Greece Lightning (title at Jack's insistence)

Our last stop in Italy was a small coastal town called Ancona. It was nice enough- fresh fish restaurants and boutique shopping (participated in neither) -but we were only there for one night. The boat ride (22 hours!) from Ancona to Patras, Greece was not what we expected. For starters, the boat was quite fancy. There were two restaurants, one for sit down service and the other for students, I mean a la carte. Beyond the restaurants was the Acrobats Disco, although we fell asleep too early to check that out. On the 10th level there was a pool and a giant litter box for the animals housed up there (mostly dogs, Jack saw one unhappy kitty), placed in close enough proximity to the pool that I had to wonder if they've ever had some “misunderstandings” with children or maybe even adults who happen to love playing in sandboxes.

Most of the men hung out at the casino (including Jack who gambled 50 cents in the casino and won 4 euros!) which doubled as the TV lounge. They watched passionate Italian soap operas at first which switched to passionate Greek soap operas at some point during the night. I think there were about 10 bars on board, and while that may seem excessive, we figured out that each bar served a separate purpose. For example, you might go to the casino bar to buy a wi-fi card but to the disco bar to buy a bus ticket. This was only slightly confusing.

We landed in Patras and took a 3 hour bus ride to Pireaus where we had a 6 hour lay over before boarding a 6 hour boat ride to Heraklion, Crete. We explored the city a bit, which was nothing special but did open my eyes to a couple of things. 1. Dolce & Gabbana is huge in Greece. Whether knock offs or the real thing, it's everywhere and on everyone, including infants. 2. Jewelry featuring The Blue Eye is very important and also found everywhere. The explanation we got from a Turkish street vendor is that “the blue eye keeps the devil eyes out.” Not sure if that was supposed to be the devil's eye/s, but decided not to get picky over grammar as I was just happy to find someone who spoke English.

The wild dogs in Pireaus are very street smart. We saw a sleeping pack of dogs wake up when they heard the rival bark of another dog across the street. The dogs were sleeping in a median on a very busy street but when the light turned red, they went into the street to bark at the other dog until the light turned green, at which point they went back to the median and resumed their naps. One of these dogs had puppies somewhere, evidenced by her teats which resembled black stretchy cow utters or even rubber gloves. I found them to be so fascinating, but Jack wouldn't take the picture because he thought it was too depressing.

We chose to upgrade to a cabin on the Pireaus-Heraklion (overnight) boat ride, which turned out to be a great idea because like Italian schedules, Greek schedules are also “flexible”, meaning the boat ride was closer to 9 hours. We arrived in Heraklion at 5 am, took a 3 hour bus ride to Rehthymno and then an hour bus ride to Plakias (with a David Sedaris look-alike bus driver). About 50 ft from the bus stop, we found a woman named Aleka (who is also the town hair dresser) and rented an apartment from her for 30 euros a night. We were settled in and at the beach by noon. So, after all of this travel, I'm sure you can see why we haven't blogged in a while.

Plakias was very nice, “a lot like Catalina if you sub the buffalo for goats”-Jack, with not much to do but hike and hang out at the beach, which is exactly what we needed. Who knew we were such country bumpkins? Plakias is a popular German tourist spot (we figured this out given the 3 languages featured on the menu: Greek, German, English and also the abundance of German tourists) so I'm sure it's crowded during the summer, but this time of year worked out great. All of the town dogs walk around as they please, wearing The Blue Eye on their collars. Clearly, they know what's going on.

One of the restaurant owners owned a goose, cat and a sweet blond dog (who befriended us over the course of the week)- all of whom hung out together under a tree outside the restaurant until they got hot or bored, at which point they would circle one another in and out of the restaurant. As mentioned, the dog was sweet but the cat and goose were another story. I have not met one nice kitty in Greece, just a bunch of teases who roll around like they want a chin scratch, change their minds when you get close and then scream. We saw the goose chase several patrons out of the restaurant as well, hissing and holding it's neck down low, swaying from side to side. Amazingly, the restaurant was always somewhat busy, so maybe hissing geese and screaming cats are endearing to German tourists?

We were too scared to eat at the goose/cat/dog restaurant so we tried a place called Souvlaki House on the third night. When we ordered wine to go with our food, the waitress/owner/cook/Greek Mama lifted her eyebrows and grinned, clarifying our request with the question “You want ½ liter of wiiiiiiiine?” We didn't know if maybe this was inappropriate but answered again that yes we did. The mystery behind her tone was revealed when she returned with a pitcher of homemade wine and 2 shot glasses. Yes, shot glasses. Two shots into the meal, I was drunk and passed out immediately upon returning home.

We took a bus from Plakias back to Rehthymno (David Sedaris bus driver again), where we are currently waiting to catch another bus back to Heraklion, where we will catch a boat to either Mykonos or Santorini. The buses are inexpensive but a pretty reliable source of car sickness. The good news, and final note of this blog, is that coke (a-cola not the amphetamine) is cheap in Greece at 60 cents a can, providing relief from a number of maladies including car sickness, mood swings, headaches and devil eyes.