Peter and I arrived on the island of Crete after the sun had set, but the warm air was delicious. I couldn’t see the ocean that was only two hundred feet away, but I could taste it. It took a while for our luggage to arrive, and even longer to locate our driver. We were expecting a guy with a little sign, and maybe even a hat, but he apparently went on break and instead we found ourselves in line with some young English girls on summer holiday. The two men working at the car booth began shouting at each other and gesturing wildly, I thought it was going to come to blows when the shorter one turned towards me. “You go to Koutouloufari.”
It seems the two men were just deciding the best way to cram all the tourists into as few cars as possible, and it was just an excuse for emphatic gesticulation. I later came to realize that the people of Crete don’t need any excuse; they get their best work done through boisterous yelling.
“Where are you staying?” Peter asked as we trotted off with our new acquaintances to the taxi. “In Maaaalia.” replied the blond, drawing out the word for three seconds longer than was required thanks to her heavy Essex accent. “We con’t wait to go to the clubs.”
“Oh that sounds nice,” I chimed in, eager to be friendly. “Greece is a great place to, um, spend all night drinking.” I myself had been eagerly anticipating floating in the brilliant blue water, taking photos of the quintessential whitewashed buildings and stuffing myself with dolmades. It then dawned on me that I must seem very old and boring to these young girls out on their boozing vacation and my conversational attempts trailed off as the taxi driver began cramming all of our oversized and unnecessary baggage into the trunk.
The blond quickly realized that her life was in peril. “Wait, let me get my hair straight-na.” “Oh, your brillant”, said the brunette, “Whot if they ad been flat-und?” Realizing that she had narrowly missed the evils of frizzy hair, the blond turned to me with a big sigh of relief and exclaimed, “Oh God, I’d just die without my straight-na!” I nodded in solemn agreement and we got into the car, not without several giggles over ‘those nut-us who drive on the roight-and soyed’.
We began the half hour drive at a speed which would have us arriving in 15 minutes. Every so often, we came upon a car that was going (who would have thought!) slower than us, and instead of slowing down, the driver just passed over the divider line, while the pesky car going at a normal speed would veer off onto the shoulder, two wheels clinging desperately to the pavement. You see, it is the custom, perhaps even the law that a car being overtaken should move over to the right to let the other past. Oncoming traffic doesn’t seem to be a deterrent in this driving pattern. Besides, the driver was too busy rocking out to his Greek pop music and content driving in a manner that would land most Americans in jail with a DUI.
Suddenly the driver veered off the main highway and onto roads that were barely big enough for one car, but were not however, considered one way. We began winding past lively restaurants and tourists out for an evening stroll. There were the white buildings with their blue shutters, and over in the open air restaurants I could see big platters of dolmades, olives and calamari. Crazy locals on scooters zipped through all the cars and people and dogs that were aimlessly making their was through the street. It was just like I had imagined during the cold gray months in Paris while planning this trip. The charm of our little town and the anticipation of a new adventure began to overpower the bumping Greek pop and fear induced adrenaline pumping through my veins, so when we arrived at our hotel, I was smitten.
We dragged our bags up two flights of stairs, a hill, and two more flights of stairs, to our apartment at the top of the little complex. The view of the harbor below and all her twinkling lights made the wrenched shoulder worth it. “At least you won’t have to do it again” cheered the lovely Welsh hotel receptionist.
After congratulating himself on getting us such great accommodation, Peter suggested a beer and late night stroll. We wandered until we found a restaurant with a view almost as good as our own and greeted the slightly tipsy waiter. He beckoned us onto the terrace with a big smile and even bigger arm gestures. In flashy display of waiter talent, he began pouring the beer from a rather high starting place. Unfortunately his motor skills had been a bit delayed by the wine he was sharing moments earlier with his family at a big table in the middle of the restaurant, and he proceeded to spill most of the beer on the table. He returned with a second beer and determination to show us those fancy beer pouring skills. “Yamas!” he cried out and wobbled back to his family dinner. It turns out that drinking the night away is a popular past time in Greece.
