Meeting the family

The other night Dimitri invited us to dinner to celebrate the end of the season, I assumer that he was having a final dinner with the rest of the guests and that we would be part of that. How wrong I was, we arrived a little early and whilst we were having a glass of wine the rest of the guests arrived. The first of these was Dimitri's parents in law, lovely people, although they were at the other end of the table so we didn't have a lot of conversation with them. We then met Dimitri's uncle, a lovely man who's been brought up in Massachusetts and moved back here, another fabulous man who kept us entertained and thought it was wonderful that we'd decided to take a month to stay in this fabulous place.

We talked, ate and drank long into the night asking questions and sharing titbits of information that makes us who we are. The wine probably helped this, at least for B who found the wine produced by the family opposite us to be very drinkable and probably drank more than half the table put together. Thank goodness it was very pure wine, as he demonstrated by pouring red wine onto a white napkin and astounding us when the 'stain' dried clear! We need red wine like that in England, so many carpets and sofas would be saved!

There was one little girl who, bless her, got a little bored after about an hour, so the majority of the rest of my evening was spent playing 'pat-a-cake' and slaps, which she really beat me at! I think she had an advantage as she was sober and I was most definitely not!

We talked long into the night and finally after a conversation about the heaviness of the water in the pool compared to the weight of the water in the sea B and I made our excuses and stumbled home. The sleep was much needed and lasted until late the next afternoon.

How did it go so fast?

So I woke up today realising it's the 20th and there're only 8 days left in our little bit of paradise! A pretty depressing thought to wake up to, so obviously I hot footed it right up to the pool for a lovely frappe and to recheck little details, like what I need to be thinking about for my impending move to Luxembourg, and whether or not I've done everything I possibly can on Crete.

The answers are that I haven't even got a little bit sorted for Luxembourg and I think I have 3 sights left to see on Crete (we've done A LOT!). I say 3 sights left, 3 of the big things left. I'm sure you could spend a year (with a car) on this lovely Island and still find something new! It's an incredible place, wandering round town yesterday I was still amazed by the ancient ruins right next to a house barely a year old. I love this crazy place, where the people are so friendly, even if their language does sound, to a foreign ear, very cross and short. I was speaking to the man that we buy yoghurt from and he seemed actually upset that we're heading off, he gave us postcards to take with us. People's generosity astounds me, after dinner last night Dimitri brought out delicious deserts and honeyed Raki (Ben's favourite). How people don't fall in love with this place is beyond me. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for lovely people and sunshine?

I had a lovely email from my LNE (lovely new employer) this morning telling me that the language course I'm doing is all sorted and that if I can I should squeeze in a bike helmet so I can bike around Luxembourg to my classes (she did admit that she thought I'd rather use the car in winter). It's cheerful emails, like the video she sent of the children having a mad dancing moment, that make me less and less nervous about moving to a foreign country and becoming an Au Pair (which is what the next section of the blog will be about). Yes, it's really scary thinking about moving to another country (how am I going to choose which shoes to take?) but when I think of it as another adventure it's not so bad. Everyone wants exciting stories to tell their grandchildren right?

So that got me thinking what are my most exciting stories so far?

I've danced in Poland in an International Arts Festival (yes, living with a Polish family who spoke no English reduced me to tears every single night, and cost my parents huge amounts in phone credit, but I did it!)

I've graduated with a great degree, from one of the most beautifully situated Universities in Britain, most people dream of living in the Lake District and I've lived there for 3 years, which was amazing, if a little cold (heating in student houses appears to be non-existent!)

I've lived in Oxford and Greece for a month or so. That was fun! Oxford is somewhere everyone should experience at least once, it makes you feel more intelligent just being there! And Greece is just perfect, how could you not love friendly people and good food served with beautiful views?

I've ice climbed, and done some amazing walking, and kite surfing and power kiting and all sorts of mad sports that we'd seen on telly and decided to try, with my incredible family. I think this is the thing that I'll tell the grandkids first. All of my fabulous long summer holidays walking and finding the most remote bits of beach. And then the adventures that me and Dad went on, especially the one half ways thorough my A Levels, yes I would have probably got a higher grade in my Religious Studies exam if we hadn't gone walking, but it was a perfect Scotland weekend!

