Beat to their own Drum All-Stars, Vol. 1

This will be the first in hopefully a series of posts describing some of the weird and/or wonderful personalities encountered on my travels. Arguably my favorite aspect of traveling is meeting entertaining people with terrific stories. I score perfectly in the middle on the Myers-Briggs introvert vs extrovert scale, but I've never had problems talking to people on big trips, including eccentrics, souvenir peddlers, or even vagrants. I have this strange thought that it doesn't take much time or energy to at least acknowledge another person's existence. And sometimes, just sometimes, you get rewarded for the effort.

These are hereby dedicated to Ronny Sunshine. I met Ronny on a cheap bus in the middle of Costa Rica. He tried to sell me 6 qualudes out of his fanny pack and then attempted to guess everyone's life details in the back of the bus. He said he knew all about Lawrence, KS because he used to "party with William Burroughs (Beat generation poet/author)."  I was fascinated by this man. Godspeed wherever you are Ronny!

Timothy Terror - Split, Croatia.

I should mention I did not assign the nicknames to Tim or Ronny or anyone else who might come along. Timothy was the most brutal of an assortment of awful street performers along the harbor promenade. The embodiment of a human trainwreck, he spent most of his act berating his gathered audience to "STAND TO THE FRONT", insulting Croatians collectively when they mostly ignored his compulsive demands, or morosely describing the martial arts origin of a few of his techniques. A Bachelor´s in Psychology and 10 minutes observation sufficed to tell me this man suffered from OCD and was manic-depressive (yes, I´m sure there´s a new name for that in the Psych world). Great thing his act consisted of boards of nails and juggling chainsaws over people! Our working theory is he accidentally kills an audience member and then moves to a more obscure, less litigious location. I beamed a relieved smile when I glimpsed the Canadian flag on his box of terror.

Ana of Ana's Hostel - Dubrovnik, Croatia

In a country where gorgeous women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano, I may have been most intrigued by a 47 year old chain-smoking hostel operator. Her "hostel" consisted of a selection of surprisingly decent rooms and apartments on a side street in Old Town. To find her you rung her bell and 3 minutes later you hear a voice from above. You scan the multitude of windows and clotheslines until you see her head pop out. Or often you can just find her smoking on the steps. When we arrived, Ana showed us a foldout map and told us what was important:

"We here. You like drink, you go here, here, or maybe possibly here. You want club you go here. Beetch, here and here. You buy beer here and bring to beeetch. No buy beer here. Too expensive (wink). You like steps, you go this way. I no like steps. I go this way. You eat. You go here. You need me, you tell lady at restaurant (around the corner). She call. I here in 5 minutes (wink). Okay darling, bye bye (wink)."

By the end, I held a map of Dubrovnik in my hands saturated with squiggly lines, random x´s, and illegible writing. It remains a work of art. There was just something about Ana that was special. She was like a sarcastic aunt. She´d pretend to get mad, like when I broke the key off in the lock, but really just roll her eyes and laugh. I recommend Ana´s Hostel for a fascinating experience.

Failed to get a pic of Ana. This creepy mural was above my bed though. Our theory is it is her as a young child.

Brad - Mike´s Bike Tours guide - Germany

Brad isn´t weird, he´s just the man. Living the dream. A South African who had been all around the world and now lived with his Norwegian girlfriend and gave tours of Neuschwanstein Castle and the surrounding area. On his off days, he freaking borrows the paragliders equipment and goes paragliding on his own. Brad was super personable, gave me all sorts of tips for my world tour, and served as an informative guide. At the end of the day, he randomly performed some crazy card tricks. Apparently, Brad is a graduate of some German School of Magic and considered among the best in the world at certain card tricks. He also hinted he had used his powers to his benefit in poker before. I tipped Brad well, keep living the dream for all our sakes dude.