Turning West
Yeaterday I added 3000 words to The Hard Way Home and then I floated, starfish-style, in our hotel pool for a few minutes. The world went yellow through my closed eyelids. The Mediterranean sun is amazingly bright and white. You can get a sunburn here without feeling so much as a tingle. The sea is the bluest blue I've ever seen. It's as if all the other blues in the world are fakers.
The hotel gave P a free bottle of red wine for his birthday, and I've been mixing it 1 to 4 with diet Sprite and drinking it on our balcony. In Spain, wine and soda is called tinto de verano, or spring wine. Sometimes they mix it with lemon Fanta, other times with gaseosa, which is Sprite zero minus the brand name. Tinto de Verano sounds fancy but I suppose it's a homemade wine cooler?
I resolve to feel fancy regardless. 😀
I took that photo in a port town in Crete while we were wandering around to see what was there. We were almost done for the day when we ran across a small marina where sailors were preparing their boats for the water. That's the stuff I love about travel, the chance to bump into ordinary lives unfurling.
Did you know people from Crete are called Cretans? Not cretins, but I just about barked when I heard it. Crete was very pretty, but did I mention how blue the Mediterranean Sea is? Unreal, almost. I can't get over it.
A Curious Matter
Between you, me, and the fence post, I've met some horrible tourists these last few weeks. I'm talking about...
Rich people who brag about denying tips to service workers, chatting about their trips to the Ritz in Dubai, diamonds sparkling on their fingers as they smirk to one another.
An orange-tinted bozo throwing a fit when he didn't get enough attention at dinner. (Why is it always the orange ones?)
Impatient people rudely interrupting the tour because they were bored with history and didn't want to learn anything, apparently.
And a woman so proud of refusing to give so much as a dollar to an impoverished street kid in Morocco, even after he'd taken her to the place she wanted to go.
The guy who blurted, during dinner, that he hates Carnival cruises because he doesn't want to look at fat women in thongs.
I mean... what do you even say?
Patrick reacts reasonably of course, politely affirming that gratuities are a part of the cost of travel, for example. Meanwhile, I clench my jaw until my teeth crack, wishing the ancient Gods would rise from the sea and throw lightning bolts.
How can you not be grateful for the chance to travel? I don't get the level of entitlement all around us. Greece is so beautiful, but I've been surrounded by human ugliness.
It makes me cringe. It makes me wonder... oh shit, am I one of these people? I hope I'm not, but when you're surrounded by bozos you may check your face for a red nose, ya know?
Oof.
I'd heard a lot about post-pandemic travelers being awful and... yeah, maybe. I don't want to paint everyone with a critical brush (we've met some lovely folks too) but it's indeed noticeable.
Today I face West, thinking of home. After a week in tourist mode I'm glad to be heading to our last stop. It's time to work and get organized. To get our ducks in a row for a return to the States. This is the longest I've been away from home, ever, and I feel lucky, homesick, and very blue.
Not sad blue. Mediterranean blue. The kind of blue that makes you glad to be alive.
Grateful for the day