Homeless?

What do you connect students dormitories with? Cheap way of living, dirty little rooms, nonstop parties - of course, but also troubles and endless administrative issues :( I hate to deal with SSO (the devision that manages the dorms). It's all about endless queues and problems.
So what is the problem - I had a decent room in one of the best blocks in Student Town (block 23) with good roommates. I was hoping to still have it when I return from Denmark, but noooo - things had to change. They decided to renovate the block. Normally a good intention - after the renovations I would have one of the best rooms in Studentski. So the idea was to put us temporary in other blocks, finish the renovation before the start of the school year and put us back in the new rooms. Hahaha - it's too good to be true, not in Bulgaria. Well, we had to move and we did - now I occupy a messy room on the first floor with awful toilet. When I was talking about smth with the supervisor of the block ("domakinka") and mentioned that I'm in room 121 she said - "Oh, you are in that crappy room" :( "Good news" is that I won't have to stay here for long - I have to be gone by the end of the month. That would be cool if I had a place to stay. Block 23 maybe - hahha try again! After 2 months of renovation they just emptied the rooms and did absolutely nothing to renovate them. Lasy bastards! So now nobody knows when it's gonna be finished. There is a solutions - I can apply for a room in another block but then I'll lose any chance to go back to block 23 :( Off and I want to stay there, I had enough of moving. But still I hav to find a place to stay til they finish it.
Have no idea what to do but will think of something.

Istanbul

On Earth there is a city, vast and populuos, bright and colorful, busy and loud, appealing with its beauty and yet filled with mysteries and secrets. An ancient city connecting modern Europe and exotic Asia. A city that bears a mark of many civilizations and stood the test of time. That is the magnificent Istanbul - the heart of Turkey! Known by many names, the city was the capital of glorious empires and thus an unreachable goal for many Bulgarian rulers throughout milleniums. There is something magnetic in this city that makes you want to visit it, to explore it. I personally had never been there, although it's so near, but knew that I'll see it one day soon.

And this day came. Although it was one of the top destinations for my next trip outside Bulgaria, I didn't plan to go there that soon. But I couldn't resist to accept Silvia's invitation to join her and go to surprise our friends from AIESEC that had a huge conference there. At first I was thinking to reject the offer, but when my other plans for the week collapsed, I had no choice but to happily accept and go there. During that time Adam was visiting me so I took him with me and the three of us headed to Istanbul with the night bus on Monday.

The trip wasn't without trouble. We had to wait 7 hours on the Turkish border :( You can imagine our frustration knowing that we are stuck there and will miss the opening of the AIESEC conference. Nobody knew how long we are going to stay on the border so everybody was relived when we finally passed it at 8 o'clock in the morning. We were late, very late, but still had enough time to see our friends. At 13:00 we reached Istanbul and started looking for our hostel. After we found it we changed clothes and went to the site of the Global Village where AIESECers from 102 countries were gathered to present their countries!

So some words for the AIESEC conference: It's called Intenetional Congress (IC) and gathers the MCs from all AIESEC countries. This is the biggest and most important conference in AIESEC! There you can feel the spirit on internationalism; the passion of the young and ambitios future leaders of the World; and test your phisical and mental limits in a 10days marathon of high-quality sessions, many new contacts from the whole world and plans and strategies for cooperation and everyday parties :) That's the place we went to spend our first day in Istanbul. We managed to catch the Global Village and the official openning where we heard speeches from the mayor of Istanbul, PAI, CCP,MCP of Turkey, HR Manager of HP and saw performances of the famous "Fire of Anatolia" and the Whirling Dirvishes. It was amazing! And beside all we managed to surprise or friends from the AIESEC :) I saw many friends from Denmark, Serbia and Bulgaria. Of course I couldn't resist to go to the stage and join the AIESEC dances :) There we saw another friend - Piotr - the CEEDer of LC VTU, who was also there to see the city and the openning and joined us for the rest of our stay there.

The 4 explorers :)

So after the openning the 4 of us (+ Piotr) went to the hostel and after some preparation went out again to see the nightlife of Istanbul. We went to a disko but I we didn't like it. And maybe it's not a good idea to go in a disko full of Turkish men when you are with a beautiful girl like Silvi. Anyway, we found a really nice classical turkish place - a narrow street full of small tables with short chairs, where you can drink Turkish tea, smoke nargile (shisha) and play tabla (backgamon). That's exactly what we did :) Me and Silvi taught Adam and Piotr how to play tabla while drinking tea and smoking nargile. It was magical :) It was so typically turkish and so pleasant :)

In front of Topcapi Palace

Traditional military costumes procession

In the Blue Mosque

The next day we started our sightseeing. Adam really wanted to go to Asia so we separeted. The rest of us went to SultanAhmed - the old city. There we went inside the Blue Mosque and showered in a fountain :D I can tell you one thing about Turkey - you walk and sweat, stay and sweat, breathe and sweat! I just couldn't count how many litres of water we drunk during that day :) We separeted again - Silvi went to an Islamic museum while I and Piotr went to the Kapali Carsi (the Grand Bazaar) and in Hagia Sophia. I just won't say anything about the last one because words are not enough to describe it! During the 2 days Piotr made over 500 photos so I can't wait to see them soon :)

In front of Hagia Sophia

In the afternoon we all gathered again and saw some more things. We went to 2 other mosques (Silvi is just amazing with the scarves around her body :D) and again to Kapali Carsi. I caould even bargain and bought a little souvenir :)

Unfortunatelly we had to go back :( So our short trip to Istanbul ended but we had a really great time there! I want to thank Silvi espacially for making me go there and also Adam and Piotr for sharing this trip with us!

