Lined Up And Waiting For That Next Big Set Outside

Well. One week down, second one started. It's sort of a mixed bag, at the moment. I have some classes that seem very eager to study, who ask and answer questions, etc., and I really enjoy teaching them. Other classes, I have to struggle to get them to pay attention, put up their cell phones, etc. Needless to say, I don't particularly look forward to teaching them.

Additionally, the schedule isn't set in stone, yet. This makes for some interesting times, as I thought I had a class during 5th period today, only to find that it had been moved to 6th, when another class came into the room in which I teach, letting me know that they had a class with another teacher.

This is apparently not an uncommon experience for Volunteers.

On a different note, I went up to the mountains again this weekend. This time, I went with the current Trainees on their hike to the Seven Rila Lakes (Bulgarian: Седмите Рилски Езера, Anglicized "Sedmite Rilski Ezera"). It was a lot of fun, and once again I was struck by just how amazingly beautiful this country is. There are, of course, pictures.

Starting off, just outside the lodge:















"Rugged" is a good adjective for the countryside here, I think. Also, as you can see, we were kind of hiking up into a cloud. It made things interesting.



One of the Seven Lakes. They were all amazingly clear.





There were all sorts of shots like this.







More shots of the various lakes:









At this point, the hike took a sharp turn upwards (into and past the clouds).













At the top:







Yours truly:







A cloudscape panorama:







Me again:



More lake shots:









Someone made some rock loungers. Perhaps this is what Blizzard meant when they talked about Frozen Throne™?



Couple more shots from the top:





The clouds rolled in, obscuring a really awesome shot of the lakes flowing into each other, so here's a little rainbow instead:



On the way down:









All told, it was about 4 1/2 hours round-trip from the lodge to the lakes and back. It was an awesome time, and hanging out with the new trainees and some other Volunteers who went was also really cool (there were 50 people in the group, total).

On Sunday, we went to the waterfall I went to last time. Due to battery issues, there are no pictures of that this time. What was interesting was that there were already icicles forming at the top of the waterfall, and there was some ice on the rocks leading up to the falls, as well.

Later, flipsiders.