Guus Bosman

We are now in an internet place under NDK, the central cultural center in Sofia.

In a little while we'll see Svetlio and Joanna, two friends who live in Sofia. We'll stay the night at Joana's place.

Monday I registred with the foreign police in Stamboliiski, and I went with Milan to see some of his collegue's. Yesterday we spent the four of us in Plovdiv. We did some shopping and had lunch in a mexana, a Bulgarian restaurant. A great and relaxing holiday so far!

My Bulgarian had became worse since last summer, but it's coming back now. I enjoy improving my language knowledge a lot.

Actually there is very good internet access available in Bulgaria! We're in Plovdiv now, in an internet club.

It was extremely nice to see each other again -- Sasha and I met at the airport in Sofia. I arrived a bit later than planned, my plane landed around 17:30 o'clock. We went immediately to Perushtitsa, where there was a very warm welcome by Nadia and Milan.

The weather is far better than I had imagined. There's no snow, and it's not very cold either. It's around 7 degrees outside, but there's hardly any wind so that's great.

It's hard to describe how nice it is to be back here, in Bulgaria. It has been years but many places in Perushtitsa and Plovdiv I remember very well.

This is a automatically posted article.

It's very likely that I'm in Bulgaria right now.

We're going to Perushtitsa. That's a little place just below Plovdiv, the second city of the country.

Hah! Very interesting. I'm at Vienna Airport now.

There's an internet kiosk here, looks a bit like a phonecell but it provides internet access. Nice! The price is reasonable, 15 cents per minut, but I can't put pictures or sth.

The flight from Amsterdam had a little delay, but that was fine because my next flight is a small hour later as well. I was pretty late for my plane -- there were big lines everywhere (and yes, I was on time at the airport :)). They even called for me: "Will passenger Bosman please proceed to the gate for immediate boarding...".

The airport here is very big, and a big part of it is designated for shopping -- so many shops! Christmas music and decorations everywhere.

I'll have an espresso now; there's a Starbucks in the main hall.

I am going to Bulgaria! It has been more than three years since I was there, and I am really looking forward to see Sasha and to be there and see everybody else.

I will be reachable by e-mail (my hotmail address is the best), but I won't read it very often. For urgents matters you should contact my parents. Jelly is staying in our house for a while.

Our plans in Bulgaria are not very specific yet, but we'll first go to Perushtitsa, where Sasha's family lives.

My flight is through Vienna. I'm leaving at 10:30, and if everything goes well I'll be in Sofia around 16:15 o'clock. That's local time -- the time in Bulgaria is one hour ahead of Dutch time.

Wow... the preparations took much longer than I thought. At least I'm ready now, all the luggage is packed.

Tomorrow I'll wake up at 7:15 o'clock, leave the house at 8:15 so I'll be at Schiphol around 9:15.

Friday I'll go to Bulgaria!

In the afternoon I went into the city for a few hours. I needed some extra things, such as warm shoes and gloves -- it's pretty cold now there.

The shopping went quite well, and I'm sort of ready, except for some smaller things that I'll arrange tomorrow.

Yesterday at 17:00 o'clock we were at the Reagan National Airport in Washington. I took a plane to Philadelphia, where I would take the plane to Amsterdam. The trip to Philadelphia took only half hour; it's basically getting into the air and then landing again.

I had a very good flight to Amsterdam. The plane wasn't very busy, and I could stretch out on three chairs next to each other. It's the first time I really slept on a plane. The time difference made the night very short -- at the moment I'm writing this I'm pretty tired.

Jaap picked me up from the airport (thanks!). My suitcase was extremely heavy (with books). Today Jaap and I prepared tomorrow's graduation party. We picked up an extra stereo tower from Weesp, and we went to the supermarket. The beer came at 17:00 o'clock, and everything's pretty much ready now. Just some light cleaning.

Yesterday was the last day of my stay in the States and we spent it well. In the morning Rosa took us for a ride and I met Susan, a friend. She lives in a very beautiful house in a quiet neighborhood. We had lunch at a new Thai place, near the World Bank. It was delicious.

Later we went for a short trip to the harbor of Annapolis, a small town outside Washington. There was a boat-sale going on, so the whole harbor was closed for non-paying visitors (like us). But just around the corner was the US Naval Academy, where we could walk around freely and see the harbor from the other side. The town and harbor is remarkably similar to Medemblik, a Dutch harbor town close to Opperdoes (where I was born).

Sunday we took it very easy, a relaxing day. We went out for brunch in Georgetown. We arrived there around 13:00 o'clock, so we're getting hungry.

We found a nice real American restaurant where there was a brunch-buffet being served: all-you-can-eat. There were many different types of food, and a lot of American things I hadn't tried in years. Very delicious!

We noticed that the personnel looked non-American; in fact, one of the girls looked like a Bulgarian. When we left we asked her, and she was indeed from Stara-Zagora, Bulgaria. She and her colleagues were working on the same type of program as Sasha and I did five years ago. Perhaps they will be coming back to the States once, and have waitresses and waiters who work the same program, too...