My Final Post

Well this is it. Tomorrow we head to Sofia and then Wednesday I am headed home. So here are my final thoughts on my Bulgarian experience. Overall, this has been much harder than I expected. I have learned more than I expected, and definetly build a solid base which I hope to build on. I have realized how much I love my home by being away for six weeks. I have also learned a lot about being in a country where you do not speak the language. I will have more respect and patience for those who do not speak English in the States.

I think the most important part of this trip has been gaining a deeper understanding into my husband. The way he thinks and approches life. It is amazing to see how much he has changed over the years and I respect him for everything he has overcome. He truly is an amazing man and I am blessed to be his wife.

I feel myself becoming tired, frustrated, and pestimistic (which is not ME). So I think it is time I get back to Indiana and recieve some loving from my two little cats. I am ready to hug my nephew and say hello to my parents. I am ready to share my stories and sleep in my own bed. I am ready to get back to studying medicine and trying to figure out my residency. It is time to jump back into my life in America.

Then next time you hear from me I should be in Indianapolis. I hope all goes well and I have better luck on my trip home than we did on your trip here. Thanks again for all of your comments and e-mails. I miss you all very much and will see you soon.

My Teacher

On Friday night Galya took me out to dinner with her husband and daughter. We went to a traditional Bulgarian restaurant and she made me try and read the menu. I think I did a pretty good job. This is a picture of Galya, her husband, and I at the restaurant. It was nice to speak in English for a whole evening. Her daughter speaks wonderful English and actually is considering going to college in the States.

A Trip To Plovdiv

This past weekend Ivan's parent's took me to the town of Plovdiv which is about two and half hours away from Veliko Tarnavo. The town has a really unique historic section. It is amazing how old things are here, very different than America. These pictures are from walking through the old section of town. We spent the night with some friends who spoke a little English which was nice.

The Final Countdown

In less than one week I will be back in the United States. I am glad I came here, but I am ready to be home. I miss my husband, my family, my friends, my cats, my home, and much more. Six weeks is a long time to be away from home.

I am currently saturated with Bulgarian grammer. I have one more lesson tomorrow and than I am calling it quits. I feel like I have covered the same amount of grammer in six weeks as I learned in six years of Spanish. My teacher is moving super fast. I think she was so focused on finishing the grammer book and she didn't realize how overwhelming it all is for me. I am looking forward to getting home and having some time to digest what I have learned and try to start using it. Right now I feel like I am just cramming it all into my head as fast as I can.

I continue to try new things everyday. Today we had soup made with stomach and intestines. This is a traditional Bulgarian dish. It was not my favorite, but it was not too bad. I think I have now tired most of the traditional Bulgarian food. All the traditional Bulgarian food without tomatoes. I am sure Ivan's parents will eat lots of tomatoes when I leave :)

Katherine I thought of you today when we went shopping. We bought two shirts at a store and they put each shirt in a separate bag. I know you would not be able to tolerate that, and I let you down because I didn't say anything. But I did not know how to say it in Bulgarian so I hope you will forgive me.

Well, I am sure I will write again but I am almost done with this Blog. Thanks so much for reading and supporting my effort to learn Bulgarian. Talk to you soon!!

LOTS of New Pictures to Look At!

Top: On my walk home from the gym I was considering going through my flashcards. But as you can tell from the picture you have to pay attention to everything around you because the sidewalk is not only for pedestrians. There was a guy in this car just chilling on the sidewalk.

Middle and Bottom: These are pictures I took on my way home from the Gym. Turnavo is surrounded by mountains and it is really beautiful when you get a glimpse of them through the buildings.

Take a Walk with Me to the Gym

These are some pictures I took on my walk to the gym. You can see that there are apartment building everywhere. They have been building a lot of new apartments recently. The gym is in the basement of the mall. I thought it might be strange if I took a picture inside the gym so this is the best shot I got.

Studying Hard!!

Flash cards! My second grade reading book! Dictionary! My Bulgarian Grammer Textbook!

Pictures of the Monastery

These are all pictures of the Monastery. I liked the cat sleeping in the flower pot so I thought I would include it :)

Different culture....Different Faith

If you are reading this Blog than you probably know me well enough to know how important my faith is to me. I do my best, and often fail, to keep Christ at the center of my life. I have missed the fellowship of my Church in Indianapolis these past five weeks. I have been doing my best to keep up on the sermons and read my Bible as much as I can.

