LG's Excellent PC Adventure

I spent Christmas in Plovdiv with my friends from the Saedinenie study group. We all gathered at Brian & Kate's apartment on Christmas Eve and then took the bus into Saedinenie on Saturday to visit our Host Families. It's always great to see Veneta & Stoil again and eat tons of home cooked food. They make sure that I leave their place weighed down with Domashna Rakiya and Domashna Vino. Domashna means homemade. Although my language skills are still weak, I've always been able to communicate pretty well with Veneta. She understands my garbled first grader Bulgarian and uses words and phrases I'm familiar with when she talks to me. There are still times, however, when I miss the message by just that much. Veneta has an uncle who lives here in Stara Zagora and works on the local paper. She was explaining to me during our Christmas dinner that her uncle was "pochivka". "Pochivka" can be used to mean at rest or on vacation or a time of relaxation. I said that it was very good that he was resting and that I planned on resting soon too. Okay, I didn't know that "pochivka" is also used to mean dead. Surprisingly enough, here in Bulgaria as in much of the rest of the world, it is considered impolite to respond to someone who has just told you that one of their dear relatives has died by saying, "That's great! I'm planning on dying soon too!" Lucky for me, Veneta knows me and gives anything I say a most generous allowance. I believe the only time I ever actually offended them was when I insisted on paying for gas for their car after they'd driven me to the mountains on a sightseeing trip. They accepted it only after I assured them that it was the custom in America for the passenger to pick up the tab for the gas. However, we'll have no more of those bizarre American customs, thank you. Remember, this is a country where you give everyone you know gifts on your birthday.

There was talk that we might have this week between Christmas and New Year off from work. It didn't pan out that way and we're wrapping up the summary report on a project that was completed over the past summer. That's fine with me, because I don't have any plans and I enjoy the Agency. I'm only a ten or twelve minute walk from my apartment and I tend to go home for lunch. That gives me a chance to turn on my radiator and heat up my living room so it's nice and warm when I get back home at night. Today when I got to the building the elevator was once again "pochivka". I actually don't mind climbing the stairs as it's the only exercise I'm getting these days. So I started up and as I climbed, I could hear what sounded like a large group of people coming down. This is sort of unusual in the building as I rarely see more than one or two folks at a time in the halls or stairwells. The stairwell is narrow and as I rounded one turn, I was confronted by half a dozen burly men carrying down what looked for all the world like a coffin. They were wrestling this long box down our very narrow stairwell. Of course it couldn't be a coffin because it didn't have a lid on it. It was just a coffin shaped box filled with flowers. And a dead guy! Okay, it was a coffin. I have no idea why it didn't have a lid but that wasn't overly important right at that moment. I was squeezed up against one wall and the men murmured what were most probably apologies as they squeezed by pressed against the other wall. They stopped for a breather when I was more or less face to face with the dead guy and I couldn't help but notice that he looked sort of annoyed. It was probably because there were no elevators for his last trip out of the building but it might have been because his relatives didn't spring for a coffin lid. Feeling somewhat uncomfortable and not being able to move, I managed to blurt out the only Bulgarian phrase that came to mind, "Chestita Nova Godina". Happy New Year! The murmuring turned ugly at that point, but their hands were full and I was able to scamper up the stairs out of harms way. We've really got to do something about those elevators!!

I wish all of you a very Happy and Healthy New Year! See you in 2005!!