...do come if you're up for something wild and rough around the edges

There comes a point in every person's life when they have to look at themselves and the life they have lived so far and ask, "Is this it? Is this what it's all about? Should there be more?"

Amanda and I have decided, with some trepidation, to leave the comfort of our beautiful apartment in Oakland, Ca (the nice part), and a great job teaching kids we love at a successful school, as well as our family, friends, and language we know, to decide for ourselves if there truly is more to life than what we have spent the last 60 collective years forging through personal experience. This decision was in no way made lightly; nor were we blind to the sacrifices that would need to be made.

Behind us, America, the country that had given us our identity. And before us...Bulgaria. Yes, Bulgaria. The carbon copy stares of incredulity from nearly everyone as we informed people that we would be spending the next two years of our still young lives in a former Soviet Bloc country became somewhat predictable, as did their follow-up question, "What the **** is in Bulgaria?" In truth, other than a job, we didn't know. But isn't that what adventure is all about? Trying new things, meeting new people, sucking the marrow out of life? Not that we hadn't tried our hand at new experiences already. I moved more than 400 miles from my family to attend school in San Francisco, helped found a successful charter school, and proposed to the woman I love. Amanda equally moved hundreds of miles from her family to attend school, then thousands of miles, across the United States to San Francisco to pursue her teaching dreams as well.

What is in Bulgaria? More than a job, that's for sure. So, to start this blog off, I'm pasting a link that in some ways I wished we had before we came, but in many ways I'm glad we did not. It is a remarkably accurate view of Bulgaria from an outsider's perspective, published in the LA Times in the summer of 2008. I can readily say that not much seems to have changed since then, at least from an outsider's perspective. Over the next two (or more) years, we hope to share some trials and tribulations, victories and successes, and maybe a perspective and picture or two as we learn more about Bulgaria, ourselves, and each other; as we "go forth, and set the world on fire!"

http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-bulgaria-rough-around-the-edges15july08?page=1

Nazdrave!