I'M IN: Santorini, having visited the towns of Hania, Paleohora & Iraklion on Crete
NEXT UP: Northern Greece then Turkey?
Everything continues to be lovely here in Greece and Mom and I are having quite a time. We couldn't help but notice that many of the Greeks themselves, however, are not having such a blast. In fact, they often seem completely exasperated with us, their jobs and/or life in general. Not sure what to make of this - at first I was taking it personally but after the 49th grumpypants we encountered, I decided that it might just be a cultural thang, we wouldn't understand. It does feel strange to deal with so many people who seem like they are going to quit their jobs any second, but we soldier on.
Last week we took a ferry to Crete and it was a most pleasant journey, at least after Mom got the car parked. We were directed onto the boat and then a man yelled at us in Greek for about five minutes. We were making the international hand gestures back at him - no, not those! Like, questioning him, right? Left? He just kept yelling and eventually he leaned in the window and turned the car wheel himself a few times. Once the car was parked to his satisfaction he sputtered off and, I assume, went to hand in his notice. The ferry itself was super nice with huge airplane style seats and flatscreen TVs and several bars - I haven't passed seven hours traveling so quickly, I think, ever. We docked on Crete rather late at night and Mom and I proceeded to get quite lost before collapsing into a hotel 'round midnight. We were uncharmed by the port town of Hania and decided to head beach-ward to Paleohora (or Ancient Prostitute as I called it). After a truly spectacular drive we arrived to find all accommodation on the sandy side taken, but we were happy to find a great deal on the "pebble beach" side. The pebbles proved rockier than Sylvester Stallone, but we had a great couple of days just reading and eating large quantities of seafood. I even tricked Mom into eating octopus, which she liked. I knew she would! We headed back to the north side of Crete to visit the capital of Iraklion, which was hard to navigate and in the flight pattern of the surprisingly busy airport, located about ten blocks away. We spent our last night in Crete in an Euro-resort called the Blue Marine, which was sleek and modern and lovely. The place was full of Germans getting on and off tour buses (Mom had some scary moments when she was in between a group of them and the dessert table). Most curious to me, the resort logo was a very cool design but was essentially the letters BM entwined around a sun. Not sure I'll retain the PG rating after this post! We also visited the palace at Knossos at some point in there and it was pretty neat. I don't have too much to say about it other than no minotaurs were spotted. Unfortunately, I'm a little jaded on seeing antiquities at this point. I hope this will pass soon.
A few days ago we took another ferry to Santorini (or Thira as some guidebooks call it?). This ferry-ride conformed to my expectations more closely - lots of people smoking and soccer watching and several trucks with cows in the cargo area. We have really enjoyed Santorini so far - it's a manageable size and incredibly beautiful and the people seem content, even cheerful. We spent two nights in Fira, which is super cute and has a cable car; we'll round out Mom's visit with a few more beach days here in Kamari on the east side of the island. Hopefully we will leave on Friday for Mom to catch her plane on Saturday - I say hopefully because the ferries to Athens were not running today for some reason. Regardless, it'll be sad for me to see Mom go, it's been fantastic to have a travel buddy.