I've been to Bestival with my crazy, wonderful, list-making friend in a very expensive tent and got so mad that I had to spend ages straightening tent pegs in a vice since some fool stood on them (some people have no taste in tents!) That weekend squeezed in so much music I can't even remember the names of all the bands we saw, but we always saw them from the front row :)

Having good stories always makes you realise how incredibly lucky you are.

The Geek in me...

Lazing by the pool today watching the dragon flies flitting around sparked my inner geek, I jumped up from my prime sunbathing spot and hopped onto the internet with the need to find out what these strange red dragon flies were called and what made them special.

The internet isn't terribly helpful unless you have a specific search term, I hopefully tried 'Fauna Crete' thinking there would be some sort of guide, you know like the Insects of Britain books, or that lovely Butterfly identification book my Dad has, but no. It focused on Kri Kri's and scorpions (not seen a scorpion yet thank goodness!) after many random searches I discovered that I had been looking at the male Red-veined darter. According to Google we have these little beauties in England, not that I've ever seen one, I always thought dragon flies were just a pretty blue colour.

With the geek in me satisfied I feel it is now possible to carry on sunbathing ... or at least until another wonderful creepy crawly comes my way.

My new favourite insect

Little Comforts

As I’m sat in bed craving a cup of tea but making do with a cup (I say cup, I’ve actually got 4 cups which make up about the same amount of liquid as one of my cups at home) of hot squash it’s made me realise the little things that I take for granted at home, so I’ve compiled a list of things that I miss when I’m away:

• · A good cup of tea, or any cup of tea really, it only comes in iced form over here
• · A kettle – I’ve made my hot squash with water boiled in a pan after tripping a fuse when I tried to use the kettle
• · Proper sized cups – espresso cups may be really cute but I’m a pint mug kinda girl!
• · Rain – a strange one I know but I’ve lived in the Lakes for 3 years and it rains once a week or so and it’s not rained here yet!
• · Being able to do things throughout the day, everything comes to a standstill between 12 and 5pm, yes it gets very warm but what are we meant to do in this time?
• · Internet in your own space, I feel very anti-social taking my laptop up to the bar/pool, but I like to keep in contact with the world.
• · Being able to send a mass BBM to the family to talk to them all at the same time

Yes I love the fact that I’m getting to spend a month in this wonderful country, but it’s too hot to really do anything, my poor walking guide books are sat forlornly by the bed, but I know that if I attempt to scale those wonderful peaks in the 30 degree heat I’ll end up with sun stroke and passed out!

It’s funny the things you miss about home.

A trip to see the Minotaur

As it was the last day with the car we decided to head all the way down to the other end of the Island and go visit Knossos, the home of the Minotaur.

We woke up early and were on the road by 8.30, a good job since the journey is a 2.5 hour and 200km epic! We made it to Iraklion in excellent time, and that’s where the adventure began. B thought that we’d missed the turning off the E75, which is somewhat like the A1 when it’s just a single carriage way but people go at 100km/ph , so we set about trying to find a way back onto the E75. We went up roads and through estates that we probably shouldn’t have and after going up a hill that put Hardknott Pass to shame (this road was literally about an 80% incline, thank you Dad for teaching me to drive very well!!) we finally made it back to the main road. I’d forgotten that Greece seems to have 4 rush hours, people have a 3 or 4 hour break in the middle of the day here so obviously head home or to the beach or whatever, and we hit every single one of these rush hours!! And man do people not have a sense of any highway code here! To start with I found it endearing that people drove like mad things but after driving through Iraklion I began to feel very differently, how I didn’t kill a motorcyclist I will never know! They just appear out of nowhere and duck and dive between cars, if there’s a gap just about big enough for them they take it!

After another car journey that I constantly exclaimed that I was glad Dad had added to my driving lessons and taught me to be a confident and capable driver, we finally arrived at the parking for Knossos, we popped the car underneath an olive tree and headed to the little taverna to get me caffeine. Thank goodness for frappes, although I could have really done with a nice cup of tea!

