Foreword: I have never been allowed to have excessive amounts of caffeine. I would have maybe a Dr. Pepper from Dr. Pizza for the alliteration alone but besides that I couldn’t. I don’t drink much pop now and I hate coffee so I am still not a big caffeine drinker. I had an incredible amount of caffeine today. I fully understand why my mom wanted to avoid this. I am downright shaking and firing on all cylinders.”
Geez am I so far from being anything near funny but I still crack myself up. We are on our vacation time in Mykonos right now and I have nothing worthwhile to say as always but will make this excessively long and excruciatingly detailed. Enjoy.
First and foremost, I finally purchased a sunhat. This has been a postponed investment due to Mommie Dearest back home. Yes, I will compare my mom to Mommie Dearest because she was withholding my sunhat privileges. Especially now that I have one and see just how truly fantastic they are, I can fully understand what she was holding hostage. People said, “Why don’t you just get one for yourself?” and I say to them, “Good point,” but I listen to my mom especially when she was one week away from willingly funding a three month long trip to Europe when I can barely be trusted walking to the train station. While in America, I tried relentlessly for weeks to get a sunhat to take on this trip. I found some wonderful ones, sent pictures to my mom, called her over in the store and I heard almost every excuse in the book to decline my sunhat. Yes, there is an entire book composed of excuses to not buy me a sunhat. These include, “It won’t fit in your luggage,” “There will be better ones over there,” “You look absolutely ridiculous,” and many others, usually along the lines of the last excuse. So many adjectives were used to describe me in a sunhat, none of which agreed with my perspective on it, which would be “awesome,” “glorious,” “phenomenal,” etc. So we go shopping the first night we are here in Mykonos and all I ask for as I enter each store is a sunhat with a turquoise ribbon on it. You’d think I could spell that word after demanding the color so much. Nowhere had it and the shop owners did that stupid thing where I would specifically ask for this hat, they would grab one that was absolutely not what I asked for, and show it to me with a look of supreme accomplishment on their face. This would be repeated probably three times after I would chuck the black hat with the white ribbon or the tacky zebra ribbon on the beige hat back at them in a fit of anger. We enter this one store and I find this absolutely magnificent white huge sunhat. I look spectacular. The ribbon on it looked like a dirty white shirt’s armpits but I ripped it off with ease while still in the store. After grabbing a new one and having my friends unnecessarily reassure me that I look fantastic in it, I get in line to purchase the hat. Some woman from London is in front of me buying some sort of postcard or deck of cards like the tourist she was and turned around with a smile and looked up at me and we had this interaction:
Bad Teeth Lady: “Is this for you?”
Awesome Me: “Yes, it most definitely is.”
Her: “Can I see this on you?”
Oh Glorious One: “Of course.”
(I put the sunhat on and she begins to giggle while I blankly stare at her. She becomes confused. Downright befuddled.)
Her: “You’re kidding, right?”
Me: “Mmmmm no.”
She turns back around after a second of uncomfortable hesitation at my straight face and goes on to purchase her lame item from the souvenir shop while I proudly stand with my gigantic hat. No one could come within a foot of me. Another man overhears me saying something about Chicago and comes over and has this dialogue with me:
Weird Short Man: “Hello Neighbor!” (Mind you, he has a thick accent)
Me: “Ugh, yeah sure, Kalispera.”
Man: “Do you know what that means? Neighbor?”
Me: “Um. Yes I do know what neighbor means. Do you?”
Man: “Yes, you’re from Chicago?”
Me: “Yep…”
Man: “Do you know, ugh Joliet?”
Me: “Yeah, do you!?”
Man: “Yes, I am from there!”
Me: “Shut up!”
This man purchased me a postcard, gave me a handshake and told me “Always remember Mykonos.” This was quite the hilarious experience similar to the feeling I get when watching a sappy Nicholas Sparks movie where their love can’t go on after they leave a certain place or time. I will never forget what we had, creepy short man from Joliet. I leave the store with the hat bagged up and all paid for. The bag was unnecessary; it was 10 at night and the perfect situation for a sunhat. Any situation is perfect for this hat. I went to about 20 more little shops to find a scarf to put on instead of the pit-stain one that came with it and was unsuccessful. I came back to the room and remembered I had just recently bought a wonderfully printed scarf from H&M earlier that week that made the most brilliant bow on this hat. Things were just falling into places, the stars were aligned. For the remainder of that night I skyped several different people just to show off the hat. I don’t think I recall a single conversation from those skype sessions or even knew what they looked like at the time, I was too busy appreciating and marveling at my own video feed in the corner of the screen where it just barely framed the hat.