locked-up

Guess what - I'm a prisoner in my own room! My both roommates are gone and so are my keys. Well, I once took Ceco's key by mistake so it had to happen that he takes mine too. So now he's in Mezdra and Kris is nowhere to be found. Funny situation :) There's nothing to be done actually - I just have to stay in the room (it doesn't seem like I'm going somewhere anyways :() and wait for Ceco to come in the morning. If somebody is concerned about me, can come and bring some food under my door :D Stay tuned for the next episode of Prison Break :D

A visitor from abroad

A view from the MC office

In the forest :)

A view from the Shumen Fortress

So far my stories with foreigners usually started like "I went to ..... and visited ......" Well, this time I didn't have to go anywhere, it was my turn to be a good host and welcome a friend from abroad :) So the point is that I had a visitor - Adam from Hungary, the same Adam that I visited in June in Budapest. It was his turn to return the visit and I had the chance to show my beautiful country to a foreign friend.

Adam came on Wednesday night (15 August) with the train from Solun (Tessaloniki). I hosted him on my brother's place (those of you who know my new messy room in block 26 know why :P) - quite a nice place with enough space. Due to my job I had to leave him alone during 2 days but on Thursday night we had quite a good time exploring the night life in Studentski Grad :) At first we picked Aga and Mladen and then tried my father's home made rakia. After that we headed for Avenue - I don't know why but I keep bringing friends in that disko :) Well, the place is one of my favourite and I like the music there.

On friday after work I showed Adam the AIESEC MC office. We found there Tony (LCP of LC Svishtov) and a boy and a girl from the French MC. We had a nice sightseeing walk with them and after a quick packing of the luggage headed for the train station.

We took the long way from Sofia to Shumen for around 7 hours in the crowded train (I slept most of the time :P) and had a good rest in my home. The day was ours and we went full of energy to explore Shumen. I guess the enegry was not so much, because after the killing sightseeing route I chose we were dead tired and stoped in my grandparents' place for some refreshment. The nice old people liked Adam and he was like an atraction to them. I guess it was the same for Adam when they started sharing stories about the time they were in Budapest on a holiday. Meanwhile I managed to show Adam the pride of Shumen - the monument on top of the city (quite a nice place) that can be reached after you climb 1300 stairs. The number is symbolic - it was built exactly 1300 years after the creation of the Bulgarian State. From there we took a "short" walk in the forest (5-10 km) to the Fortress of Shumen.

Well, the day was finishing but we found a little more energy and partied in the best disko in Shumen til 5 o'clock. We couldn't stay more in Shumen because we had to go to Burgas, where Silvia was waiting for us. There we took the bus/sauna to her place in Pomorie (or Pomodoro as Adam says :D). We had 2 great days there on the beach. Silve, BIIIIG thanks for being such a great host :)

On Monday night we all went to Burgas to take the train to Istanbul (that's another story) where we spent 2 amazing days. After that we stopped again in Shumen and I had to say goodbye to Adam who went home.

Thanks for the visit Adam! We had a lot of fun! Hope to see you again soon! You are always welcome in Bulgaria!

Reception activities

A thing that I really enjoy is meeting new people from different countries, different cultures. It's a nice way to experience diversity, see another perspective and a good opportunity to represent your own country. During my past travels I hade quite many chances to do that, as a result I have a lot of foreign friends in all parts of Europe and not only. But most of the communication I had with foreigners was abroad. That's why I'm really happy when I have the chance to meet some foreigners in Bulgaria.
I had this chance yesterday :) Two CEEDers from LC VTU (Peter from Poland/England and Viki from Russia) came to Sofia for a short trip. Aga took them in her room in Studentski Grad for two nights. One of this nights we went together to party in Studentski. Veli aslo joined us in the beginning. So basicly it was up to me to bring them to some nice place and make sure they are having great time. And indeed we had a really good time :) After a nice conversation in an old fashioned pub (mehana) and some beers we headed to my favourite disco (Avenue). We had some small problems like rain and forgotten identity card but finally we were inside for some dancing. The good thing about Avenue is that on the first floor there is disco music and on the second - pop-folk (chalga) so you can change places and listen to what you like. It wasn't crowded so we had enough space to dance, although all the seats were reserved. The chalga music and dances were a bit strange for them so we spent most of the time downstairs :D
Anyway, I hope they enjoyed the stay and will keep good memories from nightlife Sofia :))))

bye-bye LC UNWE

Yesterday I closed a chapter of my student's life - I left Local Committee Sofia-UNWE - my first touch to AIESEC. It was a normal, friendly farewell - I went to the General Assembly of the LC, voted for last time and gave them a request for cancelation of my membership status. It was quite an easy thing to do, practically I left the LC in the winter - with my departure for Denmark. I new how the people leave the organization and wondered how I fit in that. Some go through a glorious career, achieve a lot in AIESEC and become honorable members (alumni), some go to exchange and head for the future, and some just stop being active and eventually are voted off the LC. So what was my case - well it's another case :) I left the LC but I didn't leave AIESEC. I just moved. There is something in my personality that I just can't stand still at one place, I need to move, to change, to develop. I have this urge to follow opportunities and try new things. That's exactly what I did in AIESEC. After 2 years in the organization the proper development is to become a member of the Executive Body. That's what I strived for and when I couldn't get it in LC UNWE I found it eleswhere. That's how I joined LC TU and became a Vice-president Finance. A pretty right choice if you ask me :) I really like my current role in AIESEC and have great expectation for this term. It's gonna be much better than my stay in LC UNWE :)

After all AIESEC is all about providing opportunities, you just have to know where to find them and when you do - go for them!

So farewell LC UNWE and hello LC TU!