Let's Get Started

This week marks the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester at AUBG and the school celebrated the arrival of students on campus with an all-campus picnic, topped off with a fireworks display just after nightfall.  Actually, many of the students have not yet arrived on campus, thanks to Hurricane Irene (many students work in, study in or travel to the U.S. each summer and many were stranded there when the hurricane dumped a bunch of rain, apparently mainly on Vermont and all the airports on the east coast), but the University decided to celebrate regardless.

First, there was a picnic with all the fixins.  Chicken fillets, some type of sausages and cole slaw.  There may also have been some beers and hard cider floating around the picnic site (although that's not a big deal here as the drinking age is 18 16 12 undetermined).

Eagle-eyed viewers of that photo might recognize that the area where the picnic is being held is actually a baseball diamond.  On the left of the photo in the background, you may be able to make out the top of the first-base side dugout.  The Bulgarian National Baseball Team (seriously) trains in Blagoevgrad and they share this diamond with AUBG.  So American sports have a strong presence in Blagoevgrad.  And not just baseball.

 After a few minutes of milling about, a real football game broke out.  And no, I don't mean "futball," I mean football.  As to the quality of the play... well, as you can see in the photo above, several of the defensive players have their head turned in the general direction of the ballcarrier (not a majority, but several).  Also, everyone appeared to affix their flags properly, so that's pretty solid.

Later, after the sports had been played, a local band played covers of some pop songs from the last few decades (think "wedding reception band") and the party was on.

Yes, all those kids are wearing the same t-shirt.  This is not a coincidence, but a planned part of the extravaganza.  The message on the t-shirt celebrates the 20th anniversary of the opening of AUBG, shortly after the communists left Bulgaria.  T-shirts were distributed to all faculty and students and they were all requested to wear the shirts to the picnic for a group photo (although if everyone has the same shirt on, the group photo is probably going to look like a bunch of heads floating on a sea of purple).  Mark was issued one of these t-shirts and it was a size "XL."  Unfortunately, this was a European XL, not a real XL (Americans might recognize it as a "M").  But Mark is a team player and wore the shirt to the picnic for the photo anyway (even though he looked like a guy who bought the biggest shirt he could find when he went shopping at Baby Gap).  Shortly after changing shirts, circulation did return to his extremities.