I vant to party vith you

A week of recovery from Greece, I desperately needed a break from alcohol. As it turns out, I'm not a raging alcoholic and my liver isn't made of steel. 

I mostly stayed in, cooked, and drank water. Seriously. I also had to prepare myself for another weekend of debauchery, which involved spending Halloween (one of my favorite holidays) at Dracula's castle in Transylvania with 50 other remotes. NBD. This week I:

• learned how to make Banitsa! Bulgaria is famous for this cheesy, buttery, fattening pastry and it is soooooo good. Our local city manager, Laura, invited us into her lovely home to teach us (and eat it). It ended up being about 10 gals and was super fun and laid back. I love getting to know everyone in different settings and have really been inserting myself into other groups whether they like it or not. :)

Is butter a carb?

OM NOM NOM.

• Celebrated DIWALI! A few of our remotes threw an awesome dinner party in celebration, and it was a blast. We danced, ate, and I took home all the leftovers and ate them the rest of the week. (no joke). 

• worked and worked and looked for work. Every. Single. Week. I have to admit, this is difficult and stressful and at times makes me want to punch a wall. But it's definitely worth it if I get to live this incredible travel life, so I typically envision myself punching said wall and then moving the hell on. 
• got on a bus with 50 people and made our way to Romania. The drive on google told us we'd be there in about 8 hours. The highway, bus driver, and inevitable circumstances left us with a 16.5 hour drive. The driver wasn't very keen on us using the bus bathroom, so we'd make a stop at a gas station that had ONE bathroom and be there for at least 30 minutes every time. It probably didn't help that everyone was drinking on the bus and had to pee every time we stopped. Food wasn't available at any place we went and everyone ended up eating Pringles and weird gas station sandwiches for dinner at midnight while on the last leg of the trip. It was a little rough, but we all managed to get there. There were 4 airbnbs and mine happened to be on top of a mountain. (???) The taxi drivers that took us there were some form of intoxicated and had no idea where we were going. We even stopped and asked a little old lady that was outside (???) at 2 am (?!?!??!) where this place was. When we finally found it, we picked a bed and crashed pretty hard. But then, hours later, we woke up to this: (hash brown no filter)

• went into the town of Brasoff which was so pretty and adorable and exactly what you think of in your head when you think "gee I wonder what was going on in Bram Stoker's head when he thought of the idea of a blood-sucking dude who lived in a castle and slept in a coffin in this tiny town in Transylvania". 

• got my Halloween on at Dracula's castle. Now that's something you don't hear every day...pictures will explain better than words. Unless you don't get my group's costume...(We're French Kiss, btw.)

• got up the next morning, had some mulled wine and this delicious bread thing, and got back on a bus for 12 hours. The ride home was a little less enthusiastic than the ride up, and there was definitely still a party happening in the back, where two bottles of J&B whiskey were somehow being consumed. Luckily, I sat among great company and watched clips of Pitch Perfect most of the time. (and slept). We got back to Sofia around midnight on Sunday and thus began another whirlwind week (and the last one we had there).

Delicious Romanian bread things that cure hangovers.

I think somehow I keep writing these weeks later and looking back and imagining how this was only two weeks ago. Time is moving too fast and I'm trying as hard as I can to remember every moment that I don't want to leave behind. It's been three insane months and I'm still trying to take it as slow as possible.

"How will I ever go back to real life?"

I ask myself this every morning. 

Coming up: my last week in beautiful Sofia, and moving to CROATIA! (And desperately trying to catch up on all the posts I want to write THANK U 4 READING & PUSHING ME GUYZ).