This is a personal blog. The views and opinions posted here are not those of the Peace Corps or the US Government.

Overheard in Hiezha Rai…

Tony July 4th, 2008

A little vignette from our hiking trip last May:

Hanging out in one of the common rooms in the hiezha. A guy with a mustache flags me over.

Mustache: (bulgarian) Excuse Me.

Me: (bulgarian) Yes?

Mustache: (bg) Are you Swiss?

Me: (bg) What?

Mustache: (bg) Are you Swiss?

Me: (bg) Swiss? Sorry, I don’t know that word.

Someone in my group knows a little bit of English, so intervenes.

Someone: (to me, english) He wants to know if you’re Swiss! (to mustache, bg) No, he’s American.

Me: (to someone, bg) Oh, thanks. (to mustache, bg) No, I’m American.

Mustache: (bg) Oh, sorry.

Me: (bg) Oh, it’s no problem.

*awkward silence*

And…. Scene. I like to think I know a fair amount of Bulgarian, but it’s amazing how much not knowing one word (in this case “Swiss”) can completely trainwreck my conversations. In hindsight I should’ve just responded ‘No, sorry’ instead of trying to figure out what word he was using. Ah well.

A little explanation to this story: I don’t usually get mistaken for Swiss. Usually people guess German or English, and these words I know. Apparently Mustache Guy had seen the “Swiss Gear” water bottles that we were using and might’ve known a little bit of Swiss. When I confirmed that I wasn’t in fact, Swiss, there wasn’t much that he wanted to talk about.

What’s All This Then?

Cemestvo Spencah June 25th, 2008

Hello all you happy people! You’ve heard rumors, you’ve heard us talk about it with that ’someday, maybe’ twinge in our voices, but now it’s actually here, the funtastical Spencer Family Blog, containing all of our Balkan adventures!

Things are pretty sparse here right now, but soon to come will be: Photo Albums (a la Flickr), as well as an account of our first year here. We’ll try to catch you up as well as we can one year after the fact.

So, what’s this crazy blog thing anyways? For those of you not in the know (Hi Grandma!), a “blog” is an online journal of sorts where we can type and you can read. What makes this different than a normal website is that instead of clicking back here every once and a while to see if something is new, you can just have new stuff delivered right to you! Given our track record in updating these sorts of things, that’s a good thing. Here’s a nice little video (Under 4 Minutes) that’ll break it down for you: