Living Happiness

It was a steaming hot July day when I found myself stepping off the German plane and onto Cretan soil. I had watched the not-so-tiny island appear over the horizon and grow larger as we’d descended: sandy, beige, and surrounded by a sea of deep blue. I felt sure the plane was going to land in the water.

In the small airport that awaited me, hundreds of people loitered at bag carousels. There was no air conditioning. The windows were open. No one asked for my passport. The bags slowly began to roll out, and as they did, eager tourists grabbed them and made for the slew of tour buses parked in front of the small airport entrance.

I grabbed my two large suitcases and my red pillow (a long-ago gift from my grandmother) and headed for the exit, too. Stepping outside, my eyes were blinded by the white glare of the sun, the blaze of heat on sand. I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes and began to search for a bus, a cab. All I saw was a rudimentary parking lot. A man and his son saw me searching. They motioned me over to what looked like a little hut and indicated that a bus would be coming. Sure enough, we had only to wait for a few moments before the bus arrived and, with no words exchanged, the man and his son lifted my bags onto the floor of the bus and pulled me on.

I recall little of the trip into town. I was struck motionless by the heat and spent most of my energy trying to keep my bags from rolling down the bus aisle at every hairpin turn. And then we arrived in Irakleio – ‘City of Hercules’ – and the sea spread out before me beyond the roofs and streets of the city.

My first impression of Irakleio was to wonder: where are all the white buildings? where all the blue-domed churches? There were very few. In fact, I didn’t see any. But I thought, “Maybe I am on the wrong side of town for them.” I didn’t know at the time that Irakleio (like much of Crete) had been a Venetian outpost first and then a Turkish one for hundreds of years during the occupation. A white building and a blue-domed church? Perhaps not so common. Then I began walking and my musings became even more mundane: when are they going to fix the sidewalk?

I checked into my hotel and loaded my bags into the elevator: an old one that was stepped into by opening what appeared to be a regular door but which, in fact, was the door to a one-person lift. As I rode the elevator to my floor I knew I’d entered the door to another world.

My room was small and neatly appointed but not the “luxury” room I had expected. If I put my bags next to the bed, I had just enough room to walk between them and the bed and around to either the bathroom or the balcony. The room was air-conditioned, though. And this was a slice of heaven for me.

I opened the windows wide and stepped out on the small balcony. Below I could hear cars passing, motorbikes speeding by, buses carrying their loads of tourists, and faintly (underneath all of it) the roar of the sea. I knew I would have to go out and meet this city.

I showered and slept – it was afternoon siesta time, after all – and at five o’clock I ventured out to meet Irakleio for the first time.

She was a strange maze of shops and roads and sidewalks that seemed to be torn up. I followed her paths into the old town, the main area of shops and flea markets and cafes. All around me was the bustle of people heading out to meet friends for coffee, the clicking sound of backgammon being played, the shouts of shop-owners trying to sell their wares, the plodding steps of the tired and sun-stricken tourists. I became hungry.

I wandered down to the sea front, the old sea wall that held Irakleio back from plunging into the sea. I had seen a ψαροταβερνα (fish tavern) I’d wanted to try, and I eagerly pulled up one of the wicker chairs at the wooden, check-clothed table, and gazed out onto the sea.

Was I really here? Had I really managed to leave home and come 5000 miles to this place? I felt like I was at the edge of the world.

Just then my καλαμαρι γεμιστο (stuffed squid) arrived, and I tasted Crete for the first time: her warmth, her saltiness, the sea, and something else I couldn’t place. I washed her down with a Mythos beer.

Full from my meal and reeling from this new love, I slowly took the path back to my hotel and, entering my hotel room again, made my way onto my balcony. The sun was setting now and the last rays lingered over the harbor.

I sat down at the little table and breathed in her air, drank it in in deep gulps like the thirst-quenched traveler I was. And I wrote:

I was home.