Last Days in Greece

In Greece your wine glass is never allowed to be empty. I learned this at our farewell/birthday dinner for our host-dad, and boy did I do and say some embarrassing things! Almost fell into the sea. Twice. Woke up close to tears from a particularly nasty bruise on my knee and surmised that its presence must've been due to me tripping from the dock onto the boat and almost into the water the night before. Its not my fault - the Greeks know how to get a person drunk!

Here are some miscellaneous photos from our time on Kefalonia:

Ready to scrub some mildew.

We would spend our evenings sitting outside with either tea or wine, while listening to music and writing in our journals. We crafted these candle holders out of lemon rinds to protect the delicate flames from the wind.

Speaking of wind, there was a wind farm on the island!

The boat:

There are a lot of fun memories associated with this bathroom and its hand-pump toilet, none of which I will go into here.

Our host-family sent us off with bottles of their homemade olive oil and we took the 8am ferry back to the mainland.

Watching trucks load from the top of the ferry. Kinda of like a wolf shirt... but a wolf truck! Love it.

That rope was HUGE. Must've taken absolutely forever to splice like that.

Bye, Kefalonia!

We explored some crazy-looking baklava on the ferry. SUCH a mess.

This time we booked a different, more centrally located hostel in Athens. We had three nights in Athens before moving on to Istanbul. Our hostel this time around was much nicer, but it was jam-packed with obnoxious Americans, also on Spring Break ("Duuuude! No more ouzo for you!" and the like at 3am or thereabouts.)

Athens is really dirty and decrepit and our hostel was not in the best part of town, to say the least (this isn't a picture of our hostel, just a really worn-down building.) The first day we saw these creepy little gypsy kids running about with no adults in sight. Walking around we came across a little diner called "Joy's" where you could buy a deliciously greasy gyro for 1.50 euros. One day we went there for lunch then came back for dinner (our record was three times in one day!) Looking out the window we noticed that a lot of the women walking around outside in their trashy heels and makeup looked familiar and that they had been there while we were eating lunch. Upon closer examination, we realized that they were prostitutes. Oh.

Walked up to the Parthenon and whatnot because as students, we didn't have to pay. All that stuff is cool if you're into your classic Greek and Roman history, but since neither of us were, it was more just like something to do. Also, there were way too many tourists.

The beginning of what would become a Baklava Feast in Istanbul.

We met up with a friend from Sussex and went on a hike to the top of one of the hills/mountains.

Goofy-looking trees.

Did not realize there would be cactus!

On our last night in Athens some jerk followed us for a long time on our way back to the hostel. When he got close enough to say something to us (in Greek) Emily turned to him and said "No, fuck off." We sped up and crossed the street. Although nothing happened it shook us up a little and further cemented our view of Athens as nowhere anyone needs to spend three nights in.

Then it was on to Istanbul.

Three Sheets to the Wind

Finally it was time to sail up to Preveza. With the brother and girlfriend sailing the un-broken catamaran, host-dad and I remained on the broken one, which needed to be towed by her sister. It wasn't long before the constant and heavy rocking had me flat on my back in the throes of sea-sicknesses. I never experienced the urge to vomit, thankfully, though doing anything more involved than lying motionless did bring me close.

We left Kefalonia at about noon, sailed all day and finally dropped anchor at around 11:30pm. I had mint tea and biscuits for dinner. The Big Dipper was upside-down and the moon was our guiding light.

The next day we only had a few hours of sailing until we reached the marina at Preveza, where we watched in awe as Panther (the broken-down catamaran) got pulled out of the water by this massive lift.

I loved the marina and being around boats and the sailing life. Such a photo op!

For example.

I found some Treasures.

The night before we were due to sail back to Kefalonia (leaving Panther at the marina,) we decided to just sail through the night and get to the island early in the morning. My shift was from approximately 1am to 4am. The only sound was the quiet lapping of black, milky moon-lit waves against the boat.

At the Dept. of Forgotten Songs

I miss all of the music I used to listen to in high school.

Like in 10th grade when I would wear red plaid pants and Granny's cowboy boots I retrieved from the never-ending depths of Mom's closet and that red and white and blue ski jacket from Value Village that was so old it was made in "British Hong Kong" according to the decrepit tag on the collar. When we would play whiffle ball after school and when Tim would drive me to LW in his car that was always well-stocked with shop-lifted candy. When the mix-tapes we made to listen to in David's 1989 Ford Tempo that only had a tape deck would litter the front and back seats and sometimes warp in the sun. Like the time I was learning to drive in our old royal blue and wood-panneled station wagon on Whidbey Island and it was late summer and we were going camping with our usual overabundance of snacks from Trader Joe's and I almost drove off the road. And when shows were the only thing worth spending money on and when it seemed like I would never, ever be old enough to go to the 21+ shows.

