Bulgaria Day Four/Five/Six | Plovdiv and Sofia

I am a national hero. I ended our war with Syria.

How? You may be wondering.. Well, it was easy really. I met a Syrian, and I told him that we would play scrabble. The stakes? Our countries. Don't worry though. I dominated.

You make some great, and pretty strange, friends in hostels late at night.

The past few days have been a little crazy, and extremely sleep deprived. Two days ago we made our home in Plovdiv, which is the second largest city in Bulgaria. Our hostel experience there was just as awesome as our first, so basically there were no creepy men passed out in an 8 person dorm.

The people were awesome, and the manager even offered to share life stories over a joint if I was so inclined (I wasn't).

Plovdiv is probably my favorite city in Bulgaria. And now, some pictures of ancient roman civilizations:

Yes, I'm still working on my modeling career, as you can see.

The cool thing about this city is everything is buried underground. One day, a man was digging in his garden, and the next, archeologists discover this great theater! Rule number one of Bulgaria: don't go digging around if you want to keep your house.

Plovdiv is set atop seven different hills, and has a small airport. It's a pretty happening place.

After we spent the day exploring, we decided that the next day was a day for mountaineering. We hired a guide and took off.

Our guide was amazing. He taught us tons of words in Bulgarian (nothing we'd actually ever need to know but if you need a dog, spoon, horse, or a very small dwarf, I got you covered), and put up with three crazy American girls for the entire day. You gotta' give him props, he handled it very well.

First we went to The Wonderful Bridges, which is essentially the "Arches National Park" of Bulgaria. Expect here, there are fences to keep you from falling. Apparently the USA doesn't care as much about it's citizens safety.

Gorgeous, right?

Then we took another long drive down the canyon to Assen's Fortress. It's a church up on the tippy top of a hill, but one of the girls I'm with was convinced it was a torture chamber. Yeah.. It's not.

I guess you could say the view from the top is pretty nice..

Selfies are even cooler on the top of mountains.

Who am I kidding? The view was incredible!

We got back to the hostel pretty late, and had a traditional Bulgaria dinner, and respectfully declined the invitation to go out and party with our driver (what is it with Europeans and partying?), and instead had a party in our hostel room. A blast and a half, I can assure you.

"I call the top bunk!!"

"I'm going to pull soooo many pranks on you from up here!"

Today we are back in Sofia. We explored the town a little bit more, which basically means we spent a little more time getting lost, and tried to avoid the creepy Bulgarian men. Trust me when I tell you that they are extremely persistent.. I don't think I need to further explain myself on that one.

In Sofia, there is natural mineral water that springs up from the ground and is completely safe to drink. It's hot and I wouldn't put my mouth on the spout if I were you, but it's pretty tasty. Thirsty, anyone? 

This trip has taught me how to use a map, unsuccessfully at times, but still. Then we went souvenir shopping, and I haggled my way to getting a hat for a cheaper price. 

My mom would be so proud.

Tomorrow we fly home, and I'm so sad! I'm not ready to leave such a beautiful place! It really has been a trip of a lifetime. I wouldn't change one thing about it.

It makes me appreciate the things in my life that I have that I take for granted every day. Like shower curtains, and towels big enough to cover your body. Never take those for granted. Oh, and modern medicine. Some people think warm tea will cure anything. I am not one of those people.

Bulgaria. You've been beautiful. If I never had to leave, I wouldn't.

Bulgaria Day 2 | Burgas

I jinxed myself.

Remember what an awesome day I had in Sofia yesterday? Well.. Today did not start out that way.

We took a five and a half hour bus to the coast to spend a couple days near the Black Sea. Besides the bus being uncomfortable, it really wasn't that bad.

Finding a hostel at five in the morning, is that bad.

It was dark, cold, and the streets were abandoned. Never mind the insistent taxi drivers wanting to take us to the beach (who goes to the beach that early?!).

We wandered around the small village of Burgas for almost and hour before finding our hostel.

