Septemvri

This is a nice town. The population has hovered around 9,000 for nearly a century. I live in a soviet-era concrete apartment that is ugly like a pitted, stained sidewalk on the outside and clean as a hospital on the inside. Cows are driven by wy window in the morning on the way to grazing, and I fall asleep each night to a Bulgarian chorus of fighting dogs and flies hitting my window screen.

Horse-drawn carts are common along the main street, Boulevard Bulgaria, and in front of the apartment block. I go running along the fields outside town and along the railroad tracks (far from the rails, never fear Mom). I sprint in a small futbol field near my apartment where shepherds and farmers graze their sheep and horses. The horses don't mind me, but the sheep run away when I sprint towards them, return when I sprint away, then run when I sprint towards them, return..... and it amuses me.

Septemvri has it's problems, too. So many cattle, horses, sheep, dogs, cats, people...means that the streets have a fecal problem. Also, a fifty-foot section of the sidewalk has been under construction for months. Since I have ben in Septemvri (3 weeks), about 15 feet has been completed. I walk by the lounging workers every day on my way to and from school. On the whole, however, a nice place.