Walking for 90 minutes to finally catch a bus to Plovdiv (including at one point somehow walking the wrong way through Sofia's confusing streets...), I was knackered. I hadn’t done much research into Plovdiv and assumed I’d be fine.
I got off the bus and saw two people speaking English. I went up to them and asked if I could tag along with them to find a hostel and I soon realised they looked just like Frankie Muniz and his mate in the wheelchair from Malcolm In The Middle. I resisted the urge to call him Malcolm and followed them to the hostel.
Malcolm and Stevie (who for the record wasn’t in a wheelchair, and didn’t speak slowly) weren’t even staying there, they had a private room together so they went off on their merry way and I booked a room for a couple of nights looking into where I was going to spend my birthday, Christmas etc…
Then this attractive girl walked past me. I smiled at her not expecting much back and she smiled at me as she walked past, so at least I knew she was friendly. Then a few minutes later I made a joke with everyone in the room without thinking and she burst out laughing. I thought it was cool that she got my sense of humour because not everyone does and eventually started chatting away with her.
Her name was Amunda (It was actually Amanda, but she said she’s so used to talking to non native speakers she says ‘Amunda’ without thinking. I have to to say LewEES or Lewie for the same reason…) and we got on really well. We went out and grabbed some Bulgarian food and because she was only in town for one night I decided to not write anything that night and focus all my energy on her.
Plovdiv has a Central Perk as well...
She confided in me at dinner, telling me about her life and what had happened recently (which I’m not going to write on here because it’s not my place to say) and I was feeling a real connection with her. After trying some frogs legs and some world class sauteed potatoes I couldn’t wait to go out, have a few drinks with her and get to know her even more.
We went back to the hostel because I needed a shower. When you can smell yourself you know the rest of the world can smell you. Then once I was done another bloke, Michael decided to come along with us.
Michael was not like me at all; and was declaring that he was going to party until five in the morning. We went out and the cliche ‘two’s company, three’s a crowd’ felt very real. Not in the sense that he was doing anything wrong, but the balance had definitely shifted. We were in a loud bar and couldn’t all talk to each other at the same time, so whoever was in the middle would have to switch between talking to people while the third wheel at the time would be awkwardly staring at their phone or daydreaming.
We went to a second bar and by midnight Michael was alternating between falling asleep and scrolling through Tinder. I tried to liven the party up by getting up and dancing with random Bulgarians, but to no avail.
Just then Frankie Muniz and his mate walked into the bar. I tapped Frankie on the shoulder and gestured that I knew them. He looked like he didn’t give a shit, smiled and moved on. Stevie then mumbled something about going to another bar and followed him out. I then carried on drinking and boogieing with scary looking Bulgarians until I got tired.
Irrelevant photo, but it was in Plovdiv though so enjoy 'Random Bagpipe Kinda Man!'
We eventually headed back at one o clock and I couldn’t help but think I’d missed an opportunity to get to know a cool girl better before she headed off. I mean we talked and definitely got on, but I feel like it would have been a much better night out if it was just the two of us since we’d already built up that rapport. It wasn’t Michael’s fault by any means; he was just a lot younger than us and wanted to do different things (for example he wanted to go clubbing and we wanted to chill somewhere where we could talk with music in the background)
Me and this girl are friends on social media though so I’ll be keeping in touch with her to see how she’s getting on back in North Carolina. You never know we may end up crossing paths again, whether it’s in America, Europe or Asia. I was originally going to catch up with her in Macedonia but I ended up enjoying Plovdiv so much that I decided to stay there instead. Oh, and I finished the book there as well, which I’ll go into in my next blog post tomorrow…