To say it was a little different from our previous hostel, would be a dramatic understatement.

I'm not a complainer, but this hostel was.. Well, a disaster. It was freezing, and we ended up in an 8 man room with no locks or place to keep our luggage. The bathrooms didnt even have toilet paper!

We didn't last very long there.

At about ten, we snuck out of there and booked another, more user friendly, hostel down the street.

We love it here.

Next on our little adventure is Sunny Beach, the tourist town of the Bulgarian Coastline. Unknown to us, it's also a ghost town in the end of October.

Seriously, no on was there.. And all the buildings were boxed up and closed. I've never seen something so abandoned looking.

The beach itself was pretty incredible though.

See? I wasn't lying.

After wandering through the ghost town, we took the bus back to Burgas and walked around some more lovely beaches. We watched the sun set from the pier and turns out there was some kind of jellyfish gathering going on, so we saw a bunch of those weird looking creatures of the sea.

Love this town. 

Love my friends. 

Love my life.

Xoxo.

 

Bulgaria Day 1 | Sofia

The greatest thing about being in Europe is being able to wake up in another country and not suffer from jet lag.

But really.

Guess what?! I'm in Bulgaria!!

It's one of the most incredible cities I've ever been in. Everything here is amazing. The history, culture, people, food, everything; are all such a great experience.

Most importantly.. Our hostel. Is. AWESOME.

It's like a giant college hang out. All the time.

Seriously, the party never stops here.

When you imagine traveling through Europe, this is what you imagine. Going to some semi-sketch hostel and meeting new friends and having great adventures!

I feel like a traveling gypsy. This place, and the vibe, are everything I love. I really could stay here forever and die happy.

This really is the life.

This weekend I got some really bad news, and this trip has helped so much already.

I'm just hoping the feelings will last..

Виждам, че по-късно.

I'm off for our midnight bus to the Black Sea. They say salt water can cure anything.. So.. Here's to hoping.

A Letter

Dear the 14 year old me,

It's not you, it's everybody else.

You are full of so much potential, and there is no reason to change for anybody. Not even the cute boy in your metal shop class.

So what you like musicals and you didn't make the cheer leading squad? You are still awesome. If you don't mind me giving you a word or two of advice; the way other's see you, isn't going to matter if it changes the way you see yourself.

Being a teenager is hard. Like, really hard. Trust me I know.

But it's also hard being an adult, looking back, and realizing you were always in such a rush to grow up; it's like you never really had the chance to experience what being a teen is all about.

I try not to regret anything that has happened in life, but a huge one for me is caring too much about what others thought.

Nobody feels completely accepted in junior high and high school. And the people who do, never really leave that school behind. So, you tell me - which is worse?

A big part of growing up is making mistakes and screwing up.
Let me rephrase that...
A HUGE part of growing up is making mistakes and screwing up.

Nobody is perfect.

Another helpful hint: Be nicer to your family, especially Mom.

When you were born, she looked down into your eyes and was proud to call you hers. Don't make her second guess that first thought. She loves you more than you will ever understand, and yelling at her about everything won't fix anything. It will just tear a temporary hole in the best friendship you will ever have.

That goes for the rest of your family too. Be nicer to them. They are the only family you get, and they deserve the best.

And for heaven's sake! Please don't belittle your intelligence. There is never a good reason to pretend to be uneducated. You're smart. Don't let other people convince you you're not.

Not all blondes have to be dumb.

But.. my biggest word of caution is about boys. Yes, boys.

Don't be to eager for that first kiss, first make out, first boyfriend, first anything. 

You have plenty of time to focus on that later on in life, and trust me when I say that 15 year old boys are not the greatest kissers. It gets much better once you get older. It's worth waiting for.

Boys in junior high are dumb. They always have, and always will be.

It's a law of nature.

And only a select few of them grow out of that by the time they graduate high school, so don't set your hopes too high.

Remember to focus of life at it's present time. You never get to relive that moment again, so take full advantage of it. Make your parent's proud to call you their daughter. Don't give them reasons to not trust you.