But now when I go back and listen to that music, it makes me so nostalgic that I have to stop. Partly its because I listened to a helluva lot of melancholy music, but its also because Teenagerdom for me was bittersweet in itself. I mean, I can listen to a cute happy song from those times and instead be brought back in an instant to my melancholia. Things like growing up, my blossoming interest in art and music and film and photography and literature, love and hopeless crushes, not feeling cool enough for my group of friends, always wanting to be different from what I perceived to be the mindless riff-raff of LW, vintage dresses, wanting to be taken seriously by adults and my existential confusion as to what religion was really all about. Music embodies this time for me with more veracity than an untouched time capsule could ever hope.

Here's what I remember:

Jens Lekman, Sufjan Stevens, The Mountain Goats, Elliott Smith (I basically devoured these first four,) Broken Social Scene, Death Cab for Cutie, Sigur Ros, Iron & Wine (and these two,) The Softies, Deerhoof, Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, Yo La Tengo, The Shins, Modest Mouse, Animal Collective, CocoRosie, Seabear, Laura Veirs, The Moldy Peaces/Kimya Dawson, Stars, Tegan and Sara, that one Joanna Newsom song "Peach, Plum Pear," Langhorne Slim, The Flaming Lips album "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots," The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, The Northern Drive, The Jesus and Mary Chain, the Ride song "Vapour Trail," Sonic Youth (mostly because David listened to them all of the time,) Pavement, My Bloody Valentine, Television, Orbital, Beat Happening, The Stone Roses, Neutral Milk Hotel, Ryan Adams. And maybe there's more but whatever's left is deeply tucked away in folds of brain tissue and does not want out.

...I don't deny that I loftily thought myself to have quite discerning taste in music. Hah! It seemed so important back then. And surprisingly, I didn't come to The Smiths until first year of college.

Anyway, this is the song we were listening to that summer day in the station wagon when I almost crashed and what brought about this whole topic in the first place because I just listened to it out of the blue:

I think it is safe to say that this song sparked my love affair with the banjo.

Κεφαλονιά, Ελλάδα pt. 2

One day we decided to take a hike around the island, so we followed a path that said it would take us to some ancient ruins.

Maybe you can tell or maybe you can't but we came across a giant fig tree! There are also fig trees everywhere in Greece. Well, on Kefalonia at least. There was this one fig tree by our host-family's house that we would walk by every single day. We would always be sure to check up on the green baby figs growing a little bit plumper each day.

All of a sudden there were goats! We were a bit hesitant because what if they decided to ram us? But they really didn't care about us and kept eating as we walked by.

I like this guy.

We waved to an old man and his dog relaxing in an olive grove. Then his dog followed us for a good 15 minutes and we became friends.

We kept pretending that we were in the Lord of the Rings. Like hobbits leisurely wandering around Middle Earth, to be precise. Everything was so old and overgrown and peaceful and green... so yeah.

Other Things:

• Everyday we would listen to music and lay in the sun after lunch and during Siesta Time. Good thing there was sunscreen on the boat because sunscreen is not sold in shops on the island until tourist season begins!
• The salty cold water of the Ionian Sea cleared my sinuses better than a Neti Pot ever could.
• My favorite activity was sitting with my legs dangling in the water while watching all the little fishes swimmin' around our boat. Sometimes I would throw them crumbs and they would go wild! They really liked feta cheese a whole lot.
• The locals gave us looks for wearing shorts everywhere and all of the time. They were wearing sweaters and long pants.
• On our walk along the water to our host-family's house we would almost always see this trio of ducks. They would swim around together, waddle here and there together, eat together, sleep huddled up all next to each other... SO CUTE! They are best friends! We would say "Hello Ducks!" every time we saw them. No photo unfortunately.
• Also on our walk to our host-family's house, we would always walk by this one group of old people that were just out sitting in chairs and knitting or chatting as old Greek people do. They were always real friendly and would wave and smile big and say things in Greek that we didn't understand and we would wave back and say hello in Greek (which was really the extent of our Greek vocabulary) and keep walking. But there was this one lady amongst them who, instead of smiling, would scowl intently and shake her finger at us and yell things in Greek that sounded like curses. She wore all black, including a black headscarf tied under her chin, and had wrinkles like you wouldn't believe. She embodied exactly the persona of the scary witch in Snow White who tricks Snow White with the poison apple.

She was so scary!

• One evening while Emily and I were sitting outside on the boat enjoying our after-dinner-mint-tea and listening to music, I spotted something odd floating in the water. It wasn't uncommon to see bits and pieces of garbage or sticks or other things that float ashore, but this was none of the above. "What IS that?!" We both looked closer and in horror realized that it was a decomposing section of a tentacle. The smell was absolutely putrid. While it floated closer and closer to our boat, we could see that it was emitting these little oily bubbles that left the surface of the water looking slick, and that even the little fishes wouldn't go near it. Although we desperately wanted to ignore it and have it magically disappear, we knew that we would have to get up and actually do something about it. Emily grabbed an oar and with a one strong movement pushed it away from the boat. We thought we were safe for the rest of the evening, but then I looked and noticed that it was slowing bobbing its way back to us. Oh no! So this time we watched it float towards us until it was close enough for Emily to pick up with the oar and fling to the other side of the dock. Good Riddance! The smell lingered for good while, though. Yuck.

