The road to damascus is getting harder. Waiting for my Syrian visa in Sofia is fun though. I found a great place called [1] The Art Hostel with a cool cave like underground bar. A place for artists and the like to meet and drink. The other night I met an aussie whose brother had defended a gypsy he’d seen being attacked by a 21 year old skinhead. In the fight the aussie ended up killing the skinhead and now he’s in jail waiting trial for murder.

The 21 year skinhead was from a good family studying law. His right wing beliefs were known and fully acceptable here, such is the feeling towards the 2 million gypsies. I shook the mans hand and passed my best wishes to his brother in jail.

Defending gypsies here isn’t cool. I’d called a student I’d met the night before a racist for his negative talk about them and he was insulted. It is  different here he said. He told me that as an outsider I don’t understand how they rob and mug to make a living. But I said if you are a country of 5 million with 2 million gypsies doing nothing are they not a drain on the economy? I said you should perhaps view the country as a company. Would you leave 2 million people standing idle in your company or find a way of including them to make them productive?

The young Bulgarian student was angry he just wanted rid of them. I said ok why don’t you kill them all like hitler did with jews. Problem solved. No no he protested I’m not a racist.  Later my friend, Nizam, shows me a flashing  swastika key ring he bought from a tourist shop. But the rise of right is no joke over here it seems.