With much love from the future.
xoxo.

It's midnight.

It's midnight.

It's midnight, on a typical Thursday night.

It's midnight, on a typical Thursday night, and I'm trying to figure myself out.

Who, exactly, decided that when you turned twenty you were wise enough to make decisions that would impact the rest of your life?

Because I am almost twenty years old, and I have absolutely no idea what I would like to do with the rest of my life - let alone the next six months.

I assume this is a pretty normal thing for people my age to be going through. That horrible feeling of walking into a dark tunnel, and not knowing what is at the end waiting for you. I just can't help but feel like I'm having a harder time than most people.

Sometimes I consider myself an old soul, like when I'm talking to other college students my age and for some reason we aren't the same. It's not something I can fully explain, just a feeling I wish I didn't have.

I wish I could know the future, even if it was only a glimpse.

How do people decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives...? That seems like such a huge deal to me.

My biggest fear is looking back on my life and wishing I would have done things differently.

All I want is to be able to be one thing one day, and then be able to change my mind the next. Who says I have to only have one career path? Why can't I choose them all?

Why can't I be a teacher, and an artist, and a firefighter, and serve my country all at the same time?

Who made that rule?

Why is it, that we have to settle on one particular thing?

I don't want to live with regrets.

In an ideal world I would be able to figure out "what I wanted to be when I grow up" as many times as I wanted; until I was lying on my death bed!

I don't know who decided that twenty was the golden age at which people needed to know what they were going to do, probably some stuffed shirt in the school administration system, but I am telling you all now that I've got nothin'.

I want to make a difference in the world. 

I want to make an impact.

I want to be a writer.

I want to be a musician.

I want to be a baker.

I want to be an Olympian.

I want to witness a miracle.

I want to climb Mount Everest (with or without oxygen).

I want to ride in a hot air balloon.

I want to learn to cook something other than spaghetti.

I want to step foot on all 7 continents.

I want to start some sort of humanitarian aide in Africa.

I want to help other's live up to their full potential.

I want to be able to support myself financially.

I want to be a mom.

I want to be a "real" mom.

I want to make my adopted son proud.

I want to make my family proud.

But most importantly, I want to make myself proud. 

Whoever made the rule that you had to have life figured out at twenty was an idiot.

I don't know if I'll ever have life figured out - maybe not even when I'm 95 and other's are coming to me for advice on this very same thing.

Life is so full of unanswerable questions, and I wish that knowing what to make of yourself, wasn't one of them.

Weekly Update #1 - The Freshman 15

Dear newly added social media resource (aka bloggy),

I'm sorry I've been neglecting you, but you just don't understand how hard it is to update my life on four different platforms of media. I mean, Facebook is hard enough, let alone Instagram, twitter, and now this blog!

Sheesh that's a whole lot of writing to do! Plus I don't even know if anyone really reads this thing anyways, but I guess we shall see.

Weekly update númerouno, here we go:

Today I started a diet. Yes, you read that correctly. My host mom and dad convinced me that in one month I could lose 15 pounds if I followed this crazy regimen with them - and me, being a sucker for all things trendy, decided it might be a good idea. (I was just glad to see that even after having moved to a different country and eaten all sorts of weird foods, I stayed at exactly the same weight I was in the states. Hooray!! On another note though, I have gained weight the past year, so I'm not sure if that's actually something to be cheering about..)

It's been one day and I'm already craving anything and everything with the word "yummy" attached to it.

I don't know if this will actually work, but here's to hoping!

Everyone here has gotten some kind of sickness, and unfortunately I wasn't immune to it completely either. I have a little cold, for what seems like the first time in forever, so I probably had it coming. I'll never take for granted modern medicine again!

I told my host family I felt kind of down in the dumps and they boiled me up some weird lemony broth thing and told me to drink it every day and I would never be sick again. Well.. Alrighty, then.

Teaching has been going swimmingly. I mean that literally, as in I'm dog-paddling to keep my head above water.

