plane tomorrow and pick up the thank you letter for donating my books to the library. My science prof was so impressed at how good i was at his class that he tried to persuade me to have a minor and science when i gave him my final. Tomorrow is going to be a relaxed day filled with packing and goodbyes. It's both a wonderful and terrible thing.

Good and bad news

Last night was great. I came back to my room to find that I had finally got my room assignment. I was convinced that they were just going to stick me in towers, but to my wonderful surprise, I have been put into bouquet gardens! These are by far the best dorms on campus. It's 4 bedroom apartment style room with a kitchen that includes a stove, fridge, and microwave. I get my own room to sleep in and I can make my own food. It is also located right in between the two buildings that all of my classes are in. It is incredibly hard to get into these apartments and I cannot even fathom how lucky I am. Dad also started looking into the internship for Deloitte, so I can start preparing for something.
The bad news is that the fog is back and in full force. I can barely see across the courtyard it's so thick. I really hope it clears for my flight, otherwise i don't know what I'll do. Rasika left to go home last night, it's weird now that he's gone, the room feels more empty. I have written 5 pages of my paper, only 10 more to go. It shouldn't be too hard, I just have to do it.

Nearing the End

So Rasika is leaving tomorrow night, even though technically it is later today. Everything is sort of winding down as everyone is studying for finals and having dinners together before we all disperse. I managed to break my headphones a little more today, so i decided to tape them severely, they should hold on for a good while longer. My favorite socks have also worn through pretty much, it's a shame that they're the thinnest pair, would've been better it they made any difference in the weight of my luggage. I don't think there is going to be a definite problem with my flight, they have left on time the last three days. I managed to get a hold of Carolyn today and we chatted in amongst our studying. I am going to be home for such a short period of time that I'm planning things out a few days before I leave. I still don't know where I'm living next semester, and I still continue to get offers for apartments, I'm getting sick of telling all these people no. I realized that I really do miss home now because I feel that I haven't been talking to people from home enough. Sometimes I get anxious when I don't talk to carolyn for a while. There's no real big reason, probably just that I'm really far away and want to talk to someone from home. I learned today that the Internship Cafe that I signed up for in January might have a Deliotte representative there, hopefully it's the lady that dad has worked with. I have this paper to finish writing, which is due on monday, not tuesday; and then german on monday and science on tuesday. I have to get a bunch of signatures so that i can order a transcript and send it to pitt. I got a car to drive me to the airport at 2am. The school is organizing it, so i have faith in the fact that it will show up, otherwise i'm screwed. That's it for now.

Somewhat good news

I looked up the flights this morning and all of them left of time, so maybe there is hope yet. I am currently cleaning up my computer because I have something like 2.6 GB of space on my computer. I am compressing my files and it continues to find multiple copies of the same trojan. The numbers are staggering, I wonder why it's only finding them while I compress the files. Hopefully this will help my computer out. I have begun studying for various finals. I have marketing on thurs and the guide that he gave us is all over the place. I have to constantly flip back and forth through the book to find things. I also have to start writing this massive 15 page paper that our prof assigned us last thursday that's due on tuesday. We might revolt in class today. Only today and tomorrow and class is over!

