Window to Bulgaria

From Brian's blog:

"For the next two years I will be serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bulgaria, where my primary assignment will be teaching English as a foreign language. I hope to meet the first of the Peace Corps’ three goals by proving to be a competent English teacher and getting involved in secondary projects such as environmental education. I hope to meet the second goal through my teaching and by integrating into the community and making new friends. What about the third goal? Well, that’s where this blog comes in. This is primarily for friends back home who have never been fortunate enough to visit Bulgaria. Maybe it will inspire you to visit. Maybe you will be content to live vicariously through me. Either way, the hope is that, if you follow along, you will gain a better understanding and appreciation of Bulgaria and its people."

Read more of Brian's blog at WindowToBulgaria.blogspot.com.

Pete Sessions Townhall Meeting

Report from a stranger in a strange land

Pete Sessions held a town hall meeting in Richardson Wednesday evening. Grand Hall of the Civic Center. Inside, a festive atmosphere. An overflowing crowd. Every chair taken. People lined up two and three deep along the walls to the back and sides. Microphone connected to speakers in the room next door for people who didn't fit inside the Grand Hall.

Road Trip

Our family is used to summer road trips, usually to Wisconsin and Indiana to visit family. This summer has led us in an entirely different direction. Ellen and I drove from Dallas to southern California to visit Scott in Pasadena, where he's a grad student at Caltech. And, different from our usual long hauls on the Interstate Highways, we took our time getting there.

Roots

I've always known that my ancestors emigrated to America from Europe in the 1800s. The Gambskys from Poland and the Millers from Denmark. The Jacobs from somewhere in Germany and the Stegers from Bavaria. Only the Stegers came here recently enough for me to have personal contact with any of the immigrants. My grandfather Frank Xavier Steger, Jr., was a toddler when his parents left Germany for America. All I ever knew was that they were from a village near Nuremberg and sailed to America in the early 1890s.

Chicago is "My Kind of Town"

From 200905 Chicago

Ellen and I took advantage of the Memorial Day holiday to make a 10-day weekend of it, going to Appleton and Evanston and Chicago, with even a trip to Stevens Point for lunch tossed in. In Wisconsin, we visited family, in Evanston we visited John at Northwestern University, and everywhere we played tourist, but no place as much as in Chicago, where we visited Navy Pier, adding its Ferris Wheel to the Texas Star, the London Eye and Vienna's historic Riesenrad to our lifetime Ferris Wheel rides; we took a boat ride on the Chicago River; we went down in the coal mine in the Museum of Science and Industry; we celebrated the opening of the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago; we marvelled at the reflection of the city skyline in "The Bean" in Millennium Park; we strolled through Grant Park and up the "Magnificent Mile" that is Michigan Avenue; and more. Photos from all our stops can be seen here:

• Appleton photos
  
• Stevens Point photos
  
• Evanston photos
  
• Chicago photos