I've never had so much respect for my elementary school teachers as I do in this moment. Don't worry, there will be plenty more about these little "angels" in time.

Today I've been sad. Mostly because I remembered it's fall now, and that means Halloween edition Oreo cookies. That I can't have. *que deep depression*

I hope everyone back home is doing well, and now that I downloaded the blog app on my phone I hope to keep updating more frequently!

I love you all!! Xoxo!! 

Katie Rose.

My Testimony

Today I want to share a little bit of my testimony with all of you. It's a work in progress, and I'm definitely not perfect, but I hope you'll bear with me and take the time to read it.

The first time I went back to the temple I went for the wrong reasons entirely. I didn't really go for myself. I thought I had, but I didn't fully understand what going for myself meant.

I was seeking acceptance, which I hadn't felt in a very long time. Acceptance from someone who, in all honesty, wasn't going to matter in six months from that time.

I wanted to make myself better for this friend. I wanted to show that, I too, could make it to the temple and be worthy.

Some may not understand why this is such a terrible thing. That even though my intentions were wrong, at least I made it there! 

I used to think that as well.

That is until my friend, that had been such a rock for me in the church, wasn't the person I thought he could have been.  And now, I was left wondering where I really stood in the church.

Did I even believe? What exactly was my testimony? A testimony, that I had been so sure I had before, was now something I questioned.

It's an awful feeling, to question your own faith.

I wish I could say that I hadn't fallen back into temptation - but I did, shortly after having a fallout with my friend. But Satan is always working against us, he is always trying to make you doubt yourself and your strength. But we must refuse to listen.

There are many reasons why I chose to leave the country and come to Ukraine. The biggest reason being to find myself. It's been a long time since I've been able to do that without outside interference.

I’d like to share a story of what happened about a month ago. A short time after my friend and I had been on the rocks, I did something really stupid. I look bad and feel such inner turmoil that it's hard to even write yet alone think about.

The first time I attempted to truly repent, I said my biggest hardship was not understanding how you can be sorry? I mean, I was in love right? How can it really be that bad?

After this relapse I was overcome with sorrow. I was in a daze the rest of the day, numb from what had happened, and when I got home that night all I could do was cry into my pillow and pray that Heavenly Father could forgive me.

I felt I didn't deserve to be forgiven. I had already screwed up so many times in the past, to me it felt like too many. I tried to remind myself that it was only the adversary telling me these things, but it was so hard to believe I could be forgiven again. So hard to believe I could have a second, yet alone a twenty-second, chance.

I think what made it hurt the most was knowing that after so many years I was finally temple worthy, and in one day that was gone.

What started out as an ordinary Sunday, of all days, turned out to be one the worst days of my life.

Right up there with placing Noah.

I had never been more ashamed of myself.

Coming to Ukraine has been one of the harder, but best choices I've made in my life thus far.

I'm in the process of repentance for what feels like the hundredth time.

I can only pray that this is also the last, for something as serious as this. I look forward to the day when I will be able to enter inside the temple once again.

I love everyone who has been there for me through all the trials I have put them through, and I'm so sorry I couldn't make you proud of me.

I'm so sorry for being weak. 

But I'm also glad.

Without this trial, I never would have been able to say that this testimony is one hundred percent my own.

That it's not based off of something I wish I had, it's based off of something I know to be true.

I don't think until this moment I have actually believed the words I used to utter when I was a girl in sacrament meeting.

But now I can say, without any doubt in my mind:

I’d like to bare my testimony. I KNOW this church is true. I know that Heavenly Father loves me. He hears my prayers. I am so thankful for the atonement, for without it I would be lost. I am thankful for my savior, and all things that he did. I am also sorry for all the pain that I have caused, that he also had to endure. I don’t know what I would do without this church. Even when I have turned the other direction, Heavenly Father has been there for me; helping me through all my trials. I firmly believe this church to be the one and only true church on the earth today.

I say these things, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.