Traveling Across the World: Mr. Kelly
Mr. Kelly loves traveling and is counting down the days until he can travel after Covid-19. One of the most interesting places Mr. Kelly has traveled is Sofia, Bulgaria:
"I made a couple of phone calls and did a couple of interviews and in less than a month I was on a plane to Sofia, Bulgaria, a country that at the time, I knew very little about." This is just one of the interesting stories Mr. Kelly has stored, ready to tell at any moment.
It all started when he was employed as a copy editor in Washington DC after he had graduated from the University of Kentucky. Mr. Kelly wanted to get back into teaching young people. Little did he know that he would have to travel halfway across the world in order to accomplish his goal. His friend mentioned a program that sent American teachers to eastern Europe to teach English. (Interesting, right? A history teacher who used to be an English teacher!) Mr. Kelly, who had loved traveling as a kid (keep reading to find out why), loved the idea of going abroad.
It was Mr. Kelly's first day as an English teacher in Bulgaria. He was nervous but ready to start. He didn't know how different it would be from American schools. He woke up ready and motivated. He left his house and began going toward his school. There weren't many people up yet, which he thought was weird. He didn't think anything of it and kept on going toward his workplace. When he finally got there the doors were locked. He waited and waited. One hour later, everyone finally arrived. They told him that he arrived an hour early; he was bewildered. He showed them his watch and they started laughing. They told Mr. Kelly that the daylight saving dates were different in Bulgaria than in America.
Mr. Kelly's love for traveling stems from his childhood. His dad was in the hotel business, so they moved around a lot. From the tropical country of the Bahamas to the winter wonderland of New Hampshire, Mr. Kelly went from swimming every day to skiing every day--polar opposites of each other.
When he was a frequent skier, Mr. Kelly skied at Tuckerman's Ravine on Mount Washington in New Hampshire. For the first three hours walking up with all the gear, he couldn't see any snow, but when he arrived at the ravine there was so much snow. "In the end, we only took three runs, because the quality of the snow wasn't that great for skiing and hiking up a steep wall of ice and snow in your ski boots is tough." Does he regret it? No. Would he do it again? Probably not.
Also, because Mr. Kelly loves History, he enjoys going around the world to the places he's read about. For example, he's visited the World's Oldest Sod House, which is actually in Oklahoma. He's recently felt inspired to travel to new places. Next on his bucket list is a visit to Europe's WW1 and WW2 battlefields, or, Mr. Kelly said, “an epic overland drive from Casablanca to Cairo… that would be amazing.”
If you’re interested in travel, reach out to Mr. Kelly; he has a lot of interesting stories to tell.