Man's best friend, indeed
Laura Butterbrodt
Multimedia Journalist
Bulgaria Week 15, 16 & 17
April 23-May 12, 2018
Saturday, May 12
3:40 p.m.
Well, my semester at AUBG is done. During my time in Bulgaria, I experienced the two worst days of my life.
The first was the day I arrived, overcome with culture shock, jet lag and homesickness. I called home, telling my mom to book my ticket home for the next day because I had made a terrible mistake and there was no way I could stay here.
The second was yesterday, the day I had to say goodbye to AUBG and the friends I made there. So many goodbyes to so many amazing people who I just happened to be lucky enough to find in a country I never thought I could consider a home. But actually, Bulgaria became my home because of these people.
The other 114 days at AUBG were the best days of my life.
I don’t even know how to summarize all of the highlights of my semester. Do I start with all of the places I got to see? The incredible people I met? The abundance of knowledge I gained? All three of these things are intertwined for me. Traveling, which was the main goal I had for my semester abroad, brought me to so many places. I learned a lot while I traveled, and the friends I traveled with became a part of all of the places we saw together. Bucharest isn’t just one of my favorite cities I visited because of the architectural beauty or the dynamic history, but because it’s the place I road tripped to with my best friends, spontaneously got tattoos and created countless inside jokes in. Northern Greece was beautiful to visit, but I loved it even more because of the bond I shared with my American girls while we struggled to figure out what was going on. Every place I saw was made so much more memorable because of the people I got to experience it with, and I’ll forever remember every trip, no matter how small, and who I share those memories with.
No matter how I write it, I feel like my words can’t even scratch the surface of what I’m feeling. This is the cheesiest, most dramatic thing I’ve ever tried to write. I’m still deep in my emotions from the week of “lasts:” the last exam, the last night at Underground, the last hugs and kiss goodbye. So, so many tears, but they’re really tears of happiness. I was so lucky to get so close with the other students at AUBG. I’ve never felt like I fit in with a group as much as I did here. I’m grateful for everything.
I’m not sure how much I will miss Bulgaria. But I do know that I will miss the spontaneous lifestyle, the ease of travel, the lack of responsibilities and abundance of free time, the room I shared with Lea that became a hostel and afterparty venue, the third floor lobby, Aladin foods, even the stray dogs that would accompany us on our walks, no matter how late at night it was. I will miss constantly overusing the same catchphrases and inside jokes with Ana, Eliza and Lea. I will miss complaining about how much we were always sweating with Maddie, especially in religion. I will miss getting emotional over dogs and Harry Styles with Laury. I will miss Alli hating Bulge Area. I will miss the dedication to “Shut up chug up” that Quentin, Hugues and Kevin always have. I will miss being Cyri’s napkin. I will miss Amy’s attitude, Aarya’s dance moves, Raj’s laugh, Piotr’s hugs, Valentina’s smile, Max’s heart, Maddie’s memes, Ana’s deafness, Eliza’s jokes, and Lea always being by my side. I had so many close friendships, and I know that someday our paths will cross again, so my “goodbyes” are really only “see you laters.” That doesn’t make it much easier, though.
In other news, I’ve had a couple of other projects published since my last blog. I skipped more than two weeks of posting because I didn’t do much other than prepare for finals and spend as much time as possible with my friends.
My final audio project for my Writing for the Ear class:
My first published blog on the ISEP Voices study abroad website:
https://www.isepstudyabroad.org/articles/714
And some photos from the last three weeks:
The king of Albania; the Muslim pope; DARLIR
One last trip to the cross showed me that Blago actually is a lot bigger than we thought
It was overcast a lot during our last week in Blago. Lea said it's Bulgaria crying because we are leaving it. :') But there was still a rainbow!
After our last night out to Under
Bucharest who?? Their umbrella street has nothing on Blago!
My girls <3 Spilling tea, reveling and being triggered since day one
In just four months, I accumulated quite a list of places I traveled to:
Bulgaria: Sofia, Blagoevgrad, Plovdiv, Dobrinishte
Greece: Athens, Kastoria, Vergina, Lake Prespa, Edessa
Macedonia: Skopje
Romania: Bucharest, Sinaia, Bran
Belgium: Brussels, Antwerp
The Netherlands: Amsterdam
France: Paris
And I’m not done yet! Tomorrow I will return to Skopje for another six days. I also hope to get down to Lake Ohrid while I am in Macedonia again. Then I will return to Sofia for one night before leaving for Barcelona. Then I come back to the Sofia airport for my final voyage: back to MINNESOTA! It’s been bittersweet for me to still be in Bulgaria while most people are going back home to their families. In my sadness, I want nothing more than to finally be back at home, too. But I got an Airbnb in Sofia for two nights so I could emotionally recover on my own, and so far it has been nice. Nothing Netflix and food delivery can’t help! I’m doing a lot less wallowing in self-pity than I expected and doing a lot more reflecting on my favorite memories and constantly thinking about how lucky I am.
Even though I‘m nearing the end of my Bulgarian adventure, I know this is just the beginning of many adventures for me in Europe. I could write a whole book about every person, place and emotion, but I think I’ve said enough for now. I love my AUBG friends with my whole heart, always and forever.
Love from Bulgaria,
Laura
