I don't swear very much, if ever on this blog, but holy shit, I just finished my third year in Bulgaria!

It feels crazy and I can't believe that I get to write this sentence: I've lived in Sofia for three years.

You know what else this means? I've been blogging for three years about me, my life in Sofia and all of my various adventures. That sort of doesn't seem possible but it's true. I wrote my first post <a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2008/07/11/hello-world-2/" target="_blank">July 11, 2008 on winning a Fulbright</a>. Rereading that post reminds me of just how excited and terrified I was of moving to Bulgaria. Then there's the post about<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2008/08/05/its-real-i-am-moving/" target="_blank"> the day I left DC for good</a>.

God. It makes me nervous and anxious to read those posts again <em>and</em> I know how the story goes.

I really didn't know anything about the country. I had a vague idea of what I was going to do on my Fulbright. I had a general sense of life in post-communist Eastern Europe but I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Just to put this in perspective, <a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2008/08/07/my-apartment/" target="_blank">I'd never even lived on my own before</a>.  I'd never spent any real time traveling. I didn't know the language or the alphabet and I packed up two suitcases and a carry-on and moved to Sofia.

Yep. These early posts sort of want to make me puke. Not in that they are poorly written or they are embarrassing to read again. No. These posts make my stomach flip-flop. They give me butterflies. Reading them makes my heart beat-faster.

Now