The Final Fling

So my trip started off well. I went straight from class to the bus station and caught the train to Belgrade. I decided to get a sleeper car because it was heated and I didn't want to run into the troubles we had to Athens. The train left on time and arrived on time, apparently an incredible event, the train is usually at least 3-4 hrs late. I arrived in Belgrade around 6:45am and walked around and took some pictures. After figuring out that I was in a different time zone, I went to the bus station to see when I could go to Sarajevo. There were a few buses, but for me it was either 10am or 10pm. I decided to take the 10am bus, which left in 10 min. I had to withdraw money because I forgot to change me leva into euros. I caught the bus, satisfied with my 3hrs in Belgrade. The scenery on the way to Sarajevo was amazing. I made it to Sarajevo around 5:30pm and tried to make my way to the center of town. First i had to struggle with my lack of exchangable currency again, and eventually found an ATM. Then i tried to find my way to the center. There are 2 bus stations in Sarajevo, one very close to the center, and one about 12km from the city. I unknowingly was at the far one. After asking people for directions i finally gave in and took a taxi that was parked on the sidewalk. I made it into the center and found a hostile for 10 euro. Then I sat around and talked to a Finnish and a French guy, who I ended up going to the clubs with. We had our fun and came back around 3am. The craziest thing happened. There was a japanese guys in our hostile who looked strangely familiar. I didn't want to be racist and just assume that they all look that same (which i don't), so i asked him whether he had been to Ohrid. Turns out that he's the same guy that I met on the bus to Ohrid. What a small world. The next day I walked around the city and took pictures and bought a souvenir for Henk. Then I went to the bus station to wait for the bus to Podgorica so that I could go to Kotor. I was sitting down and reading my book when a couple asked me where I was going. I said Podgorica and they said that they were driving there and that i could go with them for the same price as the bus. I decided to go with them. The ride was fine, but the road to the border was absolutely terrifying. It randomly went from paved to unpaved, teetering on the edge of a cliff, barely wide enough for 2 cars. It went on forever and I was convinced that these people were going to kick me out and leave me for dead. Eventually we made it to the border and went through a national park in Montenegro. Even though it was dark, I was awestruck. It was like driving through solid limestone. We must have gone through at least 25 tunnels of varying length. The silhouette of the mountains were amazing. One the way down the weather turned terrible. The fog was so thick that we could barely see the white line in the middle of the road. I thought we were going to have to pull over and wait. We made it through the fog and rain and more fog and eventually made it to podgorica around 10pm. I decided to take the 10:45 bus to kotor and got there around 1am. I had no intention of sleeping anywhere, so I decided to stay awake all night and walk around the city until day broke and then head off somewhere else. Kotor is truly beautiful. A small walled city made almost entirely out of limestone. The whole city is paved in it and the buildings range from the 6-19th century. I really liked it there and after day broke I went up the mountain to get a good view and some exercise. I then headed back to Podgorica to make my way back home. I left Kotor around 9am and got to podgorica around 11. I went to pay for a ticket too nis, serbia, only to find that I had lost my ATM card. needless to say i was thrown into a flat panic. I was freaking out because i only had leva and they didn't exchange it here. I told one taxi driver who really helped me out by trying to find someone on the "black market" who exchanged leva. He ended up exchanging euro with me and i exchanged 120 leva for 50 euro. A 10 euro loss for me, but better than any other option. he also arranged for me to take a direct bus to sofia through a private company that left at midnight from a hotel parking lot. I was grateful, but suspicious of how shady it was. Now I had to wait around and I had almost 12 hrs before the bus left. I sat in the hotel and finished my 400 pg book i had received on thursday afternoon. If this bus didn't show up in its shady circumstances, i would be screwed, so i decided to take the indirect bus to nis at 8:15pm. I slept the entire 10hr trip. Strangely enough, there was no border check b/w montenegro and serbia. I made it to nis around 8am and the next bus to sofia left at 5pm. I found the train station and there was a train leaving at 1:10, so i did that. I walked around the city to kill time and finally caught the train, which was almost 2 hrs late. The train back was insane. Everyone was smuggling something. The train was packed full at the border, even the hallway was stuffed full. I saw at least 3000 packs of cigarettes being smuggled in different ways. People hiding them in panels, around their waists, legs, everywhere. It was a good weekend and I probably left some stuff out, but i've written this entry with many distractions, the biggest one being the almost certain cancellation of my flight next week due to fog. It makes it worse that there is only one flight to philly from frankfurt each day, so it's going to be tons of fun getting back. so a warning to those picking me up, I might not be able to get home at the appropriate time, or even day. I might even have to fly to somewhere else, i don't know. I'm hoping for the best right now, and we'll just have to wait and see.

Christmas Already?

Yesterday our german class was constantly interrupted by a concert going on outside and some guy yelling on a microphone. After class Kiro and I went to check it out and it turned out to be a christmas concert of some kind, on the 4th of December! The performances by kids and others alike were actually quite good, evenif Santa did arrive in a police car along with snow white. There was a dance team of girls dancing to the tokyo drift song, and they were good. The funny thing though was that there was a little girl of maybe 5 dancing with them. Afterwards there were fireworks which could be seen from almost anywhere in the city. I really hope this isn't going to continue until I leave. New years eve in bulgaria is going to be nuts this year with them joining the EU, and from what Kiro tells me, it's crazy to begin with. Everyone has fireworks and the whole country is like a war zone w/ all of them going off. God knows what this year will be like. It's a shame I'm going to miss it. I got my watch fixed and now it's solid as a rock, much better than before. I am going to be traveling alone again this weekend because I'm the only one that can leave on wed. I'm planning to go around serbia for a little, then to Sarajevo in bosnia, and then spend as much time in montenegro as possible. Bond my not have been shot there, but I can see why they wanted ppl to think it was. The landscapes look incredible, so I'm going to try and make it as close to the coast as i can. I will probably not be going to Belgrade because it's too far north and has been destroyed 40 times in 2300 years. I'm not sure what will happen on this particular trip, but it should be a blast.

