Plovdiv, The City of Cats

"Oblige me! It will be the best bargain he ever made. A pair of church pigeons for a couple of wicked Spanish fowls that eat their own eggs!"

My host here is named Nenko. Very friendly. He made me coffee and french toast for breakfast. He told me about a new kind of concrete he invented and plans he has to get a company to build houseboats with it. In Spain. He's waiting for a patent number to come in from Germany and the construction can begin.

There are concrete block samples in the kitchen. He also designs websites.

"Yesterday was one-hour's work in the mountains cutting the mushrooms. Cut cut cut and that was it. I slept very well after tasting them. Sometimes you get a pain in your stomach or head, but these are not those."

His mother is visiting. Sweet old lady in her late 70s. She wears orange turtlenecks. Tiny, white-haired thing. She asked if I spoke French. Just like the cab driver the other day. I wonder what that's all about. She stirred the mushrooms while I hung my laundry on the clothes line.

I'm really not sure if I've ever done that before. It sure is more efficient than balling them in the window and praying they dry like I did at the start of this trip. Baby steps.

When I was ready to go, Nenko walked me to the Metro station and gave me all the instructions I would need to find my way back. He was very precise with his descriptions.

Here is the mall. It is the first in Sofia, so they call it Mall of Sofia. There are two corridors. One is curved and one is straight. You will need to take the curved one to find the food court.

I'll remember, because it's curved like a belly.

Ok. That is your choice. Whatever works for you. This way, ten minutes slow-walk is the city center, the center of the center, in fact. This way is Metro station, you can see light from here. This way is interesting church, and... do not go the other way.

When we were decently far away, he asked me to turn around and identify the building where his apartment was. It was a test to see if I could make my way home.

The skinny one there?

He grabbed my arms. "You are also skinny if I look at you from the side!" he said. He turned my body, "But this way you are wide. Just like building!"

He let me go. "You are right, that is our building."

We said goodbye and I cut through a high-school playground to get to the Mall. I wanted to see what that food court was all about. It was a grocery store. I bought some yogurt and berries.

Another thimble-thumble of coffee from a girl with a smoky voice, Sofia's Bonnie Tyler, and I got on the subway at the Opalchenska station and glidglided to the bus station. My old friend, the bus station.

Took a minute to find the right counter for Plovdiv, since the spelling in Cyrillic is wildly different. I mean, it's no trick once you get it, but for me it wasn't immediately easy.

I've been doing all right with reading the signs here, but there's definitely a learning curve. Long blocks of text still drown me.

Ripped through a chunk of Middlemarch on the ride over. The contrast between the mannered events in the novel and the wild, industrial background is funny. Reading in a foreign country is like taking two trips at once. Layers of escape. A dream within a dream.

Taxi driver ripped me off when we arrived. I didn't care. He had a trick to make the meter go crazy like a stopwatch or something. I had read about this in a guidebook. I didn't believe it, but it's real.

The trip was supposed to cost $1.50, but when we got there, it cost me $3.25. A big deal for him and mushrooms for me, so I didn't care. In the US, a cab ride like that would have been $10. Only mentioning it because the cliche of taxi drivers being the most corrupt people you will encounter is true.

So true.

Also, Plovdiv is amazing.

When Nenko asked what I was doing today, and I told him Plovdiv, he asked why.

Me: "Well, it is said that one has not seen Bulgaria if one has not seen Plovdiv."

Him: "Someone from Plovdiv told you this, probably."

So, I wondered if it might be hype, but it was not. It's an amazing place and, I am told, the oldest consistently populated city in all of Europe.

Dotted all over with Roman and Greek ruins. An enormous preserved Greek theater. The marble steps have sandal marks in them from centuries of climbing. It's a'swarm with cats. Quiet and still. It looks like they still do concerts there. You can walk all over the darn thing. I stood on the stage and imagined seeing one of my own plays there.

Outside the theater, a cat was the same color as a wall, and I tried to get it to look at me. A local man saw me doing this and made a crazy craw-cao! noise. The cat looked over. I got my shot and thanked him.

I just loved that his face was the same color as the wall.

Happy little ankle-testing ramble through twisting stone streets. Little wonders around every corner and in every alcove. A marvelous old town. Ivy and antiques. Arches and columns. Paintings and singers.

I bought a little sketch of a pig from an artist. I tried on a Bulgarian costume at a Retro Photo booth. The photographers fussed over me and wrapped a red cloth around my waist.

They told me the cats here belong to "everyone and also no one"

A weirdo stamp salesman told me racist jokes about President Obama. A man selling gyros used the word "prince" instead of "friend."

I'd like a donar kebab and a bottled water.

"Yes, my prince, no problem. You want cucumber and spice sauce, my prince?"

A happy day, which also happened to be my birthday. The first I've ever spent alone. Am I lonely? I don't know. This was probably better then forcing fun with too many Uncle Bernies at a wing place, but it's also nice to be with people. I'll be with people when I get back.

I'll be with Uncle Bernie when I get back.

I have a play in production and I've missed a gang of rehearsals since I've been here. Really need to bear down and make it happen when get back. Now that I'm older, it should be a breeze.

When I get older, I will be stronger. They'll call me freedom, just like a waving flag.

Made my way to a busy pedestrian center. Half the town is Old Plovdiv and half the town is fancy jeans. There were some nice street murals there and I sat in a park and watched people and cats. This was the first place I've been where they are kind to the animals.

I haven't been able to write about some of the things I've seen in other places. Terrible wounds. Corpses. Flies. May the lord bless and keep all animal rights activists. May the laird bless and keep city animal control services.

Honest cab ride back to the bus station as the sun set. I drank a coffee-flavored cola and watched gypsies pick through the trash. One of them was in wild finery. Tassels, leather bag, enormous mustache. I didn't dare to take his picture lest he place a curse on me.

I couldn't tell if he was real or from an exhibition. He seemed real. Do I wake or sleep?

Easy bus ride back. The moon hung low and strange in the sky. The bus was dark with dim blue safety lights. A man watched a movie about Houdini on his laptop and I read more Middlemarch on my glowing Kindle.

The driver played Meatloaf, Soul Asylum and late 80s ballads.

Metro no problem. Mall open late, so I cut through it. Skinny building still skinny.

Home and sleep. Nenko has offered to take me to the mountains with him. He says there are lizards there if they have not all been eaten by birds. It is tempting, but there is also a city called Veliko Tarnovo. It's the last day, and I must choose wisely.

I will likely have neither opportunity ever again.