Now Knossos to me conjures up images of a large town with winding paths and olive groves and a mighty castle in the middle (you can tell I hadn’t really read the guide book when planning this trip!) we happily paid our 6 euro entrance fee and began walking round the palace of Knossos, I wouldn’t say I was disappointed but I couldn’t see this as the place that the Minotaur had been held. Yes it was a truly impressive ruined palace, that would have been a force to be reckoned with no doubt, but it didn’t quite match what I had in my head. In my mind Knossos was a deep, dank labyrinth with terrifying twists and turns, and yes I imagine that this is indeed underneath all the fancy palace, but I was a little disappointed. Especially since a fancy 20^th century archaeologist had rebuilt bits of the palace and painted things. It felt like it had been robbed of it’ former grandeur by a man, thousands of years later, deciding how he thought it should have looked. So my advice for those who love Greek mythology is to keep reading the books, I know it was a long time ago that all these things happened, but the picture in your head is better than an archaeologists picture, trust me.

Impressive walls

A picture of what they thought covered the walls.

Maybe the Minotaur lived down there?

Lazy days

The past 3 days have been a mixture of lazing around and seeing some sights. Dimitri arranged a car for us so we’ve been gallivanting around ever since (apart from yesterday, we all need a rest day right?!) Now this car is special. Harris, who had picked up the previous car, had obviously realised I was not to be trusted with hub caps, so brought round a banana yellow Atios with already scratched hub caps. It may be banana yellow and look like a small box, but it has character, if having a clutch as heavy as a defender’s counts as ‘having character’!

So the first day we got the car we ended up going to Falasarna, which has an ancient harbour. Now little known to me this was actually the ‘High and Dry Harbour’ walk that the Cicerone guide had described. Cicerone guides are terribly vague, one of my favourite instructions from the ‘Western Crete’ guide is ‘you need to pass the house with six dogs and keep the dogs on your left hand side’ I wish I was making it up! So, anyway, I realised where we were from the wonderful stone throne of Phalasarna.

We wandered around this breath taking harbour which had risen 6m from sea level due to tectonic activity, which also formed the many little islands and caves in the sea. Yes the harbour was amazing, it had withstood some pretty incredible things and there were a few latrines left from the original harbour toilets, but it wasn’t as exciting as the tiny little beach that we found whilst looking round.

The big bit of the harbour

The toilets

Ben hunted from sea glass, and with a squeak and jumping up and down found some blue sea glass (if someone would like to tell me why this is so much more exciting than green or brown glass I’d be very grateful!) his little pride and joy sat in prime position on a rock for the afternoon while he hunted for more.

I sat on the cobbled sea floor and sunbathed. Yes, you read cobbled.

I have no idea why the floor under the sea was cobbled but it was, and I was very grateful for it as I’d heard so many horror stories of sea urchins lurking in rocky shores ready to stab you in the foot. We did find some sea urchins; thankfully they were very dead and had lost all their spines.

The next day we headed over to Chania (pronounced Hah-niah – elongate the ah sounds) diving in a crowded city with tiny roads is bad enough when you’re on the proper side of the road never mind when everything’s backwards! However I soldiered on and Ben directed me to an underground car park. Now you all know how bad I am at parking, I will drive round for miles just to find an easy parking spot. Ben knows this as well, yet directed me to the scariest car parking place ever!!! Luckily the men sorting out the parking figured out, before I’s even tried, that I’m terrible at parking, so out I hopped and in a fella hopped and parked the little banana car into the most improbable parking space ever. Family think about the Four Seasons car park and the tiny spaces next to the lift … that’s where I was parked. Poor little banana car didn’t know what had hit her!!!

After the frightful experience in the car park, we headed down to the Venetian Harbour that Chania is famous for, this beautiful harbour is covered in Tavernas and a smattering of shops, the number of tavernas really shows how much the Cretans like their food, and how could they not, it’s amazing! There was also a beautiful ceramics stall; if I wasn’t so scared that things would break I would have brought most of the stall!