I am writing about faith because we went to a Monastery today about two hours away. It was a beautiful building and you could feel the history. It is amazing how different the Bulgarian Orthodox church is from what I am use to. Two faiths built upon the same foudation yet so incredibly different. Bulgaria has such a rich tradition and the Church is built into their culture. I respect that fact and acknowledge the lack of history and tradition of the Modern Non-Denominational church. Nevertheless, I feel like something is missing here. Are the people challenged to take their faith to the next level? Do they think about Christ and God in their everyday lives? Have they been challenged by the Word of God?

It is hard because I would love to talk about my faith with Ivan's parents and grandmas. I want to know what they believe. I want to know what they think about Christ. Hopefully some day I will have the opportunity to have some good conversations in Bulgarian.

I respect the Bulgarian Orthodox church, but I do not understand it. I guess I probably can't understand it since I am not Bulgarian.

The Past Tense Hurts My Throat

So I have been working on learning the past perfect tense in Bulgarian. Which expresses a completed action in the past. And I have discovered that the past perfect tense hurts my throat. The endings for all the verbs is X, which is the sound "Hu". You really have to dig down in your throat and produce a good Hu. I think this tense makes Bulgarian sound harsh. It is very difficult for me to make the sound because it is not common in English. Hopefully, I won't have a sore throat for the rest of my life :)

I do not have any exciting news from Bulgaria. I continue to study, go to the gym, watch movies, read, try and speak Bulgarian, and did I mention study. I do feel like I am getting a grasp on the language and can get across at least a little bit of an idea of what I want to say. Ivan's mom and I had a nice conversation today about me being ready to buy a house. I told her what I am looking for in a house, and she said things she likes and dislikes about their apartment. I also told her I really want her to come to Indiana to see our new house. I was very proud of myself after that conversation.

There is still no gas in Bulgaria. This has not affected me personally but it is all over the news. Ivan has some relatives in the capital that do not have heat due to the lack of gas. There are some schools and hospitals that have had to close because of the gas problem. I guess Ukraine and Russia are still fighting over the price and regulation. The other day Russia turned the gas back on but Ukraine stopped it at the border and would not let it pass. Ivan's dad said Bulgaria is looking to get gas from the middle east. But don't worry about me I am nice and WARM :)

Are you sick of my Blog yet??

I just realized that I have 27 posts on my Blog. Wow, that is a lot! I am sure you are all tired of reading about my Bulgarian experience but I will keep writing anyway. Feel free to stop reading at any time.

My entry today is not about Bulgaria. It is actually about America. I know I have only been gone for 4 weeks but my friends and family have been incredible. It is so easy to take things for granted when I am in Indiana. When my friends and family are so far away I realize how lucky I truly am. I have the best husband a girl could ask for. I have two friends that define true friendship. I have parents that support whatever crazy idea I come up with. I have great brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. And not to forget I have the cutest nephew EVER!! Thank you all so much for getting excited about me learning Bulgarian and being so involved in my experience. I can't wait to get back and catch up and share more stories with you.

God has truly blessed me!!

Attitude Check

I was getting pretty frustrated and down yesterday so I decided last night I would have an attitude check. I realized that I am only here for three weeks, and even if something is hard you can do it for three weeks. I also realized (with the help of my mom) that I have more free time now than I probably ever will again in my life. So why not make the most of it. I have time to work out every day, read my Bible for as long as I want every night, get 9 hours of sleep a night, and study Bulgarian for hours upon hours. When else will I ever have the opportunity to do all of these things again. So I apologize for my previous blog entries and my goal is to be more up beat!

I am just trying to tell myself that even if I have no idea what people are talking about I should try to listen hard and see how many words I can pick out. The only problem is that when Bulgarians speak all the words run together. I think they should talk like this, "Hi....pause....my....pause...name...pause....is....Mackenzie!" If that was the case I would have this language mastered. So really I am not fluent in Bulgarian because they talk too fast. I think that is fair :)

I am currently studying the Perfect and Imperfect aspects of verbs. In English this would be like "I eat food" vs. "I am eating food", one action is continuous and the other happens and is over. In Bulgarian this is tricky because some verbs change and some don't and really you just have to memorize everything. I think I am starting to get the hang of it. As of now I can talk about the future and present but I can't talk in the past. Who wants to focus on the past, I think we should live in the present and hope for the future!!

