like I never left!

When I first learned I was coming to Bulgaria I was happy but have to admit I knew, well..., nothing about the place I would call home the next 27 months of my life starting in May 2010.  I'm sure I knew it was in Europe but that was it!  Now that I've been here for a year, and since I've moved to my "permanent" home, I very often find myself thinking "it's like I'm back in Indiana!"  You think that's funny and not possible but I've said that very thing a lot since I've been here and here's why.  First of all, this sticks out because yesterday was the Indy 500, I hear skreeching tires and people trying to be Dan Weldon (I feel so sorry for J.R. and especially since I didn't hear Weldon mention anything about him in his post race interview!  Yes I listened to part of the race) every day (and night) outside my apartment.  I want to tell them exactly how bad that is for their cars but my efforts would be futile.  Then yesterday, I still find this incredibly ironic, there was a car/motorcycle race here.   Of course the 2 can't be compared but a car race is a car race!  Another reason this feels like Indiana is because of all the fields and CORN!  It's like they knew!  When I was on the bus coming here I couldn't help but look out the window and think of the similarities.  I'm surrounded by fields!!  I think everyone, ok most everyone, reading this knows Indiana IS fields (and a little more but for the sake of this blog it's fields)!   Ever heard the saying "there's more than corn in Indiana!"?   Again, it's like I never left.  Going along with the fields and corn, not a day goes by (and more now since it's summer) that I don't look out my window and see a HUGE piece of farm equipment going down the road.  Yes I come from a farming family (grandparents and parents when younger) but I can't name lots of the equipment and I'm sure it's not the latest and newest machinery but I have seen some hay bailers and pretty nice size John Deere tractors (those names are kinda easy to remember).  One of the things I had gotten into the habbit of doing before I left was every morning started with a cup of green tea that I would drink on my 25 minute drive to work.  I wasn't sure if that would continue and was planning on it not continuing actually.  I was pleasantly supprised when my host mother asked me that first morning before school if I wanted tea or coffee and when I said "tea" the first choice she gave me was "green tea."   Come to find out it's very available and I start my day with a cup of green tea as if I never left!  Then there is the weather.  Very similar as well...apart from the natural disasters the states has had and all the snow this past winter.  From what I hear though this past winter was unusually warm for B.  I know I find myself thinking "it's just like Indiana" for more reasons then I wrote about but no others come to mind right now.  When they do you can bet I will blog about them.   For now, love and hugs from here!  No matter where I am, In my house in the states or my friend's house in B, it never fails that I get tears in my eyes when I hear "God Bless America", "Indiana", The "National Anthem", or "Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines!!!"