Monday

This conference seemes nothing like the Newtech one last month.

For starters, everyone (except me) is a youth worker or volunteers with a youth organisation. And this is shaping up to be more and more like summer camp.

Wake up, have breakfast, do a group activity, coffee break, talk about the group activity, eat lunch, free time, group discussion, more coffee, another group activity, free time, dinner, free time, party.

Except this summer camp has alcohol. Bulgaria is famous for Rakia, their version of tsuica (and just as powerful). It's served at every meal and while I will give it a customary sip, I don't like it.

One of the guys came down with a cold and was drinking warm Rakia during our sessions. Imagine drinking brandy, straight, during a Canadian conference!

We had an international night where we each brought and shared some food from our country. I brought a small bottle of maple syrup. I made sure to sample each of the wines several times.

The sky was beautiful. I have never seen a sky like that. No polution, high up in the air, no lights. I dragged Vlad out with me and we laid on the driveway and stared up at the Milky Way. I tried to identify the constellations and I found a few I recognised. It was awesome just to talk about everything and nothing when it was so quiet and nothing around except a million tiny stars. Then we heard a noise and realised a car was coming down the driveway. We hopped out of the way to avoid getting crushed and decided to go in and be social.

I saw David and Sema, the French and Turkish representatives. So I dragged them out. Sema went in after a few minutes but David and I stayed out a while longer. I couldn't tear myself away from the sky, it was so beautiful!