Wanderings

I blew into Crete at just the right time. It was carnivale starting on Saturday, and Rethymno, the city I was in, had Greece's third largest and most well known celebration. My Canadian friends were astounded to wake up in their hostel room on Tuesday morning to see me nonchalantly setting Wobbles down two beds over from them. 

"Oh, hello there!" I said. Lauren blinked. Repeatedly. Was this a dream? What day was this?

I started giggling, and finally she started screeching with joy, which woke up her mom, and I ran over for hugs and jumping up and down. The next half hour or so was of course like an early morning slumber party, swapping stories, giggling again over the insanity of my sudden apparition back into their lives. I merely chalked it up to my oh so synchronous relationship with the universe, although it also had to do with the fact that this was the least expensive hostel on Crete, and so I'd had a pretty good idea that they'd be there. Anyway, there were also some excellent impressions done of the various motley characters who apparently resided full-time on the premises; my favorite was of a toothless, aging, drug-addicted Englishman. 

When Sharon, the mother, went to the bathroom, she returned bursting with news. Apparently the Englishman had been kicked out. He had called a rather burly German a Nazi, and had consequently been chased around the streets of Rethymno. He had hid behind some dumpsters until he thought he was safe, and whatever substance which had driven the Nazi comment had wore off, and he returned to the hostel only to be evicted by management. 

"He looks quite abject," Sharon said. "No idea where he's going to go next." 

So that was my introduction to the youth hostel, and the Canadian women assured me that I would have a book's worth of material by the time I left. I, however, failed to appreciate the humor to quite the extent that they did since, as my friend Courtney repeatedly tells me after our one experience in Dublin, I am not a very good hostel-goer. I like to think I can go with the flow, but when the flow involves dirt, and stench, and smoking, and being surrounded by absolutely, well, tragic characters, I prove myself an absolute hypocrite in terms of peace, love, and compassion. So I won't even sully up my blog with further discussion of the hostel, I will just say that Rethymno in general was a great time of hikes, guitar, sunshine, heat, festival, merriment, and traipsing along the beach. Carnivale was everything I could have hoped for and more, and I will tell you some stories in my next installment.