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[lsanderson]

Carrying boxes at Rachael's reminded me of:

1. Carried welding cylinders by hand up x numbers of floors at a construction site in a burb of Munich.
2. Fetched beers and shots for the welders at a constuction site in a burb of Munich (also by hand but much easier to carry).
3. Made aqua regia and dissolved a chunk of gold wire in it at the Max Planck Institute in Munich.
4. Shown how to run an Phillips electron microscope at the Max Planck Institute in Munich.
5. Caught ten walleye pike in ten minutes on a creek off Reed Lake in the wilds o' Canada.
6. Shopped for and bought the most ridiculous looking large hook for fishing in Reed Lake in the wilds o' Canada. It was red and white with silver glitter.
7. After trolling for part of the morning, stopped the boat, put the huge hook on my line, cast it out to general derision, and said, "Oh yeah, watch!" --- and hauled in a large northern pike on the first cast.
8. Worked as a TA or GA for three years in the English Department at NDSU.
9. Missed the boat to Heraclion and so took the boat to Chania and hitched the way back to Heraclion.
10. Spent a night in the caves of Matala, Greece (Crete) with a case of food poisoning, and later spent time with relatives in Motala, Sweden (no cave, without the food poisoning).

Oops, I just thought of more:

11. Spent a night in a gypsy tent -- although I no longer remember if this was going from Corflu to Athens of from Athens to Munich. I was convinced I would wake up missing my watch, an early electric, which the guy kept trying to buy from me.

12. Translated from Greek using a WWII German Submarine Occupantion Handbook. There were three of us with more languages on Santorini at the old town, which looked like a Fellini set with stairs that went no where and walls, but few standing buildings. We'd been on a black sand beach, and went into the town for something to drink. They seemed to rarely see tourists, and we tried French, Italian, Spanish to no avail. Once they figured one of us knew German, they ran and got the Occupation handbook. After several glasses of wine, it seemed quite simple.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Heraclion! What was it like?

It wuz

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

It wuz a long time ago in the early '70s under the Junta. It was a small, sleepy town compared to Athens, in spite of being the largest town on Crete. Development had not yet hit. I was staying in the youth hostel alone, but with a group of people that I'd ran into here and there in Europe. We watched a parade which even my tiny home town in North Dakota might have been able to out do. I don't remember much details about the parade, but we came early and stood on the curb, but the minute the parade started, the natives rushed in front of us and we missed most of it.

Saturday night was the big night (just like in my home town), but every body got dressed up, put the baby in the stroller and prominaded down the main street.

We spent a lot of the time drinking retsina cut with lemonade and learning to love Greek coffee, eggplant, and french fries done in olive oil.

I would give a great deal to be there again.

The trip hitching of Chania to Heraclion, on the other hand can almost be summarized as a long hike. There were very few cars on Crete, and when I road, I road much of the way in the three-wheeled carts that passed for pickups. It was my first time riding on steep hills where everybody shut down the engine for the trip down the hill -- and it seemed that you were either going up a hill or down a hill all of the time.

Re: It wuz

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

The boat -- the boat that I missed at Piraeus was the evening ferry to Crete - Heraclion. I looked at the schedule which must have been posted in English because, while I could make out Greek, I didn't have much of a clue what it meant. Anyway, from looking at the map, Chania did not seem very far from Heraclion, and it seemed simpler than going back to stay in Athens. So, I bought a ticket and boarded the boat to Chania. I suspect I was the only none Greek on the boat, and probably the only non Cretian on the boat. It was very much like Zorba. They were dancing and singing on deck for much of the night. The people of Crete did not much like the mainland, and returning home caused them to celebrate.

I think it took me three days to get from Chania to Heraclion. These days, I certainly would have sprung for a bus.

Re: It wuz

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh that does sound wonderful! Thanks for sharing that.