Bulgariasaurus - Mar 26, 2009

Wow, this place is so interesting. The tallest Mountains I've seen on this trip are off in the distance, but not too far away. They are covered with snow but sprayed with trees on the tops as if the mountain was a pale face growing patches of a beard on its jaw. Too bad I didn't plan on snowboarding here but I didn't know anything about this place. I'm so curious about Sofia. I can't tell the difference between this and Russia. The alphabet looks Russian, but I know its Bulgarian. The people look Russian too. I exchange 10 Euro's for 18.4 bulgarian dollars (whatchamacallits). I wouldn't have been too surprised if they used peanuts as a currency.

I don't know where to go. I start walking. This place is so poor, not just the city but the whole country. I see food and look closer. Wow, the prices are so cheap. I think of gorging myself. A little further I buy a sausage sandwhich with fries for 1.60. It would be a great deal if it tasted good. I am not a picky eater, ask my parents, but the food in Bulgaria is never warm enough, never tasting satisfactory. And what are these 80 ounce beer bottles for under 2 dollars how is that possible and how can you carry a bottle that big anyways?

I see a man tying cardboard to his dillapidated shoes and for the first time in a month I actually consider giving him money. The thought passes, replaced by my habit of ignoring the poor. Usually I have to reassure this action with thoughts of the cruelness and absurdity of life. Nature and civilization both are heartless beasts. I have got a budget to keep anyways. Then there is the fact of nearly 7 billion people in existence so the earth is like an overgrown ant colony.

This street has turned into a mechanic lane. Every store is a car maintenance shop of some sort. Its like Mill Street in Lewisville. I walk and walk to get out of the car street.

Oh look a coffee machine. Oh sweetness, espresso for 30 cents!

----

Later.

I do not plan on staying, instead I will catch a train out at 9.3ó. So I have some time to kill. I drink and walk around. I find an old ruined house in a lot which appears to have been abandoned and used to throw broken things into. I find an old identity book with the picture of a 50 something yr. old bulgarian man with large, bushy moustache. I have always liked exploring abandoned lots. Its sort of an adventure. I walk up the stairs of the ruined old building. There is a dog in there and also beds on the floor. The dog does not bark at me but I turn around not interested in seeing who lives there.

Still walking around outside the train station area I am approached by an average looking man who speaks some English. He offers me a cigarette. I do not know why he is being friendly but I am suspicious. After Í avoid his inquiries he leaves, only to find me again a few minutes later. I am annoyed, quite sure he will try to steal something from me, although my back pack is in a locker and I am only carrying a daypack. I enter the casino to avoid him.

The princess casino. Well I ve always wanted to try a casino and I feel more justified wasting cheap Bulgarian money than us dollars or Euros. The first machine takes my ten dollars in a matter of seconds after pressing a few buttons -nothing. I realize i do not have much money left -actually not enough for the machines. I do not know what i can plaz so i order a drink and pretend to play. Not wanting to ignore a good deal I stick around a while longer getting two more drinks but not actually playing anything. Then security makes me leave. Ha ha at least I got my drinks.

I return to the train station but Ive missed my train by ten minutes. Ugh, now i have to wait until tomorrow. Oh well, bulgaria is a great place to find a cheap hostel. The information booth is closed so I start walking again to find a place.

I walked and walked. I was drunk from the casino drinks. Too drunk.

I do not know what happened.

--------

Morning.

Suddenly I wake up freezing cold, hungry, tired, and thirsty.This place is dark, where am I? This small room is crowded, what was I lying on, I step on something every step I take, what is all this junk? I have a sense of being filthy. All of this is trash, I think. How do I get out of this box? How did I get in, who put me here? Where is my daypack? I claw the walls for an exit, a doorknob, some familiar object, please. There is what appears to be a small window on one end, nothing on the two sides but a paneling. I rip at it but there is metal behind it. I see a sliver of light on the opposite end of the window. This must be a boxcar but its too small. The sliver of light must be a door. I trz opening it but the handle comes off, or maybe I only think it was a handle. Suddenly I become mad with a frustrated excitement to get out. I have never felt this cold. I want to be in the light. I scream to be let out. I bang my hands, feet, and body against the walls. I slam against the door then kick it. It seemed to budge a little - more light. I pick up an object to throw against the door. It shatters. I guess it was a large jar, iI think. I pick up a wooden stick -the handle of a rake maybe -it has a metal end which I attack the lock of the doors with.

