Indiana Jones meets Samantha Jones

+ = ?

Up until a month or so ago I was one of those people who cringe and scream and run in terror at the sight of a bug. Centipedes, caterpillars, grasshoppers... EWWW! Just writing their names gives me the creeps.

Being a 100%, ISO-certified City Girl that I am, staying well within the city limits and never venturing into the nature, I had no problems avoiding bugs until now. A cockroach here and there, a spider in the kitchen every now and then... that's ok. I can handle that. Just don't send me into a forest, ok?

Howeverrrr.... irony, my favorite spice of life, made sure things got a little bit more complicated than that. It got me dating Indiana Freakin Bug Boy Jones who not only loves going into the woods to look for insects and lizards, but will find them in the middle of a busy road in Taipei, no problem.

We could be on our way to a nice restaurant, he'll be "Wait... look at that pile of garbage in that alley! Let's see if there are any bugs underneath!" Can you see the "Oh, YAY, let's!" written all over my face?

But, looking on the bright side of things, I am closer then ever to curing my phobia, which is a bonus, I guess.

All this talk of bugs reminds me of a BBC TV series I loved: My Family And Other Animals based on a wonderful book by Gerald Durrell.

Gerry himself is the main character. He's the Bug Boy. His mother moves the whole family to Corfu, which turns out to be a paradise for Gerald who will haul anything that moves into the house, to his family's horror.

Even though the idea of all these insects and other animals crawling all over the house scared the hell out of me, for some reason I wanted to be part of this quirky family and their life on the island. Which is a bit ironic because I already had an island just like that (Brač), with stone houses just like the one they lived in, with bugs and lizards just like those in Greece, with eccentric relatives and with a cool single mom just like Gerry's mom was. At the confusing age of 16 I somehow didn't see that at all. Teenagers are weird.