The Miracle of the Hostel

"I think all them business men must've been afraid of all those old movies about aliens coming here for the water or for the animals, so they've trashed both as a strategy to keep those little green men away. Nothing you want here, Martians, so just take your pie plate and move on."

Chapter 2 - Boots on the Ground,The Miracle of the Hostel, A Wandering, A Grocery Store

Slept on the three-hour connector flight. Lufthansa does this thing where when you go through the gate, you board not a plane but a bus, and as it honks through the fog you wonder if it's taking you to a train to a little car shaped like a football helmet to an elevator to the plane.

But it just takes you to the plane. Where it's easy to sleep. I blinked and we were in Sofia. The flight attendant had given me my yogurt and muselix anyway.

While we waited to be let into the terminal, I listened to the whispered German and Bulgarian voices, It sounded like a sidewalk being swept of leaves. A little boy looked at me and I smiled, and he said, "Hye-low, hee-low, you English?"

I said, yes. He said, "Hee-low, Heello, I do not speak English."

Customs was no problem.

The plan, as ever, is to land, hit up an ATM, grab a cab and dump my bags at the rented apartment, but the ATM declined my card, so I had to trade cash for Lev. That's the currency here, the lev. I guess when you go bankrupt, the levy goes dry.

Man, that's a good one. Should have saved that one!

Since I'm going to be in a couple of places my bank doesn't like, I took out a couple hundred bucks before I left, so I could just grab some local currency in Serbia or Kosovo without getting my card shredded. But... it was supposed to work here.

So, I had to dip into the stash to get taxi money. I stood in line at the changebank, bleary and cussing Chase. A man at a special desk was trying to convince a man on the other side of the desk that he not only had an account there, it was full of money. So much money. When he was told there was no record of him, he asked for 50 Euro so he could find documents to prove he really did have the account.

He didn't get it, but I got mine and I was off.

Off to another line. The taxiline! Signs all over the place tell you it's 17 lev to the city center. A dude told me he'd take me for "special english price of 30 lev." I pointed to the 17 lev sign, and he said, "Oh. oh. Is very old, this sign."

I took another cab. The driver blasted Black Sabbath and drove like I was his pregnant daughter whose water had just broken. We passed some graffiti reading, "Welcome Sofia Home of Girls and Graffity" (sic.). Nice, little industrial approach to a busy little capital. A man sold old books by a metro station. I saw the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which is the only landmark I know here.

The ride cost only 10 lev, by the way.

He dropped me off, and I found a little gate that matched the number I had. I pushed it open.

These Airbnb places are awesome. It's been an amazing way to explore. But sometimes the person running them can be less than engaged. In this case, the only note I had was a one-line address, the name of the person "hosting" me and a wifi pass that was easy to remember. She had told me to get the key from "the hostel upstairs."

90% of the time, you show up, you're like, "is this... it?" and some smiling stranger comes out and hands you a gleaming key. But 10% of the time there's a minor hitch. Once, in Poland I was early, and I had to sit on some steps and wait for the keymaster. She pulled up on a bicycle about an hour later.

This was a little worse than that.

There was nothing there. No signs. No people. An orange cat walked along a brick wall. I knew I didn't belong there but I also didn't have anywhere else to go. No phone.

There were two doors. My note said 24b, but the door said 24a. There was another door, but it was unmarked. There were six buzzers. All the writing was in the cyrillic alphabet, and I.. I've tried to learn it but no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

I thought about that riddle with the two doors and the two guardians. One door leads to death and the other to the next stage of your journey. One guard always lies, one guard always tells the truth. You may ask one question.

I pushed a random button on the door. A woman's voice answered.

"Hostel?!" I said.

The door buzzed. I opened it.

I rely a lot of looking like a smiling lost dude struggling with bags. I figure people will recognize me for what I am and kindly send me where I need to be. In this case, I thought I was where I needed to be, but I wasn't. So... I wasn't sure how anybody could help me, unless it WAS the right place and the upstairs would magically become a hostel.

I started walking up stairs, hoping the very act of slow climbing would let the architects of heaven have time to build my room at the top. Endless circling. All closed doors. It was a residential apartment building. Plants in the windows.

I heard a door somewhere below me open. It must have been whoever buzzed me in. I rushed back down, bag straps digging into my shoulder.

It was a lady. I was like, "Hello, hostel?" She was like, "Chirpy chirpy cheep cheep." I was like, "Upstairs?" and she was like, "Chapter choosy chowder chocolate, "smiled and went back inside.

The little "Hye-low" boy on the plane spoke more English. So, I went back upstairs and just sat on someone's stairs. I felt like that guy in the change place. I swear I have an account here. Then I remembered I had a wi-fi password.

I pulled out my laptop and looked for the signal. The router name Svilena the host had given me (be my guest) wasn't there, and there were no free ones. But hers not being there confirmed for once and for all that this was the wrong place.

The only thing I could do was go out into the city, find a place with wi-fi, email her, and hope she responded.

Slow stagger out into the Streets of Sofia. Narrow sidewalks, several food windows but no real cafes. All of the signs used the Cyrillic alphabet which, I'll get it one day soon, but was like looking at computer code or something.

I wanted "adventure" and I was getting it.

I wasn't quite frustrated yet, but I was tired and I wanted someplace to put my bags. I just rambled completely randomly around corners in a dense urban residential area.

Nothing, nothing. Man going through trash. Woman going through different trash. Crazy man tying chunks of metal together with a leather belt. Kids kicking a messed-up soccer ball. Ladies in large sunglasses hurrying along. Old women begging.

A sign read "Be My Guest Hostel"

That was the name of Svilena's wi-fi router. be my guest. I was supposed to get the key "upstairs at the hostel." This had to be it.

It was... there were twenty different ways I could have gone. I might have even found a cafe along the way and stopped there. Dozens of different scenarios could have played out, but by some miracle I found this place by chance. This is a huge city and the address she had given me was so completely wrong, the place I was staying could have been in a wildly different neighborhood.

But it was here. I bounded up the stairs and had the dream experience. Sweet old man, (Sea-man? You are Sea-man for Svilena's key? Yes?" Yes.

I dumped my stuff, washed my face and went out into the city with the camera. I followed some kids through a hole in a fence and took pictures of a basketball court. An old man with a whistle chased me away. I saw cathedrals up close and spied on lovers embracing in giant Communist memorial wreaths.

I bought strange cheese that explodes when you try and rip off a hunk. It just crumbles and powders like it's mummy chunks exposed to air for the first time. It was delicious. I bought a hunk of bread in a paper bag that read "MMMMMM" in giant letters. It was delicious. I walked through a subway secret passage, came home and crashed.

I still can't believe I found the room. Saint Sophia must have carried me. There must be only a single pair of footprints on the narrow sidewalks that led here. Sometimes you play the red and it comes up red.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do it with a map.