Today was probably the weirdest day yet. I had packed a bag just in case I stayed in Plaka with Andrea, but I had already kind of decided that her coming in to Irakleio would be easier for everyone. Plus there was the detail that when we came in, we also lead in the electricians, who were trying to quickly diagnose and fix whichever instrument kept tripping the system. Unsurprisingly, that lead to no electricity and no internet for much of the day, which meant nobody was really doing much work. It was nice to sit around and talk up to a point, but a lot of it was conducted in greek so that was kind of difficult.
Also, the food issue. Hanna, a newly-anointed post-doc from Finland, had recently arrived and hadn’t eaten anything for the entire day – and everyone was still dragging their feet about lunch. So finally it was after 2pm (which is what they had told me) and I put my foot down (I hadn’t brought anything either, because they had promised lunch!). Spyros got Michael to drive us into Plaka to check Hanna into her room and get some food, but we had to be back by 5pm to go back to the city. Fine, I thought – it was 2:30 or so by then. Michael was like “we will have to get fast food” but then drove into Elounda, a neighboring town with more options than Plaka, and we sat down at a place. Whaaaatever. I got a crepe (although a strange one because the stuffing bits were in large chunks of cheese/sausage/tomato) and then we went to get calchunia (sp??) cookies since Michael seemed surprised we hadn’t tried them yet, and THEN we headed back. This is when I learned that Michael’s birthday was the previous day and he had stayed up super late, and navigating those back roads is really stressful just for the passenger so I can’t imagine driving it. But we did arrive at the site by 5:05 – except, there were no cars. Big WTFFFFF moment. I thought they had left without us, but it was weirder than that – they had left for lunch maybe an hour after we had. If they had TOLD me that was happening, I could have just waited instead of having Michael waste his time. BLARGH. Oh, Greeks.
We actually didn’t end up leaving until about 6:30, so…so much for that. But it did give us time to see some of the sunset, and a group of about eight huge gliding eagles. They circled once or twice, perhaps expecting some bodies to start piling up at the site? =D I also made plans for Andrea to meet me in Irakleio tomorrow night, and told her the hotel would put a cot in my room for 20E. Sounds like a steep price, but it’s pretty reasonable compared to booking another single room, which was ~50-60E. Shrug! Plus now it’ll be like a slumber party.
Since I got nothing done today, clearly, I decided not to stay in Finokalia on Saturday. I’d rather be somewhere I can procrastinate by sightseeing, at least, and also be free to get my own food and use a dedicated bathroom. Rustic living. Anyway the drive back into the city brought a crazy bit of info from Spyros – he discussed his Plans A through D regarding how the potential strikes on Sunday could really mess things up. I hadn’t realized that the conference in Paris he’s attending lasts until Wednesday. This is totally bizarre, because I haven’t actually met with him about proposal the whole time I’ve been here, and now he won’t be here for the rest of the week! What am I actually doing here, then?? Anyway, he mentioned that as it is, he would have to drive to Patra on Wednesday night, repack, then wake up ~6am and pick me up to go to the airport on Thursday (why you would schedule that for yourself, I do not know). So if there are strikes, we discussed whether I should (or can) really go back to Patra or not. I don’t particularly like the idea of him or one of the other students coming into the apartment and getting my stuff, which is kind of strewn around… he said he’d call on Sunday when he knows more. Iiiinteresting. By the time we got back, I had just about enough energy to have a gyro at ol’ Izmir Kebap and surf their free wireless before wandering a bit and going off to bed.
Speaking of Patra, if you’re curious about the bridge I’ve been talking about, I found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmwIjpjcPv0&feature=player_embedded# today. It is all about the bridge, but with so. much. drama. I personally find it HILARIOUS – “this has never been done” dun dun DUN – with music like they’re voting someone off Survivor. I don’t know how the announcer kept his face straight.
9/24/11
Yay, morning in Irakleio! The weather was beautiful, much more like what I had expected versus the previous two days where I actually needed a long sleeved shirt after dusk. After getting some prerequisite pastries, I basically just wandered from shop to shop. It ended up being only successful food shopping, really, because like before I didn’t really see anything I wanted to buy that wasn’t super expensive. Maybe Andrea will be able to talk me into something when she gets here.
I mostly wandered some old haunts, seeing which cafés have changed and what’s new. There’s now a parking lot across from Irini Hotel, where I stayed with the 2007 study abroad – a big improvement from the huge hole that was there when Peter and I visited in ’09. The area on the whole is a bit nicer looking than I remember, actually, although that building by the Lion’s Square is STILL under construction, four years later. After satisfying my wandering curiousity, I went back to drop things off and rest a bit. Andrea’s cot is adorable and feels pretty comfortable, hooray! I did nap on my own bed, though. =)
Then it was walking to the port / Venetian castle time. On the way out I grabbed a double hot dog and cheese pastry topped with sesame seeds, which is so much classier than a plain hot dog on a bun. Around 6pm I met up with Kostas and we walked around, eventually settling at a waterfront café for some coffees (of course). He finished with the army a few months after we left last time, and has since worked at a water bottling facility and then an oil company before being recently laid off. Although Spyros has a generally optimistic outlook regarding his country’s crisis, Kostas is feeling some more dire effects. He said he did get an interview with a company that makes the sun-tracking bases for photovoltaics, which is pretty awesome, so hopefully that will work out! It was really nice to sit and chat as the sun set, and he brought me another 1.5L of olive oil! Wee! We left when it got surprisingly chilly, and anyway it was almost time for Andrea to show up. Before he left, Kostas helped pick a restaurant – Peri Orexeos, if you’re keeping track at home – and place a dinner reservation, which was great! I hope to see him again two years from now (!)…hehe. Unless this is a rule of threes thing and this will be my last trip…but I won’t think about that.
