Caroline,

Living outside Sofia for the summer is a fantastic idea for learning Bulgarian. If you have any connections for living in a village, I highly recommend it! You are right. Until you have to use Bulgarian 80 percent of the day, your progress will be slow. I am in Russia now and I'm forcing myself to speak Russian 90 percent of the time. I know I won't improve otherwise. Another student from England was here today and she's quiet serious about Russian. We spoke for 20 minutes not using English, which was difficult and weird, but beneficial. I think you would have a great, interesting experience spending the summer na selo. Davai!
Matt