Sexiled in Philippopolis — Rising Son Travels

September 14th-15th, 2019

After every country I visit I make a mental note of things I want to do should I ever return. When I ended up back in Bulgaria for the second time, I stopped at a place I wanted to visit: Plovdiv. Plovdiv was formerly known as Philippopolis during the Roman times. It’s one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in all of Europe. I spent one strange night in the historic city.

When I arrived at my hostel, I had a hard time finding it because it was literally inside the train station. The dorm room I was assigned was mostly empty, which is always a good sign for a hostel-goer. The hostel lottery is to pay for a bed in a dorm and to have the entire dorm to yourself. I was thirsty from my bus ride, so I went in the bathroom to fill up my water bottle. When I returned to the room there was an older man with a much younger woman. The woman had an absurd amount of make-up on, with her entire face painted just a few shades shy of Kabuki. I said hello and began to unpack my belongings. I could sense some tension in the room, the sort of feeling you get when you’re not wanted somewhere.

The old man began to speak to me in Bulgarian. I apologized and explained in English that I don’t understand Bulgarian. He left the room. I began to wonder if there was some kind of mix-up. I’m generally inclined to default to the assumption that I am somehow in the wrong in these kinds of situations. When the man returned, he gestured for me to leave the room to speak with the hostel reception.

The man at reception was a young guy in his early to mid-twenties. He said, “The man wanted me to talk to you since he doesn’t speak English. He was wondering if you could leave the room for 30-40 minutes so that they can…you know.” As he said this, he started to gesture with his hands in a non-specific way. I knew exactly what he meant. “You can hang out on our terrace or in the kitchen or whatever.” He mistook my shock for protest. I asked if I could have 10 minutes just to pack up myself, making sure to register my irritation through the tone of my voice. It was Friday night and I wanted to check out a bar or two anyway.

I walked by these ruins during my sexile.

I don’t remember the last time I was sexiled; I haven’t shared a room since college. I certainly never have in the dorm room of a hostel. It would be pretty bad etiquette to put a sock on the door knob of a shared room, and yet that’s essentially what this guy did.

After precisely one Moscow mule, I went back to my hostel. I made sure to be gone well past the requested time. The room was empty, which saved me some awkwardness. I went to throw away some trash and unfortunately saw some things I didn’t want to see. I’m glad they were safe, though. In the middle of the night the old man came back and spent the entire night hacking up a lung. That poor woman.

All that aside, Plovdiv is totally worth visiting.