• The following photos are from Emily's blog:

Here it comes..

Come here you..!

Yah!

• Island Time. Not much happens on an island like Kefalonia and there is not much to do, so you end up with the following as your major day-to-day events: eating, sleeping, reading, writing in your journal, snacking, tanning and walking to your host-family's house for dinner. One day we had to make lemonade, go to the supermarket and go to the post office in addition to all our other daily tasks and we felt so busy. ("We're so busy!!") The Night of the Tentacle was really quite exciting for Island Time.

Next: boat trip, last days and leaving Kefalonia, Athens.

Κεφαλονιά, Ελλάδα pt. 1

According to Google Translate that says "Kefalonia, Greece."

And the reason it says I am posting this on Sunday, May 15th is because I started it on Sunday but didn't get back to it till now, which is Wednesday, May 18th.

Okay!

From our impossible-to-find hostel we grabbed a taxi at 6:00am and arrived at the bus station with time to spare for our 8:00am, 3 hour bus ride to Patras. I looked out the window at all the citrus trees and half-finished construction projects while Emily dozed.

Once in Patras, we had a fair amount of time to kill before our ferry ride to Kefalonia, so we sat outside at a corner cafe and drank tea alongside a bunch of scraggly old men chain-smoking and chattering away in Greek. Out of curiosity and general excitement at being in Greece, we wished we could have a conversation with them, a feeling which was probably mutual considering we were the only outsiders, let alone females, present. Old Boys Club indeed!

Then we had a 3 hour ferry ride.

I love taking the ferry so much! A Washington kid for sure.

Upon arrival in Sami, the town where we would being staying for the next 3 weeks, we met and introduced ourselves to our Work Away host-family-dad and dropped our bags off at the boats. The catamaran we would be living on, along with her broken-down sister, was moored at the pier, a 25 minute walk or so from our host family's house in the neighboring town of Karavamilos. We then met and introduced ourselves to the rest of the family, and went out for drinks and dinner, where Emily and I both got a little more than drunk off of the strongest gin and tonics either of us had ever had in our lives. After some lively and good-natured dinner conversation, we said goodnight to our host family, made our way back to the boats and fell asleep in our little shared sleeping cabin.

The Work Away arrangement was as such: everyday Emily and I would work from 9:00am to 11:00am or 12:00pm, we would have the afternoons to do with as we wished, and then we would join our family for dinner around 6:00pm. While Emily helped out around the house with general upkeep and looked after Jasmine, the youngest member of the family at 18 months, I would help prepare the boats for the upcoming sailing trip. This involved great deal rubber-glove-wearing, hazardous-chemical-spraying and immensely satisfying mildew-zapping. In order to repair the broken-down catamaran, the entire boat needed to be taken out of the water. Near the end of our stay, I would accompany our host-dad and his brother and his brother's girlfriend who would be flying over from Ireland, on a 5 day sailing trip up to a marina in Preveza. But more on that later.

(On the map, Kefalonia is the largest island in the Ionian Sea.)

Everyday Emily and I would wake up at 7:30 and poke our heads out of the skylight in our cabin to be greeted by pale blue skies and bright morning sunshine. I would usually jump out of bed, lured by the thought of Tea and Breakfast, and face the chilly morning air first, while Emily (sleepyhead!) curled up further under her blanket. The dialogue usually went something like this:

Me: "Emi! Get up! I'm making you a cup a tea but you have to get up to drink it!"

Emily: " MrRHHGHHHgh its cold!"

Eventually the lure of breakfast would overcome Warm Bed, Emily would join me and we would sit outside and listen to Elvis Presley while eating our breakfast. I was scrolling through the music on her iPod one morning and happened to settle on Elvis and that was that. At first it was like we were in a Quentin Tarantino movie because we were listening to the boisterous music of Elvis early in the morning while doing mundane things like making tea. On an island in Greece. But then it just became a perfectly normal aspect of our daily routine.

Tea, strawberries and 8% fat Greek Yogurt like I will never taste ever again unless I go back to Greece, bread with butter and homemade marmalade and eggs from our host-family's chickens.

We ate lots of lovely Greek vegetables for lunch.

With feta and olive oil of course!

And we ate tomatoes every single day. Literally. I mean, look at that! How could you NOT?

The supermarket sells lemons which is crazy because lemon trees grow everywhere.

...like this Monster Lemon from our host-family's tree!

We also grazed on tea and biscuits all day. And yes that is a baby french-press I am using to drink my Earl Grey since we accidentally broke one of the matching mugs. It too broke after only a few days while I was washing it. :( It was so cute! RIP litte guy.

It was my personal favorite to top the biscuits with yogurt and marmalade.

Part 2 soon!