I've been living in Sofia and writing a blog for three years now about life in Bulgaria. This morning I woke up and was greeted by this comment on my blog:
<blockquote>Thanks for all of the information, for someone who is considering  applying to the Bulgarian Fulbright. Something that you don’t say is why  you chose Bulgaria? I have been fascinated with the country for some  time now. I am also curious, if you don’t mind taking the time to  answer, were most of your fellow teachers placed in Sofia, or was  everyone dispersed, and you just got lucky in a large city?</blockquote>
I read it and thought: hey, she's got a point. I've never really talked about why I picked Bulgaria. <em>Silly me.<!--more--></em>

One afternoon about this time of year four years ago, I chose Bulgaria sitting on my spinning chair at my desk at work staring at a huge world map on the wall behind my desk. I worked at Georgetown University so in June if you work with undergraduates as I did campus (and work) is pretty dead.  I was delaying a little longer sending a few tedious emails.

I'd known for a while that I wanted to apply for the Fulbright. I'd known that the Fulbright office in New York recommends that students apply to less competitive countries and while the application process for the Fulbright is inherently competitive the statistics are pretty dramatic. I'd looked at the stats in most of Western Europe the application acceptance rate is something less than 10% and in the UK it hoovers about 1%.  Eastern Europe in contrast had acceptance rates closer to 20% give or take.

So in the beginning two things drew me to Bulgaria: location and program stats. It was important for me to set myself up for the best chance of winning a Fulbright and seeing as I didn't know any Eastern European languages this wasn't going to help me (or hurt me at least in Eastern Europe). I desperately wanted to experience life abroad.

After I narrowed in on Bulgaria, I did a <em>lot</em> of internet research and I liked everything I found (except for the fact that there weren't any serious English language blogs being written about Bulgaria).

I guess now is also the time to explain that I like things that are different, out of the ordinary, unexpected and a challenge. Pretty clearly Bulgaria was going to be all of these things. Bulgaria is really not a country that is in any way shape or form part of American memories or dreams unlike cities like Paris, Rome or Berlin.  But I like that. I like the dark horse.

The year I applied to be a Fulbright ETA there were only two positions in the country so I took took a risk with that but now it looks like there are <a href="http://us.fulbrightonline.org/program_country.html?id=17" target="_blank">17 grants for ETAs</a>. I was lucky to be placed in Sofia. This said the other ETA wasn't placed in the middle of nowhere--she ended up in Plovdiv. I know now that ETAs are being placed all over the country and I think that this is a great thing. Bulgarian high school students are hungry for contact with native speakers and I think that life outside of a big city like Sofia allows ETAs more direct contact with the people, culture and language.

Today though when people ask I usually say that I picked Bulgaria and Bulgaria picked me. The things is, I didn't know how much I was going to like Bulgaria and more specifically Sofia when I applied and when I won a Fulbright I was racked with anxiety and haunted by what if's--what if I can't do this, what if people don't speak English, what if I can't learn the language, what if I hate it? But I figured that I could do anything for a year.

And look at me now, I just signed a contract for my fourth year in Bulgaria. Not bad, all things considered.