High Heels & Sofia, Ha

Recently one of my Bulgarian friends told me that she was teaching herself how to wear high heels.  I thought: oh, cute.  She tells me this when we’re out having a drink with friends and decide that we should all wear heels out in the near future. This seemed like a fine plan that night.

Now however it’s clear that I am missing a gene.  I don’t have the Balkan-high-heel-wearing-gene.  Not one bit.

On Friday (almost three days ago, now), I had a surprise meeting to attend but I’d sent home all of my dress up clothes home to the States with my MoM earlier the same week.  I didn’t think I’d need them for my last month in Bulgaria.  And I wouldn’t have until I got an email Friday morning about a meeting I needed to attend.

So I looked in my closet and thought: Ach, what am I going to wear? I have one summer dress (not appropriate). I have black capri pants (not going to cut it). I have slim fitting black jeans (okay I decide) and a long fitting black cotton shirt (in a pinch, I figure this will have to do).  For shoes, I have tennis shoes, flat sandals and one pair of heels that I wasn’t planning to take home with me (I’d worn them to a couple of weddings but not for any stretch of time).   The flat sandals were wrong–so I took a deep breath and put on the heels.

They didn’t feel too bad walking around my apartment and I decided they would be more than manageable.  Buffered by an earlier conversation with friends and the fact that so many Bulgarian women wear heels I figured: I can do this.  This was before I realized that I was born without the ever important gene (the so called Balkan-high-heel-wearing-gene).  Oh and at nearly 6-feet tall, I never figured that it was so important for me to be able to wear high heels. And frankly, I still don’t but I learned an important lesson on Friday afternoon–I am not superhuman but I have a sneaking suspicion that Bulgarian women might be.

Before the meeting, on the way out of my apartment, I gave myself a one over.  It wasn’t the best outfit ever but given what’s left in my closet it was the best of the best and I have to admit that the heels helped pull everything together.  Fueled with a boost of confidence and a large dash of self-delusion, I head out.

The stairs in my apartment were not problem.  I thought: Great! That it is until I reached the sidewalk (which like all sidewalks is directly outside the front door my building).  The sidewalks here are horrible–uneven, loose tiles, dog poop and cars pull up and park right on the sidewalks.  I made it to the end of the street before it crossed my mind that maybe this was a bad plan.

Normally, I can walk around and look at buildings I am passing, keep an eye out for traffic and check people out but today, all I could do was stare at the next piece of pavement in front of me and try to decide where the best place to put my foot down next was going to be. This is really not my idea of fun.  But given my pride and how little I had in my closet, I had to keep going.  Or maybe more precisely, I had to keep slow-going.

In the next block, it began to become clear what a bad plan this was.  If I thought the Sofia streets in sneakers or flats was a bad, in heels it becomes painfully clear exactly how bad the streets are.  I made it block by block all the while swearing silently at my friends from earlier in the week who had managed to convince me how much fun it would be to wear heels out one night in the near future.  Ha. (As an aside, I guess it just goes to show what a great plan something like this seems when you’re drinking a beer and not wearing heels and that the actual reality of the situation might be somewhat different.)

At this point, I am pretty sure that anyone who saw me must have gotten a great kick out of it.  Here I am walking down the street, unable to look up.  I just hope that if someone steps in front of me, I’ll be able to see their shoes in time to slow down or stop and that I wont run into (or over) them.  All the while, I marvel at the other women around me who seem to be walking about in heels with ease and grace. (Really, how is that possible?!)

Somehow, I made it without incident to the meeting.  I even crossed one of Sofia’s yellow-brick paved streets! But the experience was terrifying.  I thought that wearing high heels was supposed to make you feel sexy, powerful and in control.  This however was not the case for me.

The meeting went great (more about this on Monday)! But now all I have to show for the high heel adventure are three blisters.  A painful reminder of the fact that emotionally and physically, I am not cut out for wearing heels. And still, I have no idea how Bulgarian women manage–originally I thought if they can do it, so can I.  Clearly, I was delusional (and missing a gene).