Don't Hate Me Because I'm in Greece

I'm working my ass off, but I confess the setting is pretty fab

It’s been an interesting experience to be far away from home (Crete, Greece) with barely any Internet, especially while the news cycle is churning like a windmill. I don’t mind the enforced isolation, except today, when I was attempting to use my little cottage’s washing machine, I tried using Google Translate to make sure I was washing my clothes rather than, say, shredding them, and my phone balked and scolded, “Your device is offline!” Ok, ok, ok. I can use my phone for calls, but when I try to get online it feels like the connection is being powered by a mouse jogging on a little treadwheel. The thing I miss the most? I have become shamefully attached to looking up words on Wordhippo.com, and while I often don’t use what the nice hippo suggests, it helps me clear my own word clog and come up with something better. When the wind blows in the right direction, I’m able to get one bar of service and can Wordhippo for a moment or two, yay.

This is my view:

How, you may ask, did I just magically manage to upload that picture when I’ve been beefing about not having any damn Internet? My personal hotspot, which heretofore had been more lukewarm than hot, suddenly connected. We’ll see how that goes.

I think in a previous life I must have been a service writer for a travel magazine, because I’m always bubbling with things I want to press on others that I’ve learned from my own travel. Example: I had debated whether to bring flip-flops on this trip. I was traveling for two weeks and only wanted to use a carry-on, so I was as strict as a Dutch schoolmarm about what I would include. Flip-flops barely take up any space, but if you keep adding things that “barely take up any space”, suddenly, you have no space. I had already deemed sneakers, Teva sandals, and fisherman sandals necessary.

Photo by Ridwan Muhamad Iqbal on Unsplash

Flip-flops seemed, what, redundant? Not exactly but also not-not exactly. On the other hand, they would be the only footwear that I could slip into fast (the Tevas require a little noodling to get on). I finally threw them in, last minute, just because. Right after arriving the head of my program, Mudhouse Residency, mentioned, casually but purposefully, that here on lovely Crete, there are scorpions. SCORPIONS. “Just small ones, probably you wouldn’t die if they bite you, just wanted you to know, really very small.” I am glad I brought my flip-flops, I assure you. Those midnight half-asleep stumbles to the bathroom shall not be barefoot, thank god.

What other wisdom can I impart in my new role as travel service correspondent? Take more tops than you think you need and fewer bottoms. Also, take more whatchamacallits—the converters that let you plug your stuff into foreign outlets. My god, the number of electrical things one travels with these days! Phone, laptop, Kindle, headphones, Apple watch, oh my god. I used to throw in one adapter, thinking that was plenty. This time I threw in two and wish I had made it four. “You can buy one there,” is what you’ll say next, but guess what: It’s not that easy to get adapters for American plugs in Greece, because why the hell would they want them? They’re Greek! They have Greek stuff! With Greek plugs! So bring three or four adapters and you’ll thank me.

I knew it would be hot here, and in the last minute, I bought one of those neck air conditioners. You do look like a stone-cold dork using them, but they kind of work. I’m not sure you can’t get the same result putting a wet towel around your neck, but it does also have a fan that keeps the air whooshing around, which does feel good. I’m not Wirecutter, so I can’t promise to have tested others or even can vouch for mine, but it’s a brand called Torras.

Another tip for you: if, like me, you like to listen to grisly true crime podcasts to go to sleep, download before you travel. I was horrified when I realized that with no Internet, I can’t get my fix of Dateline to lull me gently in its bosom on my way to sleep.

One more Greece photo:

These are wild, hanging outside my little cottage. Amazing.

I’m going to post this before the mouse stops running on its treadwheel. More soon, friends!