Your Weekly Reminder
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re still hanging out in the Faroe Islands, mostly working, occasionally hiking.
Your Weekly Reminder
Most people who visit the Faroe Islands have the good sense to both bring and use weather-appropriate gear. Lee and I are not those people. While we were in Paris I bought a second pair of warm-ish long pants, and Lee bought a sweatshirt, and those were our Faroe preparations.
We don’t own hiking boots, or poles, or sophisticated rain gear. Those things take up space that is committed to socks/adaptors/claritin/toothpaste. The most specialized clothing we travel with is bathing suits.
So we get kind of odd looks sometimes when we head out for a hike wearing sneakers and street clothes. Once, at the base of Machu Picchu mountain, we stopped to chat with an American family before starting up. Where’s your gear, the mom wanted to know. I said, Oh, we’ll be fine. I have a bottled water in my purse.
She looked at us like we were feeble-minded. Here, she said. You at least need bug spray.
We sprayed ourselves, and while I initially resented being outmom-ed, I did eventually realize she’d done us a huge favor. [Protip: if you go to Machu Picchu during the season for black flies, or sandflies, or whatever they are, take bug spray, and use it liberally. When I got bitten by them on another day, I kind of wanted to die.]
When we were in Ireland, we repeatedly headed out for walks and hikes that ended in sopping wet misery. [Okay, once that was my own fault because I tried to stroll through a peat bog wearing flip flops. Don’t do that. Even I am not usually quite that silly.]
Another day, we parked our car on a long straight narrow peninsula and walked a couple of miles, where a lighthouse stood guard where the land met the sea. It was beautiful and slightly wild, with the waves crashing at the bottom of the cliffs, below the lighthouse. We took pictures and stared out to sea, then finally, reluctantly, began the schlep back to the car.
And the sky opened up. Wind whipped around, pelting us with rain. Within minutes we were drenched. Down to our underwear. Everything was wet. I began to hear that squelching noise coming from my sneakers with every step. Water dripped from my hair, streamed from the tip of my nose, and puddled in the zipper channel of my purse.
A car pulled up and an angel from heaven—er, a man with a little boy—asked if we needed a ride.
Reader, we said yes. We threw our sopping wet selves into that kind man’s backseat and could not believe another human could be that generous. I felt so bad—we literally left puddles on the seat and in the foot. I believe I told him he’d saved our lives.
A few days later, driving past another lighthouse, in another torrential downpour, we picked up a couple of young women who looked as wet and miserable as we had been. It seemed only fair to pay it forward.
It’s raining here in Klaksvik today, the kind of chilly mist that settles in your hair and eyelashes when you walk through a cloud. We likely won’t go anywhere—I’m watching the Tour de France on television, and like I said above, we don’t own rain gear. But if we do happen to drive anywhere, we’ll try to keep an eye out for anyone who might—as we’ve done so many times—inadvertently get caught ill-prepared for the rain.
Because, you see, it’s easy to do a small nice thing that makes life better (and drier) for a fellow human. The world is full of kind and generous people.
Sometimes all it takes is a bit of rain to remind me that I want to be those people.
Take care,
Lisa
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