End of September in Crete

So, I recently discovered the amazing world of Couch Surfing. In Malta, one of my fellow pilgrims was Anita, the mother of the CEO and co-founder of couchsurfing.com. When I told Anita I was couchsurfing my way through Europe, Anita told me who her son Dan was, and I was flabbergasted. For me, couchsurfing.com has been a miracle.  It has been a process and celebration of trust. From Barcelona to Milan to Malta to Athens to Crete, I am time and time again reminded that there are good people out there (some of them men!!! :)) .


And, this journey of trust is precisely what I am on while on this Mediterranean adventure. It’s helping me let go of that illusion that I have control of anything but myself and that if I believe the world (including all its people) will take care of me, it will do more than that; it will give me abundance (that is, good company, good times, good love).

This journey is also about visiting precious sites and artifacts of the Sacred Feminine: in Malta, the temples and the Sleeping Lady (to start); in Athens, Athena at the the Acropolis and Delphi; in Crete today, Knossos, the labyrinth, and the Snake Goddess. And, I have done this; I have visited , and I have been in awe.

And, this journey is also about traveling with other womyn. In Malta, one of the most beautiful things I heard was when we are by the little Sleeping Lady in the archaeological museum in Valetta. I caught one womyn whisper to another, “She looks like us.” I cried when I heard this.

Traveling again around Europe

Mid September finds me in Malta. I’ve actually not had much of a desire to visit Malta in my life, but a chance came up to take a tour here with a past professor and a singer I like, and I couldn’t help myself. And, I’m glad I didn’t. Malta is gorgeous, and I think I could live here. I like this island life so far, and the Maltese are friendly as well as easy going. It is, of course, quite humid, and I miss California’s big ocean waves. However, lounging on the limestone along the Mediterranean Sea is pretty wonderful. This tour too is luxurious. The hotel’s spa and pools and views are just so ritzy.

They feel perhaps ritzier than “normal” because of the last week in which I’ve been sleeping in hostels and on couches and extra mattresses. Of course, the romping around Barcelona and Milano and Italy was completely worth the showerlessness and such. I found some salsa dancing places in Barcelona and Milan, hitched a ride from a new friend on his moto, cooked on a wood stove delicious leek soup with Iris in the Italian countryside, and simply learned how to trust the goodwill of Europeans as well as my intuition.

Overall, it’s been an amazing adventure so far. I continue to be surprised by how inexpensive it is to fly from country to country. I’m also grateful for the synergistic timing of events and meetings. I barely made my train ride from Milan to Bologna. And, I arrived in Malta just in time—I mean minutes—for the first school tour gathering.

I also LOVE that Iris, a friend from Whittier and Whittier Christian no less (!), and I were able to meet up in Bologna. That was truly a miracle. She came from Romania, and I from Milan, and we just walked and ate and cooked and ENJOYED the uniqueness of our lives and the difference between Whittier and Italy.