Meg
Meg
Jul 25, 2017 · 2 min read

My husband prides himself on packing light. Only a carry-on for him.

We were going to Greece. In March. We had to go in March, because we were going with friends, one of whom was a school teacher, and their teenage daughter. Spring vacation was our window.

We were packing, and my husband saw me stuffing long underwear into my already bulging suitcase.

“You’re taking long underwear to Greece!” he laughed.

“Snow-capped Olympus and all,” I said. “You never know.”

He just shook his head. “Well, enjoy carrying all that.” Always the gentleman.

We arrived in Crete, picked up our bald-tired rental car and it started to snow. Really snow. The news said it was snowing in Jerusalem, too. It was a freak storm.

The crazy people from Maine were the only thing moving across the landscape. There are no snowplows on Crete, at least not that we saw. They were doing their best with road graders, but …

We got to our hotel. We were the only guests, at least the only ones who showed. There was no central heating, just a fireplace in the diningroom. We gathered the blankets from the empty rooms on our hall and piled them on our beds.

And what did my husband have to wear? A windbreaker. Who’s the savvy packer now?

We did not lack compassion. We tried to find him a sweater. But “large” in Greece does not seem to include the “tall” component that it does in the States. His arms stuck out far beyond the sleeves of everything he tried on, the effect of which, he told us, was worse than being cold.

He was a sport, layered up and soldiered on. We’ve got some great photos of monuments plastered with snow.

Meg

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Meg

Writing, because talk is cheap