I think it's important to do what's hard.

I moved to Bulgaria when it would have been easier to stay in Washington DC. I stay for year two and year three when it probably would have been easier to go back to the States. I've traveled through most of Eastern Europe by myself and I've crossed a couple of these boarders on foot.

Each of these things has been difficult for me. Difficult for different reasons but difficult nonetheless.

But the last big thing is learning Bulgarian.

Recently a friend told me that I am just too comfortable. That I am not going to learn Bulgarian the rate that I am going. This isn't necessarily what you want to hear from your friends but really who else is going to tell you these things?! And it came from a pretty reliable source.

The thing is, he's right. I've got put myself in an uncomfortable position. I've got to live my life in such a way that not speaking Bulgarian is not an option. And given my job as an English teacher at an English language school, it's not that easy. Sure I take regular Bulgarian lessons and communicate as necessary in Bulgarian but I guess that in a given day I speak Bulgarian no more 5% of my average day. And it's true at this rate, I am never going to learn Bulgarian.

Enter this summer.

I am going to the States for three weeks. Then at the end of July I'll be back in Bulgaria. Rather than traveling in, around or through greater Europe, this summer I'll be here in Bulgaria.

My night started off with a rather nutty taxi ride from Mladost to  the city center. Normally I'd take the metro but I was running really  late--like I was supposed to be meeting a friend downtown and I was  still in my apartment. This never happens to me but it did last night. I  look in my wallet and realize that I only 20 leva notes and that a taxi  driver is going to be less than thrilled to break a 20 for me on a 5  leva ride. I buy a bottled water and make a woman in a gas station break  the 20 for me. She wasn't very happy with me and I just played the  blond oblivious foreigner role as she grumbled at me.

I hopped in  a taxi and we were off. The driver and I hit is off when he started  laughing at my confusion of a couple words in the taxi. I told him that I  wanted to go to the National Theater Ivan Vasov. Only for whatever  reason I turned national into "nationalen" and gave it a funny Bulgarian  accent. These things happen sometimes. But as you know, or may not  know, the word I was looking for was "naroden" or народен.  My taxi  driver had a good laugh and then started asking me questions. The ten  minute ride ended with him telling me that he loves Bill Clinton and  that George W. Bush is okay too but that Barack Obama is responsible for  the economic crisis. Hum, that's not exactly how I see it (ahem, George  W. Bush) but I wasn't really in the position to delve into this topic  in Bulgarian with a taxi driver given my extremely limited political  vocabulary.

&nbsp;