Empty Weekend

After giving blood and the Sg party, both which were fun and fulfilling, I realized on friday that this is the first weekend that I'm not doing anything. It's been thanksgiving, macedonia, and everything else that I've been up to. I was going to go to Sofia for water polo, but decided to get a really good nights sleep and swim at the local pool instead. I have a really tough workout that is related to water polo training, so I think I'll give it a try. The fact that I'm not really doing anything is also magnified by the fact that a lot of people are not here. They either went home or are traveling (to places i've already been). I also thought about the fact that I still haven't been to the Rila monastery, so I have to do that before I go. I don't think I'll be able to do it this weekend because I need two other people and a Bulgarian so that we can make a deal with a taxi driver and split the fare. I definitely cannot do it next weekend because I'm pretty sure I'm going to Serbia and hopefully Montenegro. I watched the new Bond movie after dad suggested it because it's supposed to be set in Montenegro. I liked the movie and the scenery, but was disappointed when I found out that it was filmed in Italy and the Czech republic. Oh well, just means I'm going to have to go to the Czech republic. I was talking to Carolyn on Skype last night and amazingly there was barely any delay. Unfortunately I had to run out and get my pizza because they get mad when you make them wait, and when I started talking to her again, the fire alarm went off in her building! I have finally depleted all the money from my Bulgarian bank account. I literally have nothing left in my wallet. I get charged a flat fee of $3.50 for using my american Visa, so I've guessed that i'll need about 300 leva for the rest of my time here. I'll be going down to the ATM soon, I really hope the machine doesn't just give me three hundreds because I would have a really hard time breaking them. As I near the end of my stay here in Bulgaria, I'm really happy that I'm going to be back home and see the family and friends. But I also am sad that I'm leaving, because I really like my friends here, and I know it's going to be hard to see them again. They don't want me to leave either, and everyone that asks how long I'm staying cringes when I say that I'm leaving soon, and they try and convince me to stay. It's really odd, but people here are just so much easier to befriend than people back at pittsburgh. All the people that I hung out with last year don't talk to me that much anymore, and I really don't mind that they don't. My challenge next semester is going to be finding friends as wholesome as the ones that I have made here. Luckily Oksana and John will be coming back to pitt, so that's a good start. I feel like I'll be in this distant situation when I come back home, but with all my friends here because most of them are staying. I was surprised to find out that only 15 students are here for only one semester, and I know every single one of them. We have to do a ridiculous amount of stuff before we leave. We have to collect something like 6 separate signatures, write a letter to the guy who sponsors the scholarship, turn in our ID cards (which I really want to keep), and complete an exit survey. I really don't know why we have to do all this stuff, but I guess I don't have much choice.
Well, I'm tired of typing here sitting in my underwear. I'm going to get dressed and see if I can get the money, eat something, and hopefully go swimming soon.
See all of you in a few weeks!

Happy days

We made it to trent's house and after everyone was in awe of how nice his house was, we watched a little football on tv. around 5ish we started eating a pretty much standard issue thanksgiving dinner. I hadn't eaten anything all day (on purpose), so just kept eating. eventually people started finishing off and giving up, but i never got incredibly full. after dinner we lay around for a while, fighting off the tryptophan. Then we started drinking. We drank for quite a long time, but it was so spaced out and i had eaten so much that it really didn't have a effect on me. At night we went to a really exclusive club because trent knew someone that knows everyone in town. we were there for a little while and left after about an hour and a half. we went to grab something to eat, and then had to walk around trying to find three of our group who had decided to part ways and go to a casino. After we found them we went back home, but we had to take 3 separate taxis and the last one got lost. After some frantic phone calls and some walking, they finally made it back. the next day we woke up and had a mexican breakfast (burritos w/ egg, etc.). then i ran off to water polo to play. unfortunately the team i was supposed to play w/ had off, so i just swam for a while and then played around. I came back to trent's house to find that everyone except for joe (american guy) had gone home because he and trent had tickets to the opera that night through the school (only 4 leva a ticket). I decided to go with them to see if i could get a ticket and i did, so i watched the opera with them. I took the bus back to aubg because it was free (part of the school trip) and we would get back in time for the albanian party. There was a party in our building because sunday was albanian independence day, so they threw a party on saturday night. It was a really good party, by the time i arrived back from sofia around 10:30, people were already drunk. I went downstairs and something to drink, and then went out and ended up having dinner at a place called paparazzi around 4 in the morning. Yesterday wasn't too eventful, just did nothing and finished my science hw. I plan on giving blood on thursday. I would like to give blood in the states, but the american red cross won't take my blood, so i'm going to try here. the pin holding my strap on my watch broke, so i'm going to try and find a jeweler to fix it, my wrist feels naked w/o it. I don't have that much time left here, so i'm going to try and do as much as i can in the next 3 and a half weeks. as a start, i'm going to try and really get my hair cut tomorrow, i really hope this guy gets it right. I need to do it though because my hair is growing more out than down.