Unfortunately Andrea’s car was delayed in getting here so we didn’t end up eating until about 10:30pm (only a half hour late on the reservation, but the front desk in the hotel assured me that Greeks don’t worry about such things). The dinner itself took a good while, but it was really awesome. We had a fancy salad with manouri cheese (yum), a huge moussaka/salad/tzatziki combo plate, a roast chicken with pistachio crust and honey sauce, raki and watermelon, and finally a chocolate lava cake with ice cream. Freaking great, and Andrea got some leftovers for lunch tomorrow. =) And it was equally (if not more) excellent to have someone to TALK to during dinner, and also during my quick city walking tour afterwards. It’s okay once and a while, but especially as a traveler it’s infinitely better to have someone to share everything with. So glad I talked her into coming. We didn’t get back to the hotel until after 1am – and had decided to wake up early to see things before we both had to leave – but the lack of sleep was totally worth it.
9/25/11
Soooo…I should have known better, but I totally forgot that almost everything is closed on Sundays. I was super disappointed with myself, as I was hoping to get her to a grocery and do some shopping. =( Luckily I had thought to at least buy her some peanut butter (which I knew was at the top of her list) and Happy Hippos (of course) the previous day, and we were able to window shop and wander around in another lovely day. And of course we solidly crossed off having boughatsa and various greek coffees off our list, so hooray for that!
The visit came to a rather abrupt end, though – 10am was about when Giorgios was going to pick up Andrea to go to the site, and also when Spyros said he’d call me to update on the plans for the week. I was hoping they wouldn’t happen at exactly the same time, but of course they did, and I was half on the phone and half hugging Andrea when the time came. Aaack. Didn’t look like either one of us forgot anything, though, so I consider that a success. Also, Spyros has a new plan: his wife needs to drive into Athens on Tuesday night, so I might go with her and stay near her parents (?) so it’s close for Spyros to pick me up on Thursday. He said it was “non-optimal” – maybe his wife isn’t super thrilled to babysit one of her husband’s students? – but we’ll see what happens. I would at least be able to check off more of Greece at that rate. Also he mentioned that the strike today had been declared illegal, although to expect some delays.
I had a few more hours after I was done with the call, so I checked out (after carefully packing the water bottle full of oil and some other spillables) and wandered around one last time. There was some danger of premature I’m-traveling-oh-noes freakout, so I bought some souvenirs and gifts and tried to just relax, because hey – it’s nice out, and I’m in Crete! It worked pretty well. =)
Then began my odyssey back to Patra. The bus to the airport was 1.10E and absolutely painless. They have lighted signs now to say when each line is coming, which was neat. The flight was 45 minutes delayed, but that’s not bad at all considering what I had been expecting. In the meantime I heard about my 95-year-old great-grandfather’s death via text message, which made the trip even more surreal than it already was. I also talked to my seatmate about how he grows fish and makes extracts for some cosmetics company in Connecticut that has a new line coming out. Life is weird sometimes.
Taking the X93 bus from the airport to the inter-city bus depot was only 5E and also easy to find. The trip itself seemed pretty long, though, and I took some mininaps (no danger of missing my stop, as I wanted the end of the line). The depot is “part of Greece that isn’t in the European Union” according to the guy I sat next to on the plane, and it was indeed not very pretty, or in a good area. Plus the workers weren’t very helpful – the ticket guy gave me an express ticket when I said I wanted the slow (so I could stop in Rio) and then switched me to a seat that I later learned was already spoken for. Jeez. The farther away from the city center, the less English people seem to know, I think. Anyway, I got some nice sunset pictures on the ride, but soon realized it would be very dark by the time we got to Rio. The lady next to me said maybe a taxi would be easier, and called her preferred taxi company to check the rates for me (how nice is that!). The taxi would only be 12E, which is fine – Spyros is paying anyway, and it was quite dark. Made me feel a little foolish for switching to the slower bus, though. Oh well. After a bit of nail-biting about where to get off, I saw a stop with a bunch of taxis and indeed the fare was only 12E (including tip) to get home. Well, “home.” I really don’t trust that there aren’t secret wiggly creatures in this apt, although it does look like someone cleaned while I was away. Anyway, after starting out to the airport around 1:30pm, I arrived at 9:30pm. Ordinarily it should take only 4 or 5 hours… blargh. Anyway. Thank goodness for kind strangers and thank goodness I’m freaking done with strange, unexplained public transit for a while.
It looks like everything in my suitcase made it all right, although the baklava (collected for Peter as per his “Greek baklava can’t possibly be like Pittsburgh baklava” testing campaign) are now more like pancakes. Still delicious, I imagine. It was also long past dinnertime, although I had at least remembered to pack some snacks for the trip. I think tonight is the best night for cooking all that stuff I bought last week…. But, okay, everything is frozen, so that makes it hard to cut tomatoes…
Anyway. What do you make with two shallots, two tomatoes, a slice of leftover restaurant bread, a slice of lunch cheese, and two eggs? Surprisingly good mush! And because of the bread, you don’t necessarily have to wait for all the tomato juice to boil off. I could have also made a salad but let’s face it, A) I’m tired and B) it’s frozen. Instead I had apple-peach-orange juice as my fruit/vegetable. Mmm dinner of champions.
Man, I WAS going to go check my email tonight due to a bunch of reasons, but I am a zombie. Maybe I’ll stop in really quickly and hopefully there’s nothing my phone can’t handle, because I am not prepared to bring the whole laptop. Zzzz.
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