Then... and now...

Since I haven't made an update to this in two years, I decided to stop procrastinating on filling in past info and just "get on with it", so here goes an attempt at bringing things up to speed in a far too brief summary. I'll start where my previous post left off... just after Christmas 2005, when I had just finished a visit to Poland (Warsaw and Krakow).

I began 2006 with celebrating New Year's Eve in Budapest, Hungary with several colleagues from the MBA Enterprise Corps who were working in Bulgaria. I came down from Krakow, Poland by train and met them in Budapest (see pic at right). After much wandering the streets of Pest to find the perfect spot for our New Year's Eve celebration, we settled on that good old expat standard - the Irish Pub. We had a great time, but I think by the next morning EVERYONE was ready to spend the first day of 2006 in a very quiet, peaceful place... physically and mentally.

The high points of 2006 were trips to the Greek islands, Scandinavia (Helsinki, Tallinn, and Stockholm), Luxembourg, Serbia, two trips to Turkey - one for sailing and another to explore Istanbul. The picture at left is of me with friends Ryan (MBAEC Bulgaria) and Norm (MBAEC Azerbaijan). I was fortunate to have many family and friends come to visit me in Romania. The pic below is of me with my sister Jennifer, in the town of Beirtan, in Transylvania.

By the time my consulting contract was up in July of 2006, I was ready to return to the U.S. and begin law school - then the inevitable twist of fate happened. Earlier in that same month, I had visited some friends in Sofia and became aware that a US/UK commercial real estate company was building a major office development in Sofia, and had plans for expansion throughout Southeastern Europe. As it turns out, they needed an Acquistions Associate, and made me an offer. So, what was planned to be a permanent trip back to the US turned out to be just a three week visit before starting a whole new experience in Bulgaria!

What to say about Bulgaria? Well, not to insult anyone’s geography skills, but just in case any are wondering, its located just south of Romania, and north of Turkey and Greece (see map below).

It has a beautiful coastline on the Black Sea, and a mountainous interior which has a fast growing ski tourism industry. It’s really quite a beautiful place overall. Like most Eastern European countries, it is still, to some degree developing from its communist past. For foreign companies, like the one I worked for, this presents a lot of opportunities to provide products that Bulgaria truly needs. Modern commercial and residential real estate of all types is one of those products.

When I started the job in September 2006, as an Associate on a team of five people, the project was essentially a concept. By the time I left in December 2007, as Director of Acquisitions and Asset Management co-managing a team of ten people, the project had been designed, ground had been broken, bank financing achieved, and a 50/50 joint venture formed with a major international institutional investor. The very best part of the professional experience was working with the my team of co-workers and professional colleagues in Sofia. I was the only non-Bulgarian in our office, so it was a true “immersion experience”! Along the way, I met and worked with a lot of great people from Bulgaria, and many other countries in Europe, made some very good friends, and had a lot of fun. The picture below was taken at my American friend Bryan's wedding to his Bulgarian wife Maria.

The best part of 2006 and 2007 was the time I was able to spend with my girlfriend Melinda (see picture below, taken in Prague in Feb 2007), who I began seeing seriously shortly after I moved to Sofia.

Even though she is Hungarian and lives in Budapest, she wasn’t so far away that we didn’t get to see each other at least a couple of times a month, and to travel a lot together. Over the course of the year we went to Paris, London, Vienna, Prague, Croatia, Munich, and some great places in her native Hungary as well. By the time 2007 came to a close, both Melinda and I knew we wanted to be together permanently, and so on New Year's Eve, in Vienna, I surprised her by proposing, and she surprised me by accepting!!!

The best trip of the year was a week long sailing charter from Split to Dubrovnik, in the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Croatia. Melinda and I, along with 6 other friends (who came in from 4 different countries), chartered a 42’ foot sailboat and hopped down the islands along the Dalmatian coast. Our happy, if not always fearless, crew is pictured at left. In seven days of sailing, we went to five different islands, and experienced a little bit of all the sailing in Croatia has to offer: sunny days with fair winds, secluded harbors with nothing but a small family restaurant, remote island towns hundreds (if not thousands) of years old, famed 35+ knot Croatian “bora winds”, incredible food, and spectacular landscape (see picture below). If you’d like to know more, my friend and first mate Joel Froese has written a nice summary of the trip on his website: (http://persistentitch.blogspot.com/2007/08/hrvatska.html).

Another place I visited this year was the battlefield at Verdun, France. If you haven’t heard of Verdun before, it was the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the First World War. Over 300,000 French and German soldiers died there between February and December of 1916. Because of such awful death tolls as this, the First World War was called the War to End All Wars. We know all too well that unfortunately it hasn’t happened that way.

Very fortunately, I was able to spend most of December at home with my family in Louisville, Kentucky, enjoying an extended holiday break and spending a lot of time with family that I normally only get to see for all too short visits. Since I left for Europe in 2005, I now have a niece (2 years old) and a nephew (6 months old).

In January 2008, Melinda and I will be moving to Zurich, Switzerland where I will start work with the real estate investment arm of a global American investment company as an Asset Manager in the new office they are opening in Zurich. I’ll be involved in real estate investment projects throughout Europe; however much of my time will be focused on Central and Eastern Europe. We’re both looking forward to discovering Switzerland and making trips to the neighboring countries. The job will actually start with a few weeks in London and a trip to New York, but we hope to be living in our own place in Zurich by mid-February. All are welcome and we really hope to receive a lot of visitors!!!