I picked up a hitchhiker,an old Cretan guy,on my way to Chania and gave him a lift as far as I was going. Pretty sure I've never picked up a hitchhiker before. And it's not like he had his thumb out or anything, he was just trying to flag down the various cars going by on the National Road. Perhaps it wasn't the brightest move, I suppose even kind looking old men can be psychos, but I've read that it's usually safe to do so here and I wouldn't have done so if he'd been a younger guy. He spoke no English, so I understood very little of our "conversation". He asked me if I was married and I ditched my normal "no lies ever" rule and told him that I was. He told me that he was also married, and has two children. That didn't stop him from giving me his phone number when I let him out, but I politely declined when he asked for mine. Who knows, maybe he was just going to invite me home for dinner with the family, but when I asked what his wife's name was and he wouldn't tell me, I figured that was probably not the case.
I was irritated when the guy who I rent my car from changed our meeting location once I was already at our first, agreed upon location, but I just wanted to get this last month's payment out of the way so I drove to the airport and met him there. As we were saying goodbye, he took a bottle of home-made wine out of his car and gave it to me. Who knows what the quality will be, but it was a very nice gesture and I suppose it made up for me having to trek an additional several miles to meet him.
Before leaving the house, I unplugged the internet at the main outlet per my landlord's instructions in the event of an electrical storm. It wasn't storming at the time, but the sky looked iffy so I thought it was a prudent move. What I didn't stop to consider is that my neighbor and I share the internet connection, so when I got a call from her about three hours later asking if I knew if there was any internet in Kastelli, I cringed inside and came clean that I was afraid I had unplugged ours without realizing that it would shut her down. She works from home, and I felt terrible. Fortunately I was almost home at that point and was able to get her back up and running, with offers to compensate her on any losses she may have incurred. Fortunately her deadline isn't until tomorrow, so I think she's OK. D'oh.
I received a Facebook message from a friend from WAY back, in the days when I worked in Falls Church at the electrical supply store. I've actually tried to track him down on a couple of occasions but with no luck, so this was a pleasant surprise. Last I heard he was a dive master in the Cayman Islands. It'll be interesting to catch up with him.
It's about 10 degrees cooler in my house than it is outside. Works the same way in the summer - it's usually about 10 degrees warmer inside than outside. I wish it worked in reverse, but oh well. I picked up some warm, fuzzy lounge-around type clothes today, so I will bundle up and batten down the hatches and ride out the torrential rains that are supposed to occur over the next 48 hours. Hopefully the internet stays up.
The picture above isn't very clear, but if you look closely you can see that there's some snow on one of the peaks in the background. Winter is on its way!! In spite of my ardent love of all things summer, I'm excited to experience winter here in Crete.
No comments:
Post a Comment