We then headed to the market and what an amazing place it was. Shop after shop of bits and bobs, from fresh meat to jewellery, B brought me the most beautiful hammered silver ring, and some other lovely gifts were purchased. As we wandered round the streets of Chania I saw some truly beautiful leather bags (think I may have to go back…) and the general craftsmanship of the area was outstanding! A wonderful lady was sat in her tiny jewellery shop threading beads and was just thrilled that I’d gone and brought something, Sister one of the things was a gift for you! I love how friendly people are around here, they’re the most smiley people I’ve ever met, and even if your Greek is horrific, as mine is, they say, in an excited voice, ‘you speak Greek!!!’ and wave off any attempt you make at trying to convince them that you only know a handful of words!

To finish our lovely day in Chania we jumped onto a glass bottomed boat to have a cruise to one of the islands and watch a fish show. Now I say glass bottomed in the loosest of terms! When I was little we went on a glass bottomed boat around the Kyle of Lochalsh (between mainland Scotland and Skye, I’m pretty sure this was before the Skye bridge was built, but parents please correct me if I’m wrong!) this glass bottomed boat was magnificent! It was actually a glass bottomed boat. However our wonderful Greek alternative was a metal boat with a rectangle of glass in the middle of the hull. A very special little boat!

From this boat we got a wonderful tour of the harbour from our diver guide, he was very serious only he sounded like Claude, from Along Came Polly. He warned us of the dangers of sea urchins, ‘Never trust rocks, only sands’, and created a spectacular fish show with some form of powdery bait which he waved in front of the fish in balletic movements (in my mind his life story was failed Expressive Dance extraordinaire ‘I’m going to show you how I feel through expressive dance’ This part will make no sense to anyone outside of the Coupe family, but Sister he was just that!!!)

We returned from our fish show terrified that either the parking would be closed, or would be extortionate; it was neither, 8 euro’s for the day wasn’t bad at all!

The next day we headed to one of the ’18 things to do in Crete’ destinations recommended by the Rough Guide, Elafonisi, a truly beautiful lagoon that we enjoyed from a mile up the hill in a shaded taverna. It was heaving! I mean think Meadow Hell before Christmas heaving! We avoided the crowds and went on a lovely drive through a different part of the mountains, thank goodness we have unlimited miles on the car! After this tiring drive, think 60 miles of roads like the Struggle but with cliffs and drops instead of dry stone walls, I was exhausted! The next day was spent sleeping and reading, Mumma I was a little disappointed with Trick of the Dark.

After 2 days of being lazy we decided to make a trip to watch the sunset, we drove to Falasarna and took up camp in a lovely taverna overlooking the bay, we watched a lovely sunset, although a very short one, and have an interesting dinner. Note to all: Cuttlefish tastes like fishy Styrofoam, don’t order it!!! After the most expensive dinner we’ve had, and the most disappointing, we headed home in the dark.

So that brings us to yesterday. What an adventure yesterday was! We drove to Kaliviani, about 8km west of our studio, and set off on a walk to Balos bay. Now we had intended to scale Mount Gingilos, one of the highest peaks at 2080m (around 7000ft), however I had woken with hideously swollen knees from the driving the day before, so we headed to Balos a 10 mile walk with an easy incline. Now it would have been a walk in the park had it not been around 35 degrees. The heat does terrible things to you! A walk that would have easily turned into a nice run in an English climate was a strenuous trek! Never have I been so worn out by a huge dirt track! The kri kri (local mountain goats) did provide a lot of on board entertainment though.

The daredevil KriKri's

The dirt track that nearly killed me!

Finally we arrived sweaty and a little sun-stroked at the most beautiful lagoon you have ever set eyes on!

(yes it's an actual picture not something from a postcard or guide book!)

The water was blue and the sand was white (from a distance anyway!) it had a smattering of people and it was just idyllic. We set up our spot and had a couple of minutes to enjoy the view until a ferry arrived. Now there must have been about 800 people on this ferry and they all deployed onto our idyllic beach. Now I’m the kind of person who will walk for miles to find a quite spot of beach, literally miles, blame the parents, yet there were people less than a metre away, people even sat between us and the sea, a mere metre and a half! I couldn’t believe it! B lay reading his book undisturbed by this whilst I was flabbergasted! Why would they want to sit so close to another person?? There was a lot of beach left untouched! Anyway, after an hour and a half the great migration back to their boat began and they thankfully left us in peace!

