The Art of Awkward

My friend Jackie recently e-mailed me to ask if I was having as much fun as it looked like I was. I loved her concern. Let’s be clear. I’ve been in 9 countries in nearly a month, and that is stressful. I don’t speak any of the languages, I can’t get a good night’s sleep in a hostel, and I think Scandinavia cost me part of my retirement fund it was so expensive. It’s a different kind of stress, and easier to overcome than job or personal stress.

 

Lest you think my whole life now is eating lovingly handcrafted danishes while drinking cafe con leche in front of spectacular sights, I thought I would start sharing some lowlights.

 

Before leaving on my journey, I purchased my friend RIch’s hackentosh from him.

 

For those not familiar with a hackentosh, a brief explanation. Our Lord and Father, Steve Jobs, has not graced his flock with with a netbook yet. While I trust in our Father, I didn’t have the tithing available to purchase a Macbook Air and needed a lighter laptop than my MacBook. After all, I needed the room for more H&M purchases. A hackentosh is a Netbook that runs on Snow Leopard or Leopard by the divine grace of software.

 

Unfortunately, our Father decided to punish his straying flock. Any hackentosh that upgraded its software would be turned into pillars of salt, and thus would no longer work. Snow Leopard Genesis 2:21 - And the Lord said, “Snow Leopard upgrade 2.2.1 would render Intel processors incompatible.” Rich was kind enough to let me know about the Lord’s decree. Unfortunately, I decided to upgrade iTunes while in Istanbul thinking it wasn’t in the same strain. Our Father’s lesson was fierce and vengeful, and my hackentosh was turned into a pillar of salt. Meaning it wouldn’t boot up. At all.

 

Purchasing computers can be stressful under any circumstances. Purchasing a computer in a foreign country such as Greece where most of the store employees don’t speak English is an all new stressful high.

 

Like most situations where I don’t understand the language, I point to what I want and make expressive gestures. But this time, it’s not a Danish. It’s a Netbook.

 

“Has a keyboard and Internet access? I’ll take it,” I say in expressive Elaine style gestures.

 

But the netbook has one tiny, minor snag. It’s operating system runs in Greek. Through more expressive gestures, we indicate that it should be easy to change.

 

Except it’s not. And it’s in Greek, so consulting the help section isn’t actually helpful. Because it is literally, all Greek to me. So I battle it out for several hours by Googling tech questions on my iPhone and then trying to translate that into Greek. An excercise in ridiculousness of epic proportions.  

 

This is made more ridiculous by the fact that I’m literally next door to a tech event being hosted by Microsoft. I throw up my arms finally and go to get help. A very kind soul and one of the event’s judges, George, goes way out of his way to help me to get my PC up and running. 

 

It has been humbling for someone who despises asking for help to have to ask for help repeatedly. The kindess of total strangers again and again has been an unexpected highlight of the trip.

 

 

I was reaching a dire point when it came to laundry after my hotel living. Hotels will do your laundry for you. But they want your first born’s college fund to do so. $15 to wash a pair of pants and $5 per pair of underwear. At those prices, I might as well buy new clothes (and I did). I finally found a lavenderia (laundromat) that required travel on two metro lines to get to it. I offered to let my friend Andrew throw his laundry with mine. I mean afterall, he did let me crash for free at his hotel in Athens.

 

I started the first washing machine without a hitch. As I was putting in Euros in the second one, it didn’t seem to be taking my money, and I was afraid I’d accidentally put in Kroners.

 

Oh no, it wasn’t Kroners. What happened is that washing machines automatically lock down at 9 pm. The machine spinning? Not my laundry in it. The machine not spinning? My laundry in it.

 

So I sat. Watching Andrew’s laundry spinning.

 

And spinning.

 

And spinning.

 

Despite being the crazy swearing laundry incompetent American, I made a new friend, Coco. Coco is apparently a common nickname for George in South America. I will now affectionately dub my friend, George G. Smith Jr., as “Coco” or maybe on occasion “Cocoa Puff” or “Cocoa Butter.” With my despised nickname of “Cornbread,” we’ll make a fine pair.

 

Coco seemed to be facing a dire laundry situation as well. The threat of dirty socks is a bridge that crosses cultural divides. After folding Andrew’s laundry, Coco and I began an expedition to find an all-night lavanderia. Whilst walking 20 minutes to a new subway stop, I questioned the sanity of trekking to an unfamiliar part of the city with a stranger, but I determined unclean jeans called for poor-decision making skills.

 

Unfortunately, after another 20-minute trek post metro trip, the lavenderia was closed. The devastation I felt was akin to Clark Griswold’s trek to Wally World only to find it closed. But as I didn’t drag a dog behind my car or anything akin to that, I didn’t take the Lavenderia hostage to get my Tide on.

 

At this point, Coco walks me another 20 minutes to my subway stop, so I won’t get lost. At this point, I realize that Coco is just being nice. He didn’t really need to do a second load of laundry that badly. And he wasn’t interested in me or going to mug me, he just wanted to help a frustrated foreigner. Coco – Wherever you are, I wish you a lifetime of happiness and Downy fresh sheets.