Ahhhhh...Bulgarian

So I am a bit overwhelmed with Bulgarian today. There is SOO much to learn. I feel like I will never be able to communicate. I love you Ivan...but your language is hard. I had my lesson this morning and I learned MORE PRONOUNS. I didn't think there could possibly be any more pronouns. I hate pronouns. The annoying thing about pronouns is that you have to analyze the entire sentence to figure out which pronoun you should use. Than there are two forms for every pronoun and depending on which form you use you have to put it in a different place. AHHHHHH...PRONOUNS!! I think I am just going to speak pronoun-less Bulgarian. I think I will get by just fine, the only problem will be that no one will know what belongs to who nad "IT" will not exist (but that is not very important).

Things are going well other than trying to learn Bulgarian. I hope I am not an inconvience for Ivan's parents. Ivan's dad drives me to my lesson and picks me up. I wish I could be a little bit more independent so they didn't have to arrange their schedule around me. But we are getting by okay.

I am taking tomorrow off from my lesson. I think I need a day of rest for my mind. Plus I have a lot of things to review and practice. My lessons are good but we are moving pretty fast through a lot of grammer and new vocabulary. It is so annoying when a word won't stick in my head. I can learn it over and over and over but it just doesn't stick. I guess you learn the words you need to know and the ones you use the most.

Ivan's mom is really funny when we review my homework. Last night I was working on my adjectives and nouns and she would go find the ojbects and show them too me. She said I need to see and touch them and that will help the word stick. I think we both got a little frustrated with Bulgarian grammer last night. She said my lessons are getting harder. We are a good team.

Well I guess that is about all there is to say. Sorry if my Blog is not as exciting. My life now is mostly filled with studying Bulgarian. I will write again soon!!

Reading With Grandma

Today has been a good day. I probably understood 5% of what was said but I am starting to adjust and just go with the flow. My favorite part of the day was reading with Grandma Kitchka. I walked down to her house and she was so surprised to see me. We sat at the table and I read several short stories out loud and she corrected my mistakes. We make a great team. I enjoy reading with her because she talks slow and I have an easier time understanding what she says. I hope I can go back and read with her again soon. When I left she told me "PAK", which I think means "again" :)

Tomorrow morning I am going to an English class to help. The teacher I have for Bulgarian teaches English to students here in Veliko Tarnovo. I told her I would be more than willing to come and converse with the students and she quickly took me up on the offer. So tomorrow morning I am going to go for the first time. It will be nice to speak a little English and help teach others instead of being the one who is always trying to learn. I will make sure to blog about my experience.

I am getting along well with Ivan's parents. They are afraid to let me do much on my own, which I understand. But it would be nice to have a little freedom and not feel like they are constantly taking care of me. It is crazy because I feel a bit like a little kid. I can't communicate, everyone talks slow and loud to me, and I can't go any where by myself. I guess it is nice not having any responsibility and I can just focus on learning Bulgarian.

I hope all is well in the States. Mom, I haven't heard from you lately. Please give me a call sometime soon, I miss ya.

New Pictures

Top: Maya and Ivan

Next: Ivan and his Grandma Margarita (I love this picture)

Next: Ivan's parents walking down the street in a small village we visited called Elena.

Next: Mackenzie

Bottom: Arena, Mackenzie, Peter

The Art of Communication

Well today is day one without Ivan and Maya and it is going okay so far. Ivan's mom showed me how to make the soup we are having for lunch and I have been doing lots of homework to prepare for my lesson today. It is frustrating trying to understand what they say but the great thing is that Ivan's mom doesn't give up, she just keeps trying. I am sure these three weeks will be hard but I am sure going to learn a lot of Bulgarian.

I just got off the phone with Ivan and he made it safely to New York. His flight into Paris was an hour and 45 minutes late and he had a lay over of 1 hour and 50 minutes. He said he had to sprint to catch his flight but he did not want to wait in the Paris airport for hours. He spent the night in the New York airport and has a few more hours to wait for his plane to Chicago. His luggage did not make it to New York with him. We have bad luck with luggage! Once he is in Chicago he has to take the train to our friends and drive back to Indy. I am sure he will be worn out by the time he makes it home. But he sounded up beat and ready to go on the phone.

