Open spaces...

This past week I traveled to the town of Stara Zagora for a training session. The bus that I took from my town went through the Rhodope mountains to the city of Plovdiv. From there I took another bus to Stara Zagora. As I left Plovdiv on the bus I had a very strange feeling. The terrain from Plovdiv to Stara Zagora is for the most part pretty flat with gently rolling hills, very similar to Wisconsin and Minnesota. As I looked out at the flat hills I had this feeling in my head like the world was slowly pushing in on me. It was very subtle and didn't bother me but I could not figure out what was causing it. After a few minutes I realized it was because of the flatness of the land. For the past 9 months I have lived very near, or in, mountains. This was really the first time that I had been in an open plane for some time. It was very weird. The feeling disapeared when I was in Stara Zagora surrounded by buildings and didn't return until I left to go to Plovdiv. The area of Bulgaria that I live in is very beautiful and mountainous; I guess it is having a greater effect on me then I thought, although not necessarily for the better....