Imported Thanksgiving

Well, I'm off to Sofia to spend Thanksgiving (on a friday) at Trent's house. I think he's importing stuff from the states because he works for the state department and he imports all of his meat anyway. I going to try and play water polo tomorrow while I'm there. I played in the beer pong tournament last night and my team mate didn't show up so I just had Oksana pretend to be her. We won the first game in overtime and unfortunately lost the second. I had no idea that Oksana was so competitive. She high fived me so hard that she broke the pin to the strap in my watch. Luckily i think that's easily fixed. Anyway, I must be off. I'm going to starve myself until dinner because I know that it's going to be a lot food.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Incredible Weekend

Well, I said I hoped to come back with stories and I wasn't disappointed. The stories actually began before I even left.
We had agreed to meet after class and go straight to the bus station. I came to class ready to go and noticed that Sheylah didn't have any bags with her. She informed me that she couldn't go because she had a big test that she had to study for. Oksana couldn't go either because of some work. I was a little upset because it was 4:15pm and someone could have told me something before I was all ready to go. Because of the sudden change in their plans, I decided to keep to mine and went on my own. I made it to Sofia by 8pm and a friend of mine helped me find the buses to Macedonia. Low and behold, the only bus leaving to Ohrid was 2 hours late and would be leaving at 9 instead of 7, my lucky day. When the bus finally arrived to a hoard of freezing travelers (because this part of the station was outside), we looked for our seats. I sat in my seat and eventually a lady was looking very lost searching for her own. In listening to her ask others about the seat numbers, I instantly recognized that she was SOUTH AFRICAN! And she just happened to be sitting next to me with intent of also going to Ohrid. The first thing I said to her was not "hello," but "are you south african?" She was shocked because I sounded american to her and she didn't expect that at all. It turns out that she is just as culturally confused as me. She left South Africa 17 years ago and had been living in London ever since. She also carries a Dutch passport on account of her parents, I'm not sure if she spoke any dutch.
We made it to Ohrid at 5am an ended up taking an offer from a guy who approached us at the station. He had good rooms at a cheap rate. He also was very knowledgeable about the buses and when and where to take them.
We walked around town for awhile trying to warm up and keep busy until the sun came out. Eventually it did and we took a bus to a nearby monastery near the Albanian border. For some odd reason there were peacocks at this monastery, so I enjoyed taking quite a few pictures. Afterwards we looked for something to do when found out that the next bus wasn't coming for another 2 hours. We decided to take a boat tour of a tributary formed by springs. I don't think I have ever seen water that crystal clear in my life. Other people who have been on the tour include Richard Gere and Naomi Campbell. Afterwards we sat around and eventually a taxi decided to arrive right around the time when the bus was supposed to come. Generally they just want the same as the bus fare, so it wasn't that big a deal. That night we had to go to bed early, because we had to get up at 5am to catch the bus to the remote monastery on top of a mountain. Mia (the lady I was with) went to bed right after we got back, but I decided to catch the sunset and eat some of the Ohrid Trout. I spent forever looking for a specific restaurant only to find that they didn't have any. I went to a different restaurant and found what I was looking for. I asked him for 250g of fish because it was about $19 a pound. He brought out a filleted fish and told me how much it was going to be. Then he went into the kitchen and the chef cooked it for me. I got a lot of other things with the fish, plenty of bread, an amazing garlic sauce, a spicy macedonian sauce, cooked onions, vegetables, and potatoes. I put the garlic sauce on almost everything. I had fun eating the fish because it still had the bones and skin. I did rather well and it was absolutely delicious. It was cooked perfectly and the flavor was incredible. After the fish I went back to the room and slept like a baby.
