TRAVEL. BULGARIA

Backpacker Gets Drugged In Sofia, Bulgaria

A story about taking candy from strangers.

Adam J. Cheshier
World Traveler’s Blog
4 min readSep 21, 2021

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Photo by Alexandr Bormotin on Unsplash

** Republished from 2016 **

There I was, blacked out, being picked up off the floor of a bar in Sofia, Bulgaria by strangers. I was horrified. I was embarrassed. And most of all, I was alone and terrified. “How did this night come to this point?”, I thought.

It was a Sunday night during my 3-night stop-over in the capital city of Bulgaria. I thought I would try to get a taste of Sofia's nightlife so I decided to see what the city had to offer. My hostel receptionist at Nightingale Hostel recommended a bar not even 100 meters away from the hostel: The Muse.

The Muse was a nice venue. A couple of times a week they will host live music from individuals and small alternative bands across Europe. Unfortunately, Sunday nights are not popular nights to have live music, so I had to settle for the 90’s alternative (my favorite) iPod shuffle.

On top of all of that, it was the only place in Sofia where I encountered exclusively English-speaking people. I met a couple of guys from California who said they were chasing love back to Sofia and, in addition, a guy who had bounced back and forth from Malta to Sofia his whole life. I had just finished studying in…

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Adam J. Cheshier
World Traveler’s Blog

Documenting obscure pockets of the world across long-distance overland expeditions. Recently celebrated 7 years of nomadism. https://linktr.ee/adam.cheshier