There is some interesting news in Eastern Europe. Russia and Ukraine are fighting over the natural gas supply and as a result the natural gas supply to Bulgaria has been cut off. I am not sure what that means for the country but Ivan's parents are worried. If you have a chance you should read about the conflict on CNN.COM. It is crazy to be here and watch it happen, it always seems so far away when I am at home in the states.

This entry was full of random information. I will keep you updated on my adventures and please keep writing me e-mails and comments, I miss you all very much!!

Preparing for My Husband's Departure

Grandpa Ivan's funeral is today and Ivan is heading back to the states tomorrow. It was too expensive to change his ticket so we decided he should go back now. He leaves on Wednesday but will not arrive in Chicago until Thursday morning. He has a 10 hour layover in New York and will have to drive back from Chicago to Indy. He has a very long two days of travel ahead of him. But I think he is ready to get back to our house, spend time with the cats, and prepare for a busy semester of class and work.

Thank you all for you thoughts and prayers for Ivan's grandfather. His grandma was doing better yesterday. She actually spent last night alone at home. She said she wanted to start getting use to being alone. It was hard to go to the house and not be greeted by grandpa Ivan. He was such a good man. Ivan was telling me how he had no enemies and how everyone was his friend. He was the classic grumpy old man but he did everything out of love and caring for others.

I am preparing for Ivan's departure. I think my Bulgarian is getting better and I can make simple sentences and get my point across. I am sure it will be frustrating but I think this is the best way for me to learn. I think I need a little time without Ivan here so I am forced to start talking on my own. With Ivan here I just look to him when I don't understand or when I want to say something. For the next three weeks I will not have that to fall back on and I am sure that will speed up the learning process. It is funny because I am starting to follow some of the conversation. Sometimes Ivan turns to translate what people are saying and I tell him he doesn't need to because I understand. That is a very nice feeling!

Well the next time you hear from me I will be the lone English speaker in the Lupov house. Thanks again for all your e-mails and postings. I miss you all very much. Please give Ivan a call when he gets home and check in on him for me :)

A Sad Day

Ivan's grandpa died tonight. He had a massive stroke and passed away within several hours. He was 85 years old and lived a good life but he left behind his wife of over 50 years. She is in deep mourning tonight and I can't even imagine how awful this is for her. How can someone go on without that person that has been by their side for so long? We are all praying for her tonight, that she will mourn her husband but not lose the will to live.

Ivan and his family are handling grandpa's death well. They are all sitting around the table together as I write this postings. Ivan and I were just talking about how blessed we are that we had so much time with Grandpa Ivan the past several weeeks. We were able to visit their house numerous times and have some wonderful conversations.

The funeral is on Monday. Ivan is going to try and change his flight so he can stay a few extra days. It is such a blessing to have the entire family here for such a difficult situation. Please keep Ivan's family in your prayers.

Difficulty with the bathroom

So here is my funny story for the day. We decided to take a drive today to a mountain town called Elena. Ivan's parents thought it would be nice to show me the mountains and spend a little time in a small village. The drive was beautiful and there was more snow on the ground through the mountains. We arrived in Elena and walked around for awhile and then went to a coffee shop to sit for a bit. At this point I REALLY had to pee but was trying to be polite and not rush everyone to stop for me. Plus it was NewYears day and not very many places were open. So once we sat down at our table I quickly found the restroom. The problem was that there were no toilet seats, there was just a hole in the ground. I thought I had gone into the men's room instead of the women's so I went back out and asked Ivan to come help me. He assured me that the restroom was both for men and women and I just had to pop a squat and pee. I have to thank my parents for all of our hiking experience and peeing in the woods because it helped me use the bathroom in Elena, Bulgaria. The next time I pee like that I hope I am in the woods and not in nice clothes in a coffee shop. What a day :)

Happy New Year!!

Toasting in the New Year!! Happy New Year from Bulgaria!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Top: Ivan and Grandma toasting with Rakia for New Years.

Next: I learned how to make Baniza with Grandma Margarita. This is the final product. I was pretty hard and she did most of the work but with some practice I might be able to do it on my own. Hopefully we will try again before I leave.

Next: Grandma Kitchka, Grandpa Ivan, and Ivan

Next: Grandma Margarita, Arena, and Mackenzie

Bottom: New Year's Dinner