Vulgarities in Bulgaria

Hold the phone--if you think you have met a bad American, then think again.  The worst American currently in existence is in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (as of Jul 18, 2010).  Bulgaria tends to be the country in the world where I encounter the most terrible Americans. In 2007 there was some ox from Los Angeles who couldn't properly articulate a sentence and got into a fight with an equally atrocious British woman about whether people around the world were speaking English or American as a language.  American.  The language.  To be fair to him, his linguistic prowess was such that I wouldn't feel comfortable calling it English in its purest form, so maybe he is correct.  

In any case, that was 2007, and now it's 2010 (It's actually January, 2014, but backdating paperwork is my forte).  And in 2010 I rolled into a boiling hot Plovdiv at 11pm and went straight to the only hostel in town.  I don't think I had a reservation, as I rarely do, and they told me that there was one room they could put me in but it may pose a few difficulties.  The "difficulty" they were referring to was a guy from Philadelphia who just could not for the life of him handle any form of uncontrolled externality.  In fact, my entire stay in Plovdiv was full of people who had just had too much excess in their lives and had for some reason ended up in Bulgaria.  It really upsets me that the Bulgars have to put up with all this garbage because they deserve better.  

So in the end I ended up sleeping down in the common room because it was cheaper, cooler, and the American had had a nervous breakdown of sorts and I did not want to be near that.  So instead I sat in the common area and talked to a British girl who was on a crunk tour of Eastern Europe and didn't know a single thing.  About any subject.  She actually did not know a single thing about anything.  Potentially one of the least-informed people I have ever met in my entire life.  Then some van rolled up and a bunch of North Americans spilled out, including someone from Ontario. That was the final straw for me and I resolved to eat a pizza and hit the old dusty trail the next morning.  

Oh, another thing that happened to me in Plovdiv is that I was approached by someone who works for the Ministry of Tourism in Bulgaria and wanted me to answer a questionnaire about tourism in Bulgaria.  She told me that it's still a dangerous country and that I should not be wandering around from town to town but instead staying at resorts.  I told her I didn't want to and she argued with me and told me they are trying to discourage backpackers!  Ah!  Things are not going well for me socially.  While I know all of these people are unreasonable and I feel that way to this day, I know in some way it's not them, it's me.