9/4/08
First and foremost Happy Birthday Dad, or as we say here Chesteik Roshdenden! Love you and miss you.
Well I officially know where I am going to be living for the next two years. It is a little town of about 5000 called Nikopol on the Danube River. This is the border between Bulgaria and Romania so I will get to go to Romanian quite a bit and possibly even learn some Romanian. (Tobias you are the only one that I still hate…)
When we first found out about our sites I, quite honestly, didn’t have a clue what was going on. We have all been waiting for this moment for a while and then you find out and it settles in that this is where you will be living, this is where you will be pursuing life, for the next two years.
I can say, after spending a couple of days so far at my site, that I am excited about what the future holds. It isn’t where you are but who you are with that really matters. This rings true to me right now.
When we found out where we would be going everyone else had a counterpart come and attend a day-long conference and then accompany them back to site. I had three and they took the mayors car down to drive me back so I wouldn’t have to take the bus. I have never in my life felt so warmly and enthusiastically accepted. I will be living in a new flat and the people I am working with are doing everything that is humanly possible to make me feel wanted and needed and comfortable. They are bending over backwards to accommodate me and I am sure that I have met every important person in town already. I think this might be close to what it is like to be famous.
We had dinner tonight at the restaurant next to the municipality where I work. More on where I work and what I will be doing later… and it occurred to me that I am already part of an inner circle. These people have been working together for quite some time and they have already accepted me in and started to call me friend. I am not even officially at site yet.
Good food. Great people. Rika. Beer. What more can a man ask for?
Life is good and I am excited.
Miss you guys.
BK