We woke up at 5ish and made our way to the station. There were a lot of people who were willing to drive us for the same price as the bus again, so we did that. We got to the foot of the mountain around 8am. After a very long hike uphill, we got to the top around 10:30. We were rather tired. The monastery was really nice, and it still offers accommodation for people. We walked around and rested for awhile, and then decided to go back down. We asked someone for the fastest way down, and we ended up walking down with 3 macedonians who told us all about macedonia and other things. It was great. The one guy spoke great english which he learned from watching tv. They invited us into their house and we had juice and coffee. Then he drove us to the bus station and found someone to drive us back to Ohrid. We made it to about halfway and caught a bus for the second half.
I was going to either go back to sofia that night, or try and go to albania that night. I was strongly encouraged not to go to albania at night, so i stayed the night and went in the morning. I took the 6am bus to the border and made it into albania, but i didn't have the 10 euro for the entry visa, so i turned around and went back to macedonia. Needless to say, that's about as much of albania as a wanted to be in. I was going to try and go to Tehran, the capital of albania, but there were no direct buses to sofia for there, and it would've been really complicated. I pretty much spent the rest of the day enjoying the weather and taking tons of pictures.
If you like landscapes and similar scenery, bring lots of memory for your camera if you go to macedonia, because you WILL run out of space.
Around 1:30 I made it up to the top of the hill in the city where there was a church and a castle. I figured this was the best place to see the sunset and I had nothing to do until my bus left for sofia at 7pm, so i just sat up there and waited for the sunset. It was around 4pm (2.5 hours later) that the sunset began. Needless to say it was worth the wait. There were some gorgeous clouds that the sun passed through and everything was perfect. I took at least 70 pictures of that particular sunset and I love every single one. Hopefully you can access facebook and see them.
My ride back to sofia was terrible, and by the end I was in that kind of mood when you just want to kill everyone on the bus and just hope someone pisses you off so that you have an excuse to go berserk. I made it to sofia around 5am and waited for my bus to blagoevgrad at 6:40. I was exhausted and hungry and I had a thumping headache. The bus to blagoevgrad was really nice and i felt much better by the time i got back. I went straight to the main building and talked to my marketing professor because i missed class on friday. I explained what happened and he told me what I missed. Then I came back to Skapto and slowly normalized myself.
I'm really glad i went and have convinced sheylah and oksana that they missed out big time. Traveling alone sometimes is better because you can do what you want when you want to. You also get to meet people and might end up spending a few days with them. I'm glad I decided to go and also that my country count is up to 24!
One month until I come home!

Off again

Well, it hasn't been much of an interesting week here. Mom, dad, and Kari had a crazy weekend which would take quite a while to explain. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing this weekend until Oksana said that she and Shaylah were going to Macedonia. I have decided to join them and have a good time. Shaylah has to come back early because her boyfriend is coming to visit on Sunday. Oksana and I have no reason to go back early, so I'm hoping that we could hop over to Albania, or something like that. We both have science class on monday morning, but he's out of the country next week, which adds almost another day to our weekend (we do have class at 4:15 on monday though). I'm leaving right after class and not too many people know I'm going because I only decided last night. I'm going to miss the Ukrainian party tomorrow, oh well.
I'm not in much of a writing mood right now, so I'm just going to say goodbye and hopefully I'll be back on Monday with some stamps in my passport and some stories to tell!

What to do w/ no power

Yesterday the power went out just before it got dark. Very soon after that the internet went too. It was out for about 2 hours, but it was fun seeing what it was like to be in the dorms with no light or power. It was really peaceful and I had fun spotlighting people with Rasika's ridiculously powerful flashlight. When we came back from our midterms this morning, the internet wasn't working. It was connected, but nothing was happening. Again, we had to find other things to do. Kiro had his paper to write, but I just messed around seeing that the only thing I have in the near future is my german midterm on monday. We amused ourselves for awhile and then Kiro left for class. I sat here getting ready to read my book (which I will), and just as I was about to start, the internet came back.
Now that I'm sufficiently up to date, I can rest easy and read my book.