Big Fat Greek Holiday

The taxi story? I wonder how to tell it and do it justice.  

There were seven of us, so it took two taxis.  Catching two taxis was just a little more fun than catching one, somehow.  It took our friend's husband to flag them down...height and gender matter, you know - chivalry is not dead.  And it took Lisa.  In case the Greek English wasn't working very well.  

We needed to get from the Holiday Inn by the airport to downtown Athens first of all, to hand-deliver a letter from a friend of theirs to his relatives at a restaurant in Greece, and second, to see the Acropolis and museum, and meanwhile have lunch.  You haven't truly lived until you've eaten potatoes in Greece.  Later we included dinner - eating light, (salad with tuna and some sort of delicious bean dish with lattes to finish) except for the boys who ate double and were ready for ice cream after, and head back for the night and their early morning flight.  A serious lack of sleep may have contributed to the lack of sobriety, since we only had water with lemon to drink, as well as a (very) impromptu shopping trip and a (very) cute and also money-grabby (not-at-all-cute) very small accordion-playing boy.  

For the third ride of the day, Donna joined Mindy, Lisa and I in our yellow cab.  As luck would have it, the driver was a rough looking character even for a many-summer-suns Greek, but in possession of a lovable personality.   I suppose he has a few life stories to tell.

It seems he had agreed with our host and the other driver on a price of 30 Euros for each car. I'm not sure if Lisa knew that, but she spent the first several moments of the ride in a good-natured and lively negotiation over the price, anyway.  At the next stop light, the price was confirmed in a quick conversation through the front passenger window to the other driver. Then arose the question, the answer to which, in a mixture of Greek and heavily accented English, seemed to be basically how fast could we get to the hotel through the streets of Athens.

We had four votes - one each. Donna voted for Fast, and after an initial burst of speed down busy city streets that left me breathless and the other taxi out of sight and breathing our exhaust, the driver asked for the rest of us to chose safe or fast.  He left us gasping with the demonstration of speed so it was no surprise that the votes from the back seat were all safe, safe and safe.  I changed my vote to safe and fast which choice would give me (and my rather quiet back seat company) some moments of concern over the next 20 minutes or so.

That was one taxi with a good engine.  The biggest surprise about Greece perhaps was that the water really is wonderful shades of blue and very clear blue-green, plus the perfect temperature for swimming.  You can see the bottom of the sea from 3 meters above but it didn't look that deep at all where we were anchored.  Another surprise was the quality of their taxis.  His driving skills weren't too bad either, which did not surprise me.  He chose driving for a living, after all. Despite this conclusion, the tunnel, the freeway, the speed, the gathering darkness brought to mind the night of Princess Diana's accident. Scary.  Exhilarating.  Yes.  Speed is fun. Despite my safety concerns, it was undeniably exhilarating, even breathtaking.  Just hoped we all lived to tell the tale. Taking a wary peek at the speedometer as it hovered around 140 km was an eye opener, and warranted a second glance to make sure I was reading it right, but it didn't bother me as much as watching the rate at which the other cars appeared and disappeared beside us - more or less standing still.  But what fun.  Oh yes.  Wondered what happened if he got caught.  Surely they wouldn't throw us all in jail.  Maybe just him.

The speed limit was 80 km on the freeway and I didn't know the conversion but 140+/- km seemed extraordinarily fast in a yellow taxi cab.  However, the driver had a steady hand and took the corners tightly, without the slightest waver and I was in sheer admiration.    The most fun was that Donna was cool as an angel the whole time, egging him on. 

The faster they talked, the faster he drove. Partially intelligible pieces of conversation wafted to my wind-buffeted and Greek-accent challenged ears while I held my breath hoping desperately that no one decided to change lanes at the last moment.  My eyes were peeled for the least indication - there were none, and I knew I couldn't do anything about it if they did.  Then he slowed down, explaining that area was monitored by a speed camera, I was good and ready for the respite. Then he sped up again.   While enjoying the fun and quite impressed with his driving, I felt some responsibility for the safety of myself and crew, so I fervently wished they would quit talking and just concentrate on the road.  I may have said as much, but the wind gobbled up the words.  It was with a enormous level of relief and some surprise to me that we arrived safely in the half circle at the hotel entrance.

Donna's window was open and I was sitting in the back seat behind her.   Shall we say I got "a bit" wind blown.  Okay, I don't know what my hair looked like in the end, but it was apparently quite hilarious before I managed a quite re-do with my fingers.  I loved her innocence afterwards. Surprised to learn our speed, she said. "I couldn't see how fast we were going!"  

It was so much fun getting acquainted with this tall, bold, beautiful, warm, delightful farmer's daughter.

Kleftico

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/cb/42/9a/cb429ae26be35e3a16f72a53b7a51189.jpg

(Greek Salad picture) 

Pollonia ~ See the light on the building?  We ate there, across the street by the beach, under a covered area - like a carport here. Kapetan Nikolas' signature dish is spaghetti with lobster.  We three shared one serving, so we didn't get the freshest lobster, and that was probably a mistake on our part.  We asked for a recommendation and then didn't quite follow it.  We also ordered Rusk Salad which turned out to be a hearty base of homemade barley bread heaped with diced tomatoes, olive oil and feta cheese.   At another restaurant we shared a pizza topped with capers and prosciutto, eight Euros, two different times.  Yes, it was that good, especially combined with a warm and friendly seaside atmosphere and ice cold water.

The first night in Pollonia we chose to try Enalion.  We ordered a rather simple green salad, a chick pea salad and one order of spaghetti with shrimp.  Delicious, and was satisfying to all three of us.  Greeks eat at different times than we do, (much later)  so we ate whenever we got hungry.  Three dishes of food were more than we could eat, so after that we mostly stuck to ordering one or two meals and sharing them among the three of us.  We ordered Frozen Forest Berry Yogurt served in stemmed parfait dishes delivered to our comfortable cream colored canvas sling chairs right on the sand, where I lingered while Mindy and Lisa went for a swim.  It was fantastic and I would recommend it.  I had gotten sea sick when trying to scuba dive.  The water didn't seem especially appealing to me that evening.  

Kids played on the beach, and in the playground off screen to the right well after dark.  It's cooler then, but that's Greece.  Dinner was commonly at 8 p.m. during our first four days.   Also cats everywhere in Athens and Milos!  A very few are pets, but there are many, many tough looking cats fending for themselves including a kitten with the same lean body and skinny legs, who begged at our breakfast table on the veranda or whatever they call it in Greece.  Lovely spot overlooking the northern sea. 

Cats roam the roof tops in Athens, making a nuisance of themselves.  Though somewhat jumpy, they beg at your feet during dinner, and one even sat on a railing right behind some people and begged over their shoulders when we walked past Enalion on the way back to our studio at Apollon.  By their leanness, it doesn't look like life is a Big Fat Greek Holiday for them. 

Sundown

Sunup

Schoolyard ~ Pollonia

Kalimera, Pollonia
 ~το πρωί της Κυριακής~ 

Lovely Water.  I don't know which beach this is - our first stop on this day trip.
We were diving from the Mama Maria on the Southern Coast of Milos between
Paleochori and Kleftico at several inlets.