In Paris the waiters are all so reserved and sober with their bon appetit this and bon degustation that, but in Greece it is all about the sheer joy of drinking with friends and new acquaintances. From that moment on, I knew I would love the island and her inhabitants. I later learned that the waiter’s sloshy behavior was due to the Crete tradition of drinking ouzo, a licorice flavored liquor that burns your stomach lining away, with each customer at the end of their meal, but I’m sure the wine he was downing helped some too. With bellies full of tasty Greek beer, and a long day of travel tugging at our eyelids, we drifted back up the hill of stairs and into dreamland.
I woke to a rather luxurious surprise. Peter had brought his stove top Italian espresso maker, which by then was more well traveled then some friends of mine, but alas, we did not have coffee. So bleary eyed and still warm from sleeping, I followed him down to the little grocery shop near by.
Fruit. Mmm. I like fruit. These are my sleepy thoughts as intelligence had not set in yet. I gave the peach a gentle squeeze to see if it was ready. Not quite. I picked up the melon to take a sniff, just like my mother taught me when I was little. “See, you push here at the stem and if it gives a little, you know it is ripe. Then you smell it to make sure.”
My young self was in awe of this amazing melon freshness detector secret and so I always put it into practice when I can. Having seen the overly choosy French woman at the open air markets in Paris performing this same act, I was certain that by sniffing the melons I was displaying my innate capabilities as the female gatherer and would surely impress the other vegetable and fruit gatherers around me. The shopkeeper, however, was not impressed.
She appeared around the corner, hands on her hips and hissed, “You better buy that melon. People don’t want to buy something that your hands have been all over.”
I stammered something about it being a normal everyday activity to sniff melons.
“Well the fruit here is fresh, not like what you have in England.”
Her contempt for me was so thick I spooned it into my mouth and savored it for a moment while I attempted to find a worthy response to this early morning assault. Considering the reason I came was to get coffee, my thoughts were not fluid yet. So I stood there sputtering as she about faced and marched back to the register. I should have put back the melon and left. I should have saluted her like she was the fascist she emulated. I should have at least told her that I’m not from England and she is accent challenged. Instead, I wandered around the store looking for yogurt and honey while carrying the melon, which was ripe and smelled divine. I did decide upon leaving that I would never return and express my passive aggression through a boycott of her mini-mart. I’m not sure if she noticed, but I made sure to walk slowly by the store with my bags of groceries from the place across street. At least over there they let me sniff the melons with no complaints.
After breakfast we set off to explore on foot what we could see from our balcony. The hills were dry from the summer heat, and the cicadas were noisy in the pale green olive trees. Behind us a rocky hill rose up and a sliver of white moon glistened in the sun just above the peak. Everywhere we turned there were houses in the midst of construction projects with rebar jutting from abandoned concrete slabs. Perhaps the funding comes in spurts, or family size is a fluctuating number, either way, homes were in a constant state of remodel. It seems there is no need for family planning, you can just build up! We continued past vibrant flowers and magenta boganvia vines, down the hill towards the clear water.
Peter suggested a who-can-find-the-tackiest-tourist-beach-towel contest since we were descending into the largest and most tourist infested area of Crete: Hersonissos. He was always making up games for us to play, mostly because he liked winning, and he knew I hated losing. He bought a lovely blue and white Greek flag version with the word “Hellas” printed in big white letters.
“What does ‘Hellas’ mean?“ I naively asked.
“It means Greece.” He responded in a tone that let me know I should be embarrassed.
That would make sense on a flag I acknowledged, and it surely beat the pants off my pink and yellow plaid number with knock-off Polo logos prancing about. I shrugged, “You win.”
Losing this time didn’t matter. My tacky beach towel may have been trumped and my ignorance of Greek language exposed, but we had finally arrived at the beach and I eagerly bounded through the waves and into the salty water leaving Peter to gloat to the rocks on shore. Even the life threatening car ride, and the evil shop owner were no longer important; swimming in that warm water erased all concerns and retaliation bomb plots. The water was even more blue that I had hoped. Vacation at last.
|  | 
|
