Let's Get Spooky: A Mercifully Shorter Post

It has, for a time, been Fall here, but now we're coming up against Halloweekend.

I like Halloween. It's always been a fun holiday (Candy + Ragers + Costumes = Obviously fun), but I don't go crazy for it like some people, for whom it is the ideal time to let their Inner Child burst forth with the sheer exuberance of someone who loves sugar highs and dressing up. Don't get me wrong - I enjoy this holiday, but there are better ones on the horizon.

Like Thanksgiving. Halloween always makes me smile because its arrival means that Thanksgiving is only 3 weeks away. And for those of you who don't know me, I LOVE THANKSGIVING. Take the best food served at any point in the year, add it to family, a four-day weekend, and my impending birthday, and it is, quite simply my favorite couple of days of the year.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm content with merely teetering on the edge of a full-blown Post-Hijacking Tangent. Let's get back to this weekend.

Being in the Balkans, I am in the midst of the mind-blowingly cool opportunity to travel to some incredibly interesting places with little trouble, so a couple other Fulbrighters and I are going to have a Vampire Weekend. That's right, y'all, we're going to Transylvania for Halloween.

Adding to the coolness of such a trip was the revelation yesterday of my great-grandmother Dotty's hometown - Frumuşica, Romania. While not really on the way to our destinations (Bucharest on Friday, Braşov and Sibiu Saturday and Sunday), this may be a good opportunity to scout out the country for a possible return trip to try to find my great-grandmother's remaining family.

But there have been a few things to take care of before I leave. On the research front, I've been continuing with the two sources I mentioned last time, and they've taken the courtesy to converge, so I'm now at a point in both of them where they are discussing the same customs. I can, therefore, follow along concurrently as they corroborate or contradict each other. This is nice and it makes my job easier.

I've also resumed moving forward with my grad school applications. I've winnowed the field, finalized a few things, and begun filling out the mountain of electronic paperwork endemic to this process. I have a little over a month to finish everything, so, for the moment, I'm in good shape vis-a-vis the relevant deadlines.

Tuesday night was a lecture at the American Research Center on the Balkans during the Ottoman period, which gave me a lot of valuable information that will serve as background to my research. Afterwards, a few of us, including a couple of the ARCS fellows, went out to dinner, which turned out to be, as they might say in the UK, a rollicking good time, and I got to meet some more cool people who are doing similar things. Last night, Michael stopped through on his way to the airport, and we headed out for another delicious dinner at yet another hole-in-the-wall Bulgarian restaurant, which I'm slowly beginning to realize are ubiquitous in this part of the city.

The items on the docket for today: Bulgarian lesson, sending emails, finding lodging for the weekend, buying a train ticket, cleaning my apartment, research, packing, gym, and finally, after all that, hitting the road.

So now, away. If you never hear from me again, it's because I've become one of the undead. Don't bother looking for me.