Beach day!

What a nice day this ended up being! Not quite as much for Peter, who has a sore stomach, which is suspected to be something like a hernia – bad bad. So after our yogurt and baklava breakfast – nom – he went back to bed and I got the opportunity to walk around by myself since I was too awake. My initial goal was just to look at the west beach (as opposed to the east beach, which we saw yesterday) and then shop, but I ended up walking all over the old town. I went up a fortress remnant and saw the back of the old Kasteli quarter, but it wasn’t super impressive. I was sort of on a hunt for souvenirs for myself, clothes or otherwise, and when I didn’t find anything other than tourist shops and pretty streets I returned back to buy some ceramics at the shop across the street from our hotel. Now our apartment has a pretty pretty pitcher and a cool candle thing…in addition to the napkin holder I bought yesterday from the same place. Too many cool things! And they weren’t very expensive at all either, which was very nice.

By the time I got back it was super hot out, but I woke Peter up and we made use of our terrace by making ourselves drinks and lying out. Well, I laid out, and Peter sat in the shade and did sudoku. Considering that this is probably the last (and only) day to work on a tan that doesn’t just include my arms, I think I did pretty well. After cooling off in the room (<3 AC) we went out for a nice lunch at Tamam, a recommended place. I got apaki again (the smoked pork) and Peter got baby goat with roasted potatoes…both ended up being excellent – the goat fell apart when we poked it – and we again got more raki. By the end of it we were both pretty tipsy, which was a bit embarrassing considering that it was lunch but not so bad because it was our second-to-last day. The meal was delicious anyway!

Then it was beach time! Earlier today I saw signs for sun chair rentals at the western beach so we decided to go there, to minimize the sand exposure probability for Peter. Also we don’t have any full-sized towels, so that would have been irritating. Instead we used some of the spare hand towels from the hotel – sufficiently large enough for wiping off / protecting butt and back at least – and picked a pair of seats around 4pm. There was supposedly a 5E charge, but we stayed until sunset (~8pm) and no one ever asked us for anything. Free things hooray! Also the water was excellent, really clear and warm. There were even little fishies in, although some of those would try to nibble on you if you stayed too still in the water. Pretty relaxing for sure though! Even the usual beach noise was pretty entertaining – there was one lady that would shout “donuuuuuuuuuuuts!” every so often as she walked along the beach, and it was in such a tone that we cracked up each time. Sunset was very pretty too, although there were again no clouds to make it a bit more interesting. Oh well, I’ll take clear skies over rainy ones! Hooray for our first and only real beach day…

After four hours plus in the sun it felt pretty good to shower. It was certainly time to eat dinner by the time we were done, so we went to To Xani with high hopes. Unfortunately we ordered too much food for our sun-shrunken stomachs, so for the first time this trip we ended up with take-away boxes. Considering how many places we’ve eaten out, I think over-ordering once is pretty good. Thankfully our hotel room has a fridge, and I think the kitchen has a microwave or toaster oven, so we have lunch for tomorrow! Pastistsio and a zucchini-potato-mint thing is what we have now, and they were both pretty ok. We were too full from the salad and the staka, which is a local cheese served warm (think fondue with olive oil, very good), to properly appreciate them though. Maybe tomorrow. For now we are too sleepy! More silly TV and drinks for us until we decide to fall asleep.

Today we were thinking that 36 days was probably the maximum amount of time that we could have lasted on this trip. We are pretty art’d- and museum’d-out, our feet have sub-callus blisters on the heels (which is very upsetting), our backs hurt from the crappy hotel beds/pillows, and it’s simply time to go home where there are clean bathrooms and sheets you can trust and drawers instead of backpacks for all your stuff. It might be less exciting but will definitely be easier on us. Especially since the spare suitcase is now jam-packed with stuff and is hella heavy (thanks Kostas for the 4.5 L of liquid). Plus the Greeks seem to have something against shower curtains, as this place doesn’t have one either. Water pressure isn’t great either. Grr. I’m ready for home, and just in time! Hahaha.

GRR I JUST KILLED A COCKROACH GRR GRR HOTEL EL GRECO! At least it is asploded now. And they gave us the nicest room (terrace-wise, anyway) so far as we can tell. But grr anyway. Maybe I go clean up now. Hopefully we will be able to update tomorrow night – it’s theoretically possible – but we have to wake up super early for the flight so we will see. I’m sure there will be follow-up posts either way. PS we really appreciate the comments so if you are so moved please post one! Kbye!

PPS - some pictures are up!