Sometimes I think about buying a car. Two weekends ago when we all drove to Velingrad and then on to Yagodina. I thought: This is great fun. Maybe I should buy a car.

I mean, think about how much more of the country I could see.

And if I am getting a car, why not a Lada?

These moments are fleeting however.

Driving in Bulgaria requires a fortitude I do not have. It also seems to demand nerves a steal and cat like reflexes.

Sure, I know how to drive.

I got my license at 16 but I haven't driven regularly since high school. I spent four years in Ohio for college. Then I drove for a couple of months each summer. After college I moved to Washington DC and got to know public transportation up close and personally. I lived in Washington for five years and didn't spend more than a week at home for Christmas and maybe 10 or so days at home each summer. Then two and half years ago I moved to Bulgaria.

So what does this all mean?

Basically, as an adult, I never became reliant on a car so I don't feel limited by not having a car. I don't miss driving. Nor do I feel driven to buy a car.

Think about it, I've been able to drive for nearly half of my life. Still, I've never owned a car.  I drove regularly in high school for, um, two years but to put that in perspective, I graduated from high school in 1999.  (Man, I am getting old.)

Thus it's only appropriate that my daydreaming about a car is only fleeting.

Also I am pretty sure that the daydream would come crashing down around me were I to buy a car and brave the streets of Sofia. Luckily, daydreams are usually better than reality.

Between potholes, un-timed traffic lights, a fleet of crazy taxi cab drivers, police men pulling drivers over with lolly pop like sticks, gigantic thirty-year old buses, horse drawn carts, and a myriad of traffic signs that I've never seen in the States before diving in this country seems much more like nightmare than a daydream.

Not even tooling around town in a Lada would make up for that. Which truth be told, I'd probably never even be able to park given the state of parking in this city.

So don't worry about running into me driving in Sofia.  I am not going to be buying a car in Bulgaria any time soon. Thus the streets are safe for a little bit longer!! Ha, ha.