Do you, oh darling reader, want more strife? Are my tales so airy-fairy, happy-go-lucky that you slam your laptop down in boredom?
Having recently watched author Wendy Dale’s Memoir Writing for Geniuses video about the importance of premise and the need for conflict, I began to wonder: Do I need to make more mention of my misadventures? Are stories of collecting peachy sunrise Tellin shells on the shores of Cayo Coco too mundane? Are sips of chardonnay to a backdrop of howler monkey hums too blasé?
Perhaps you’re more inclined to read about the following, more conflict-laden escapades?
- The Slovenian Send-off. After being sent to the wrong rental in the beachside town of Pirran (both #13), we were thrown out at 8:30 pm when the reserved party showed up. Running around the room, we shoved groceries, the meal we were in the middle of preparing, and freshly hand-washed clothing, still dripping on the portable clothesline, into our backpacks as a squat, apron-clad woman shrieked at us in Slovenian. How did we wake up the next morning in a French-speaking stranger’s home an hour’s drive away? That’s to be revealed in another blog post…
- The Money Heist. Hitting up a bank machine in Australia, I discovered that my ex had withdrawn every cent from my account. Don’t they say that the truth is often stranger than fiction?
- The Chinese Treasure Hunt. Imagine riding in the backseat of a Chinese cop car from a night market where your colleague’s wallet has been stolen. Picture being taken down dark alleys by a stranger in uniform, a huge sigh burping its way past your tongue just as you pull up to a very basic police station (rather than a pre-dug grave). I don’t remember every detail – that’s what my diary is for. After a few attempts with officers who didn’t even speak broken English, we were given a hand-drawn map to the foreign office – with directions in Mandarin and a large red X haphazardly placed. I’m alive so you know I made it. But I’ll sound like Bastian in The Neverending Story…”That’s another tale for another time“.
- The Storm Magnet. Everywhere I went, storms followed. I started to believe I had some sort of fierce meteorological power.
- Hail in The Cook Islands kept me awake half the night as it pounded the tin roof. According to local folklore and written history, it was an oddity they hadn’t experienced in 129 years.
- On August 17, 1999, my travel partner and I lazed on a boat cruise off the coast of Turkey, soaking up sights and sun. We had no idea that in the wee hours before our departure, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake had shaken Izmit, just eight hours northwest of us. While lugging our towels and Efes Pilsen from the boat later that afternoon, we noticed people anxiously buzzing around. Newspaper stands were covered in images of bloody limbs and crushed buildings. Over 80% of the city’s buildings had collapsed and it’s estimated that 45,000 perished and an equal number were injured. It will be “remembered as one of the deadliest natural disasters in Turkish history”.
- That’s not all, though, folks. Nope. On December 26, 1999, Storm Lothar (which was actually a cyclone) snapped trees and downed hydro lines across France, Switzerland and Southwest Germany. While I huddled inside a friend’s place near Munich munching spaetzle (yum yum) we anxiously tried to ignore the 120-mile-per-hour howls of “the worst European windstorm recorded in the 20th century”. One day later, Storm Martin waltzed in, shutting down most of Germany.
Those are a few of my “darker” sagas. No lollipops or unicorn farts there, sorry. What say thou, good reader? Do you crave more doom, gloom, and conflict?