Next order of business, pelicans. I hate birds, but these pelicans are just too much for me. After getting lost on the way to our one day of class, we found the famous pelicans of Mykonos. One of them named Petros likes to go up to the restaurants and beg for food from the people eating outside. This is obnoxious yet hilarious. Petros originated in 1958 and is the mascot of Mykonos. Sadly and hilariously put in the Wikipedia page, Petros was hit by a car. Imagine being the guy who killed the most important thing, a bird, to this island. Since the bird was their mascot and basically savoir, I’d say these people didn’t have much hope for their lives. I like to think they did a mob thing where they tied bricks to his feet and drowned him in the sea, but the Greeks aren’t that awesome or mobster so I’m willing to bet they couldn’t even get that right because they were too busy not working or trying to figure out what the skin at the top of the nose underneath their eyebrow looks like. Also, I have and will retain more information about Petros than most things learned here. Well, they rename a different pelican Petros. After dinner one day, I thought it was a good idea to follow Petros. This town was built to confuse invaders so clearly I am not cut out to wander around such a place. I got horribly lost in the process. I touched it a couple times. A little boy and his mom were following it as well but were getting in my way so if I remember correctly, I believe I shoved him out of the way. The next day, Nicolette and I watched a pelican stand outside of a bathroom for about 45 minutes in pure awe and contentment. This pelican picked out one of the pink feathers on the wing and tried to eat it for some reason but it flew under the door. Trying to save it for her scrapbook or make a pen out of it, Nicolette tried to go around said pelican and open the bathroom door. We found out it was locked and the pelican immediately turned towards Nicolette and barked at her. It was hilarious and I walked away yelling, “That’s it, no more pelican watching. Leaving on a high note!”
This hotel is glorious, besides the showers of course. My shower story for this blog is actually pretty hilarious. They were having water issues at this hotel, of course. So I get into the already low pressure shower, get through most of it uncomfortably and am about 2 seconds into rinsing out the conditioner when the water starts to just dribble. I call in my roommates to laugh with me. This is hilarious until I realize all the water has completely stopped. I get out, put on my towel completely unphased by the fact that yet another shower in Greece does not work anywhere near properly, and head out the door. These hotel rooms are like motels and lead to a central court so I am outside in a towel. I go to all my classmates rooms asking if their showers work. This makes a few of them uncomfortable since the towels are meant to cover the body of a dwarf. None of these showers work. I attempt to use the shower next to the pool meant to be used before getting in the water. Doesn’t work. This is a joke. I have to sit in my towel with conditioned hair for about 30 minutes before the water got fixed and was back to it’s ridiculously low pressure status. (That’s all I have about the shower for now, hope that was sufficient enough, Biff.) The pool is so beautiful and has a magnificent view of the water. It goes on forever I think. The water is brutally cold and cause for hilarious pranks ending with me in the water, but this pool offers two very specific perks: poolside food and the thing I dubbed the stage. You can order food from the very attractive hotel front desk man for cheap and he will bring it to your poolchair outside. I gotta say, it feels phenomenal. Sitting in my sunhat, lounging in my chair one leg bent gazing out at sea while a good looking Greek man brings me food. I am special. Especially since Greek men are 90% unattractive, 9% always in dark creepy corners of clubs, and 1% reasonably attractive, this is a fun time. Now onto the stage. On the far length of the pool, there is a wooden walkway across the water. This is clearly my stage. This along with the area of the water that divides the Jacuzzi (not hot tub, very different) from the pool that makes it look like I’m walking on water and basically Jesus (is it sacrilegious to fancy myself as Jesus on Easter?) This stage makes for a few things. One of which is a great time for me to show off my performing skills and shamelessly bad voice. Another is causing universal regret and blame towards whichever classmate thought it was a good idea to bring out the iPod speakers. I plan on choreographing a dance to a selection from Mamma Mia for the class to participate in. I’m pretty convincing.
After the last class we had when we went to Delos, a classmate, Kramer, had to give his presentation on symposiums. Now, symposiums were the eating and drinking parties for men. I learned a few things from this presentation. One of which, I’m weird. I may be getting this confused since I wasn’t entirely paying attention, but the men would eat the communal food like bread with their right hand and their personal plate with their left hand because the left hand was gross and personal, I believe was the expression. This caused me to react out loud, “Wait, I wipe with my right,” to my roommates sitting next to me who still repeat this story for it’s hilarity. These people must meet my friends from home if they think I’m so weird. The next thing I learned was a story about a specific symposium from who knows where where the men drank too much and got out of hand like they weren’t supposed to. This caused them to believe they were sailing in a trireme and the ship was sinking. They went ahead and panicked and started to throw all the furniture and contents of the room out onto the street in order to salvage the sinking ship. Completely unconcerned about people stealing their stuff, they kept working to drunkenly save the ship. This is hilarious and will be an ongoing joke in my life regardless of if anyone else finds it funny or understands it.
