My First Day, My First Place

So, yesterday was the swearing-in ceremony, and now I'm officially a volunteer. The ceremony was nice, and there was a reception afterward too. It all seemed really short and then we were off to our permanent sights. I think I was the first volunteer to leave because my counterpart was waiting for me really early at the PC office. It was really exciting to see her and then to see the rest of my coworkers when I got to my apartment in Lovetch. They had prepared dinner at my apartment and we ate and talked and they introduced me to my neighbors and helped me figure out how everything in my apartment worked. It was really nice and then they left.

First thing I noticed when they left was that I had nothing in the apartment. So I went down to the shop below my building and bought some toilet paper, dish soap, and water. When I got back to the apartment I realized that I needed breakfast for tomorrow, so I went back and bought some bread and butter and yogurt. My host parents had given me a lot of home-made jelly, so I didn't need to buy that. My family also gave me some thyme, and they wanted to give me a bottle of rakia (Bulgarian alcohol) and some cakes (a Bulgarian snack), but I convinced them I didn't have enough room. It reminded me of my own mother (Love you mom!!). I was actually really surprised at how easily I was able to fit everything into my luggage, especially since PC gave us so much extra stuff - text books, medical kit, etc. I probably could have fit that bottle of rakia if I had tried. But that's ok because my counterparts provided me with one when I got to my apartment anyway. Rakia is a big thing here. If you need to buy a gift for someone, you usually can't go wrong with buying them a bottle of rakia. Anyway, after I put the food away, I decided that I wanted to clean the kitchen because it's so filthy. So, I went to the store a third time and bought some cleaning supplies. The store lady must have thought I was crazy coming so often. I had thought about explaining to her why, but each time there were lots of other people (which is weird for Bulgaria - at least I think so) and I didn't want to make them wait while I tried to blunder my way through a short conversation. So I just made my third purchase and then spent three hours cleaning with the music blasting. The kitchen is about half done now, but because I had been up so late last night hanging out for the last time with my volunteer friends, I was tired and stopped and went to bed. So that was my day yesterday; my first day as a volunteer in Lovetch. Today was my first day at work and involved a lot of filling out paperwork for the apartment and Bulgarian id and so on. Not very interesting, so that's it for now.