Pyromaniacs, Sort of...

Burnt socks!

The skies were supposed to be clear. Yeah right.

Instead, the skies opened up and literally poured water all over us, in varying degrees of showers, drizzle and plain old rain of the cats and dogs variety. Without water proof raincoats, we were just wet and miserable. And cold. I can assure you that wet shoes and socks are not fun at all. The only other not so fun thing I can think of, which is worse than wet socks and shoes is a wet jacket which is supposed to protect you from the cold. Wet jacket, cold wind - totally beats the purpose.

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and through previously successful rain soaked garb (my sister and I always end up in mysteriously rainy destinations) drying endeavours in other hotel rooms, we decided to follow the tried and tested formula of drying the wet socks on the lamp. It works like a charm and leaves your socks all warm and toasty. 

Not this time, though. The socks were left to dry on one of the lamps while my sister showered and I sat in front of the TV trying to get reception of some sort - seriously, lousy TV service in the hotels here. How on earth are tourists supposed to learn anything about your country if you can't watch the local channels? In my TV related enthusiasm, I didn't notice the smell of something burning until my sister came out and asked me what the smell was. It was then we realised that instead of getting all warm and toasty as intended, the socks was burning around the edges, glowing an ominous red. A frantic and nervous laughter induced moment indeed as we scrambled to save the whole building from going up in flames by beating the burning bits of the socks into submission. The whole room smelled awful and we opened the windows to let in some fresh air, although I must admit that the smell was never the same again. 

Thankfully the smoke detectors didn't do their job, and the whole building didn't burn down either, because then I would probably in prison in a foreign country awaiting trial for arson, or attempted arson and wouldn't be able to share this story being imprisoned and all. We threw the burnt socks away, hoping that no one would find out the truth, ever. I can just can't help wonder what the housekeeping staff would say to each other as they cleaned our room the next day. Ha ha ha.