Nothing. I am too weak right now. I try screaming out the door. Not that anyone would understand me anyway. It is morning, earlz morning. I don't know where I am but no one is nearby, no houses or apartments either. I am fucked.

Maybe an hour has passed since I awoke. I start kicking the door. Mz boots seem to be made for kicking these doors, I think. It isnát working. More time passes. Surely someone will let me out.

There is no one. Suddenly I am motivated to start kicking the door again. This is my only option. The violent sound of my boot against the doors becomes like my heart beat. Kicking over and over with a strength which surprises me.

Then....a louc crack. The doors flz open. Daylight and freedom greet me. I find my daypack in the back corner and get out. Still I am frantic, lost in a freezing body and confused mind. I step out and look back. A white van. I was locked inside of a white van. I hate this van bc it is the onlz object I can blame. I throw a rock through the passenger window. ŰCrash, it goes through. I start to leave. No. I stop.

I hate that van.

űI pick up a large chunk of concrete then hurl it at the windshield. s

Smash! A large crater is left. I fucked up that windshield.

So what that is no real revenge.

I have no explanation.

No why, no how, no who.

Only the cold fact I was locked in a van, my drinks and camera stolen from me. I don't know where I am, still in central Sofia I assume.

I could not walk normal. All I could muster up were the smallest, weakest steps. My abounding energy which normally propels me to walk faster than any European is gone.

Everyone is out to get me. Now my camera is gone. Those were the best pictures I ever had.

I realize I have left sanity somewhere else. Grunting, walking slow, I make the angriest faces at passers by.

---------------

I was not in the city center. Far from it. It took hours to get back. A bus and to tram rides and a lot of walking to get back. The van must have driven me out of the city into an industrial complex surrounded by rural farm houses. I kept moving towards the mountain. Ít was my landmark. I knew if I got close enough to that mountain I could find the station.

When I found myself at the station again, nothing remained but regret and bitter hostility. I said to myself perhaps there is nothing I value more in the world than the feeling that life can be trusted, that the world is my friend. But now it has left me. I cannot trust life today. The goodness of life comes when it pleases, it goes away so quickly and how dry I feel when it has gone! Does it pay me these brief, ironical visits in order to show me that my life is a failure?

When I was 20 I was sent to a state jail for 11 months, this after arrests, breakups and breakdowns, rehabs and halfway houses. At one point I was sent to the state mental institution for two weeks, then they sent me back to the jail after I decided I did not want antidepressants after all. If I was a person who compiled his life experiences into wisdom I would not trust life to give me anything good. But still, I deny the reality of life, always trying to believe in some impossible future where I can live the life I want to, not just suffering the cards I am dealt. Maybe this life is where you get fucked, but I will not stand for it, I will stand in defiance and try to fight the demon instead. (whatever that means) How much I wish the world would be my friend again, smile upon me again. Perhaps tomorrow. At least I still have my freedom.

-----------------

I had to pass the time again until the next train to Budapest came. I observe in amazement that to my standards, Bulgarians are the ugliest people in the entire world, even their children are uglz. A woman I saw a t a bus ticket booth ahad a full moustache. Some people conjured up images of a half human half elephant. Ugly women kept trying to talk to me, they were saying a word I didn't kow, selling something. Finally a woman translated it: "sex". Are you kidding, you have like 5 brown teeth and look starved. All the women who offered me sex were horrid looking. A few more prostitutes approached me. I kept saying no then I ran away after a failed attempt to scare one of them off by signing and saying I was Catholic. This country has no standards. Whores hsould have a few nice teeth at least.

I´ve traveled the world but still not slept with a hooker or been to a strip club. I have to have some boundaries you know.

I never found any good food. I was not hungry anymore, my stomach felt empty and I felt naseaus, more so than before on this trip. I noticed a lot of needles lying on the sidewalk, in the park too. I don't blame them, I would do hard drugs too if I lived in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is a savage beast, a Bulgariosaurus. Perhaps it is ready for extinction.