The Greeks celebrate Easter by attending mass on Saturday night at midnight. The Greeks have it figured out. It is so laid back. After attending a Catholic church a handful of times and watching Dane Cook mock it, going to a Greek church was a hilarious experience. The stuff all happened outside. I was incredibly claustrophobic and surrounded by smelly people similar to the phenomenon felt at the Taste of Chicago except I wasn’t especially concerned about getting food poisoning. The guy spoke on a microphone that could be heard throughout the streets. Chances are you were in hearing distance of a church last night. We were standing at a corner and bought or candles from a gypsy. The deal is that you just hang out, most people were adjusting their ridiculous heels or talking on their cell phones. Then at midnight, some crazy bells go off, flower petals are thrown about from the bell tower and you light your candle. This was pretty nifty, but sorry mom, I did not have any sort of religious awakening. Still a pretty terrible person. Some lady was trying to barge her way through and shoved me decently hard as I was holding a candle. This caused Nicolette to begin yelling, “Fire! You really want to mess with me while we are all holding fire!?” My hair was down and I was told today that one of the guys witnessed some strands of my hair light on fire and sizzle out but didn’t want to alarm me. This was probably a good idea because I would have began shaking my head as an immediate reaction to this news and definitely light my hair on fire Michael Jackson style without the capability to turn quickly to get it out and finish my on-stage performance. This lady was crazy though, she sucked. Then you just kinda looked around and then left. The tradition is that you bring the candle back to your home and light your hearth with it. The owner of our hotel specifically asked us not to bring the fire in our rooms. Plus the walk was windy and far and uphill so mine lasted about 2 minutes maybe. I did help a random Greek lady light hers. I brightened her life I think. So I’m pretty sure that whole experience means I’m forgiven for my sins now, right? That’s how that works I think. Whenever I feel like I do anything inappropriate in context, I will think back to this experience when my friend lit his cigarette with his Jesus candle and used the wind block thing connected to the candle that the gypsies cleverly assembled as his ashtray.
Now the Greeks put on this religious front for about 30 minutes so by 12:30 they begin to party. This is the biggest going out night in Greece or at least Mykonos so I was told. I’m not entirely sure of this logic. No one has work so it’s probably like a Black Wednesday type of deal. Plus I’m sure they have some logic like Jesus wants us to party. That whole water into wine deal, you know. So we get ready, attempt to convince the rest of the group to join us in the night’s festivities, fail as usual and then head down into town. Nicolette found this club we had been looking for for a few days called The Space Dance Mykonos Xperience. Sounds promising. Anywhere that is seemingly too busy to use the “e” at the beginning of experience is good in my book. Nicolette liked to change the name of it every time we mentioned it to some other variation of long pointless words about outer space and experiences. We get there and it looks empty and we were almost nervous about trying to get in because there were weird bouncers. I wasn’t really nervous, I make a fool out of myself without the assistance of other people. After witnessing a group of boys who I would assume to be 14 at the most got in with no question, we marched our American butts right through the sets of doors leading to what would have to be the most movie cliché club I have ever seen. Lasers. So many lasers. Within 20 minutes, I had been dragged onto one of the many three-foot big platforms above the bars containing a pole. I also convinced the weird boy who dragged me up there that it would be a better idea if he danced on the pole first while I cautiously crawled down this horribly constructed platform and idea. Next thing about what I now like to call Space Jam was the bathroom, which shared a wall with the boy’s bathroom but instead of a wall, it was a ceiling to floor window. I found this hilarious. I started throwing stuff at the window while boys would be washing their hands. Wrote some things in soap backwards. It was a good time until it got creepy. Creeps always have to ruin my fun. Unless of course it’s the Lonely Island. They create more fun. I left the bathroom where I went on to my next goal. At the back of this club was an upstairs stage that had a huge screen behind it playing a cycle of images completely irrelevant to the place such as flowers and water and letters. I would get to this stage. It involved two more poles and a semi-unacceptably-large group of all Greek men shirtless wearing tight white jeans coincidentally. Clearly this is my kind of scene. I found my way up the stairs, whether or not this was allowed is still up in the air. Got to the stage, asked fake permission to come on as I simultaneously crawled over the bars separating me from my stage. Once on the stage, I caught my friend’s eyes who were with some kids we met who came from Chicago who were completely baffled by me already. I began to dance alone because clearly none of the men on this stage were interested in coming anywhere near me. After about 12 seconds, I had an epiphany. This could be the best thing ever and I’m so glad I thought of it. I stopped, made sure I had all my friends’ attention, and began doing the running man. The image of me doing the running man on a stage at this outrageous Space Jam club with a group of shirtless tight white pants wearing men in between two poles in front of a screen flashing Greek letters and other nonsense is something I will hold dear to me forever. Sadly, no one had a camera for this event. Luckily, I will never forget it.
And I will leave you with that.
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