So this is a true story I am relating to you. It;s more or less verbatum,

Ext. “The Hookah Bar” Krk, Croatia 11:30 p.m.

The four travel bugs walk up to a bar entitled “The Hookah Bar.” They sit down. after patiently waiting a few minutes Cody and Sierra walk up to the bar and wait patiently for a few minutes untill a bartender comes over. The place is not crowded mind you.

Cody

“Excuse me kind sir. Can

we geta hookah?”

The bartender looks at Cody as if horns are growing out of his skull. However, Cody, using his amazing sense of improv skills, gestures to the menu, which is cut out in the shape of a hookah and has the words “The Hookah Bar” on it.

Cody

“How do we get one?”

The bartender, is taken aback, almost confused as to why we would inquire about such an outlandish request.

Bartender

“No. No. We only have two.”

Cody and Sierra are confused. This is called “The Hookah Bar.” They only have two? They have 25 tables. What happens if one of the other 23 tables wants to hookah at “The Hookah Bar?” The Bartender looks around the bar. He spots one of the two hookahs and points.

Bartender

“Well, there’s one.”

“Thanks, that’s helpful, sir.” Cody and Sierra go and sit back down. A waiter approaches their table.

Waiter

“Would you like something to drink?”

Mind you, he asks this as if we were inconviencing him. The four travel bugs quickly discuss and order from the menu.

Travel Bugs

“Coffee and Baileys please.”

The waiter, a different guy from the bar, shakes his head perplexed, then responds.

Waiter

“No. No. It’s too late for coffee.”

What does that even mean? At what other time of the day would one drink Baileys and coffee? That is it, the travel bugs have had enough. They get up to leave. Upon leaving they see a hookah not being used. Since they no longer have to wait for the other tables to finish using their hookahs they ask to use hookah number 2 of 2. They approach a female waitress.

Travel bugs

“Can we get that hookah since it’s not being used?”

Waitress

(confused and offended)

“No. No. That one is broken.”

Mind you, a hookah has zero moving parts and consists of two connected pipes and a hose. Meaning a two-year-old could fix it using only drool. The travel bugs leave the bar scratching their heads with little to do but replay the past thirty minutes, pondering each puzzling instance through fits of laughter. Did that really just happen? Affirmative.

I’m thinking of that scene where Jack partakes in a black tie dinner with Kate and fellow “old money” folk in first class. He explains how he is a wanderer, slumming his way from place to place, never knowing where he’ll end up. Under a bridge one night, first class on a ship the next.

That’s our story, too. And I love it. I thrive on the fact that my whole world can change in a day and I can be in a totally new, totally foreign, uncomfortable, comfortable, satisfying or unsatisfying place. No two days are alike. In fact, they’re worlds apart.

The several days leading up to tonight’s ride were brutal to say the least, but wonderful. En route to Piraeus from Romania could have been the roughest travel segment I’ve experienced yet.

I was sick from the coffin, or sleeping couchette, we crammed into with five other people for ten hours, I was throwing up in and outside of the train, on a bus to the airport, in the airport, Sierra’s daypack was stolen in Piraeus, we were nearly thrown off a train by Hungarian police at 4 a.m., Cody lost his favorite hat, we were hot and uncomfortable and dehydrated trekking around the city all day with our bags until we were herded like cattle on the cruise liner at midnight.

But on this journey I also found my fairytale castle, felt the rain on my face running in the Alps, got lost in a world all my own in the most magical green gardens I’d ever seen, spun in a human whirlpool, tasted gelato as it’s meant to be tasted…

….

Sorry, slight pause. Sierra and I just snuck downstairs into the “nice cabins’’” bathrooms to execute a ‘face wipes shower’ in the sinks…our first in three days. Awesome.

And why is this wonderful? Because it’s chaos. It’s foreign and uncomfortable and comfortable and strange and exciting and tiring and trying all at the same time. When I’m pulled at so much every day, confronted with new trials and roadblocks and lucky breaks and let downs and tiny miracles all at once I sometimes feel like I’ll just explode; every emotion I own, some I didn’t even know I possess, is brought to the surface at the same time. I don’t think I can feel any more alive than when I do this.

Just several weeks ago, we were in a five-star apartment driving a baller Escalade around one of the nicest cities in Europe. In Eichenbichel I slept on a cloud at an Austrian bed and breakfast, I bunked in a ten person room in a hostel/club in Prague, and here I am now on the water under the stars.

Do we know where we’re staying in Santorini? Not really. Maybe a hostel, if there’s room, the beach is always an option, camp grounds could be close by, some places rent out apartment rooms…

But wherever we end up is where we’re supposed to be. (I just formed and digested this opinion, it’s kind of liberating). The people you meet, travelers you come across, locals you encounter, train buddies you bunk with, they all are part of your journey that shape your unique experience in a place and when and how you arrive at your next destination. Doors open wherever you are. Wherever they lead, roll with it, hang on, and just love it.

“I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby–i just don’t care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it’s mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to– I just don’t care.”
“Eat, Pray, Love” Elizabeth Gilbert

Amen sister.