Once the migration was over we headed for the crystal clear waters, and they were well worth the wait. Even though I’m terribly short-sighted I was able to see all of the amazing fish (and scary sea urchins) that B pointed out to me (and Dad I finally mastered snorkelling!!!!) They were the sort of fish that people have in their fish tanks not the sort I’d ever seen in the wild! I think I’ll be doing lots more snorkelling in the near future.

5pm arrived far too quickly and we decided to head homewards, the steps back up to the ridge were nearly the death of me. I arrived at the top gasping for breath and sent B in search of ice tea. The best thing for these situations! Ice tea in hand, and a couple of paracetamol for the pounding headache, we set off down the dirt track. We’d only walked about 5km when a very kind pair of ladies offered us a much needed lift back to the village we’d parked the car in. Never have I been so grateful for a lift! We arrived back at Dimitri’s very sunburnt and tired to a wonderful mixed grill and a few Fix beers, the best end to the day possible!

Lazy days and good food.

Now it may come as a surprise to some of you that I have never really been on a holiday which doesn’t have a plan, a plan to see the sights or climb X number of Munros. Not that I mind this, I love the Munros and having a plan makes me a very happy bunny, however this holiday does not have a plan. For the past 3 days we’ve happily laid on the balcony, or on the beds, reading books and generally chilling out (in fact I’m writing this from the pool with an ice cold frappe wonderfully prepared by our lovely Dimitri).

In between reading and lounging we have eaten some amazing food. I think the food’s one of my favourite things about Greece. From the spectacular tomato and cucumber salad, covered in olive oil and thyme, to the sweet, sticky Baklava the food is incredible.

Each morning we eat Greek Yoghurt and honey, the yoghurt is nothing like the Greek Yoghurt sold at home, it’s thick and creamy and ever so tart with it being made with sheep or goat’s milk. Lunch tends to be crisp bread with cheese, although today it will probably be crisp bread and tzakai, a wonderful dip made from yoghurt, garlic and cucumber. The dinners have been stunning.

Small fried fishes of the second night.

Yes, something as simple as whole sardines in a light batter with loads of lemon can be one of the tastiest meals I’ve ever eaten, although the wonderful Cretan wine may have had something to do with it. Cretan wine is made from their wonderfully shrivelled grapes that line the streets, people have verandas covered in grape vines and often make wine in their own homes. Raki, a fiery spirit is made from the leftovers of wine making. Everyone thinks Ouzo is the spirit of Greece but Raki is definitely the spirit of Crete.

The meal of small fired fishes was taken in a lovely Taverna on the edge of the sea front, tucked away from the fancy tavernas that lure in the few tourists. It may have made the walk home over 4km but, as I keep saying, the views were worth it!

The walk home (all 4km in flip flops) was a drunken one! Cretan wine tends to be around 11% vol. and the shot of Raki that accompanies your meal seems to tip you over the edge!

How we made it home I will never know!

Now for some reason watermelons seem to be huge over here, I mean really huge, and really cheap!

Yes, the huge green thing taking up most of the fridge is, indeed, a water melon, all 11kg of it, all for four euros. It’s keeping our hunger and dehydration at bay.

As a treat yesterday we wandered down into town (town being Kissamos 4km away)the wind was high and the sea was rough.

When I say rough, I mean rough by Mediterranean standards, not ours

.

We spent a lovely hour or so building walls for the sea to destroy and soaked in the view, accompanied by Nestea from the lovely lady who can only say ‘bye’ in English, so we get to practise our Greek.

Nestea, best enjoyed with this view…..

Now, on this trip into town we treated ourselves to the Greek equivalent of afternoon tea, I had a frappe (not as good as Dimitri’s) and a huge slice of Baklava and B, true to form, had iced tea and a bowl of yoghurt and honey.

The British attempts at recreating Baklava have been disappointing, even from the most prestigious bakery in Oxford, where I first sampled this sweet delight. I was blown away by how flaky the pastry was and how sweet, yet not sickly the filling was. All in all very, very tasty.

After this gastronomic delight we wandered through town, and found all sorts of exciting Venetian and Roman architecture, that is just slotted into the surrounding area, like it’s not even that exciting that it’s thousands of years old. I found it immensely exciting so poor old B had to take pictures.

On the inside of this wall there was a house! Just a regular, concrete, Greek house.

A Roman Villa with houses either side. I love how the history of this place just mingles in with the rest of the town.

Last night’s meal was a lovely combination of homemade pitta (sooooooo much better than the ASDA variety) with a chicken soulaki, a sort of kebab thingy with pepper and chicken pieces. Everything here tastes so fresh and delicious. And the wine is wonderful! Those of you who know me well will know that I’m a fan of wine, yet am constantly disappointed by white wine (apart from that really nice one that you brought back from somewhere Lottie, that was really good) but I have found the white wine to top all white wine’s, it’s local to Kissamos and is so smooth and delicious even B liked it. Yes, it may be 11.8% vol. but it really is delicious! Dimitri offered to take us up to the vineyard to get some and see how/where it’s made, which is very exciting (did I mention how much I love Greek/Cretan hospitality????? A free shot of Raki , or in Dimitri’s case a free scoop of really tasty ice cream, after each meal)When you’re here you can’t help but be happy and chilled out.

Right, my book calls, or I might take Margarita’s option of sleeping in the shade.

Day One - a driving adventure

Anyone who's driven in Greece will advise you not to and for good reason. They drive like mad people (which is ok by me, I don't mind driving fast and forgetting to use signals!) there's an amazing system of driving onto the hard shoulder to let faster cars over take, I love this if we used it in England I'm sure there'd be less crashes.

I spent the entire journey from Chania (very very pretty place that the airport's in) to Kissamos (beautiful place!!!!!) declaring my love for these crazy Greek drivers. B didn't really get the excitement but he doesn't drive therefore wouldn't. The journey's 45KM of straightish huge road, where the speed tends to be around 100/120 k/ph you get places REALLY fast.

Another thing that I love about Crete is that when I pulled into the petrol station (very badly, remember I was working on about 3 hours sleep for the past 30 hours and everything was on the wrong side of the car) the guy who worked there filled up my tank for me and was lovely! (Sister I believe this is what you were referring to ;)) Anyway enough of my love for lovely Cretean men and more of the driving.

After unpacking the car (see previous post for the horror that ensued from that!) we decided that a trip to Kissamos and the mountains was in order. In Kissamos I managed to scrap the entire wheel hub of the car (Mum and Dad please don't tell me off! I'm waiting to see how the hire company are going to take that - they were very understanding on the phone) yet I managed to drive on one of the most exposed roads in Greece without any problems - I think it really shows my lack of spatial awareness.

So, the drive through the mountains was incredible. I think I nearly had a heart attack at some points (which B didn't get on camera) there were often parts of the side of the road that had no barrier and a huge drop. Truly terrifying. And corners that were literally right angles with a huge gap between one bit of the road and another. But for the views it was all worth it.

One of the many beautiful churches

Huge cliffs

Think this was my favourite village in the mountains. Very pretty (how does it stay up there tho?!)

The drop from the road (this was on a good bit!)

On the other side of the Kissamos peninsular. Very blue sea that isn't quite captured here.

After all the adventure I felt a tad tired to say the least but would sleep come? No, of course it wouldn't so it was up all night reading on the balcony and watching Rome with B.

Why we shouldn't multi-task

So as the end of uni arrived B and I decided on a month away in Greece, Kissamos to be precise. This crazy little town is on the northern tip of Crete is about as un-touristy as it gets and I love it! I didn't love the journey tho.

Packing up a house and packing for a holiday (and my imminent move to Luxembourg) should not be done at the same time. Really we shouldn't ever multi-task to this extent.

While the house was set in order our bags really weren't.

Instead of packing systematically everything that we couldn't leave at home got put in the bags. Literally everything.

Why a Primaloft jacket found it's way into the bags I will never know!! And I'm sure that this is more useful than the 2 vest tops I managed to pack - yes, only 2 vest tops for a month in Greece!!!!

Anyways, after a night in a hire car - the flight was 3 hours instead of 9 (guess who got that one wrong!!) and I couldn't face any more airports so we hired a car to sleep in a drive to the apartment in. I woke with puffy ankles and a beautiful view! (Much better than I had hoped for after the police had shone a torch into the car to check that we were alive in the middle of the night)

The view makes up for the fat ankles :)